Commons:Village pump/Archive/2023/04

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UK disclaimer for the usage of coat of arms

Should we add restriction for using the Royal coat of arms as explained:

Lord Chamberlain's Office prohibits the use of the Royal Arms, Royal Devices and other Emblems under the Trade Marks Act 1994, Chapter 26, Section 99 stated that:

A person shall not without the authority of Her Majesty use in connection with any business the Royal arms (or arms so closely resembling the Royal arms as to be calculated to deceive) in such manner as to be calculated to lead to the belief that he is duly authorised to use the Royal arms.

See guidelines for the reproduction of the Royal Arms at The National Archives.

Surveyor Mount (talk) 06:00, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Just add {{Insignia}} on any relevant files. There is no need for a specific template for each legal jurisdiction. From Hill To Shore (talk) 09:34, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
Is there a special template regarding this legal disclaimer above? Surveyor Mount (talk) 11:29, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
Why would we need one? Those who want to use royal coats of arms in connections where they could be seen as deceiving should check legal and moral issues for themselves. We cannot give specific enough advice. {{Insignia}} seems to cover the issue about as well as we can. –LPfi (talk) 20:19, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Commons Gazette 2023-04

Staff changes

In March 2023, 1 sysop was elected; 6 sysops and 1 bureaucrat were removed. Currently, there are 184 sysops and 6 bureaucrats.

Election:

Removal:

We thank them for their service.

Edited by RZuo (talk).

Commons Gazette is a monthly newsletter of the latest important news about Wikimedia Commons, edited by volunteers. You can also help with editing!

--RZuo (talk) 07:42, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Does anyone know if User:JuTa is OK? Some of their last posts mentioned health issues, and they abruptly stopped editing on all WMF projects about a year ago. - Jmabel ! talk 14:47, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Flora Danica - more categorization needed

Cornflower (w:Centaurea cyanus) is here called "Cyanus" or 2-2-039. The image should belong in Category:Centaurea cyanus - botanical illustrations.

The Category:Flora danica, det er dansk urtebog now contains all 384 illustrations from that book, with numbers, but without links (category membership) to current plant names. This is a book from 1648, a century before Linnæus, so names given in Latin are not current taxonomy. If some users interested in plants and/or Denmark would like to add categories to each illustration, please go ahead. -- LA2 (talk) 18:31, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Media containing deceased Indigenous Australian people

Should we modify {{PD-Australia}} to include disclaimer for deceased Indigenous Australian people, according to Wikipedia article, Aboriginal avoidance practices refers to those relationships in traditional Aboriginal society where certain people were required to avoid others in their family or clan. The use of disclaimer warning that contain images, videos and audio clips of the deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are sensitive to Australian users on Wikimedia projects. Surveyor Mount (talk) 11:52, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

@Surveyor Mount: Please read this Wikipedia guideline. Sahaib (talk) 17:01, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
Commons has warning for certain things, for instance any symbols related to Nazis and the fact that they are illegal in some European countries including Germany. Although I don't know if this would be a thing to use one for or not. --Adamant1 (talk) 17:04, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
I think adding {{Personality rights}} to media taken of Australian Aboriginals would suffice. We don't need a specific disclaimer. Abzeronow (talk) 18:28, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
This tag only applies to persons who are still alive. Ruslik (talk) 20:15, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, you're right. I guess I was trying to find a similar principle that could be useful. Abzeronow (talk) 16:25, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
I think a specific warning could be valuable, only that I don't know how to make it effective. {{PD-Australia}} is not a good place, as it is for photographs over (about) 70 years old (and some other works). Most people portrayed would have died long ago. For the warning to be meaningful, it would need to be activated for a year or a few when a subject dies. Commons has no infrastructure keeping track of photographed people's deaths. For some famous persons, their photos are probably categorised as pertaining to them and their deaths are noted, but that is probably a tiny minority of Indigenous Australians whose photos we have. However, if a working solution is proposed, I might support it. –LPfi (talk) 20:10, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
Alternatively, some sources may also be described:
Surveyor Mount (talk) 22:48, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

CropTool

I tried using it today on multiple images and keep getting the "502 Bad Gateway" message. Anyone else having the same experience? --Rosiestep (talk) 14:06, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Had problems earlier today, but not any more. — Racconish 💬 15:42, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, Racconish, and ditto. Works for me now. --Rosiestep (talk) 18:45, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
Today, the whole (European) day there was tools maintenance, most tools and bots were not working. Now we seem to be back to normal. Ymblanter (talk) 19:03, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Categories per city per day

Are edits like this okay? I am afraid hidden and non-hidden cats are badly screwed up here, but this category system existed way before I started to add them to the files. If not we probably need mass rollback for edits of @J.-H. Janßen: (courtesy ping).--Ymblanter (talk) 21:29, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

See Commons:Categories for discussion/2023/04/Category:Photographs of Mitte (district of Berlin) by date. --A.Savin 00:33, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Unwanted hint

Logged-in users (may be of special rights?) get now an irritating hint to each image about possible rotation request. I do not like to see this information; when a file needs rotation I can request it without getting this hint! BTW, the rate of rotation-needing files is too low to flag each file with that disturbing remark. Please, remove it! -- sarang♥사랑 09:03, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

@Sarang: You haven't mentioned what form your "hint" takes. If it's a "(request rotation)" link on the "Original file" line, that's provided by the RotateLink gadget. You can turn it off for your account in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. It looks like it's been a default gadget since 2011. --bjh21 (talk) 11:33, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

​ Thanx a lot for your information! I had never that hint, but since I am using another laptop it seems that not all my origial preferences work as used. -- sarang♥사랑 23:10, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Need help with reverting vandalism

The last two edits of the file File:Bitcoin-Genesis-block.jpg were made by an IP address that also vandalized File:Satoshi Nakamoto.jpg. I reverted those on the Satoshi Nakamoto.jpg file but on the Bitcoin-Genesis-block.jpg file the vandalism seems to go further back, however some edits looks very strange to me as an inexperienced user of commons and I cannot be sure whether they are good or not. Can somebody revert all the vandalism on the File:Bitcoin-Genesis-block.jpg page? Please make sure to go as far back as needed to also get rid of the "2023 bitcoinlife crypto" in the Licensing section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guherto (talk • contribs) 06:15, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

@Guherto: Hi, and welcome. ✓ Done in this edit. Thanks for letting us know about the vandalism. Perhaps an Admin can semiprotect the file.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 10:30, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: Hi Jeff, thank you for welcoming and for your help. Guherto (talk) 20:02, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Categorization - objects of science and science

Science should not be placed within its object, but the other way round, so that eg. Category:Natural sciences should not be part of Category:Nature, but the contrary. There are many categories like that, eg. Category:Natural sciences in Asia is to be found within Category:Nature of Asia.

Whereas Category:Nature of Asia should be part of Category:Natural sciences in Asia. Hornstrandir1 (talk) 18:58, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Nature is generally is not a part of Natural Sciences. It would be simply wrong to categories Nature as you suggested. Ruslik (talk) 20:05, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
Agree with Ruslik0 Andy Dingley (talk) 20:09, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
+3 --Adamant1 (talk) 22:00, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
Right. Ornithology is a science that is only about birds; but birds are about many things like poultry and birdbaths and the feather trade and other things besides science. Jim.henderson (talk) 22:19, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Help required about a map

Appreciated community:

I need your help. I'm considering to upload this world map. The information shown in the link says that the map is from 1996. However, I'm not sure if the company that created this map (Gabelli US) is still active or not. Also, I can't find online information about the copyright status of this map.

My questions are:

1) Can this map be uploaded to Commons?

2) Is there any online tool in which I could find the copyright status for an image "made in USA", without having to log in there?

I hope an answer as soon as possible.

Thanks in advance. Universalis (talk) 18:55, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

@Universalis: Hi, and welcome. The map was published and copyrighted in 1996 in Miami Beach, Florida, USA by Gabelli US Inc., whether or not formalities were complied with, and whether or not the company is still active. You may upload it in 1996+95+1=2092 per COM:HIRTLE and COM:US. If you can find a name and year of death for a human author, you may upload it 71 years after the year of the death of that author. Why would you think you could upload it earlier? See also COM:NETCOPYRIGHT.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 19:54, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
@Jeff G., simply I had curiosity about the matter. By the way, thanks for the answer. Universalis (talk) 18:19, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
@Universalis: You're welcome.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 10:53, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by:   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 10:53, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Accessibility consideration of commons pages？

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template_talk:Motd/Months&oldid=258579353 makes me wonder, how well our pages are designed for people with various disabilities? especially blind people who use screenreaders.

how many people with disabilities use commons?

any WMF employees or commons user groups dedicated to testing and improving accessibility designs? RZuo (talk) 19:50, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

  • Independent of design, one of the most useful things people could do here is to make more use of alt text (P11265) on images. (I realize that doesn't address what RZuo is asking for here, and I don't want to hijack the thread in that direction; no reply needed to my remark here.) - Jmabel ! talk 23:42, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
what do screenreaders read out if alt text is not set? the image caption, description or just "here is an image"?
how do we test screenreaders? are there simulation websites/tools?
do all screenreaders work the same way? read the same thing as expected?
what if alt text is set in only english but someone is using screenreader in french/japanese? what if alt text is set in english and caption/description is available in french/japanese? do they read out the english alt text?
i think these are rather basic questions but it seems commons/WMF doesnt have enough resources/volunteers dedicated to this topic yet.--RZuo (talk) 13:47, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
@RZuo: Screenreaders read whatever is there. If there is a description, you get it; if there is alt text, you get that as well. They idea with alt text is that you can say (for those who are visually impaired or, for some reason, not able to get a visual version of the page) things that are obvious to anyone who can see the photo, but not to those who cannot. (E.g. describe someone's physical appearance, or read out a sign.) Translation is a whole other matter; I really don't know how machine translation & assistive devices currently interact, though I'd guess that if the combination is not yet there, it should be soon. - Jmabel ! talk 15:23, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
What if someone refuses to properly capitalize their sentences, confusing the heck out of screen readers? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 15:57, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
It can make for bad intonation, but it usually works fine. - Jmabel ! talk 17:54, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Overwriting with cropped versions

Another user has left a comment on my talk page saying

I kindly ask you to crop images into new files, especially with the ones which have been out there for years, like this image. Cropping them into the same file can be seen as controversial sometimes.

I generally try to use (e.g.) "Unnecessary Borders" and "Substantial crop or un-crop" as a guideline; if I feel an image falls (uncontroversially) into the former category, I'll overwrite, if not, I'll upload as a new file (e.g.).

Some may disagree with where I judged the line to be in certain cases. Nonetheless, the comment seems to suggest that- since the possibility exists that *any* overwriting crop *might* be controversial- this should never be done. That's what I dispute- the fact we have a policy covering cases where it is (*and* isn't) acceptable suggests otherwise.

I also don't see anything suggesting that images shouldn't be touched simply because they're older?

This isn't a major dispute and there has been no animosity between us. I brought it here almost immediately because it's something I'd like sorted and clarified early on before (e.g.) further reversions are made.

In particular, I'd appreciate input on my interpretation of the policies. I'll go over the images of mine which have been reverted:-

The *original* is already more tightly framed/cropped at top and bottom than even my post-crop version (where I left a decent amount of space). The probable reason for the space at the sides being due to camera's default aspect ratio. Possibly the photographer wanted to get as close as possible without cutting anything off, but lacked the skill or inclination to alter the aspect ratio or post-crop(?)
Ditto above; side crop doesn't exceed already-tight vertical framing, and dead space at the sides added nothing.
Flickr transfer, not even ours. Ditto comments above, but in this case, the cropped areas weren't just pointless, they contained distracting clutter.

In all three cases, the tight vertical crop suggests there was no artistic intent in leaving the large (and mismatched) amount of dead space at the sides; it's an aspect ratio limitation.

Ubcule (talk) 21:32, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Courtesy links to provided examples: File:2channel Web browsing by Nintendo DS.jpg, File:Canon EOS 1000D with Sigma 70-300mm lens 01.jpg and File:Philips portable TV and video recorder combo (8049806781).jpg. From Hill To Shore (talk) 22:56, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
Hey, @Ubcule. Thanks for opening this topic here. I am still not totally used with Commons policies.
That said, some days ago I saw a cropping edit war on many files ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7] etc.). One of the arguments used in order to restore the original images was that their cropped versions may had changed aspect ratio.
Indeed, Commons:Overwriting existing files states that minor cropping is allowed. However, the only example of valid minor cropping it gives has virtually the same aspect ratio of the original version of the image. So, I was not sure if your croppings were in fact valid. Some also felt a little bit claustrophobic to me, specially the TV one.
Please note that I did not want to sound rude when I reverted them. If this topic helps to make guidelines even more clear, this will of course be great. Best regards, RodRabelo7 (talk) 23:40, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
@RodRabelo7: Your comment was polite and civil, so please don't worry about that!
However, I did disagree with the basic principle of what you said. Since I thought you may be planning more reversions, I felt it was better to get it sorted quickly and clarify whether my interpretation was correct (or not!) before we went further.
To be clear... I'm not in favour of overwriting originals with crops in all cases. I'm often strongly opposed to it.
But I feel there's a "common sense" distinction between high quality images where the composition is obviously deliberate, and purely functional snapshots where the opposite is obviously the case.
* Your "edit war" image links. Those are all obviously high-quality images, and- except for one case- I strongly agree with you- the crops of *those* examples *definitely* should have been uploaded as separate images. Even in the case I'm less convinced by- the woman against the pink background (nothing meaningful would be lost by square-cropping the unnecessary dead space), I'd *still* have left the original and uploaded the crop separately.
On the other hand, the TV photo is (with respect to the photographer) obviously little more than a random amateur snapshot of a dusty TV on a boat. It's a functional image, not an artistic one. (Also, it's a Flickr import where people can upload things for whatever use or motivation they want and care- or not care- about the compostion).
You say that the crop is tight, and I've complained about excessively tight cropping myself in the past. However, in this case the framing at the top is *already* that tight in the original. Maybe I could have cropped it 5:4 instead of square, but I don't think the square crop was excessive here.
You note that the guideline example retains the aspect ratio; true, but I'm not convinced anything was intended by that- if it had been, it would (or should) have been explicitly spelled out. IMHO we shouldn't read too much into it retrospectively coloured by our current discussion(!)
Ubcule (talk) 20:09, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
@Ubcule: I'd say that any time you are doing something like this on images by a user who is active on Commons, you should either get their permission in advance or use a new file name. Besides any other issues: when you do a crop like this, you are overriding their aesthetic judgement, but leaving their name on the work. The only downside to using a new name is more work if you are trying to change an image that is already in an article, but using a new file name and making a change in the article keeps that burden on yourself, instead of in any way impacting someone else. Images from a truly third-party Flickr user (as against a Commons user's upload from their own Flickr stream) might be less of an issue, but really, if the uploader had wanted to crop, they probably would.
Obviously, cutting excessive borders is fine unless those appear to be a conscious aesthetic decision (as they are on some old photographs). Ditto for minuscule crops that get rid of some sort of "crud" near the edge of the photo. - Jmabel ! talk 23:55, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
@Jmabel@RodRabelo7@Ubcule what are your thoughts on the practice of some users saving noFOP-violating files by cropping away the integral subjects like architecture and artworks, under the claim that usability still exists, despite the fact that the file name and contexts have changed. Pinging @A1Cafel, Ox1997cow, Ikan Kekek, Ooligan, and Andy Dingley: who all participated/were involved in both Commons:Deletion requests/File:Charging Bull (3883546986).jpg (now closed) and Commons:Deletion requests/File:Lotte World morning view 4.jpg (still open). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 00:17, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
I tend to have a broader view of what might be usable than some other people do, but I don't see any way out of judging these kinds of things case-by-case. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:20, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
Definitely case-by-case. Here's one (on a photo of my own) where I think I did it well: an art fair, with the art rendered illegible, but the overall feel of the room intact. FWIW, I tend to prefer Gaussian blurs to crops for that sort of thing. - Jmabel ! talk 01:12, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
@JWilz12345: I think it's good to crop of the copyrighted part and use it for other useful purposes. Ox1997cow (talk) 03:34, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
Perhaps so. But particularly in such a case, the filename is almost certainly going to need to be changed as it's now a whole different image. We can't have an image "Copyright Tower, downtown.jpg" when we've deliberately cropped the Tower off it. See Commons:Deletion requests/File:Lotte World morning view 4.jpg Andy Dingley (talk) 07:14, 3 April 2023 (UTC)


@Jmabel: I've heard this said more than once, and it sounds nice, but- aside from whether it's practical and necessary in all cases- but the problem is that the currently-agreed guidelines don't really say or imply that this *must* be done. Maybe they should?
As I noted above, I'm far more conservative than (I get the impression) you and RodRabelo7 think; I agreed entirely with them that the "edit war" crops should have been uploaded separately.
Even with this image, it got uploaded as a separate file because some of the strap was cropped out and I felt that one could still argue it was a functional and meaningful part of the original image.
I only tend to crop when it looks like the excess space was *obviously* not "aesthetic judgement" in the first place (let alone one I meant to override) and there's nothing meaningful about the photo that's going to be lost by doing so.
For example, with respect to the original photographer, the TV photo is functional, not really "artistic" and I doubt the side-clutter was even thought about, much less a deliberate part of the photo.
Going more extreme, some (say) three-stops underexposed image of some random object that's barely in focus, plonked in the middle of a table surrounded by clutter with more space than subject looks to me to be a case of "uncontroversial" level adjustment, sharpening and cropping.
Generally, and going by past experience, I'd say the person who snapped that picture is unlikely to be upset by it being brightened up or cropped, and I can't recall having had many- if any- complaints about this sort of thing on my part despite having been doing it here for over a decade now.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ubcule (talk • contribs) 20:09, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
  • @Ubcule: I suspect that last means you've generally done things that the original uploader saw as an improvement, so they've been fine with it. I've certainly had times here myself where I uploaded a dozen or more photos of some subject and only really post-processed a couple of them, and if someone wants to do good post-processing on some of the rest, that's fine with me. I'd prefer that they ask me first, but if they do a good job, fine, I'm not going to revert them. But I've also had people decide to tightly crop to the face on a portrait where I definitely intended to show the person's posture, and I'll revert that for sure (and be pretty annoyed, to boot). Commons:Overwriting existing files could probably be more detailed on certain scenarios, but it does say, "If another editor thinks that a change is not an improvement (even if the editor making the change thinks it's minor), the change can be reverted. Once a change has been reverted, the new image should be uploaded under a new filename (unless the reverting editor explicitly or implicitly agrees to the contested change)." That's not ambiguous. If you overwrite something you didn't upload, and someone else (not even necessarily the photographer or uploader) disagrees, they win. Period. So you are not exactly breaking a rule when you overwrite without asking, but you are going out on a shaky limb, and shouldn't be at all surprised when someone reverts. - Jmabel ! talk 23:13, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
@Jmabel: I've most likely had very few disagreements/reversions in the past *because* I generally do so only where it's unlikely that a crop/undexposure/etc was an artistic/aesthetic decision (and for basic "non-controversial" changes).
Otherwise I'd err on the side of caution and upload it under a new filename. (That- most likely- would apply to your photos).
"So you are not exactly breaking a rule when you overwrite without asking, but you are going out on a shaky limb"
I appreciate that guidelines aren't rigid rules, and that we favour consensus and the former over the latter. But you appear to be suggesting that doing so is bending- if not breaking- the guidelines and their spirit.
Yet, the guidelines *do* explicitly state where it *is* acceptable to overwrite (and don't require users to get permission first) in *some* cases.
It's clear that many like yourself and others hold the opinion that this *shouldn't* be the case. You're entitled to that opinion, and if consensus changes, so should the guidelines. However, until they do, I don't think it's reasonable to suggest that by doing so someone is "going out on a shaky limb" if they're applying the guidelines we want users to follow.
"and shouldn't be at all surprised when someone reverts"
I've had a small proportion of reversions, and I haven't complained about it nor held it against the uploader anyway. (Usually I simply *did* upload the crop under a new filename.)
The only reason I made a deal about this case was the implication that what I was doing was against the current rules/guidelines- which I was trying to follow- when my understanding is that this wasn't the case. I wanted to get the issue sorted before there were more bulk reversions on the basis of something the guidelines didn't actually state.
Ubcule (talk) 15:53, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
  • We went over this just a couple of weeks ago, in relation to "small" (and not so small) crops to remove stickers: Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2023/02#Cropping images Andy Dingley (talk) 07:18, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
  • I have reverted to the original version. Policy is clear here: "If another editor thinks that a change is not an improvement (even if the editor making the change thinks it's minor), the change can be reverted. Once a change has been reverted, the new image should be uploaded under a new filename (unless the reverting editor explicitly or implicitly agrees to the contested change)." This is essentially w:WP:BRD, but unlike Wikipedia, disputes are usually resolved by giving precedence to the original and allowing alternative versions to exist under other names as opposed to converging on a single authoritative version via consensus. So my recommendation would be: keep on making crops if you feel like they are unlikely to be controversial, but if you get reverted, just shake it off and make a separate (cropped) version. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 07:55, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
@King of Hearts: Thanks for the feedback- I don't have a problem with people who feel strongly about a particular edit reverting an overwrite-crop (though I'd rather know about it so I can re-upload it as a separate image). The only thing I'd say is that this could be abused; if someone went around reverting *every* overwrite-crop and making it "controversial" because they disagreed with it, they'd effectively be able to make it against the rules, contrary to the currently-agreed guidelines which make clear it *is* permitted in some cases.
But maybe I'm getting too much into hypotheticals there; as I said, isolated cases aren't a problem. It's more that I thought this case *might* have ended up falling into the above category.
I don't think this discussion has actually clarified the *guidelines* I was trying to follow, though, and maybe that's because the consensus on them here isn't as tight as the guidelines themselves might suggest...? Ubcule (talk) 20:09, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
I think the guidelines are trying to say: If someone thinks a change is controversial, then by definition it is controversial. Many times we give great power to individual users with the understanding that they will use it responsibly. If anyone is violating COM:POINT by making vexatious and indiscriminate reverts then the problem can be dealt with at COM:AN/U. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:21, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
i dont see the need to crop any of the 3 examples. why does it have to be tightly cropped around the subject? those little bits of extra space on the sides dont distract the subject.--RZuo (talk) 13:47, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Flickr license history now shows timestamps

Flickr started showing license history late last October. While this was a long-awaited feature, one complaint is that it didn't show timestamps. I didn't see it mentioned in the release notes, but the license history feature now shows the exact time the license was changed. Just putting this here in case someone finds it useful. Ixfd64 (talk) 05:38, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

@Ixfd64: good feature for license review! But is that helpful in uploading original resolutions of Flickr-imported photos that were formerly under free licenses but now changed to unfree licenses? Like File:Manila by night.jpg. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 05:45, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
Wait, nevermind Ixfd64. My question is of no use since the Flickr photographer disabled the downloading of her photo. I think she was displeased of having her Flickr photo being used on Wikipedia / Commons, but that is just my opinion (since one commented that it was being used on Wikipedia). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 05:49, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
"disabled the downloading of her photo" Sure she has. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:30, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
@Pigsonthewing: is it still fine to import a higher-resolution Flickr photo even if it is now under unfree license? Yep the question may be out of place here, but relates to Flickr and licensing anyway. Once I asked on VPC about this matter and the answer seemed negative: I must rely on Internet Archive to see if the archived copy contains both the original resolution and the free license, and since the earliest archived copy for "File:Manila by night.jpg" does not show the free CC license, I discontinued the importing. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 10:56, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
Yes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:54, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
@Pigsonthewing: I don't see the rationale for importing higher or original resolution images even if the Flickr uploader has terminated the free licensing. In my understanding the free license that formerly applied to the Flickr file is only valid for the past import (even if in lower resolution). Isn't importation an action by itself that is covered by the prevailing license, not by a past license? Plus we are not end-users but redistributors (Wikicommons redistributes Flickr files by this act of importation), and in my understanding redistribution is subject to the current license, not the past license, notwithstanding the irrevocability of the CC licensing (we do have {{Flickr-change-of-license}} to notify our end-users for this case though). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 15:09, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
The reasoning is that the licence is to a certain work, not to a certain copy of it. For photos, the versions of different resolution usually include the same creative input from the author, and thus aren't separate works. Under this theory, if you have a licence to distribute the work, you may distribute copies of any copy of it. However, we have mostly respected the licensors wish to license only a reduced-resolution version as matter of policy, regardless of the legal situation. –LPfi (talk) 19:02, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Upcoming community review of the Movement Charter ratification methodology

Hello everyone,

The Movement Charter Drafting Committee (MCDC) will propose a ratification methodology for the future Movement Charter on April 10, 2023. The proposed ratification methodology is a result of learnings from previous ratification processes.

The MCDC will organize a consultation period with the Wikimedia Movement to hear feedback on the proposed ratification methodology from April 10 to 28, 2023. People will be invited to share their feedback on the questions mainly via the Meta Talk page discussion, on the Movement Strategy Forum, and during the community conversation hours. The MCDC welcomes your input on some open questions.

Join the community conversation hours

The MCDC invites everyone interested in sharing their feedback on the proposed methodology to join the community conversation hours:

When signing up, please leave a comment if you need language support. Please note that language interpretation will be provided if there are at least 3 people interested in a given language.

Thank you,

On behalf of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee,

Zuz (WMF) (talk) 19:20, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Category:Photographs by George Nelidoff

At Category:Photographs by George Nelidoff all the images also have the redundant category "George Nelidoff", I had this happen once before, but I do not remember the solution. RAN (talk) 17:10, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! Lets hope I remember the solution when I encounter it again years from now. --RAN (talk) 20:02, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
@William Graham: Is there a particular reason for restoring the category with noinclude tags?[8] The template places itself in the category by default. From Hill To Shore (talk) 20:22, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
I did not realize, I will undo. William Graham (talk) 20:25, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

viralzone

Hi, Could someone please add a meta category (Category:Images from ViralZone) to all images uploaded from https://viralzone.expasy.org/, i.e. [9]? These are under a free license, and it would be much easier to check them all with a category. Request on Commons:Bots/Work requests#viralzone not answered for 2 weeks. Thanks, Yann (talk) 12:29, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

i think you can also catalot them by yourself https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?limit=999&search=insource%3Aviralzone+insource%3A%2Fviralzone.expasy.org%2F .--RZuo (talk) 12:56, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
it's also better if you move files from Category:ViralZone to that first. RZuo (talk) 12:59, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
you should also ask them to clarify their copyright first. https://viralzone.expasy.org/872 says "Permission is granted to use the pictures in academic thesis or non-commercial powerpoint presentations, provided the source is acknowledged (Source: ViralZone www.expasy.org/viralzone, Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics). For any other use, please contact us via the "Contact Us" form."--RZuo (talk) 13:05, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
The main explicitly mentions a free license: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Yann (talk) 14:06, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
ResolvedYann (talk) 14:31, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --RZuo (talk) 11:58, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Addition of source URL

Hello everybody, I was trying to upload a file from https://esahubble.org/ using URL upload section in Special:Upload but it denied by saying that the source is not in the list MediaWiki:Copyupload-allowed-domains. So, I request that any admin please add the URL https://esahubble.org/ in the above list so that useful images can be uploaded here directly. Please note that most of the images there are freely licensed under Template:PD-Hubble and are entitled to be uploaded at Commons.--Junior Jumper (formerly Tæ) 07:04, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

@Junior Jumper: {{PD-Hubble}} has a big bold notice "This license does not apply if ESA material created after 2008 or source material from other organizations is in use."
You applied this template to your last upload (source) which is from 10 December 2020 and copyrighted by ESA. Why did you use that template instead of {{ESA-Hubble}}? Multichill (talk) 13:54, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
@Multichill: Oh! Sorry. I haven't seen this new template and the 2008 heading. I will keep this thing in mind now before uploading the images from this source. Thanks.--Junior Jumper (formerly Tæ) 13:59, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
@Junior Jumper: it was already on the whitelist, this should fix it. Can you give it a try? Multichill (talk) 14:06, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Flag of the Vatican City

We've had some press coverage regarding File:Flag of the Vatican City.svg, as noted on enwiki: Wikipedia had the wrong Vatican City flag for years. Now incorrect flags are everywhere. Elizium23 (talk) 05:54, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

@SajoR, @Roberto221, you may be interested per coats of arms. (su interés en los escudos católicos). Elizium23 (talk) 05:58, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
@Elizium23 Well I'll be...Roberto221 (talk) 07:26, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Category:APIA Leichhardt Tigers

This category should be renamed to Category:APIA Leichhardt ie., without the "Tigers" bit, as the club has been renamed accordingly in 2019. If somebody gets a bot onto it, this would be great. Thanks you. Oalexander (talk) 18:03, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --RZuo (talk) 11:14, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Names of former countries amid actual ones

There are names of former countries of Europe amid the names of actual ones in topic-category combinations and wikidata infoboxes re. Category:Science, compare eg. Wikidate infobox of Category:Science in Austria and the countries-list I set in above it (speaking of "Austria-Hungary", "Russian Empire"), etc.; see eg. Category:Science in Austria-Hungary where I changed the categories.

There should be a clear differentiation between old and new/actual states, otherwise next comes the "German Reich" into this ....14:06, 4 April 2023 (UTC) Hornstrandir1 (talk) 14:12, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

The {{Topic in country}} is absurd in this case. The list should be reachable by the parent category Science by country of location (although the latter is not divided by continent, and the continent breakdown is really confusing).
For the implied request: where should Science in Yugoslavia and Science in ancient Rome‎ go? OK, in Science in former countries of Europe, but that category should be linked from the list of modern countries or you get this confusion. Science in Bulgaria is in Science by country, while most others are in Science by country of location. What does the "by location" addition mean in this context?
When creating such hierarchies, it would be very good to explain them, linking the description (by template) from categories concerned. Anybody uploading only a few files (or searching for one) will spend all to much time trying to understand it, or just give up.
–LPfi (talk) 15:32, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
Thank you, for your reply. I didn't make the "country by location" category and didn't want to change all of them before having talked to someone. As it is, It find the system which I found there this morning confusing myself. Shall I change all of them? I just don't know how to make such connected categories.Hornstrandir1 (talk) 19:04, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
Regrettably I neither know how to change templates like the ones we found in these pages|Hornstrandir1 (talk) 19:10, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
Editing the template is difficult, removing it is easy: just remove the line
{{topic in country|science| Austria|sub=1}}
However, as this is something that seems to be spreading to more or less all categories, removing it from a single one doesn't help much, and there may be a consensus (does anyone know where that was formed, or whether it's about individual users' actions).
The category tree problems could hopefully still be fixed.
–LPfi (talk) 20:00, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
much feedback has been given to User:Joshbaumgartner, including but not limited to Template talk:Topic by country/layout Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2022/12#1st_level_subcats_for_country_cats.
i have reservation about his grand project of making these one-fits-all template.--RZuo (talk) 13:47, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
Me too. It is too confusing and unhistoric. I found now eg. also the "Japanese Empire" in the list; see eg.: Category:Science in Belgium Hornstrandir1 (talk) 20:36, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
@RZuo: Thanks for pinging me, perhaps I can help out here.
@LPfi and Hornstrandir1: I am unclear as to what exactly the problem or desired fix are. Are we discussing a categorization issue, or is this to do with navigation? Is it to do with nesting former countries under current countries (or vice-versa), or about the names used for countries, or what exactly? I appreciate any feedback on this matter. Josh (talk) 20:45, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
Per LPfi's comment, "Editing the template is difficult, removing it is easy", yes, destruction is usually easier than construction. However, the template does number of different things (categorization and navigation), and so if you feel some categories need to be added, just add them in addition to the template. If you manually replace all of the valid categories and navigation in addition to the new categories you add, you can then delete the template as superfluous, but if you only add a few categories and then delete the template, you are removing the category from several categories it belongs in as well as removing the navigation boxes. Josh (talk) 20:54, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
I assume the original post was about mixing current and former countries. I noted a few additional problems, the main one that the category of former countries should be prominently linked from the per country page. This would help with the category hierarchy, which I find confused (I haven't studied it enough to suggest better solutions). For the template, yes you are right: I might have written too hastily, I should read the discussion on introducing it before critisising it. –LPfi (talk) 21:00, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
No worries really, constructive criticism is always welcome, and new perspectives without baggage from the past even more so. As for the mixing of current and former countries, I think the root here is that 'in' is a relationship by location and thus is indexed 'by country of location', as opposed to 'of' which is indexed 'by country', but under the 'science' topic, the 'former' countries are 'by former country', not 'by former country of location'. Of course, 'in' is a stand-in for 'of' functionally in this topic, so, the 'in' categories do not need to be subbed out to a 'by country of location' index at this time. This can be fixed in the data template simply by adding an indexin=country parameter to the science entry (I've done this now). Now, this will take some null edits or wait for the batch to catch up so won't immediately appear, but should be soon. Once they filter through with the update, you should be able to see them listed by indices narrowed down based on the status of the country (former, etc.). Josh (talk) 23:23, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
Though I appreciate that this template does look nice on first sight, I still think a "one-fits-all (countries)" template does not make really sense. Better make one regarding the continents.
1) There are even as we talk more than 170 (actual) countries in the world.
2) When we also take into account all former countries (hundreds and hundreds), this takes up much too much space in data storage.
3) Why is there actually this concentration on former Eastern Bloc countries (eg. German Democratic Republic - but no Federal Republic of Germany) and their predecessors?
In my opinion the former countries should be removed from this general template (they are still there, see: Categpry:Science in Belgium). They could have a template of their own (for example re. science by continent by century). This could also be interesting then. Hornstrandir1 (talk) 18:05, 6 April 2023 (UTC).
@Hornstrandir1: the present-day Bundesrepublik/Federal Republic of Germany remains the same state as West Germany during the time of division. Its territory has changed, but there is complete continuity in its legal system. - Jmabel ! talk 23:39, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
Hornstrandir1's suggestion is pretty reasonable. it makes more sense to have one template for current countries without any former ones mixed in it. france and south korea are both in their fifth republics already, but we certainly dont divide most files according to those political statuses.
still, one template to fit all and display everything taking up too much space on the page, is something i dont like.--RZuo (talk) 12:56, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
And the former Federal Republic of Germany (before 1989) was nevertheless a different country with different borders.Hornstrandir1 (talk) 16:36, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
You state that as a fact, but the identity problem is non-trivial in many cases; cf. w:Ship of Theseus. Is the US and Mexico different countries before 1977 and after? I don't think many people in either could identify why I chose that date (the city of Rio Rico was legally transferred from the US to Mexico that year) or would agree with that assertion. Such minor adjustments of borders happen all the time, and even more major adjustments, like the purchase of Alaska or the loss of Algeria, aren't considered changes of country; the French might consider the Fifth Republic (1959) a new country, but not France after the loss of Algeria (1962). The Federal Republic of Germany is legally continuous from 1949 to now, even if it absorbed East Germany.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:53, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

If The Author/Source of a file indicates that for education purposes and not commercial and continues to say that No attribution required, Which I failed to identify yue exact tag to use, which class does it follow under? Or what exact tag can i use for this case? Africanaz (talk) 21:49, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

@Africanaz: Hi, and welcome. The reasoning for that is explained at Commons:Licensing/Justifications.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 10:56, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Chenge license

There is user Yrellag who is modifying the licenses of various files without specifying anything in the subject of the modification, is this correct? eg. here but done many times --ZioNicco (talk) 17:03, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

@ZioNicco and Yrellag: in this particular case, the work may well be public domain, but in general this is a bad idea. If the license was legitimate, we should leave things showing that the explicit granted license was GFDL. - Jmabel ! talk 17:19, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Earth sciences (etc.) in Latin America - problematic

In my opinion, this category (.... "in Latin America"), is strange, because it reminds of colonialism, etc.

See eg. Category:Earth sciences in Mexico . As it is, it should especially not be integrated in templates, etc.Hornstrandir1 (talk) 20:25, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

What name do you propose instead? A category for this geographic region is definitely useful. GPSLeo (talk) 20:58, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Notification of DMCA takedown demand — 1984 translation

In compliance with the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and at the instruction of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, one or more files have been deleted from Commons. Please note that this is an official action of the WMF office which should not be undone. If you have valid grounds for a counter-claim under the DMCA, please contact me.

The takedown can be read here.

Affected file(s):

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#1984 translation. Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 22:16, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, I did a quick search for George Orwell and we also appear to hold a Dutch version of 1984 (the book) published in 1984 (the year). File:1984 (IA 1984GeorgeOrwell1949).pdf. From Hill To Shore (talk) 22:54, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
Good catch, deleted. Yann (talk) 23:00, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Thumbnail persistence

Is it just me, or are thumbnails really slow to update after a new upload of late? Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:10, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

  • @Adam Cuerden: It's not just you. - Jmabel ! talk 23:39, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
    • I uploaded a new version of File:Portrait of a nonbinary person by DALL-E 01.png 3 days ago and the preview on that page is still the old image. I tried clearing my cache on my computer, but that didn't fix it. Artisaurus (talk) 18:31, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
      • @Artisaurus: I believe I am seeing the latest, but that last difference was so small that it's hard to be sure in a 600x600 preview.
      • Question: is the cleanup by DALL-E or by you? Because if it is really showing an image with a detectable amount of cleanup by a human, it is a bit misleading to say "created by DALL-E". - Jmabel ! talk 00:59, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
        • @Jmabel: Good point. I modified the description and author to make that more clear. The stuck thumbnail is the 1200px version (I have a retina display, which is why it's the 1200px thumbnail instead of the 600px thumbnail). You can see the small difference by comparing it with the 1201px thumbnail (look at the lips). Hope that helps! Artisaurus (talk) 04:01, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
          • @Artisaurus: To clarify: I could see the difference at an explicitly chosen resolution, but it is small enough that at the 600x600 I see by default, there is no way to tell whether that had updated, the difference is too small. Pretty consistently each caching issues eventually resolves correctly. I presume the tech people will eventually work out a proper solution. I don't see anything to be gained by dwelling on each individual time it may happen. - Jmabel ! talk 15:07, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

[Wiki Loves Africa] Webinar - Basics of Wikimedia Commons Categories

Dear Wikimedians,


Per popular demand and several requests, Christel, an avid photographer and super experienced contributor to Wikimedia Commons has volunteered to show us all there is to know about categories on Wikimedia Commons.

Kindly join us this Friday for a training on Categories as it concerns Wikimedia Commons:

Date: Friday, 14th April at 16h00 UTC – 17h00 UTC

Google Meet joining info: Video call link: https://meet.google.com/cvz-zogw-gec

Please share this invite with members of your community and interested parties.

NB: The language of instruction will be English and French. Thank you Wilson (talk) 14:15, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Pictures of Silent films ?

I've been working upgrading hundreds of silent films on Wikipedia for the last 3-4 months and is amazed how much pictures, stills and poster that are available to put in these articles ― that is for American films. I don't find many pictures from other countries. Not even from great film nations like France, Italy, Russia, Britain, China or Germany. I've been working mostly on film from the 1910s and early 1920's. These movies are over 100 years old and a considerable amount of the copyright holders must have past away before 1953 (the 70 year old limit). On that background I wonder if it's possible for someone to find and upload more pictures of non-US films from the silent era (stills, posters, pictures from magazines etc, whole movies or movieclips).--Ezzex (talk) 18:56, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

You'd be surprised at how many authors of movies from the 1910s and 1920s lived beyond the 1950s. Yes, I could try to find more images of non-US films to upload, but again you'd be surprised at how long some of these authors lived. For example, the great Alice Guy-Blaché died in 1968, and her work goes back to the 1890s. If you have any suggestions as far as specific things you want me to search for, just let me know on my talk page. Abzeronow (talk) 19:16, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Crop Tool is down again

The message reads: "502 The CropTool backend is currently having problems." --Rosiestep (talk) 17:01, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Never mind. It's working now. --Rosiestep (talk) 17:07, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --RodRabelo7 (talk) 22:46, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Category:Files with coordinates missing SDC location of creation (51° N, 6°E)

What is this, where does it come from, why are >100 files automatically sorted in this category (including one of my photos despite being correctly geotagged), and why is it impossible to remove it? Thanks. --A.Savin 22:31, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

User:Multichill might have the answers.
i guess it's set by {{Location}} and adding location of creation property will make it disappear.--RZuo (talk) 11:58, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Map
Woonplaatsen in the Netherlands
@A.Savin and RZuo: photographs should also have a named location in location of creation (P1071). To be able to expand the current coverage (about 8.2M) I'm adding a hidden tracker category to files that have coordinates, but no location of creation (P1071). You can add it to remove the tracker category.
If the coordinates start with 50-53° and 3-7°, I put the image in category for the 1° by 1° box. These boxes cover the whole of the Netherlands and part of neighboring countries. This makes it easier to work on nearby images (for example 52° N, 4°E in my case).
I'm doing a bit more data checking on Wikidata and OpenStreetMap. When that's done I plan to do some local reverse geocoding to add the named locations. The map here on the right gives an impression of how precise this will be. The holes don't mean the Wikidata link is missing, it's usually that we have multiple overlapping items which makes the tool that generates the map trip up. Multichill (talk) 18:18, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
@Multichill: Can you shrink the map or something so it doesn't take up half the screen and make it impossible to read other discussions? Thanks. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:39, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Creating a large number of similarly-formatted categories automatically

I recently discovered that the "[year] in [country] by topic" categories were incorrectly categorized in the DMC of "[year] by country by topic" rather than the correct "[year] by topic by country". In short this now means I need to make hundreds of categories, going down to as low as Category:1700 by topic by country, which for example consists only of {{dmc|1700|topic|country}}. Obviously I would really love to not have to manually create hundreds of categories. Any suggestions on how to automate this process? Thanks. OmegaFallon (talk) 02:29, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

@OmegaFallon Make a Commons:Bots/Work requests but you could also have not mandated it in the template. I suspect some of the very old ones will be singular categories as I highly doubt Category:1703 by topic by country will fill up beyond Russia but either way, work requests is best. Ricky81682 (talk) 19:15, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Call for early input on the proposed Movement Charter ratification methodology

Hello all,

The Movement Charter Drafting Committee (MCDC) is collecting early input from the Wikimedia movement on the proposed methodology for the ratification of the Movement Charter from April 10 to 28, 2023. Ratification of the Movement Charter is planned to take place in early 2024 according to the timeline.

There are six questions that the MCDC requests your input on. Please share your feedback by:

Conversation hours

The MCDC also invites everyone interested in sharing their feedback on the proposed methodology to join the community conversation hours:

The language of conversation hours is English. Please comment if you need language support. Please note that language interpretation will be provided if at least 3 people expressed interest to participate in the following languages: Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian and Spanish.

On behalf of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee,

Zuz (WMF) (talk) 04:46, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Commons:Categories for discussion/2023/04/Category:Places to go, National Park Service

A dispute that so far only has comments from two of us, who are in complete disagreement. We need further participants. - Jmabel ! talk 15:23, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

A way to use #explode?

What the title says. I would like a way to use the functionality of the #explode function but it's sadly not enabled on Commons it seems. I've noticed that there are several string manipulation templates which seek to mimic the functionality of these, but I can't find one which does #explode. Specifically I'm looking to break a string into three parts with a specific separator, not just a comma or forward slash. OmegaFallon (talk) 22:17, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Nevermind, I figured it out and it rules! This is so much better: {{AutoDMC}} OmegaFallon (talk) 22:27, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

File:Northgate, Halifax, West Yorkshire (11th February 2023).jpg

File:Add_name_later_Halifax_11_February_2023_1.jpg or by it's updated name should the image showing in the file history not the main image showing; how can this be changed? Mtaylor848 (talk) 09:16, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

@Mtaylor848: Hi, and welcome. It looks fine to me. Please see COM:CACHE.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 11:32, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Elections Committee: Call for New Members

Hello everyone,

The Wikimedia Foundation elections committee (Elections Committee) is, from today until April 24, seeking an additional 2–4 members to help facilitate the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustee (Board) selection process.

The 2024 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election is being planned. New members are invited to join the Elections Committee. The Elections Committee oversees the Board of Trustees community seat selection process. Join the committee and contribute your valuable skills and ideas to the Trustee selection process.

There are eight community- and affiliate-selected seats on the Wikimedia Foundation Board. The wider Wikimedia community votes for community members to occupy these seats. In 2024, the Elections Committee will oversee this selection process for the community- and affiliate-selected seats with expiring terms. This process will be supported by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Elections Committee members sign up for three-year terms and will be asked to sign a confidentiality agreement. Members can expect to contribute 2–5 hours per week before the selection process and 5–8 hours per week during the selection process.

As an Elections Committee member, you will be responsible for:

  • Attending online meetings between now and the next election (mid-2024)
  • Attending onboarding and online training in May–June 2023
  • Working with the Committee to fulfill its other responsibilities

New members should have the following qualities:

  • Fluency in English
  • Responsiveness to email collaboration
  • Knowledge of the movement and movement governance

If you would like to volunteer for this role, please submit your candidacy by April 24, 2023 23:59 AoE (Anywhere on Earth) on this Meta-Wiki page.

You can read the full announcement here. Thank you in advance for your interest! If you are not interested but know someone who might be, share this message with them. Please let me know if you have questions.

On behalf of the Elections Committee,

Zuz (WMF) (talk) 20:00, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Category explosion under a location category

@OmegaFallon: has created Template:AutoDMC which is creating a explosion of red-linked categories which add layers of complexity and duplication. For example, Category:2021 by city by month is a child and a subchild category.

It is similar with countries and continents so you end up with three of the same categories in each 'by month'. Category:2021 doesn't have the Category:2021 by location cat that will have these as well. Is everything supposed to be under a single location subcategory or should they be a main category? Since this is all buried within an automated template, it is difficult to even tell how to change. I started Commons:Village_pump/Proposals#Year_by_populated_place_category but got no eyes there. Ricky81682 (talk) 20:41, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

The way that it works is that {{Double MetaCat}} does a sort of XOR function, for the second and third parameters being a word meaning a location, such as "country" or "continent", etc. It then adds a category with the same name as the parent but with that word swapped out to location. The XOR-like functionality prevents nonsense such as "by country by location" or "by location by location". I added this sort of string-replacing functionality because I saw some similar categorization already in place before I developed all of this. Stuff like "[x] by country by year" was categorized under "[x] by location by year", and so I added that to my template. Apologies if this is not desired behavior, I was simply modeling off of what I saw.
I also apologize if {{AutoDMC}}/{{Double MetaCat}} are unintuitive to use or modify. If you have any suggestions for how to clarify this for you and for other potential editors, I'd appreciate it. Obviously it is not a good scenario if I, and only I, understand the functionalities of my code, being that wikis are necessarily communally-worked-upon things. OmegaFallon (talk) 20:54, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
  • So is it useful for these redcats? Are they hints as to things that should exist? Should exist if we have relevant content? (this is how most year nav bars work)
Otherwise we could always wrap the innards with {{#ifexist: ... }} and just show the link if there's already a cat there.
But really, orthogonal auto-linked redcats are right down on my list of things to worry about. "1952 in Rotherham" isn't something that interests me, but at least it has a clear definition and scope. I'll take the redcat just as much to show me that we have nothing on that, as something to worry about. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:53, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I don't really understand what you're saying here. OmegaFallon (talk) 22:23, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
  • This is awesome, please build even more complicated category structures intersecting even more unrelated concepts so I have to click through at least 10 level of Matryoshka categories before I find a extremely specific category with a single image in it. Multichill (talk) 22:20, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
    I don't appreciate the sarcasm, but I suppose I understand your sentiment. I'll comment out the code that adds them for now. OmegaFallon (talk) 22:25, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
    There, done. None of those "by location" or "by date" redlinks should show up. Apologies for simply following the format that I observed. OmegaFallon (talk) 22:29, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
    @Ricky81682 @Multichill I suppose I should tag both of you. OmegaFallon (talk) 22:31, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
    I won't use sarcasm. As I noted repeatedly on your talk page, examine your templates and made sure they work before throwing them into the mess. I have spent way too time checking over a hundred different templates for entire countries because edits like this screwed it all up. The fact that over a hundred categories were "wrong" because you read a policy (which is supposed to be descriptive not prescriptive) in your sole interpretation of what is correct, in contrast to the dozens of editors over a half dozen years who sorted it the "wrong" way, and leave piles of empty, deleted, and missing categories for fairly important things a giant mess that others are left to clean up tells me you'll continue to just creating piles and piles of redcats that do not exist, do not have any logical reason to exist, and repeatedly are recursive as hell because you mechanically can create these templates. You have never once thought for a single second whether you should be creating massive templates and reorganizing tens of thousands of images because you read one policy as entirely correct and just because you can create a template that then replicates downward destroying dozens and dozens of structures doesn't mean it has to be done or more importantly it has to be done with zero edit summaries and zero discussion with anyone. Take five minutes of humility over the literally hundreds and hundreds of categories that dozens of editors will waste time creating, deleting and moving around because you have forced this "location" scheme here. So what is your plan now? Are you going to keep it? Delete it? Do we all just wait around and stick with it because you don't even acknowledge the possibility that no one else wants this? Are you keep on ramming in new structures buried behind your cryptic as hell template? I have told you to use ifexist statements but that seems too complicated versus having a bot create hundreds of one-category categories that do nothing for anyone. You have created zero documentation pages and just keep on creating templates and subtemplates whenever you mess up. See Template talk:I18n over the six or so layers because you kept on live revising templates while breaking categories to fix it. I know the concept of previewing a template is completely foreign to you but do that just once. Maybe we should consider a template and category topic ban to get it through to you that this isn't actually that helpful. The point is I am halfway minded to suggest the deletion of this gigantic nonsense template and revert all of it because no one knows what it does and no one should have to solve that puzzle to sort images of a church in Slovakia taken in 2021. Ricky81682 (talk) 10:00, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
    Okay, that wasn't required. My point is that this is stupid to have a double-categorization and the fact that I have zero interest in learning how the hell I would make the changes to fix this is annoying the hell out of everyone. Take a lesson from that but I see you have moved onto completely destroying every country by year template by forcing another massive template while the new template is massively incomplete on all the languages so you've broken a ton again and people will have to find out where they can write things in the various languages to use it. Congrats and thank you for the additional work. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:10, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
    My goal with all the templates I've created is to have a centralized system for things to fall back onto so everything is automatically standardized. With DMC my idea was making it so that it was as simple as just putting in three parameters for the title, and then the template would do the rest. AutoDMC makes that even easier. But I suppose that having everything in a big black box, while technically convenient for the end user, is not, actually, simple or standardized. I am sorry for the mess that you seem to think I have created, although I disagree that I've made a mess. I saw double meta categories as confusing and often incorrectly used and I sought to make a template that would clear it up for people. If you think things would be better the old way, without any real standardization, without any clarifying notes, then delete my "mega template". I'm sorry for trying to help, I suppose? I guess even you realized how aggressive your reply was considering you strikethrough-d it, but even so, what exactly ever happened to assuming good faith? You seem to think I'm just fooling around, like I'm just here to screw things up because it's fun for me or I'm stupid or something like that. I made these templates because I found a need for them, I thought they would be useful, I thought they would help clean up the unstandardized, unclear mess that I saw. I think we'd be worse off without my template, but I also can acknowledge that there could very well be some huge flaws in it. So how about instead of butting heads and you suggesting we go full scorched Earth and just delete, we actually put our heads together and discuss what exactly you want me to do to improve this template to make it easier for you to use and overall better in your opinion. What, exactly, do you want me to do? If we can have a polite, collaborative, productive conversation on this, we might actually get something done together. Right now all we're doing is getting mad at each other on the internet. OmegaFallon (talk) 13:48, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
    I am currently in the process of adding additional comments to my code to help make it easier for other people to understand. I will be doing this regardless of your response (though I suppose you might appreciate it) because it's honestly just best practice. OmegaFallon (talk) 14:22, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
    I believe I've said this before, but I'll say it again for clarity: whatever questions you have on how my templates work, I'll answer them. Whatever you documentation you feel is lacking I will add. If you simply make a polite request and explain your reasons why, I'll gladly get to work on it. I may have made some mistakes but the only way for me to fix them is for them to be laid out plainly before me. Thank you. OmegaFallon (talk) 19:26, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
    Other volunteers shouldn't have to rely on you when figuring out how a template works or using it. If there was a mistake on your side here, it creating a template that needs a gate keeper to be understandable or usable. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:02, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
    Alright, yes, that's what I'm saying. So again, what do you want me to do? I've added documentation. If there's anything more I should do, please specify, and I will gladly do it. I really do want to make this right but it feels like nobody who's against me is actually giving me specific suggestions as to what course of action to take. OmegaFallon (talk) 15:32, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
    I'm not trying to be a gate keeper, I'm not trying to make things unstable or unusable or anything like that, I'm just someone trying their best, and I wish to correct any mistakes I've made. OmegaFallon (talk) 15:35, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
    I want you to stop creating new master secret templates when you clearly aren't as good as coding as you think you are. An ability to create mysterious cryptic templates that only you how to work is not a skillset. Template:Year in country is very poorly designed but keep on ramming your templates through the system and breaking more and more of Commons until everyone gets tired of it. You've destroyed a half decade of internationalization for every country template. Template:Year in country/doc is also wrong but I'm sure you'll find the next set of categories to ruin. I'll start a new discussion on that one now. Ricky81682 (talk) 21:34, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
    As I pointed out, the translations have not been "destroyed". Everything that was once there as a category description is now in {{I18n/year in place}} which has bn, ca, de, en, it, nl, eo, es, fr, fi, ja, ko, ku, mk, nan, ru, sv, th, tl, tr, uk, yue, and zh. If I missed anything, feel free to add it to the list! Expanding LangSwitch templates is very easy. OmegaFallon (talk) 00:23, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
  • I get your point (hey, do I post about anything else) but that's population of the cats, not their existence.
Of course, if yet another of the simplistic pinheads reads OVERCAT and decides to go on another editing crusade... Andy Dingley (talk) 22:33, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
It looks like Omega has done something to it so this could be a moot point. I have no idea what the nests of coding does but I suspect I'll be back when I found the next problem since this is all hidden behind a single megatemplate. I mean it's not like this isn't a volunteer project anyways. Omega, tell us what you want to do rather than quietly "fixing" things because that will just triple annoy me. If you want to force a location system, then suggest it and do it. If you don't, don't. If you are just screwing around and created it by accident, then do what I suggest and review your work. Ricky81682 (talk) 10:15, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
Just to be clear: My slightly sarcastic remark is not aimed at any person, but the category system in general. The current category system is a bit of an anti-pattern: You can spend a lot of time doing very extensive and detailed categorization, but the end result is that nobody is able to find the files you categorized so well.
We should have a system where spending time on curation of files should make the files more discoverable. More than 10 years ago I wrote User:Multichill/Next generation categories. Structured data is a step in the right direction, but still far from delivering it's promise. One of the key issues still need solving is that you want to add the most specific statement, maybe refine that statement like push it down the category tree and you want the system to automatically derive the less specific items. Using this old photo as an example:
If we would get faceted search implemented with date and (named) location as facets, you can search for churches and drill down to photos of churches taken in the Netherlands in the 2000s and the example photo would show up. We're not there yet, but maybe someday. Multichill (talk) 12:23, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
It doesn't help when a new template comes in that takes tens of thousands of images and put them into a red-linked category that someone else has to figure out how to create, create it, and then maybe it will string back together to the original location. The amount of orphaned categories created by templates is mind-numbing. It doesn't help that it's easy as hell to just create new categories but it's a half-decade fight to have a CFD discussion and kill an entire tree because it's garbage. Ricky81682 (talk) 21:25, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment I guess we can close this as moot. It seems as though OmegaFallon has decided against a location categorization and removed it. It would help in the future to tell people what your plans are but this is more work for other people. If you want to create a template to replace things now, then create the template for what is the reality now. Don't create something that does more and have zero plans for it and refuse to explain it and refuse to treat it as a problem because it's hidden behind layers of poor coding. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:50, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Template:Year in country

@OmegaFallon: has created Template:Year in country. However, it does a terrible job to internationalization. As you can see Template:United States-year used to have five other languages but it's been erased. See Category:1930 in the United States. I don't care to go into the layers of coding to figure out how to create this so someone else should work with OmegaFallon as the country by year pages are rewritten. Ignore Template:Year in country/doc unless you believe that "continent" is both a deprecated ignored parameter and required at the same time. Ricky81682 (talk) 21:43, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out that error in the documentation, I have fixed it. The translations for that specific phrase are stored at {{I18n/year in place}} and were already grandfathered in, though on second inspection there were some grammatical errors I have now fixed, so thank you for pointing that out to me. The translations have not be erased and have in fact been expanded. If you wish to add more, see that template and add whatever language code you please. OmegaFallon (talk) 00:17, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Info page on enlarging image

imo we should have a page to tell users not to manually enlarge images (like File:Maya and Yehuda Devir with their artwork.jpg), explain why, and offer alternatives to view images in detail. RZuo (talk) 17:06, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

I noticed Lhasa/nl which looks like an attempt to have captions for 拉萨 ལྷ་ས་ in a different language (it isn't up to date). I suggested the page for deletion as I don't think this is the proper way to do that. I have tried fiddling with the gallery but is there a template or markup that would actually allow the captions to be in different languages? It does seem odd that pages with a title in a foreign language don't have a good way for the gallery's captions to be that way but I'm aware of how complex this get very quickly. The alternative of each page having multiple language subpages seems unmanageable. Ricky81682 (talk) 21:00, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Rotating videos

Can videos be rotated? They don't carry the usual options of commands to Rotatebot. If they can, File:Squirrels at Point Pleasant Park.webm needs rotating 90°, please! - MPF (talk) 22:30, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

@MPF: probably best asked at Commons:Graphic Lab/Video and sound workshop. - Jmabel ! talk 00:18, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
@Jmabel: - Thanks! I'll head there - MPF (talk) 10:43, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Template by decade

How to add an arrow showing the next century ?

for example Category:Maps of the history of the Ottoman Empire in the 1890s doesn't show "1900s"

as an example Category:1490s maps of Turkey has an arrow towards "1500"

How to modify Template:MapHistoryOttomanDecade to have this blue arrow with a link ?

--Io Herodotus (talk) 11:35, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

@Io Herodotus: I gather that it is possible to do math in templates, though I've never done it myself. {{Years since}} is probably a good model. - Jmabel ! talk 15:55, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
A nice person fixed it. --Io Herodotus (talk) 14:26, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Membership kind of cats, only current membership or everyone in history？

are cats like these supposed to include all members in history (current and former), or only current members?--RZuo (talk) 11:14, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

if they should include all members, then when the organisation is renamed, do we keep the info specific to the former names, or not?
example, Category:APIA Leichhardt FC was renamed from APIA Leichhardt Tigers. should Category:Players of APIA Leichhardt Tigers (team members when it was named "Tigers") be kept as such or mixed into a new Category:Players of APIA Leichhardt that includes everyone in history?
the same can happen to a renamed university, company, etc.--RZuo (talk) 11:19, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

@RZuo:

  1. Everyone in history.
  2. You can (but needn't) create subcats for older names.

Jmabel ! talk 15:46, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

  • Keep all, past and present. You could have a subcategory for "former" if it's too hideous but there is zero reason to try to manage an ever-changing current version. I'm surprised the House of Lords one isn't split by terms (if terms made sense I guess) like Category:Lok Sabha members does. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:07, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
if these cats are meant to include both former and current members, then those "former members" cats are redundant, right?
Commons:Categories for discussion/2017/06/Category:Former members of the CDU. :/
i find it confusing when some membership cats include everyone in history, but some contain a subcat "former members", which means they should only contain current members?--RZuo (talk) 13:16, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
@RZuo: In that case, former members go in the subcat, current members go directly in the cat. - Jmabel ! talk 18:03, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Mass upload, bot operator needed

Hi, Thousands of images could be uploaded from [10]. Notably images by Sergey Sosnovskiy are under a free license (e.g. File:Arch of Trajan, by Sergey Sosnovskiy.jpg). All paintings ([11]) could also be uploaded under a PD-Art license. Any one? Yann (talk) 18:15, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

How to verify the waveform and frequency of an audio file？

how to check if File:1000Hz.ogg is a 1000Hz sine wave? also the other Category:Sine wave tones? RZuo (talk) 17:34, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Use a tuning app on your phone and play the sound? Seems to be correct. Multichill (talk) 21:06, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
@RZuo: That depends a bit on how much precision you want. You could open it in an audio editor (e.g. Audacity) and see if it looks like a sine wave. You could ask your audio editor for a spectrum analysis and see if there's a great big spike at 1 kHz. Maybe even listen to it. Actually, I'm a bit suspicious of that particular file: the amplitude seems to vary by about 10% through the file. File:Sine wave 1000.ogg looks much better. --bjh21 (talk) 21:21, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
And a file extension of ".oga" instead of ".ogg" would be even better. Best would be a file "sine wave 1000hz.flac" (or at least ".opus") with a perfect wave and to delete the other two? C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm) (talk) 08:31, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
that brings the next question. how to generate a perfect audio file of a given waveform and in what file format should it be stored?--RZuo (talk) 09:02, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
@RZuo: I think it's impossible to make a perfect audio file of a sine wave because there will always be some quantization distortion. There's not even a single closest approximation because there are different ways you might apply dithering to mask the quantization distortion. If I wanted to create a reasonably accurate file, though, I'd use SoX's synth filter to generate a WAV file. FLAC might be a bit smaller, but for a few seconds of audio I'm not sure it would be worth the extra complexity. --bjh21 (talk) 22:14, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
thx a lot! learnt a lot from your tips!--RZuo (talk) 11:03, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Cat names of accents and dialects

i'm surprised to find that commons doesnt seem to have the cat tree for accents and dialects of various languages yet. how should we name a specific accent/dialect of a language? often an accent is named after a place, but different languages can have accents named after the same place, e.g. singaporean accent of english and singaporean accent of mandarin chinese. RZuo (talk) 17:54, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

  • I suppose if there are a large enough number of audio files for a particular dialect we could easily create a subcat; we could do the same for a geographical region (again, only if there are a lot of files), but I'd hesitate to try to definitively identify an "accent". In London, for example, there are dozens of accents within that city, and people could argue endlessly over some of the distinctions. Similarly, I'd hesitate to try to distinguish a New York Puerto Rican accent from a New York Dominican accent, in either English or Spanish. - Jmabel ! talk 21:10, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
  • In any case, I would think any naming should start with the language, then follow with whatever qualification (along the pattern of the ISO standard, for example, en-us vs. en-uk). - Jmabel ! talk 21:25, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
Categorization of accents would need to rely on reliable secondary sources that directly comment on the audio files we're hosting. Elizium23 (talk) 01:23, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
What about audio you have recorded yourself, if you don't want to wait for your linguist friend's statement to have been cited in a secondary source? Should we have an "X (unconfirmed)" subcategory of each of these? –LPfi (talk) 10:55, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
is there a catalogue of accents and dialects, like Glottolog is a catalogue of languages?🤔
how are accents and dialects catalogued by linguists and librarians? like a dewey system for this?--RZuo (talk) 09:02, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
no answers. i cant find anything online either.
here's my plan, i'll name them in this fashion: <Language> - <dialect> - <accent>. not all 3 components are necessary, because sometimes the name of a dialect/accent also indicates the language, e.g. Singapore English, an english dialect.--RZuo (talk) 21:34, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Newt

Exhibit 1
Exhibit 2

Although I have been doing a couple of things around, I'm basically still a newt in many ways. Every now and then, I fumble over, let's say very similar content such as the two to the side. Is there anything I ought to do about that or is that just the way we do things around here? I'd appreciate your replys. Yotwen (talk) 14:42, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Thx, I'll do that. Yotwen (talk) 10:12, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Hiking in Abruzzo locations

I made a group hiking trip in Abruzzo in july 2001. Te results can be seen in Category:2001 in Abruzzo. I try to reconstruct the route. Sulmona was one stopping point with a rest day, I used for a rail trip.

Some images must be recognizable with someone who has local knowledge.

location?

,

monastry?

Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:23, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Your wiki will be in read-only soon

Read this message in another language • Please help translate to your language

The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

All traffic will switch on 26 April. The test will start at 14:00 UTC.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.

  • You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Wednesday 26 April 2023.
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Is a 1947 radio broadcast public domain?

Hello, I've looked at a bunch of discussions on the commons but don't see a clear answer for this. Can a 1947 radio news broadcast be uploaded as public domain? In some place it looks like people say yes, but in other it looks to be prohibited. Thanks, Rjjiii (talk) 08:18, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

What country is it from? --Adamant1 (talk) 08:37, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
United States, Rjjiii (talk) 08:42, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
@Rjjiii: That's going to be really complicated, and should almost certainly be asked at Commons:Village pump/Copyright instead of the main VP. - Jmabel ! talk 14:16, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
Thanks! Commons:Village pump/Copyright#Is a 1947 radio broadcast public domain? Rjjiii (talk) 17:16, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Jmabel ! talk 17:38, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Finding what images are used on other projects

I am quite interested in knowing where images I took are being used on other wikiprojects. Is there any way of finding out? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 00:29, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

If you know the name or perhaps have access to the image you can see the pages it is used on. Click on the image and the "More Details" button. This will redirect you to the image's page. Scroll down to File usage on Common or the File usage on other wikis. This will tell you exactly what pages the image is on. Have a nice day, and if I am incorrect please correct me. Thanks.
Robins bird (talk) 00:48, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
@Chris.sherlock2: If you want to see for all your images at once, you can use GLAMorous with the "show details" box checked. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 01:04, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Thank you! That is exactly what I was looking for! - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 01:34, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, I was looking at all my photos. But as always I appreciate the prompt response! - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 01:27, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
You are welcome.
Robins bird (talk) 18:51, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Photo challenge February results

Handles: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 2
image
Title Handle of leather trunk
from the early 1900s		 Handle Of A Pots Lid Glättkelle mit
rotem Holzgriff
Author Mariojan photo OJjnr VSchagow
Score 14 8 8
Cruise ship: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 2
image
Title Royal Clipper
sailing the Med		 cruise vessel
'Expedition' in Antarctica		 Cruise ships in
Geiranger Fjord, Norway
Author Cbuske46 Virtual-Pano Hgrobe
Score 26 10 10

Congratulations to Cbuske46, Virtual-Pano, Hgrobe, Mariojan photo, OJjnr and VSchagow. -- Jarekt (talk) 03:47, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks so much - I would like to thank my beautiful subject, the Royal Clipper! Cbuske46 (talk) 10:23, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Thank you so much! OJjnr (talk) 02:03, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

103,857 unreviewed files

Currently there are 103,857 unreviewed files in commons. Even if 50 files are to be reviewed per day, it takes more than 5 years to clear the list. --トトト (talk) 08:44, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

some users add old files which dont need review, e.g. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:La_base_am%C3%A9ricaine_d%27hydravions_de_Laninon_en_1918.jpg&diff=prev&oldid=659355029 . removing stuff from before 1920 would at least clear some congestion.--RZuo (talk) 11:03, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Things like Category:Tasnimnews review needed. Category:Unreviewed photos of GODL-India & Category:Finna review needed really overload the system. I would propose we split it up so we make it more manageable:
  • Add the date when the license review was added so we can have by date categories (and a missing date category)
  • Add the site and put these in their own subcategory (and a missing site category)
Multichill (talk) 18:25, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
i dont agree with either of these.
the date when the template was added is trivial.
files come from hundreds of different websites. knowing where they come from would not reduce any time in actual reviewing them. separating 100k files into as many cats as you want doesnt reduce that 100k number.--RZuo (talk) 21:34, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
I wouldn't be surprised if 5 to 10 % of the 92 million Commons files were copyright violations of one kind or another. 100k unreviewed files feel almost trivial compared to this :-) --Rosenzweig τ 11:32, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
Are all (close to million) files in Category:Media needing categories really reviewed? --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:39, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
@EugeneZelenko that's a rhetorical question, right? It's a Sisyphean task, unlikely to ever be "finished". But there are indeed some users quietly but steadily chewing their way through the daily subcategories of Category:Media needing categories requiring human attention, categorizing the good ones and putting the rest up for deletion. El Grafo (talk) 15:30, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Image not deletable?

Time ago I uploaded File:Image for help request.jpg for the best explanation of what I needed for a specific job, but I don't need it anymore, either for me or Commons. I have tried several times to request the cancellation but always without success. How can I delete the image? 2001:B07:6442:8903:252F:90B7:C7E4:C9EF 16:45, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

@From Hill To Shore and Jmabel: is there some possible use for that image? For which Wikipedia page? It is so interesting? --2001:B07:6442:8903:7D26:92A:F863:906 10:51, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
As explained above, we need to keep it because it is a source for another image.
Less than a tenth of images on Commons are used in Wikipedia. Commons does not exist just to serve Wikipedia. - Jmabel ! talk 15:58, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
@Jmabel: so, we delete both images. If we keep all kind of images, Wikimedia servers will be full of not needed images... --2001:B07:6442:8903:3DED:EF78:6F3A:954B 16:41, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
Both images are potentially useful, even if they are not actually used on any of our Wikis at the moment. There are a lot of other images on the servers that have less potential value. Keeping images that could be useful is what Commons does. Why do you want them gone? Kritzolina (talk) 16:57, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
@Kritzolina: because I have uploaded for best explain what I need to do, otherwise I would have written 10000 words, with a image is most simple to explain the ideas. That idea was rejected by English Wikipedia community now, and the images are no longer needed. --94.247.8.9 10:02, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
I understand that you do not need it. I also get the idea that you might have some bad feelings about it, because the English Wikipedia community did not like your idea and the image reminds you of that. I however think that the image has value outside of what you originally wanted to do with it. The animated GIF can illustrate traffic very well, the orignial image is more versatile, because it is so simple. A lot of things could be explained with it - from planting flowerbeds to mathematical distributions. Let your work take on its own life, you might be surprised where it will show up one day. Kritzolina (talk) 10:39, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
@IP you have published an image under an unerevocable license and the community at commons has decided to keep this image. If you had written 10000 words, you would have done that under an unrevocable license and it will stay online as long as en.wikipedia.org exists in the history of the page, unless it is deleted for being unlawful. Nearly everything at MW is public and discussions have to stay online for others to understand decissions of the community. If you are not ok with that: Don't publish at MW. C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm) (talk) 11:20, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Notes in a File:Drop tower “Fortress Tower“ at the Wurstmarkt 2022 09 18.jpg

Are those notes consistent with cc-4.0 license? Wieralee (talk) 18:55, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

@Wieralee: It seems a bit excessive, but I don't offhand see anything there that conflicts with the license; the only thing here I might quibble with is that I don't believe the license lets him mandate exactly how he is attributed, as long as the attribution is clear. - Jmabel ! talk 19:41, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
@Wieralee: Unlike earlier CC licences, the 4.0 BY series don't require that the title of the work be included in the attribution, and neither does FAL 1.3. So the author can't both release the work under those licenses and require that the title of the work be preserved. I would suggest that the best interpretation is that the work was actually released under a custom licence that includes all the terms of CC BY-SA 4.0 (or FAL 1.3) and also all the terms on the description page (including the requirement to supply a title with the file). I think this would still be compliant with COM:L, but it would mean that you can't combine the work with anything under an unmodified CC BY-SA licence. --bjh21 (talk) 21:56, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
If it was licenced as CC-BY-SA 4.0, section 7b applies:
"Any arrangements, understandings, or agreements regarding the Licensed Material not stated herein are separate from and independent of the terms and conditions of this Public License."
I interpret that as meaning that you can use the file under CC-BY-SA 4.0. If the additional requirements have any legal force, they have it as a separate agreement, and you are not breaking copyright law by not respecting it. Whether requiring you to respect that agreement to be allowed to use a freely licensed image may or may not be regarded as fair. If not, the agreement can be judged to be void or adjusted to be fair.
–LPfi (talk) 11:42, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Police of Russia in Baikonur? Need help with categorization.

Hey folks. I've been recategorizing a few images related to the Baikonur Cosmodrome which were mistakenly categorized in "in Russia" categories. One example is baikonur incategory:"Police of Russia". Is Russian police really present at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, or is it Kazakhstani police? File:Expedition 38 Soyuz Rollout (201311050015HQ).jpg shows the best view of a police (security?) officer but I'm not knowledgeable enough to decide whether the categorization is correct. Can somebody with more knowledge help? Thanks in advance. Cryptic-waveform (talk) 03:21, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

The file you mentioned indeed shows officers of the Russian Police. The badge (other examples in Category:Police badges of Russia) says "МВД России / Полиция", i.e. Russian MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs) / Police. --HyperGaruda (talk) 14:53, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
Great! Thanks for your help. Cryptic-waveform (talk) 21:24, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

How to create SVG file?

How to create SVG file from this logo? Eurohunter (talk) 16:12, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Where to debate a major category move

I think Category:Climbers of Mount Everest should renamed to Category:Summiters of Mount Everest (per other similar climbing categories, and as per the standard format on Wikipedia categories). Do I need to discuss this first at a centralized board (as it is a big category)? Also, if it gets renamed/moved, can I automatically also move the individual components of the old category without have to them one-by-one? thanks in advance. Aszx5000 (talk) 16:55, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

@Aszx5000: Not really that major. You'd debate it by nominating the category for discussion. But would this mean that (for example) the category excludes people who attempted Everest and died without summiting, or where that is uncertain? It would seem odd to me to omit George Mallory, for example. - Jmabel ! talk 17:27, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
That makes sense, but I wonder if the category is more useful when it is people who definitely summitted Everest (i.e. does walking a few yards up from Everest Base Camp make one a Climber of Everest, and would that be a useful category)? thanks for your response. Aszx5000 (talk) 18:11, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
There were attempts to climb Everest long before the first successful attempt to reach the summit. We need a place to put all of those historical images. Also, most users looking for free to use images of Everest probably won't care much if the person reached the summit. For example, if you had a photo of the Everest base camp with someone who reached the summit and another photo of the same base camp on another date with a climber that stopped 100 metres from the summit, would a reuser of the image know or care about that distinction? The image of the one who didn't reach the summit may be a better quality photograph. We wouldn't want to kick it out of the category structure just for an arbitrary renaming. I am not saying you can't rename the category but you do have to come up with a plan for the files you are kicking out of the category. From Hill To Shore (talk) 22:54, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
Seems to me that it would make more sense to have a subcat for people who summited, if that distinction belongs on Commons at all. Remember, Commons categories aren't an attempted ontology (like Wikidata); they are a tool for people to find images. - Jmabel ! talk 00:00, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Commons:Categories for discussion/2019/10/Category:Stations of Sydney Metro

This has been open since October 2019. Can someone close this off? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 13:39, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

I've read that discussion three times and I still have no idea what people want to do or not to do. Is it so hard to write out "move cat name to move cat name" and support or oppose? It's a lengthy long-winded rant about maps, and other categories but no one seems willing to spit out what they want. Ricky81682 (talk) 21:12, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
May I respectfully suggest that if the CFD is confusing that it be closed as inconclusive? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 00:30, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
That's fair I guess but it seems like the other editors have an opinion about something. Perhaps ping the anonymous editors from 2019 but I'm certain there are more old CFDs that could be closed as well. @Chris.sherlock2 Isn't this better for Commons:Administrators' noticeboard than here? Ricky81682 (talk) 20:40, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

SD depicts (P180) problems

I try to add a second entry under P180 and it does not work. Example: By File:Amsterdam CS IC-NG 2023.jpg add, Amsterdam Central station (Q50719) Also tried adding Q2528335. Another example: File:TER Alsace in Freiburg.jpg add Freiburg Hauptbahnhof (Q473572). It seems the property has the limit of one.Smiley.toerist (talk) 17:51, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

I managed to add one of your depicts statements to File:Amsterdam CS IC-NG 2023.jpg. It may have been a temporary glitch when you tried editing. Can you try again and (if it fails again) add a description of the steps you followed/errors received? From Hill To Shore (talk) 23:04, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
I still have problems with the update script on my laptop. I cant add a second value and when I try to delete a value I dont get the commit update exit box. However I have no problems when I do the same transactions on my mobile. I fact the problems started when I did the first such update on my mobile. I updated File:TER Alsace in Freiburg.jpg and acidentaly added a third value. This I could not delete on my laptop but had no problem on my mobile. I have rebooted my laptop before trying again.Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:33, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Egeria disambiguation

Category:Egeria currently redirects to Category:Elodea, with a mention of Category:Egeria (nymph) but there are lots of other relevant categories, including (but not limted to):

Clearly a disambiguation page would be appropriate. But if I just edit the redirect page and change it to a disambiguation page this will break any link that redirects to Elodia. Is there a standard way of handling this? Incidentally Elodia is problematic because althuogh Egeria redrects to it, there is no clue on the Elodia page as to why. Help appreciated. Kognos (talk) 22:15, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Looking at en:Elodea, I think the redirect originates from an error. "Elodea canadensis, sometimes called American or Canadian water weed or pond weed, is widely known as the generic water weed. The use of these names causes it to be confused with similar-looking plants, like Brazilian elodea (Egeria densa) or hydrilla (Hydrilla verticillata)." If that text is correct, the related category on Commons is Category:Elodea densa instead of Category:Elodea. From Hill To Shore (talk) 07:19, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
@MILEPRI: As you created the redirect here, would you like to add to the discussion? From Hill To Shore (talk) 08:27, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
Elodea densa has been accepted by Tropicos y POWO for which it makes Egeria densa a synonym. Saludos MILEPRI (talk) 08:42, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
I think that ultimately a disambiguation is correct, but first we should clean up the incoming links. In particular, I would think the page Egeria densa should be renamed as Elodia densa (leaving a redirect) and on that page the current taxon link to genus "Egeria" should be changed to genus "Elodia". - Jmabel ! talk 15:34, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Using images from HMdb.org

Based on their copyright page, would we be able to upload images from HMdb.org to Commons? 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 12:18, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

  • @Ficaia: No. "You may not use content from this site commercially without written permission from the copyright holder," and we require that commercial use be allowed. - Jmabel ! talk 15:30, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

renaming categories

Let's say there are two or more streets with the same name and currently we just have photos of one of them on Commons. Is it OK to rename the category from "street name" to "street name (disambiguation title)" and delete the redirected category? Hanooz 10:05, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, you can create categories for streets if you expect that we will have photos of them in the future. But you should not delete the redirect instead you should place {{Disambig}} on the page and link the different categories. GPSLeo (talk) 10:20, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Coat of arms of Plužine

The image generally used on Wikimedia projects to represent the town of Plužine in Montenegro is File:Pluzine coa.png. In 2020, User:Municipality of Pluzine set the caption of that image to "this is not coat of arms municipality of Pluzine", so it contradicts its description. Then they uploaded a slightly different image which nobody uses. These are the only edits by that user.

Neither of these gives any citation as to the blazon, so I'm not sure how to proceed on this. I'm happy to vectorise it if I can tell which to go with. Any thoughts? Marnanel (talk) 16:03, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Seeking volunteers for the next step in the Universal Code of Conduct process

More languages • Please help translate to your language

Hello,

As follow-up to the message about the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines by Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees Vice Chair, Shani Evenstein Sigalov, I am reaching out about the next steps. I want to bring your attention to the next stage of the Universal Code of Conduct process, which is forming a building committee for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C). I invite community members with experience and deep interest in community health and governance to nominate themselves to be part of the U4C building committee, which needs people who are:

  • Community members in good standing
  • Knowledgeable about movement community processes, such as, but not limited to, policy drafting, participatory decision making, and application of existing rules and policies on Wikimedia projects
  • Aware and appreciative of the diversity of the movement, such as, but not limited to, languages spoken, identity, geography, and project type
  • Committed to participate for the entire U4C Building Committee period from mid-May - December 2023
  • Comfortable with engaging in difficult, but productive conversations
  • Confidently able to communicate in English

The Building Committee shall consist of volunteer community members, affiliate board or staff, and Wikimedia Foundation staff.

The Universal Code of Conduct has been a process strengthened by the skills and knowledge of the community and I look forward to what the U4C Building Committee creates. If you are interested in joining the Building Committee, please either sign up on the Meta-Wiki page, or contact ucocproject(_AT_)wikimedia.org by May 12, 2023. Read more on Meta-Wiki.

Best regards,

Xeno (WMF) 19:00, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

I found something on google earth that you should see

When I first saw this image I thought it was just wake from a boat, but when I zoomed in there is no boat. I believe it may be some some type of unknown huge sea creature. I made a video of it and would like to get some input as to what it may be. Here's the link to the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v0xC9_D-L8 My email is caustic2@juno.com Thanks RC — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.1.101.173 (talk) 01:55, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

just your average wake from a speedboat..sometimes google blocks boats and cars for no reason.. Stemoc 02:58, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
This is a crappy quality satellite image of a wake. Can't see what causes it, but when you hear hooves, think "Equidae" not "Arcturian MegaDonkey". El Grafo (talk) 12:48, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
This IP «first saw» it on Google Earth and instead of sharing with us where exactly it was seen (url, LL?), procedes to upload a video (screen recording?) to a platform where spculation and gullible clicking can be gathered, and then goes forum shopping, spamming putative rubes here and there and everywhere. Even if it were indeed an «unknown huge sea creature» (or even a known one), this is exactly how to not inform the world about its discovery — instead this is the surest way to stoke the flames of conspiracional delusion. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 14:48, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Keys for BC categories

Is there any rule for the keys for the extreme BC categories? I'm trying to organize Category:History of Africa by century so that it is in chronological order but I can't figure what keys to use. Category:Africa in the 60th century BC uses "-040" while the 52nd century used "-096". Category:Africa in the 20th century BC and Category:Africa in the 40th century BC use "-080". Ricky81682 (talk) 01:53, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

The corresponding other continent categories adhere to something like [-00##], where ## equals 100 minus the BC century, so 60th c. BC (100-60=40) is sorted as "-0040", 52nd as "-0048", 40th as "-0060", 20th as "-0080" and so on. --HyperGaruda (talk) 12:02, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Mass upload from Flags of the World Vexillology site

Thousands of images of flags were uploaded to Commons from the Flags of the World site. Images from that site have a non-commercial license and we don't accept this license on Commons.

Except for flags created where the flagmaker gave specific permission to us i.e. here flags by Jaume Ollé, we are not allowed to grab every image from that site.

See old https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Images_from_www.fotw.net on this issue.

I think the user @Alexphangia: didn't quite know they weren't supposed to upload everything from that site to Commons or has something changed re: copyright on Flags of the World?

Should a mass deletion be requested for the thousands of files which were uploaded from January 2022 thru today? The Eloquent Peasant (talk) 14:35, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Well, For example, The Flags of Germany from the FOTW site were actually Public domain.
See Template:PD-Flag-Germany for more info. Alexphangia Talk 14:44, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
And it also applies to the Flags of the Netherlands (Template:PD-Flag-Netherlands) and Liechtenstein (Template:PD-Flag-Liechtenstein) Alexphangia Talk 20:37, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Butterflies or moths?

.

They are certainly Lepidoptera, but I think I wrongly named them butterflies.

Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:09, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Library of Congress:
https://www.loc.gov/everyday-mysteries/zoology/item/how-can-you-tell-the-difference-between-a-butterfly-and-a-moth
Glrx (talk) 14:33, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
Pinging @Smiley.toerist as a courtesy.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 11:12, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
Judging the antennes it should be butterflies. And generaly they are more colourfull.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:39, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
Pinging @Smiley.toerist: I am not an expert for Lepidoptera, but this is a Zygaenidae species, probably something from the genus Amata, i.e. Amata phegea or one the very similar lookalikes that may occur in the area. --Robert Flogaus-Faust (talk) 12:40, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Authorship of Damon Scott image

File:Rex damon scott 671336co.jpg is attributed to "Source: Rex Features; Author: Ken McKay / Rex Features". It also bears a VRT template (added as an OTRS template by a user who last edited in 2016) and an earlier template saying "This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Damon Scott."

How can this be? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:23, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Pinging @Billyjames2000 as uploader.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 11:10, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
"13 edits since: 8 July 2008, last edit on 11 July 2008". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:45, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Surname category name suggestions

This existing category needs to have his surname created as a new category. He also has a brother with the same surname. See here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Vitali_Klitschko

What is the best surname to use?

1.) Klychkó 2.) Klychko 3.) Klitschko 4.) Other

Thanks, --Ooligan (talk) 06:21, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Archived File better, than the actual Version, how to deal with it?

Hello everyone, I found file:16 wood samples.jpg. The Problem: Due to cropping and improving contrast imho the image lost "value". I looked at the history and find the original image [12] much more suited to my need at wikibooks. In the "improved" file the wood looks aged and oiled, also the cropping takes away value. I did not find something similar. Is there an established way to handle this? Can "old versions" be used? Is it able to be duplicated by some sort of upload-import? Do I need to upload something myself? I did not find something similar and did not find an answer in the help pages. Thanks for any help. Best regards HirnSpuk (talk) 11:25, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

It would have been preferable for Sokoljan to have uploaded their improved image as a new file, and linked it the original using the other versions parameter, which is what I suggest you do with the original. You should be able to do that no problem. This is similar to artwork, where differing colourations, can be variants beyond casual improvement IMO. Broichmore (talk) 12:06, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
@HirnSpuk: Usually I'd say that following COM:OVERWRITE, if you object to a file being overwritten you can just revert it and let the overwriter upload it under a new name if they want to. In this case, though, I agree with Broichmore: the file was overwritten by its original uploader within a few hours nine years ago, so it's better to upload the old version that you want under a new name. You can mostly copy the original description page, but you should probably change the "source" to reference the original uploaded version. If you wanted to revert to the cropped but not contrast-enhanced version, I'd do that in place, though. --bjh21 (talk) 14:21, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

PD-Brazil-Photo versus PD-1996

Why don't all our foreign licenses have the wording of PD-1996 embedded in the text like this one does? Others say to add the US license as a second license, why not all have the wording combined like Brazil does. RAN (talk) 04:43, 29 April 2023 (UTC) See: {{PD-Brazil-Photo}}

  • Probably because there are many cases where being PD in a particular country doesn't imply being PD in the U.S. For example, a picture published in 1948 in Germany by someone who died in 1950 would typically still be copyrighted in the U.S., even though it is no longer copyrighted in Germany. - Jmabel ! talk 05:49, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
Then that information should be in the license template. --RAN (talk) 04:44, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): which is presumably done by saying that a U.S. PD rationale (or, imaginably, a license for countries in which copyright may persist) is also needed. - Jmabel ! talk 08:09, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
And a remark, in general: a template giving a rationale why something is in the public domain is not a "license". "Licenses" apply to things someone owns the rights to. No one can grant a "license" for a PD image, because there is no copyright-holder to issue that license. A PD rationale is in lieu of a license. - Jmabel ! talk 08:09, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
    • It would still be useful to include some guidance about USA in the country templates, as people abroad cannot be expected to know US copyright law. See {{PD-Sweden-photo}}, where I added such guidance (in the English version). –LPfi (talk) 07:26, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Category doesn't show

Category:Churches in Catalonia photographed in 2023 has the subcategory Category:Churches in Spain photographed in 2023. When I click on the latter the previously mentioned category should show up, it doesn't.

Category:Construction of the Sagrada Família in 2023 has the subcategory Category:Churches in Barcelona photographed in 2023. When I click on the latter the previously mentioned category should show up, it doesn't. [changed 30 April 19:23–19:27]

- Io Herodotus (talk) 17:42, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

The other way around, but it shows up for me. –LPfi (talk) 19:12, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Sorry I made a mistake. Try again. The same for the year 2021.
--Io Herodotus (talk) 19:27, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Please don't edit or remove your postings when somebody already has answered. I restored/commented your edits above, and mine. –LPfi (talk) 18:49, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
There is a template involved. As you created the page you know it, and could have told it, so that people don't look for other reasons, perhaps wasting quite some time.
The server does not not update categories defined via templates as promptly as other pages. I didn't look closer at the (non-trivial) template code. I don't know whether it should be tweaked or if you just should wait.
(And it is latter that has the former as subcategory.)
–LPfi (talk) 19:01, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Category:2007 in rail transport in Germany

I moved most files to the Lander categories, but there are still 20 files with no information over wich lander the picture where taken.Smiley.toerist (talk) 21:57, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

@Smiley.toerist: What are "Lander categories"? 24.185.206.49 21:52, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
@24.185.206.49: The states of Germany are known in German as Länder. I assume the omission of the umlaut was accidental. - Jmabel ! talk 00:50, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
If a keyboard is missing umlauts it is always possible (and absolutily needed!) to replace ä->ae, ö->oe, ü->ue, ß->ss. With mobile devices you can long press a, o, u, s to get a floating menu that offers ä, ö, ü, ß among other letters. C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm) (talk) 12:23, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Category:18th-century women of Great Britain

Is there any reason this isn't named "Category:18th-century women of the United Kingdom" like every other category? Trade (talk) 18:27, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

The United Kingdom came into existence in 1801, as The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, by the merging of The Kingdom of Great Britain and The Kingdom of Ireland. There was no UK in the 18th century. Anything named "Category:18th-century [X] of the United Kingdom" is therefore an error. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:54, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
That is an English Wikipedia convention agreed by consensus to end a series of edit wars by instead using shorthand to call the 1707-1801 state "Great Britain" and the 1801-1920s state "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland." If you read the Acts of Union of 1707 (both the English version and the Scottish version) you will see many references to the "United Kingdom of Great Britain." Personally, I prefer a quiet life, so the anachronistic convention that the English Wikipedia came up with to end the edit wars seems fine to me. It is wrong though to declare references to a "United Kingdom" prior to 1801 an error. From Hill To Shore (talk) 23:41, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

If the version at [13] may be considered authoritative:

I. ‘That the two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall, upon the first Day of May next ensuing the Date hereof, and for ever after, be united into one Kingdom by the Name of Great-Britain, and that the Ensigns Armorial of the said united Kingdom, be such as her

Majesty shall appoint...

So that's "one Kingdom by the Name of Great-Britain" and "united", lower case, as an adjective, not part of a name. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:46, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Category:1066 in the United States. there's no usa in 1066 either. columbus was born 4 centuries later.--RZuo (talk) 14:35, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

We need to do something on the vandalism problem

We have a huge problem with spam and vandalism on file pages. Currently we have one million unpatrolled edits and this are only the edits from the last 30 days. When checking new edits I often find that files got vandalized one year ago and no one noticed and reverted this. If we do not find a solution or get more people to patrol edits the only solution would be to block IP editing entirely. GPSLeo (talk) 10:22, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea to block IP editing entirely. To start with, for example, for a period of 4 months. The IP will then be notified that because of the amount of time volunteers spend on the frequent vandalism, a temporary block has been chosen until September 1, 2023. Wouter (talk) 18:38, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
how have be 173.80.98.222 19:42, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
I think that banning IP editing will not solve this problem; of the 1,255,051 unpatrolled edits, "only" 57,083(!) are IP edits. (source: IP edits, All edits). Almost all of the unpatrolled edits are from users with accounts. Ideas: admins can grant autopatrol on sight for more users (I just did a few). Patrollers can nominate suitable users for autopatrol at COM:RFR. Additionally, some people "patrol" recent changes but do not have the patroller right; if any of you see this and already have/are qualified for autopatrol, please request the patroller right! —‍Mdaniels5757 (talk • contribs) 20:20, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
@Mdaniels5757 That depends on what you think "the problem" is. Having many unpatrolled edits is not the problem - it's a symptom. Your solution is for the problem of having (hopefully) good edits being marked for patrolling unnecessarily (and thus clogging up the pipeline). @GPSLeo's solution is aimed at the problem of IP edits (apparently) being a major source of vandalism. Neither of the proposed solutions will make the pile of unpatrolled files disappear all of a sudden. They both might contribute to making it smaller. They are not mutually exclusive. El Grafo (talk) 10:25, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
I've reverted a lot of undetected vandalism both here and on other wikis. Unfortunately, though, blocking IP edits won't do anything about the vandalism that is already there, nor about the unpatrolled edits. Honestly, you can find a lot just by checking for low-hanging fruit. Gnomingstuff (talk) 04:15, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
@Gnomingstuff what do you mean by "low-hanging fruit"? RodRabelo7 (talk) 04:29, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
Your typical middle-school level vandalism of adding "poop" etc. Gnomingstuff (talk) 04:47, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
I am sometimes looking for a low hanging fruit called "mobile edits". There I revert approximately 60-80% of the edits. This takes up to one hour to check all edits of one day. If we had 15 people doing this there would be no problem, but we do not have people doing this annoying job. GPSLeo (talk) 11:01, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

I have 22.287 files on my watchlist but I almost never find any vandalism, only a small number of honest mistakes, such as adding unnessesary upper categories. The vandalism may be concentrated on certain subjects. I have a lot of railway/trams, landscapes and exceptional things I notice on my travels. The most work I have is marking the endless category modifications. Some users are very prolific but work correctly. It helped as some users got autopatrol status, such as for User:Fantaglobe11.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:44, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes the problem is concentrated to some topics. The most vandalism is in the the field of human sexuality and genitals and photos of high traffic Wikipedia articles. GPSLeo (talk) 10:54, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
Something else frustrating is when an image was moved here from Wikipedia, and it had clearly been vandalized on there and the vandalism was carried over, but I can't track down what it was supposed to be, any advice? Gnomingstuff (talk) 15:12, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
@Gnomingstuff: I presume this refers to a case where it's already been deleted on the relevant Wikipedia. You pretty much have to get admin help on that Wikipedia. We probably should have a list of which Commons admins are also admins on the various Wikipedias; I don't think we have such a list. - Jmabel ! talk 17:48, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
I haven't found a way to access the edit history for such files on the (English in this case) Wikipedia, wasn't sure whether I just hadn't found it. But thanks for the info! Gnomingstuff (talk) 18:13, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
i never understood the idea of "patrolling". theoretically it certainly is an impossible task to manually patrol every single edit, even if autopatrollers' are ignored.
on the other hand, in practice, it's not effective either. i have seen quite many copyvios or vandalism that were not discovered for a decade. i'd assume they have been patrolled, but the problems were not addressed.--RZuo (talk) 14:35, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
Some not obvious copyvios might became marked a patrolled. But I think the amount of vandalism that was actively marked as patrolled is very low. After 30 days edits become marked as patrolled automatically. If you look at the edit metadata through the API you can distinguish between manually patrolled edits and edits they became marked as patrolled after 30 days. GPSLeo (talk) 11:41, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
are there stats about unpatrolled edits? how many are generated every day on average?
more than 40k / day? if 1 sec is needed to patrol each edit, that's at least 11 man hours needed each day. if 10 secs, 110 man hours and more. commons only has a few thousand active users, very few of which are interested in this pointless, mechanical work.
i myself keep falling into rabbit holes on commons just as i try to code/fix templates, modules, tools... whenever i come across problems.
it's also well known that commons maintenance is seriously understaffed.
patrolling every single edit to fish out a small amount of unconstructive edits is ineffective. patrolling new uploads by non-autopatrolled users is a better task to start with. RZuo (talk) 12:41, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
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