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I've also just posted this on the Administrators' Noticeboard. Pennenetui3000 (talk) 00:48, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
And I responded there. Please don't scatter a discussion like this. In extreme cases (I don't even think it is one) it is appropriate to post on one project page like this pointing to discussion you have opened on another page. It is simply not appropriate to open the same discussion in two places. It almost guarantees unnecessary chaos. - Jmabel ! talk 04:50, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --From Hill To Shore (talk) 07:49, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
blacklist sanity checking...
I just tried uploading an image from the flickr pages of the The GPA Photo Archive. Which asserts it "is maintained by the Bureau of Global Public Affairs of the United States Department of State, and comprises public-access photos intended for use by U.S. Missions overseas and other State Department entities."
How does a flickr user like this make the blacklist?
The GPA Photo Archive is maintained by the Bureau of Global Public Affairs of the United States Department of State, and comprises public-access photos intended for use by U.S. Missions overseas and other State Department entities.
Photos may be used by staff of the Bureau of Global Public Affairs (GPA), U.S. embassies, consulates, American Spaces, and other U.S. mission offices, and distributed as warranted for use by non-USG organizations sanctioned by the embassy.
Only non-commercial use is permitted. Credit line should read: GPA Photo Archive / photographer's name / original source. Example: GPA Photo Archive / Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress
"Only non-commercial use" would certainly qualify for the blacklist. - Jmabel ! talk 17:18, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
This account grabs (usually free) files from other sources and reuploads them. Very often the license on flickr is incorrect; I have seen some of my CC-BY-SA files on the account listed as PD. Any file on this account should be uploaded from the original source instead. For example, the file that Geo Swan linked above is actually from the State Department - and is already on Commons from the original source. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 23:55, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
13 of the MOTD of November and 18 of the MOTD of December are OGG files without description text of anthems of small countries
I am only mentioning that, because I nominated two of my own files as MOTD for november and only now found out, that i had made the entrys for November 2024 in error. When I tried to correct that, I stumbled about this crowd of anthems. I really would like to have at least my webm file early in November this year and it would also be fine to have the flac file sooner than 1st of january. --C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm - p7.ee/p) (talk) 09:42, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
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) 10:25, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
Hi, Another detective work needed here. May be the geolocation can be added? It seems there is a "Heath Ave" in Spokane, but no "Hath Ave". Or is it an abbreviation for Hatheway? Yann (talk) 16:27, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
What is the basis to say that what appears to be a family photo "was published in the United States between 1928 and 1977"? Is there any evidence it was ever published before the Flickr upload (if not, then it won't be in the public domain until 2050). - Jmabel ! talk 17:23, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
Fully agreed. Solid proof of actual publication is needed for these photos, and it is lacking so far. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 17:35, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
Seeing the written text, this was sent to someone, which constituted publication at the time. See also COM:L#Old orphan works. Practically, there is zero chance that this is still under a copyright. Yann (talk) 20:45, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
Text is not Hath but 818 E 26th Ave, Spokane, WA. Looks like both houses are still there. Window pattern of next door seems to match. Glrx (talk) 18:44, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
Good. Thanks a lot! Yann (talk) 20:45, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
Maybe someone in WA could send the current residents a postcard with the short URL of the image? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:14, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
In short, it is a report about signs that prohibit taking photographs at Temple Quay in Bristol. But the signs were erected by mistake. Only commercial photography shall be prohibited, they stated afterwards. The reason that this rather public area is owned by a private company. It also raises the question whether it is good that a private company owns that land, and can decide who can enter or not, and is a potential threat to the freedom of panorama in the UK, and limiting rights of the public. I wanted to share this, because it might be interesting for the readers here --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 15:36, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure this is a freedom of panorama issue. Freedom of panorama is about copyright. Even if the property owner can set rules which restrict people from taking photographs there (and even that seems to be in doubt), they don't gain any copyright in photos which get taken there in disregard of those rules. The situation is analogous to museums with house rules which prohibit photography; compare COM:CSM#MUSEUM. Omphalographer (talk) 20:35, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
I was prevented from photographing the fountain in Trafalgar Square in England because commercial photography was prohibited there. On the same day and at the same location, I took pictures of a demonstration demanding the release of "Tommy Robinson". These images have been used by many websites around the world because it was a spontaneous demo that was almost not photographed by journalists, but it was very important because it was about essential things with grooming gangs, Facebook and streaming in courts. My pictures almost didn't exist. The fact that this is not a problem with copyright and FoP is irrelevant if such bans mean that pictures can't be taken in the first place. C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm - p7.ee/p) (talk) 08:01, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
Yes. Part of the problem is that places where people spend their time are moving into private possession. The photography could be made an inviolable right (at least in some circumstances), but the tendency has other consequences too, such as people not likely to do shopping not being allowed entrance to places where people meet. I don't know what to do about it, but there should be some more awareness. –LPfi (talk) 12:19, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
Category:Files allowed to be overwritten by everyone
Can anyone explain; the use of this, on the face of it, spurious cat. Should it not be deleted along with its template? Broichmore (talk) 10:19, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
It's the result of a very recent development on Commons, whereby user rights for overwriting files that the user themselves haven't uploaded have been limited to autopatrollers and admins in an attempt to curb vandalism. It used to be that all (non-protected) files could be overwritten by anyone, but (at least for now) that's no longer the case. See this discussion at the Village Pump. ReneeWrites (talk) 16:15, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
What's so special about those files that they can be overwritten by anyone while other files can't be? --Adamant1 (talk) 16:20, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
They're not really special, they're just files an autopatroller or admin has looked at and agreed to let a user overwrite it after filing a request at COM:OWR. ReneeWrites (talk) 16:51, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
Hhhmm, maybe I'm misunderstanding something here but it sounds like a request is only meant to allow the person making it to overwrite the file, not everyone. So it seems like files from requests made on COM:OWR shouldn't be included in Category:Files allowed to be overwritten by everyone. Since again, the user making the request isn't "everyone" and their the one being given the permission. --Adamant1 (talk) 17:04, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, I think the template should be removed from files after it's been overwritten, though I haven't seen other editors do that (yet?). I'll shoot GPSLeo a question about it on his talk page, since he files so many of those requests. I don't think it's currently possible to give permission to just one person for just one file, though. ReneeWrites (talk) 17:45, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
@ReneeWrites: You have seen the template removed from a file after it's been overwritten, right here where I over wrote the file, and you promptly put back the template. Why? If there is any file that should not carry this template, then it's the specific one we are talking about.
This template and category are completely useless, it's just not the way to do it. Are you now going to insert the template into 99,365,416 (and counting) files, or do the right thing and have the global rights changed, in line with our false pledge of Wikimedia Commons, a collection of 99,365,416 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute.? Broichmore (talk) 11:21, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
Vuccala requested to overwrite that file at COM:OWR, asked for permission, and GPSLeo granted it. I put the template back because I thought it was removed by mistake. ReneeWrites (talk) 11:32, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
It's unfortunate that I was not made privy to this conversation. I take it, that this is a temporary fix solution? Broichmore (talk) 11:40, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
If you mean the template itself, then yes. I asked GPSLeo about this yesterday and he thinks 2 weeks is a good time frame for the template to be applied to files before being removed (gives the requester ample time to do the overwriting and fix any mistakes they'd made in the process). If you mean the new way of doing things in general, then I honestly don't know. ReneeWrites (talk) 12:03, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
On the question why every user can overwrite these files despite only one user requested the right: This is simply because there is currently no possibility to do this in a different way. It might be possible to add the username to the template, but I think this is not needed as the person who did the requested overwrite would complain about and revert the bad overwrite done by other users. The template is also a workaround as there is no MediaWiki protection level for this. GPSLeo (talk) 19:13, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
@GPSLeo: That's a difficult statement to chew on. I doubt anyone has specifically requested overwrite of any one of the 97 files in this spuriuos category. Why have you singled them out for attention. Why the file, that's come to my attention? Who are these people requesting overwrite? As I said earlier, the fix required here is a global fix, not this!
Your the only person that seems to be assigning these values. Please tell me why, you took it upon yourself to create this template in the first place? This is a problem you have invented, in order for you to solve. Broichmore (talk) 11:21, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
Every file there was requested here or though other channels. If we would wait for new MediaWiki features solving this problem we might have to wait many years. Until we have the new feature we would continue getting many hundred bad overwrites they would need to be cleaned up every week. GPSLeo (talk) 12:04, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for your responses. This blew up in my mind, firstly because I was unaware of the change, and second because I failed to realize what was being protected here; which is the image as opposed to it's accompanying description.
Perhaps the statement in the cat header, that The files in this category have the 'Allow Overwriting' template allowing users without autopatrol to overwrite them. This template can be placed by every user with patrol rights. Should be changed to The files in this category have the 'Allow Overwriting' template allowing users without autopatrol to overwrite the images within them. This template can be placed by every user with patrol rights. or some such?
Overall, I actually support this strategy. Broichmore (talk) 12:23, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
@Broichmore: I understand your intention with that rewording, but I think there's a problem of vocabulary. It already says "file", not "file page" (the latter would include the wikitext and structured data). The file is not necessarily an image (it could be audio or video). Also, even for an image file, one of the likely reasons to want to overwrite it is to correct EXIF data, etc., which is not part of the image. More likely, keep the wording as it is, but add a link to a page where the whole situation is explained, including why we need this workaround. - Jmabel ! talk 20:16, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
Have you experienced rotated upload previews ?
I'm looking for some experiences with rotated images. In Special:Upload and Special:UploadWizard we have some code that displays thumbnails before the upload is completed. When an image has a non-standard orientation (as indicated by EXIF), we have some Javascript which flips the thumbnail you see in this preview, so that it will match the proper orientation that you will also see after you complete the upload.
This was needed, because by default, browsers would NOT apply the orientation of the image, but the thumbnail engine of Wikimedia WOULD apply the correct orientation after upload. It turns out that somewhere in mid 2020 however, all browsers allegedly FLIPPED their default. Since that time they DO apply the EXIF orientation. If I understand things correctly, this would have led to the rotation being applied TWICE in these previews. For instance, you would see an upside down image in the upload preview, and then when the upload completes it would be right side up, or vice versa.
Have people been experiencing this ? There has been a report in phab:T338086, but considering how many cameras use this whenever you have images on the side, and how few complaints there have been so far, for something that essentially has been broken for most people since 2021, I'm wondering if I'm overlooking something. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:49, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
Definitely seen something like this in the crop tool, not sure I've seen it here. - Jmabel ! talk 19:53, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
I have seen this in the UploadWizard with the preview being wrong. Antti T. Leppänen (talk) 13:01, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
Even though Nepal is an overcrowded and unhygienic country. It's not tiny Andorra.
However, apparently, I am off-topic, making a mountain out of a molehill, and acting against freedom of speech. I am still trying to work out how I tried to silence dissenters, though. I certainly don’t want to stop freedom of speech champions from spreading the truth, so I would welcome a few extra opinions.
Thanks. Huñvreüs (talk) 21:04, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
@Huñvreüs: wording this in a passive aggressive manner does no one any favors.
I assume you are referring to User:Cyanmax. You should have notified them when making a complaint about them, either by pinging them or informing them on their talk page.
If you have similar complaints to make about someone's conduct in the future, please bring it to COM:ANU, not the Village pump.
I will warn them appropriately about their conduct. The substance of what you appear to be saying (minus the unnecessary ironic mode) seems to be on the mark.
A second "Deletion requests/Files uploaded by XYZ"
Several hours ago I noticed files uploaded by a certain user that, rightly or wrongly, I thought were problematic in terms of copyright. And therefore I clicked "Perform batch task" and thereby launched Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Roferbia. If there was a warning that Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Roferbia already existed (and was closed four years ago), then I sleepily failed to notice it. Anyone seeing the page Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Roferbia will be told "This deletion discussion is now closed" and is unlikely to scroll down in search of a possible sequel. Now I could rename the page Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Roferbia 2 or similar; but if I did, I'd then have to edit dozens of examples of "This media file has been nominated for deletion since 5 November 2023. To discuss it, please visit the nomination page" -- please no! Far easier would be to invert the order of Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Roferbia, simply switching its two halves around. But I suspect that there's an established way of fixing the page (and that unauthorized alternatives may trigger problems elsewhere). Comments? -- Hoary (talk) 23:30, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
@Hoary: From what I've seen, the normal thing is simply to leave the closed DRs at the top of the page and expect people to scroll down to the current one. That's probably not ideal, as you point out, but it seems to be tolerated. See Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Cloud Gate for a particularly large example. In one case (but apparently not the Cloud Gate one as I thought), I've made some effort at archiving closed requests on a page. I think I just wrapped them in {{Collapse top}}/{{Collapse bottom}} which seemed unlikely to affect any automated processes analysing DRs. --bjh21 (talk) 23:51, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
Hello. You may know the, by now famous, map made by Tataryn of the Roman Empire at its maximal extent. Well.. I believe to have discovered a mistake, in said map. Armenia, if you look at the corresponding articles on en.wiki (and almost all other wikis), seems to have been a Roman province from 114 to 117. Well, no! All of the statements claiming this, at least those I could find, are unsourced, and all I read on the subject (not on websites, though), if it delved a little into detail, always told me that Trajan, after shortly making it a Roman province, made Armenia a client state under his lifetime. This means, that, while the map still (roughly) shows the Empire at its greatest extent, Mesopotamia wasn’t under Roman (military) Control, when Armenia was. Now of course Armenia was in all but name a Roman Province, the problem being that the map decides to show the Vassals in a different colour. And here comes the problem. If you show the Vassals in a different colour, then I bet there is a lot more to fix then just Armenia. But I do not have sources specifying that to me, so for now it’s just Armenia. I’ve contacted Tataryn, but I just think this is important enough to be mentioned here. I’m sorry if this isn’t where it belongs, but I’m just going to assume that the Village Pump here is no different to the Village Pump on en.wiki or fr.wiki. Cheers.
PS: There are a bunch of maps showing Armenia as Roman, which it was, the problem is that those maps also show the other Vassal states (those which on Tataryn’s map are shown as vassals) as roman, with no distinction made. Essentially, if your going to make the distinction between regions under direct roman control and vassals, Armenia needs to be shown as a Vassal, in the year of 117.
La pléiade 2eme degré (talk) 15:10, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
Please, discuss this on the talk page of that image. Ruslik (talk) 20:51, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
I did. Tataryn isn’t actif since December last year. Sooo… best go here, right? Anyway, I just wanted to raise awareness of the problem (plus: I could be wrong, so discussing it won’t be too bad of a choice). Cheers. La pléiade 2eme degré (talk) 23:14, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
You can also address this on the corresponding talk pages where this map is used within the Wikipedia projects. A discussion at COM:VP is useless, in particular if not even a link to the map in question is provided. --AFBorchert (talk) 18:26, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. After searching a bit I already found out that it was Mesopotamia which was the (under full military control) client state. Il start a discussion there. Just please don’t move this. I do believe that maybe someone acknowledged of the subject could provide info, cheers. La pléiade 2eme degré (talk) 22:25, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
Parts of Armenia being under supposed Mesopotamian control. La pléiade 2eme degré (talk) 22:26, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
Hello! Is this file really copyright-free? It seems to be a book cover from 1971, and I can barely imagine that there is no copyright on it? 80.71.142.166 04:49, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
There is no claim that it is copyright-free, but the uploader, User:Guldmann1, claimed to be the copyright-holder and to offer a free license. Since they have no other contributions to Commons, their only other contribution to a WMF project was to add this picture to an article on da-wiki, and they have never given any proper indication of who they are or even provided an email address where they can be reached, that seems quite unlikely and the image has now been nominated for deletion. - Jmabel ! talk 06:12, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
Rename requests that replace hyphen-minus with en dash
I do not think that this is a valid ground for a move if this is not coming from the uploader and if this is not an attempt to get uniform filenames within a specific group of related media (i.e. criteria 1 and 4). I do not see how this fulfills criterion 3 in the given example. --AFBorchert (talk) 07:00, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
I'm a big fan of proper typography but in a file name that needs to be type-able, then I think it's fair to have hyphens in place of en dashes. At the very least, if they are moved, the hyphen redirect needs to remain. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:51, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
For me that definitely does not fall under criterion 3. Indeed it's covered by COM:FRNOT #1 (Files should NOT be renamed only because the new name looks a bit better). I might accept a request under criterion 1 within 7 days of creation, or if technically necessary under criterion 4 (but most criterion 4 requests are invalid anyway). --bjh21 (talk) 09:41, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
I uploaded the wrong file.
File talk:Mary White Ovington.jpg - I accidentally added Mary Jackson to the revisions of the file. Completely different image, completely different licensing (PD-USGov vs. Ovington's PD-US-expired). Help?
I am sorry. I suppose it's inevitable if you do enough work on here, and at least it's been a few years since last it happened. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:21, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
I am writing to ask about files from the US Office of Naval Intelligence, in particular the ship silhouettes in this guide that seem to be created by Office of Naval Intelligence. Can I upload them? Chenophile (talk) 02:35, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
If it's from Office of Naval Intelligence, then it's almost certainly {{PD-USGov-Military-Navy}}. It's usually easier to tell for sure if we have the page that linked to the PDF, rather than just the PDF itself. - Jmabel ! talk 03:30, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
Here’s the link. Unfortunately I cannot access the website. Chenophile (talk) 03:41, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
That's just another link to the same PDF, at a different URL, so the only further thing that confirms is that it's on ONI's site. As I said above, almost certainly {{PD-USGov-Military-Navy}}. - Jmabel ! talk 04:16, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
Ok, thanks a lot! Chenophile (talk) 09:35, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
Once you log out of Commons, can you log back in? I can't, and I know of another user with the same issue (she was automatically logged out). The message I'm getting now is "There seems to be a problem with your login session; this action has been canceled as a precaution against session hijacking." —Preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.199.122.141 (talk) 08:24, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
Probably the same issue a German user is experiencing at the moment? [1] -- Herbert Ortner (talk) 15:12, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
same. i had it this afternoon.
i was using firefox. i opened my history, viewed it "by site" and chose to "forget about this site" for commons.wikimedia.org. then i could log in again. RZuo (talk) 16:51, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
I can't see any way an 1881 banknote could now have a copyright. There might be some non-copyright restrictions. - Jmabel ! talk 14:34, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
I just noticed nothing on this page has been approved since August. Any admins feel up to reviewing it? Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:21, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
Last I looked, the bot that moves categories (and takes care of the various aspects of that) was not running. Unless it's been fixed, {{Move cat}} is moot. I've done some of this by hand, but there is way too much for any small number of people to handle that way. - Jmabel ! talk 02:58, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
@Jmabel: That is a problem, though there's also the image replacement requests section, where the bot does work, but hasn't been updated. I can try to help manually move a couple categories, though: There's some that are quite small. Adam Cuerden (talk) 10:44, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Well, I did Amazon Studios to Amazon MGM Studios. That's one. Adam Cuerden (talk) 13:50, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks to @Jmabel for flagging this to me, I found the bot on Toolforge and have re-enabled it. Me doing this is not sustainable, so I've filed T350953 for finding a new maintainer for these bots. Legoktm (talk) 16:20, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
@Legoktm: thank you so much! (yeah, I know I already thanked you in person, but I wanted to do so publicly.) - Jmabel ! talk 18:41, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
Here's hoping someone will take this over. Legoktm tells me he figures what he did will only hold us a few months. - Jmabel ! talk 18:41, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
Restoration date
Is there any way to load news articles under copyright, with a restoration date, without going through a speedy deletion process, so that they never actually appear and are restored at the appropriate date? Can we preload works expiring on January 1, 2024. RAN (talk) 04:19, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
For that particular case, why bother? Wait 8 weeks. - Jmabel ! talk 12:05, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
I have some 2025 material too. --RAN (talk) 13:01, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
Off the top of my head: slap a maintenance category on them, and we can delete the whole category with VFC. But unless you make a list of them in Category:Undelete in 2025, it may be difficult to find when the time comes. - Jmabel ! talk 18:47, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
Best practices for large UAV (drone) image sets? And a couple of ideas to spitball on that front.
Hi all,
I searched Commons policies and the Village Pump about uploading large aerial image sets, particularly related to drone mapping, but haven't found clear guidelines. I'm wondering if there are general principles for handling such image sets, often consisting of hundreds or thousands of photos.
Many users generate and upload orthomosaics to OpenAerialMap, which is excellent. But making the original aerial photos available on Commons could bring additional benefits:
Users could download and process them for specific uses (generate meshes, height maps, point clouds, customize resolution, etc.).
Different batches could be combined for improved reconstructions. Images from different periods could generate separate point clouds to compare changes over time (e.g. Notre Dame before/after fire, environmental shifts).
WMF (or a third party) could develop a tool to continually generate updated orthomosaics or 3D models from uploaded aerial photos. This would enable 4D comparison of any surveyed area over time.
The tool could tag uploaded photos by location, allowing all photos of a spot to be easily found without the need of manual tagging.
It could add geolocation to non-geotagged photos, or improve precision on poorly geolocated photos.
It could highlight under-mapped areas needing more coverage.
After decades of accumulating aerial photos, we'd have an open, historical dataset showing morphological changes across the planet - extremely valuable culturally and environmentally.
All of this could encourage uploading aerial mapping photosets, and I have tens of thousands that I could contribute immediately. But some challenges exist:
Uploading thousands of images from one area is non-trivial. No one could reasonably title and tag each individually. If issues arose requiring deletion of some photos, it would be unrealistic to review hundreds of thousands of them manually each time.
Many similarly-titled photos could clutter Commons searches.
It could be useful to allow image set uploads as a single item, or grouping them to enable efficient processing. Maybe something along those lines already exists that I'm unaware of.
Copyright is complex and evolving for aerial imagery, even in FOP countries, so a cautious approach is warranted and the topic deserves an entire thread about it. But we can still explore processes and allow non-controversial uploads. In some cases, aerial photos could be accepted but not made publicly available while still being used for improving orthomosaics and geolocation. I welcome perspectives on these possibilities.
In summary, I'm very interested in approaches for handling large aerial photo sets on Commons. Please share any insights you may have on this topic.
I think uploading them and having the needed georeferencing data as structured data is no problem with the current tools. The problem is that we do not have tools to really use them. To make them available in a usable way it would need WMS and tile services. To set this up as a Wiki (in terms of a project where everyone can contribute) would basically mean to create a new Wikimedia project. I do not think this realistic in the near future as between the last two project Wikidata and Wikifunction there where ten years. But in the long term this might be possible also as cooperation with OSM. GPSLeo (talk) 15:58, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
@GPSLeo: completely agree that ultimately this sounds like a new project (let's call it WikiEarth because... why not). Integration with OSM would definitely be a must. But while we look forward to that, maybe a few minor adjustments could be made here to allow for that kind of material to be uploaded without generating a mess, even though there's nothing stopping us from doing it now. I alone would bump up the total amount of images on the Commons by about 0.1%, and I'm not even a serious mapper. So with that in mind I'd probably think about implementing a new type of "object" called "aerial mapping set" or something similar. Images inside it wouldn't be found on searches unless taken out of the set manually, but they could still be found by location. Does that make sense? With that done, one could easily download sets, process them and upload them to OpenAerialMap with huge gains and little effort on the short term. Rkieferbaum (talk) 16:22, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
I do not think that we could get a new kind of file page type for this. Obviously this is nothing where edits or uploads are made manually this is a field for bots and scripts. Maybe store the information as a template that is added to all files of the set. The image sets should have a category for each and the files should not be categorized in other categories. To reduce the amount of files there should be a guideline on tile sizes where the file size is below the limit but the amount of tiles for an area is not to large. If you are interested in defining these guidelines I would propose to set up a page at Commons:Wikiproject Maps. GPSLeo (talk) 16:37, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
"the files should not be categorized in other categories" Why on earth not? If one of the images shows, say, a football stadium, then it should be added to the category for that stadium, where it may well be the only such image, and thus very useful. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:52, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
@Pigsonthewing: I think he means, and I agree, all the images in the set as a batch process. Any images that are individually useful should definitely be adequately categorized.
I haven't had the time these days, but I'll draft a WikiProject and ping you all to weigh in in the coming days. Maybe post it in Proposals as well. Rkieferbaum (talk) 14:05, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
Yes I want to avoid that categories of for example municipalities become filled up with thousands of files for different aerial photos and maps. GPSLeo (talk) 14:28, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
The proper way to do that is through the use of subcategories, not exlssuion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:28, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
i'm no expert of mediawiki, but afaicu, wiki is pretty primitive.
an image, or any kind of file, is uploaded to its own page.
the only structure that connects different files together is the category.
and that's all you have from wikimedia foundation. a lot of even the most basic functionalities are actually realised by user-contributed scripts, e.g. Help:Gadget-GallerySlideshow.
all the uses of these photos you described are beautiful, but to make them happen, you can only hope that you yourself or other users (aka volunteers) code up the whole project, i'm afraid. RZuo (talk) 18:47, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
I think GPSLeo's pointers above are a very good short term solution. A workflow where sets are uploaded and kept with no categories except one specific to the set and all relevant data is populated by set through the use of scripts. That settles it for now, whatever else might come can be built around that. I'm not sure, technically, how to get that done, but hopefully people familiar with scripts and templates will come along and weigh in. I'll invite tech-savvy people over to see if they can help. Rkieferbaum (talk) 19:00, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
be cautious about setting the filename format. because changing thousands of filenames afterwards (if you change your mind or have made mistakes) is troublesome and will create a lot of com:move logs.
anything on the file description page or the com:structured data is easy to change. RZuo (talk) 11:09, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
WikiCode
In this revision, After categories, I see that wiki code has been added, which is not working. Can anyone take a look at this? --Saroj (talk) 17:50, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
It looks like he's using some smartphone app and trying to add structured data, which is not at all working. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:01, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
I investigated this further. This is a bug in the VisualEditor I created a ticket on this
and created an AbuseFilter Special:AbuseFilter/297 to block these edits until this is fixed. GPSLeo (talk) 20:48, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
Blockers to automated import of structured data
I recently came across the AC/DC gadget (maintained by @Lucas Werkmeister, I think?), which helps with adding structured data. A lot of the work it does seems like it could almost be automated. For instance, I could go to Category:The Wharf (Washington, D.C.) and add P180 (depicts) > The Wharf (Q99344305) for all the images, but that information is basically already established, because the category is already linked to the Wikidata item. It'd be neat if the gadget suggested the linked item as the entity depicted. It'd be even neater if we could find a way to import depict statements for all categories linked to a Wikidata item.
Naturally, an action at that massive scale would require careful consideration. It also seems like, ultimately, the way we'd get more comprehensive structured data for our collection. I'm wondering if it was considered when structured data was first implemented, or if there has been any other discussion about it.
I'm also interested in discussing potential blockers (i.e. situations we'd have to account for in which automatically adding the statement would not be appropriate. One big one that occurs is set categories vs. topic categories (I linked to the Wikipedia guideline, which explains it more clearly, but the Commons analogue is here). Set categories are straightforward, but for topic categories, we might have e.g. an image of a document written by Jane Smith in Smith's category, and we wouldn't really say that it depicts Smith.
Are there other potential issues that I'm not thinking of? And do folks have any other general thoughts about importing structured data from Wikipedia? Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}}talk 21:43, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
FWIW for many categories few (if any) of the images in the category could usefully be said to "depict" the item for the category. We are constantly having problems with people adding things like "depicts Seattle" or "depicts Chiquita Brands International". - Jmabel ! talk 22:27, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Agreed with Jmabel here. At the mass scale you're suggesting, error rate would need to be extremely low to allow them to be reliably fixed by humans. Even with careful design of the tool, it won't be able to account for all the subtle complications in categories. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 23:35, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Yeah. It's somewhat w:garbage in, garbage out, so we wouldn't need to get the error rate to zero. But certainly lower than what it'd be if we went ahead at the moment. Maybe better establishing/tagging which categories are set categories vs. topic categories would be an interim step here. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 06:58, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
Every time I use Depictor I have the same idea: that so many of these associations are already established by the fact that the file is in the category! But the thing is that definitely not all of them are, and for some categories I'm surprised at the large number that aren't. So I'd be wary of automating anything. I do think a quicker way of selecting for depicts (e.g. something like Cat-a-lot) would be great though. SamWilson 01:41, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
+1 to SamWilson. - Jmabel ! talk 02:48, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
@Samwilson, @Jmabel: FWIW, if you open cat-a-lot and select some images and then open AC/DC, it’ll prefill the files to edit with your selection. (I also created PagePile Visual Filter to similarly filter other sets of pages in a similar way, e.g. categories that are too big to fit in one screen; you can use the resulting PagePile with AC/DC.) Lucas Werkmeister (talk) 14:45, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
@Lucas Werkmeister: is that documented anywhere that people are likely to find it? - Jmabel ! talk 18:49, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
@Lucas Werkmeister: so if you already know what tool to use, this lets you know that the tool does this.
I'd really like to see, for this and other tasks, some things where a user has a fair chance of starting from what they want to do and find a tool that does it. - Jmabel ! talk 12:31, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
Aside: It irks me that so many of our tools do not share a common user interface, or common behaviours. This is barrier to entry for new users. A well as the difference between selection in ACDC and Cat-a-lot; category selection works differently in Cat-a-lot and HotCat, for example. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:41, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
I'd say that is above the U.S. TOO. Remember that TOO issues are all based on national law, so an example from a different country isn't worth much. - Jmabel ! talk 12:08, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
The Irrational Games logo seems to be copyrightable to me --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 21:24, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
Roads and streets
On November 8, 2023, a user started change the categories around Category:Roads and streets. The discussion Commons:Categories for discussion/2022/06/Category:Streets named after Kyiv was cited as a reference. Thematically, the two terms were previously separated (Roads for roads outside built-up areas, Streets for built-up areas - inside cities). However, this separation has far-reaching consequences and does not correspond to current practice. Wouldn't it make more sense to discuss such a separation beforehand? --XRay💬 09:53, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Admittedly, I had started to restore the original layout. However, I stopped the actions because I became aware of the somewhat hidden discussion. --XRay💬 10:00, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
I had changed the categories around Roads and streets per the consensus I had evaluated in the CFD I have cited. Otherwise, my preference is to keep roads and streets separated, like roads for intercity road transport and streets for intracity road transport. In fact, terms like Stroads would not appear if streets were considered a subset of roads. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 10:05, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
That's when you realize how limited your own English is. I've never heard or read the term stroads. --XRay💬 10:09, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
The problem is not with my own knowledge in a language (in this case, English), the problem is how we use certain words in that language. In India, you can find several streets named roads (e.g. Old City Road, Hyderabad, Jawaharlal Nehru Road, Dadabhai Naoroji Road). I came across the term Stroads when I was lurking around the subcategories of Roads and Streets. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 10:24, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
I had already suspected that. In the German language, there is no such separation in this form. I also had to read and understand the reference to the categories here. The linguistic diversity does cause some problems here. It reminds me of the term kindergarten, a foreign word in English, and the use of singular and plural. But not only is the word different, a kindergarten in Germany is different from a kindergarten in the USA.--XRay💬 10:36, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Good to read: en:RoadUnlike streets, whose primary function is to serve as public spaces, the main function of roads is transportation. --XRay💬 10:50, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
IMHO roads and streets as category name is good for the summary category - as today. Roads and streets should be a subcategory - as today. Stroads should be a subcategory of roads and (!) streets. This would also correspond to the usual division of categories here. Streets as a subcategory of roads and vice versa should be re-sorted appropriately. --XRay💬 10:29, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
If it were me I'd get rid of Stroads altogether since the term is just a pejorative slang word for a street with extra lanes (really, "stroads" are just boulevards without the trees, but that's beside the point). Plus it goes against the rule that "There should be one category per topic; multi-subject categories should be avoided. The category name should be unambiguous and not homonymous." What I'd do instead is create categories for roads and streets based on the number of lanes. Or really just move everything currently contained in Stroads to Boulevards since there's really difference except for the aforementioned trees or lack of them, but I don't think it matters as there's plenty of treeless boulevards out there. "Roads" and "streets" should be seperate categories though. --Adamant1 (talk) 12:03, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
"Stroads" is an obscure neologism that we should not use. "Streets and roads" is fine.
At least some of these changes have been rather strange, e.g. [2]. The streets in NY's Central Park are simply city streets that run through the park. Why would they be in a "roads" category rather than a "streets" category? - Jmabel ! talk 13:15, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
The closed CFD discussion had a consensus that Streets is a subset of Roads. Especially Auntof6 said, "Why are these categories named "roads and streets"? Isn't a street a type of road? Isn't this like the argument we had a while back to change "Buildings and structures" to just one or the other? The argument was that saying "buildings and structures" (and in this case, "roads and streets") is like saying "carrots and vegetables"." All other CFD participants agreed with them. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 13:31, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
i guess the length of this discussion may mean a cfd for "roads" or "streets" may be necessary.
having lived in 3 different countries with their own languages, i understand why the definitions can be so murky.
my suggestion: keep roads and streets separate, keep streets as a subcat of roads. some countries might not have the streets cat because of linguistic preferences, so let them be.
Road: a long, narrow stretch with a smoothed or paved surface, made for traveling by motor vehicle, carriage, etc., between two or more points.
Street: a public thoroughfare, usually paved, in a village, town, or city, including the sidewalk or sidewalks.
Highway: a main road, especially one between towns or cities.
This means that streets might be a subset of roads, although some users may argue otherwise. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 16:03, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Another possibility would be to use a system like OpenStreetMap there they define "highway=* is the main key used for identifying any kind of road, street or path". We could make the general Category:Ways the root category for all kind of roads, streets, paths, ways, highways or tracks. GPSLeo (talk) 16:45, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Yes this might be a good solution. So we might should suggest to name all these categories "Thoroughfares of", "Thoroughfares named after" or similar. The only problem is that thoroughfares would also include rail or water based transport. Maybe highway is better as enwiki states "A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land." The dewiki also states that highway is in the US the legal term for all public traffic areas. Therefore highway would be the root category for all vehicle land not rail transport and would be in the Category:Thoroughfares. Paths, Trails and Tracks would not be highways as they are not included in the definition of public traffic areas. GPSLeo (talk) 21:43, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
"Thoroughfares" is a pretty obscure word. I bet even a lot of native speakers don't know that word, or would not be quite sure what it means. - Jmabel ! talk 22:22, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
road is the most generic word. for example, all land transport except railways is known as road transport.
i dont see why cat:roads cannot serve as the parent cat. any country doesnt have roads but something else that people in other countries would call roads? RZuo (talk) 07:17, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
But I think roads only refers to vehicle based transport. Therefore transport by foot without a vehicle would not be covered by this term. GPSLeo (talk) 09:28, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
We'd still call it a "road" or "street" if it is on that scale, but closed to vehicular traffic.
The only vocabulary trickiness here I can think of is that alleys (not to be confused with the German Allee, quite different) are often not considered streets and possibly not roads. You'll definitely often here reference to the "streets and alleys" of a city. - Jmabel ! talk 12:04, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
It is interesting to see the effects of linguistic differences and national circumstances. My impression is that any interpretation of "road" or "street" ultimately does not create a universally valid solution. Ultimately, we can only decide on one solution, which will then (hopefully) be accepted, but will also contain errors. I was already confused in the USA with interstate, highway and freeway, I am not very surprised about the explanations for the situation in India and here in Germany I see things just as inconsistently. In Germany, we mainly have street names in urban areas. "Mainly" means that there are also such roads outside towns, there are entire settlements that have a street-like name, etc. Out-of-town roads (district roads, state roads, federal roads, highways, motorways) also run through villages. It would at least be great if we could find one (!) common generic term. --XRay💬 12:47, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
I also like the "thoroughfares" idea. I'm sure you can find many different definitions for streets and roads, and you can find as many different examples of things called "street" or "road" that don't match those definitions. That's true in any one country, let alone around the whole world. Moreover, not too many things are named "X thoroughfare" so we'll avoid much confusion on that level. - Themightyquill (talk) 08:23, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
I was just about to make the same suggestion: thoroughfare (Q83620). This includes walkways, bikeways, paths, roundabouts, streets, roads, interchanges, and so on. --XRay💬 08:46, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
In US areas I have been in, I have also seen ways, "Boulevard" names, boulevards, avenues, places, squares, an "Esplanade" name, esplanades, circles, drives, courts, walks, rights of way, ramps, entrances, exits, piers, wharves, crossings, landings, expressways, extensions, centers, plazas, skyways, terraces, tunnels, overpasses, underpasses, and even an "Ocean" name (One Atlantic Ocean is a pier in Atlantic City, NJ). These are overlaid with designations and alignments such as county roads, highways, parkways, pikes, turnpikes, thruways or throughways, state routes, US routes (part of the en:United States Numbered Highway System), Interstates (part of the en:Interstate Highway System), bus routes, train routes. The United States Postal Service maintains a list of their abbreviations here. Then there are the rues in Montreal, Quebec, Canada (and probably other places in Quebec). Many of them descended from paths made by horse-drawn buggies, and before them by livestock. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 13:22, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
Thoroughfares already exists, but it's not complete. (See above, RZuo.) There is a lot of works to rename/remove all the "roads and streets" categories, but it's a good solution. --XRay💬 08:52, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
I found 71 categories with "roads and streets" (Search: Category: intitle:/roads and streets/). --XRay💬 08:54, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
I think most categories are just named streets but also contain images of roads or other transportation infrastructure. GPSLeo (talk) 09:00, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
Excluding category redirects, I found over 1,000 categories with "roads and streets" (search query: Category: intitle:/Roads and streets/ -hastemplate:"Category redirect"). --Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 18:00, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
IMO it is not necessary to change the categories with "named after". Next step of search: Category: intitle:/roads and streets/i -intitle:/Roads and streets (in .*? )?named after/ -hastemplate:"Category redirect". --XRay💬 19:15, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure "thoroughfare" works. At least in the United States it insinuates a main road going through a town that forms a route between two places. Well there are many back (or country) roads that don't fit that. Including agricultural and forest service roads. I don't think it's necessarily workable to sort categories for roads based on if they are "main" roads, back roads, country roads, serve agricultural or forest service purposes, Etc. Etc. either. OpenStreetMap's highway tag barely manages to organize most types of roads into the same schema and it only really works in a small a portion of Europe. That's even to account for how roads are classified outside of the United States and Europe either. Really everything should be a sub-category of "roads" and just call it good there. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:16, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
So you would be fine if for example this would be categorized as "road"? I would also not categorize this as "thoroughfare" as the dewiki article linked on Wikidata refers to "Verkehrsweg" as the term for official public transportation infrastructure what this trail is not. It is an official trail but not in terms of the road law. GPSLeo (talk) 20:59, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
I'd consider that a path and images of paths would probably best in their own category scheme separate from roads. Roads usually have an "improved surface" though. Whatever that means, but it wouldn't include what's essentially an improvised primitive trail. You might say whatever this is would qualify as a road. But then I don't think places with wood slats above a surface to make it more easily crossable counts as an "improved surface" or therefore a "road." Anymore then you'd call some branches laid across a creek so it can be crossed more easily a road or even call some stepping stones one. Again maybe a path, probably a trail, but a road? No. --Adamant1 (talk) 21:30, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
Okay, paths are no subclass of roads. But how to name the common category of roads and paths? GPSLeo (talk) 21:42, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
Don't. Just keep them separate. Confine roads to "improved surfaces" for vehicle traffic (I.E. compacted surfaces like gravel and paved roads) and anything below that to paths and/trails. There's some more fuzzy classifications there for sure, like compacted dirt track roads, but that's the simplest way to do it IMO regardless. Realistically I don't think any IRL outside of OpenStreetMap would classify that as a road anyway. I know where I live it would just be a path. Although we don't really have "track roads" to begin with, but that's besides the point. --Adamant1 (talk) 21:57, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
So you would be fine if for example this would be categorized as "road"? In northwestern Montana it would probably have a state highway number. But, more seriously, that looks more like a trail or footpath than anything I'd want to call a road, thoroughfare, or whatever.
I notice someone has started changing things to "thoroughfare". I really don't think that's a good choice, especially because (like "road") it connotes something with a lot of traffic. I personally would be fine with "streets and roads" even though it's not the way we usually do things. The vocabulary is complicated here, including as you move around the English-speaking world. I could also live with just "roads", because technically a street is a type of road, but it "feels weird": at least in the U.S., in any thickly settled area, "road" suggests something major. I can't imagine asking an urban dweller in the U.S., "what road to you live on?" - Jmabel ! talk 04:11, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
That means, Roads and streets would act better as an umbrella category than Thoroughfares. However, I had subscribed to the "thoroughfare" idea because both roads and streets can be defined as thoroughfares. I had previously cited the Dictionary.com definition of a street ("a public thoroughfare, usually paved, in a village, town, or city, including the sidewalk or sidewalks"). You can exclude walking infrastructure like Paths and Walkways from thoroughfares, as they are not subjects of vehicular traffic. I have included them mainly for convenient purposes. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 04:22, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
The probably with that, I.E. making "thoroughfare" as the top level category for both streets and roads, is the whole "including the sidewalk or sidewalks" part of your definition since not all roads have a sidewalk, obviously. So you can't make Category:Roads as a child of Category:Throughfares. I guess we could just ignore that, but then there's other problems with "throughfare" being the top level category as well. For instance like I think I've already pointed out it insinuates a main road that goes from one place to another. Again as I think I've pointed out already, along the lines boulevard. Yet many roads and streets are not main throughfares. Plus they often have end points. If you want to argue a "throughfare" can end, cool. But I'd point out the word "through" in throughfare, as in "moving in one side and out of the other side." So roads or streets that end inherently can't be throughfares. And yes I'm aware that the word is technically "thorough" but it has the same connotation as "through" lol. --Adamant1 (talk) 07:36, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
Comment I just added two colons to your contribution because you added two wrong categories to the village pump page by their omission. -- Robert Flogaus-Faust 10:27, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
"Thoroughfares" is not a solution for everything. But it is a better alternative to many categories with "roads and streets" (such as "Quality images of roads and streets") and a much better alternative than "roads" as an umbrella category. --XRay💬 08:54, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
At the end of the day I could probably live with it as a parent category for roads, but it really doesn't fit with streets. There's no reason roads and streets have to be in the same parent category either. --Adamant1 (talk) 09:02, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, "thoroughfares" may not fit well with streets, but both Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster define a street as a thoroughfare. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 09:09, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
I could easily find other places that don't define streets using the word thoroughfare and I've already pointed out the word insinuates a through road. So I don't think just defaulting to dictionary.com's definition is a good or valid way to do this. Otherwise what makes it more legitimate then other sources except that the definition fits your personal opinion? I don't think that's how we usually choose category names either BTW. There's no reason we can't come up with something that is widely used, fits for both roads and streets, and satisfies most (if not all) people in the conversation though. --Adamant1 (talk) 09:26, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
Please have a look to en:Thoroughfare. IMO it fits well for roads, streets and a lot of more. But you're right, there are differences. It's more road than street. (In German it's easier, it's all "Straße". Or more common "Weg". ;-) ) --XRay💬 10:24, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
The more I look into the subject, the more difficult it becomes. There are so many differences between the linguistic and national situation in German-speaking and English-speaking countries alone that a sensible, uniform solution for commons seems impossible. The best uniform solution currently seems to me to be "transportation network" - which will hopefully also include the dead ends. --XRay💬 10:34, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
... or "transport infrastructure". --XRay💬 10:41, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
Because of the problems with the use of the term Thoroughfares, I am no longer subscribing to its idea. Instead, I would like to restore the Roads and streets category, which would include all the non-rail land structures used by land vehicles or pedestrians (roads, streets, stroads, alleys, paths, walkways etc.). Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 15:14, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
One other thing I want to remind everyone of, and not just for this particular set of categories: Categories are about helping people find stuff, using terms they are likely to use and understand. It is not intended to be ontologically pure, though it's nice when it can be. - Jmabel ! talk 22:00, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
i just noticed that if you are not logged in and want to create a new page, you will see a message, which i think is produced by MediaWiki:Newarticletextanon. it seems the box (produced by Template:Anon-warning-no-edit?) only has english and a handful of other languages. we need to translate it, but i dont know how. RZuo (talk) 16:16, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
@RZuo: Editing in the MediaWiki namespace is restricted to Interface Admins, but they don't have their own noticeboard yet, so use COM:AN. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 04:25, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
NH state seal.
File:Seal of New Hampshire.svg The NH state seal is licensed on Wikimedia Commons as "public domain". However, there is a NH state law which states that No person shall manufacture, sell, expose for sale, or have in possession for sale any article or substance, being an article of merchandise or receptacle of merchandise or article or thing for carrying or transporting merchandise, or sell, expose for sale, give away, or have in possession for sale or to give away or for any purpose any article or thing to advertise or promote services, upon which shall have been printed, painted, attached, or otherwise placed a representation or likeness of the state seal
This is concerning because "Whoever violates the provisions of RSA 3:9-a shall be guilty of a misdemeanor if a natural person, or guilty of a felony if any other person" — Preceding unsigned comment added by A.FLOCK (talk • contribs) 06:35, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
Same with images of currency, non-copyright restrictions. You must follow the law, but that has nothing to do with copyright. --RAN (talk) 00:07, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
Looking for source of St george.png image
Hello, I'm looking for the source (exact page) of this image of a St George knight. The image description says "Vies de Saints (BNF Richelieu Manuscrits Français 185)." I checked this manuscript« La Legende des Sains » [de JACQUES DE VORAGINE], traduction de « JEHAN BELET », but I can't find it. Does anyone know the exact source (page)? -Artanisen (talk) 01:35, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for your help HyperGaruda. So the information was incorrect since 21 August 2016. Dbachmann should be notified that he or she shouldn't add incorrect source data. -Artanisen (talk) 12:03, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
The fact that the package is transparent may contribute to a determination of COM:DM, since you could argue that this is a photograph of the mashed yam, while the graphics are just part of the package. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 10:10, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
I see your point. Thank you for the tip. --トトト (talk) 14:44, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
Most of it being simple text probably helps. It's really only the small diagram of the box - which is so simple that there's at least a question as to if it passes Threshhold of Originality - and the picture of the yam (Which probably does pass Threhold of Originality, but is a very small part of te image) that are at all problematic. Adam Cuerden (talk) 22:59, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
I think what little here is copyrightable is de minimis. I'd say "keep". - Jmabel ! talk 01:51, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Threshold of originality : does creator or uploader localisation matters ?
Hello all,
I, an user based in France, recently uploaded a few French institutions logos based on their lack of originality. The visuals were created in France. The copyright holders are French public institutions.
But I'm realizing that Commons:Threshold of originality (TOO) does not states if I —a French user uploading from France— and my uploads —designs created in French juridiction— can be shared using USA-based legal copyright logic. Should my upload logic be based on the design's national juridiction (therein, France copyright laws and interpretations) ? Do we have some clarification on this ? Are there some users with proper comparative law or legal know how to enlighten us on this ? Hugo en résidence (talk) 09:56, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
We generally do not care about the country of the uploader or of the creator of the specific file (e.g. if a user decides to recreate a logo as an SVG). What matters is the country of the organization that the logo is meant to represent. Here this distinction is not important since it's all France. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 10:07, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
My understanding is an upload must be a free image in both the country of origin (e.g., France) AND the US (because the servers are in the US). That can give rise to some anomalies. The foreign country and the US may have different post-mortem copyright expiration dates. The countries may have different thresholds of originality. For example, the UK recognizes sweat of the brow and has a very low TOO, so an image might be below TOO/free in the US but not in the UK; Commons would not allow the image. Countries also have different freedom of panorama laws. For example, The Louvre Pyramid is not a free image on Commons because France does not have freedom of panorama even though the US does. Glrx (talk) 16:20, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
@King of Hearts and Glrx: thank you. I believe the logos I uploaded are clearlycopyleft below TOO in US, and arguablycopyleft below TOO in France. Moreover, there are from public institutions, so I feel « ok » to take responsibility for this upload under PD licence on the basis of {{PD-textlogo}} and French laws. I also did so in the context of my mission within local public institution University of Toulouse. I hoped USA's servers' more tolerant juridiction would take precedence, but this is ok as well. Hugo en résidence (talk) 16:40, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
@Hugo en résidence: they are pretty clearly not "copyleft" (rights deliberately released under a free license) unless there is some evidence of that which hasn't been presented. However, they are probably below the threshold of originality for copyright. - Jmabel ! talk 01:56, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
@Jmabel: , thank for the distinction. I'm editing-correcting it in my former text. Hugo en résidence (talk) 07:52, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
"The" or "the"
Hello, following this discussion in my talk page, since I am not a native speaker in English I raise here the topic: when writing the name of a musical act which name begins with "The" (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones), I have always known (since school) that the article must not be capitalised unless it's the first word of a phrase after a full stop. Accordingly, I named the categories, "Members of the Beatles", "Members of the Rolling Stones" and so on. I just want to know whether i am tuned with the rest of the community because the user Bricks&Wood thinks differently. Thanks -- Blackcat 19:23, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
@Bricks&Wood: Sadly, it's not so. Commons is not reference for itself, and it doesn't honour anything. When the article is the first word of the phrase is ALWAYS capitalised. You made the wrong example. Nowhere in the press "the" before the group's name is capitalised when it's not the first word of a phrase. -- Blackcat 00:14, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
I already remarked at User talk:Blackcat before discovering this discussion here, but will repeat for broader audience (and more succinctly).
It seems that the consensus in the end is that when "the" is part of the name, it is only capitalized at the beginning of a sentence: en:Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Music#Names (definite article). We should probably follow that, even if it goes against my gut. - Jmabel ! talk 02:19, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
i agree with Bricks&Wood. i dont think it's a wise practice to force certain nobody's "manual of style" onto real-world people's official names.
that is, if they do it all caps, we do all caps; if all lower case, we lower case; etc. "The" is no exception.
the only exception is mediawiki's technical limit of capitalising the first char, so we cant have iPhone, eBay...--RZuo (talk) 12:25, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
If the band has been consistent, yes, we should follow them. Have they been? - Jmabel ! talk 16:13, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Philip Mould Picture Archive
The pictures of historic paintings at the newly-online Philip Mould Picture Archive website (Mould is a well-known commercial art dealer) are not generally available elsewhere. There are some with non-free frames, and some still in copyright. Nor is the resolution high, sadly. Nonetheless, it would be useful to harvest what can from the site, and to add metadata to Wikidata. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:37, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
Another Upload Wizard issue
I aborted a batch of uploads of my own photos just now. Since the last time I uploaded anything of mine, Upload Wizard was apparently reconfigured to only allow me to mark them with a CC 4.0 license. I'd rather use the license I've been using and migrate them when I've had the opportunity to familiarize myself with the differences between the two. Any suggestions besides trying to force me to do things this way? I can assure you that I'll take my time and talents elsewhere before I comply with that.RadioKAOS (talk) 03:22, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for sharing your concerns. Could you let me know which license you prefer to use for your uploads? This will help me in understanding your needs better and in finding a suitable solution.- Udehb-WMF (talk) 13:13, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
@RadioKAOS: You can use VFC promptly after uploading to change the license, with an edit summary indicating that the original license was in error. If you haven't done this to whatever was already uploaded, I strongly recommend doing so. - Jmabel ! talk 16:16, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
@Udehb-WMF: It looks like they were previously using the CC-BY-SA-3.0 Unported license.[3]Nosferattus (talk) 21:04, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
@Udehb-WMF: Frankly, I think limiting the UploadWizard to the current CC licenses for own work is a good thing. It makes the process more streamlined and less confusing. Plus the 4.0 CC licenses are a huge improvement over the 3.0 licenses. Nosferattus (talk) 16:29, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
We are dangerously close to 100 million files--how should we celebrate?
I took a look in the archives and didn't see any discussion, so sorry if I missed it. We are very close to 100 million files and for those of us who don't understand how orders of magnitude work, this is the last "nice, round number" we'll hit for a long time. I propose that we should have some special designation on the front page for this and celebrate all of the hard work that everyone has put into making such a huge repository of free media. Thoughts? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:39, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
And ignore the persistent "quantity over quality" issues that our limited pool of editors haven't been able to even scratch the surface on correcting, some going back many years? As I pointed out recently, it was all spin when en.wp put all the emphasis on edit count instead of article count during the 20th anniversary, because 6 million articles is dick all to brag about when you look at it realistically.RadioKAOS (talk) 03:15, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
As the saying goes, one mans junk is another mans treasure. Although there is a lot of low quality stuff on here that should really be dealt with somehow in the long-term. But 100 million files is still a huge accomplishment regardless. It would be cool if nothing else there was at least a special barnstar or something that could be given to whomever uploads the 100 millionth file. That's really my only suggestion though. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:53, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
I'd worry that the lucky number would end up going to a file that's unsuitable for Commons (like a selfie or copyvio), boring (like a file in a batch import), or something that would be awkward to call out (like a company logo or an image of something unpleasant). Omphalographer (talk) 18:55, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
The 100 millionth file will only be a guess, when taking into account the thousands of files deleted daily. So we can choose whatever suits the purpose. Yann (talk) 10:35, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
Yes it is impossible to say what file is the number 100.000.000. The file with the id 100.000.000 exists since February 2021 File:1973 Gedenktag 2020 zum 9. November auf dem Platz Bornplatzsynagoge im Grindelviertel in Hamburg.jpg. I would suggest that we use this number to discuss a redesign of our main page. We should change the links in the "Highlights" section to actual galleries and also replace the "Content" section as the category links are not reasonable usable. GPSLeo (talk) 11:21, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea. --Adamant1 (talk) 04:02, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
I will add a "Woohoo!" and raise a container of my favorite beverage. A banner under the logo would be nice. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 04:07, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Idea : onboard 200 news admins, potentially diving from old admins without recorded blocks. That could help to clean up. Hugo en résidence (talk) 09:52, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
why dangerous? :D
also if you can, please leave a note at Commons talk:Commons Gazette when the number reaches 100mil. then i can include the news.--RZuo (talk) 12:25, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Woohoo! @RZuo, please take note. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 03:51, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
yeah. it's been 7009 days since the start. RZuo (talk) 09:02, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
It seems we reached the 100 millionth file around 19:52 UTC[1] (Is IA time UTC? I am not sure.). Did anyone try to locate a good candidate around that time? Yann (talk) 12:53, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
Comment On German wikipedia, they report that this image was the 100M'th. --A.Savin 18:16, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
Hmm. Not very sexy. One could find something better marketing-wise. ;o) And this is probably not in the public domain in USA. Yann (talk) 16:31, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
Expand 400 character limit for strings in Data namespace
I ran into a 400 character limit for strings in JSON files in the Data namespace. I need room for larger strings. More information at Help:Tabular Data#Data types. Can this character limit be increased? Heyzeuss (talk) 21:29, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
@Heyzeuss: One problem with having large character limits for strings in the Data namespace is that editors will potentially start including text that is copyrighted. Can you provide more information about your use case and why you need to include strings longer than 400 characters? Nosferattus (talk) 16:38, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
I'm transcribing the table of contents for a book over at Wikisource. Each chapter in the table of contents has a description that is roughly paragraph-sized, and some of them exceed the 400 character limit. You're right about the copyright issue, but the editors at Wikisource are particular about what authors have been dead for 75-100 years, depending on jurisdiction. There is plenty of public domain text at Wikisource that could be utilized in the form of tabular data, that has strings far exceeding 400 characters. Heyzeuss (talk) 19:59, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
I would say that a TOC should never include such a large text. Just shorten it and include the original one on the page for the section text itself. The catalogs of libraries even shorten the title of books if they are to long. GPSLeo (talk) 20:35, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
That's true, but we're transcribing the text from the pages of old books, including the pages with tables of contents. In that situation, we can't truncate the chapter descriptions. Another thing is that they have lists of sub-sections in each chapter. There are other potential uses for long strings, like entries in old dictionaries and encyclopedias. Heyzeuss (talk) 10:11, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
@Heyzeuss: Thanks for providing more information. I'm afraid I don't understand, however, why any of these use cases would be in the Data namespace. The Data namespace is for tabular data (for creating graphs, tables, and maps), not transcription projects, which are better suited to the Page namespace. Can you elaborate on what you're trying to accomplish? Nosferattus (talk) 16:50, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
One problem with transcribing a printed text is that each row in the table of contents has to be styled with css. This requires wrapping each row in a template, which is by itself work-intensive. We usually employ some level of automation with our text editors and spreadsheets, but this is clumsy and not ideal. At Wikisource, we format the text so that the e-books at look as much like their printed sources as possible. Tables of contents are also formatted so that each row has the same appearance on the page. The page numbers are also given hyperlinks. Each row has a chapter number, description, and page number. With this information, the editor will typically make a spreadsheet to ensure that each row is styled the same and also to ensure that each row has a hyperlink. Besides the transcribed table of contents, an auxiliary table of contents is also made to better accommodate digital devices. This is also typically produced on the editor's own local computer with ad-hoc scripting.
Another problem, aside from tables of contents, is the transclusion of transcribed text from the page namespace into the main namespace. Each page of a printed text is transcribed into a page in the page namespace. Each page from a chapter is then concatenated into a chapter in the main namespace. Each chapter is a wiki page in the main namespace. This concatenation is accomplished by adding a line of html to each chapter, with attributes that define a range of page numbers. Like "from=125 to=136". Have a look at an example. This information is usually retrieved by copying and pasting from a spreadsheet, line-by-line, for each chapter, which is slow, and also subject to copying-and-pasting errors. There are faster and more reliable ways to automate the task.
Wikisource has other kinds of texts that can benefit from more elegant transcription automation. There are dictionaries, thesauruses, encyclopedias, nature catalogs, like bird catalogs. Instead of copying and pasting from spreadsheets for these various tasks, a better solution would Lua modules and tabular data, right on Wikimedia servers.
@Heyzeuss: Ah, I understand now! You want to use the Data namespace as a DIY input interface for software that automates creating Wikisource content. While this is a pretty brilliant idea, it's not quite what the Data namespace was intended for. I remember a while back there was a proposal to create something like a Wikisource Wizard (maybe at the Community Wishlist Survey). I wonder if something like that would be a better solution. But of course that would require waiting on new software from the WMF, which I imagine you would prefer to avoid. I like your creative thinking, but I'm not convinced this would be an appropriate use of the Data namespace on Commons. Maybe others would disagree though. I also imagine you would eventually run up against other limitations, like the need for linebreaks and other special characters. While Wikitext is a pain, I still think it's the best solution for what you're doing. Plus, I can only imagine the frustration of the poor editor that wants to fix a typo in the table of contents only to spend half an hour tracking it down in this hypothetical system. Nosferattus (talk) 21:38, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
I've thought about other ways, like entering the entire JSON (or equivalent) as an argument in a TOC template. In that way, the editable content would be accessible to Joe Editor. The data could conceivably go on the index page. A version of the TOC is added there, anyway. If only that could be accessible to other parts of the system. Right now I'm trying to make a transclusion template where it looks up the page range from the chapter number in {{SUBPAGENAME}}. It's using a .tab file in Commons that doesn't have the long chapter descriptions. Heyzeuss (talk) 22:22, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
@Nosferattus: Page namespace on Commons is actually new to me, and I'm an admin. How is this intended to differ from main space / gallery space? - Jmabel ! talk 18:51, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
I was actually referring to the Page namespace on Wikisource. Nosferattus (talk) 21:25, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
"Page:" isn't a namespace on Commons; those pages just have names which start with "Page:". The two pages under that prefix both look out of place and should probably be deleted. Omphalographer (talk) 04:57, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
I renamed them. Yann (talk) 16:50, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
100,000,000 files
Thank you to everyone. GMGtalk 15:44, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
No banner or celebration of any kind? RoquexMessages 14:51, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
We need to find the 100 millionth file first. The current proposal is a bad idea (see above). Yann (talk) 16:43, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
Map needs fixing
Is anyone going to fix this map? It existed for 3 years in tact
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Shekishek (talk • contribs) 06:31, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
Hi, just add a description that the file compares the early state with the borders of 2021, and nothing in the image needs to be fixed. --Enyavar (talk) 14:38, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
Though I am not sure what Shekishek thinks needs fixing, I see a few points of improvement:
the world map inset has some weirdly shaped continents
that green box should probably just be a green outline instead of completely filled in
why are Lebanon and northeast Pakistan blue like the sea? --HyperGaruda (talk) 16:55, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
If it is needed, should we not add it to all our other images which also have equivalents on Alamy? Or are these two images somehow unique in that requirement? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:44, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
Courtesy ping @SchroCat: as the other involved editor. I've added further detail to the first image and then removed the Alamy link from both images. Both files have a clear justification for being in the Public Domain (though I doubt the claim that the second image wasn't published before 2003 - it names the original publisher in the bottom left corner). Adding another site's assessment about the file's status when the PD justification is so clear is redundant and will just confuse reusers about how trustworthy our assessments are when we don't refer to Alamy. From Hill To Shore (talk) 18:01, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
For the second image, I have removed the incorrect claim of the image not being published before 2003. This is for 3 reasons. 1) This is a lithograph (as noted on the bottom right of the image) and lithography is a publication technique. 2) The image includes the publisher's identity and the lithographer is recorded as d:Q52506851. 3) Even if we assume the image had a single unique copy (no publication) in the 19th century, it was copied to microfilm and shared with the Library of Congress in the 1960s (making 1968 the last possible date of publication). From Hill To Shore (talk) 18:32, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
Should this be deleted?
This image and its extracted images appear to originate from a YouTube debate, and would not qualify as free/Creative Commons. It would be more appropriate if the screenshots of each individual were uploaded on Wikipedia as 'fair use', no? Zenomonoz (talk) 05:49, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
I notice a fair number of photos directly in this category. Surely we do not want to open that can of worms ("Oh, look, a color photograph! That make 39,456,851 of those!"). Perhaps move some good representative examples to a gallery page and make a policy the photographs do not belong directly in this category? - Jmabel ! talk 19:05, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
Just as Category:Photography is for media about photography itself, not for every photograph, Category:Color photography should be reserved for media about the process of color photography, not for all color photos. I've started removing some images from the category which clearly don't belong. Omphalographer (talk) 20:37, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
Omphalographer, I fully agree with your approach. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 23:19, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
It's questionable anything in the category has to do with the "process" of color photography in the first place. "Processing" images maybe, but not the "process" of color photography and there's already better categories out there. For instance the RGB color model is a general thing related to image processing. Not photography per say. So it shouldn't be in Category:Color photography to begin with. Category:Chromatic aberration also happens with videos. So it shouldn't be in the category either. Same goes for, which is related to processing images in general, not just photographs. Really, there doesn't seem to be a point in the category to begin with if not to use it as a place to organize color photos. --Adamant1 (talk) 23:34, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
There's also Dufaycolor Film. So like the other things, a Dufay Color Matrix isn't confined purely to photography. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:36, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
We had a a pretty long discussion here about the categorization of village names in the area once known as Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (and later known interchangeably as the Republic of Karabakh/Artsakh) last month. Since Azerbaijan ethnically cleansed the area, there has been a lot of activity here in the sub to delete all of the Armenian category names of the settlements and replace them with Azeri names only. We have other areas where multiple names are used, and I think in this region it will be important to keep both names as well. In the case of many of the villages, they have (and continue) to be written about mainly using the Armenian names. We have examples of Catalon/Spanish names coexisting such as Category:Donostia-San Sebastián, old and new names coexisting, such as Constantinople and Istanbul (as totally separate categories), and I am okay with either solution, or with just having both an Armenian settlement name category and an Azeri one coexisting side by side for all the settlements of the former Nagorno-Karabakh region, and have them categorized into their regional categories as well. I know most of the users/world do not care so much about this region, but simply for the practical value of storing and finding information by users, both readers and uploaders of content, this solution is important, and considering there are alternate arrangements whenever it seems helpful, I see no reason why this solution wouldn't be quite helpful here. --RaffiKojian (talk) 04:44, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
You're rehashing the same argument. In the previous thread, several users, including an admin, explained why it's impractical to have two or more separate names in a category title. We were close to reaching a reasonable agreement until you went back to your old stance of using multiple names in a single category title. Please stop wasting the community's time. — Goldentalk 05:40, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
That's nice you consider this a waste of time, while spending so much of your time erasing all of the Armenian village names. But the fact is that here we have other solutions for special cases which accommodate multiple names, and others chimed into the conversation stating as much and sharing the opinion that they agree to keep the Armenian names, and you conveniently ignored that and then just dove back into the erasures. I believe there is a solution to be found that would help the majority of users working in these categories find things, which is the very reason for categorization, and I think it's to double-up on settlement name categories - one in Azerbaijani and one in Armenian transliteration. A simple, elegant solution that would serve users regardless which language they know the name of the settlement in. RaffiKojian (talk) 19:24, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
Hello Golden, you are a native speaker of Azerbaijiani, the country who recently took the area by military force. As a Wikimedia user with no consensus backing your wished migration you may want to sit this one out, delegate that decision to the Commons community and freeze your categories moves. Seeing Azerbaijiani users press for renaming this early will be perceive as brutal, possibly nationalism bigoterie and online harassment. We have nothing to gain from such rush.
Same for RaffiKojian, I encourage you to take some distances with this topic. Hugo en résidence (talk) 17:08, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
I have not moved any category with an Armenian name to an Azerbaijani one since the first discussion where it was first contested. However, I still find your statement problematic. Being Azerbaijani or Armenian does not inherently make us unable to contribute constructively to topics about our own region. Asking Azerbaijanis and Armenians to distance themselves from a topic that is literally about their countries doesn't sit right with me. — Goldentalk 18:08, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
Two things to start:
I will echo Golden's statement that one's ability to speak a language (or one's own nationality) should not be used as a means by which to disregard someone's argument. If Golden's argument is bad, then explain why it's bad; don't go after the person for being born in a particular place.
With respect to delegate that decision to the Commons community, I don't see a reason why Golden should be excluded from these sorts of discussions. The user is no SPA; Golden has thousands of contributions here and has contributed (among other things) a ton of original images depicting land now controlled by Azerbaijan. These have even included images of Armenian Christian churches, including but not limited to:
I think that Golden may well have a reasonable interest in these sorts of categorization conversations if, based upon nothing else, the sorts of images the user uploads. Just as any user in good standing on Commons can participate in these sorts of categorization discussions, so too can Golden.
It does very much look like Golden stopped boldly moving category names after it was objected to. It's perfectly possible to nominate a set of categories for discussion if we want a broad, centralized discussion on what to do with these redirects. There's clearly still disagreement between users about how to handle this, so a structured and centralized discussion at the appropriate board would probably be a good thing going forward. — Red-tailed hawk(nest) 04:49, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, I will take the discussion there. By the way I also have added photos of Azeri sites such as the Mausoleum in Mamedbeyli and the Azeri cemetery in Tsar, and I have fully credited them to Azeris/Azerbaijan - without leaving them completely out of the names or descriptions (I don't deserve a prize for this, I'm just point it out here since it seems relevant). I think that Golden's massive recategorization of such a sensitive region without discussion, and then for example immediately renaming a category I just created with the reasoning that it "breaks consistency"... with the naming system he had just implemented, and then asking for consensus, never having asked for such a thing himself so far as I can tell, didn't seem especially right. But as I said, I'll take this discussion where you suggested. RaffiKojian (talk) 20:55, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Warning message for images transferred from Flickr marked as public domain
Hi, I recently transferred a number of images from Flickr that are marked by their author (not me) as "public domain", using the Flickr-to-Commons tool. After transfer, FlickreviewR 2 bot marked them as lacking licensing information; see this example. This is the first time I've come across this. My rough understanding of this community decision is that Flickr files marked this way are indeed acceptable and that the appropriate license template should be Template:PDMark-owner. Am I correct? Should I be simply replacing the warning messages with that template? Thanks in advance for any clarifications. R Prazeres (talk) 20:32, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
@R Prazeres: The mere fact that it is marked with the "PD mark" doesn't tell us on what basis it is public domain, so you need to pick a specific Commons template (and, yes, {{PDMark-owner}} is correct in this case). But we can't automate that: imagine if (for example) it had been a 19th-century photo of the same scene. - Jmabel ! talk 20:50, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Ah ok, so the PD mark isn't specific enough at the source, but if I manually add {{PDMark-owner}} myself, then there's no further problem? (Just double-checking I'm not doing anything inappropriate.) R Prazeres (talk) 20:55, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
I've added the template in the meantime, assuming I didn't misunderstand anything (if I did, I can revert those edits). Thanks for the response. R Prazeres (talk) 21:27, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
@R Prazeres: Actually, not quite right, and you shouldn't be reviewing your own upload (I think you are not a license reviewer -- correct me if I'm wrong -- and even those who are don't review their own uploads). I've fixed it for the one you linked above. If you list others you did this way, I can fix those, too (just give me a list). Next time, just leave these alone, and a license reviewer will get to them in good time. - Jmabel ! talk 23:42, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Ah damn, my apologies. I will note that for the future. It was a mass transfer of 100+ files so it would take too long to list them here individually, but they can be found in my upload history: they are the uploads from 19:18, 20 November 2023 to 19:22, 20 November 2023. All the file names starting with the number "20230914".
If it's safer/simpler in the meantime, I can revert my edits, leaving the files to be reviewed later. Let me know what's best. Thanks again for taking time to respond. R Prazeres (talk) 00:09, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
@R Prazeres: Reverting is probably best, and they'll eventually be done by the people who usually do this. Not something I usually do; I'd have been glad to take on a dozen or so, but 100+ should probably be left to people where this is their focus. - Jmabel ! talk 02:45, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Alright, done. Cheers, R Prazeres (talk) 04:26, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for your congratulation Foeniz (talk) 22:40, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
How can I get rid of parent Category:Tools in country X in the template of Category:Research institutes in country X?
The template {{topic in country|research institutes}} (Template:Topic in country) automatically generates some parent categories, one of them is Category:Tools in country X (see for instance Category:Research institutes in the Netherlands). But I think it is nonsense that a research institute is called a tool, so I would like remove that parent. How/where can I do so? JopkeB (talk) 06:02, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
User:bjh21: Thanks a lot for your research and answer. I'll first contact Josh before I change the template. JopkeB (talk) 04:43, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
Done Removed 'tools' from 'research institutes' parent parameters (not rightly sure why it was there in the first place). Josh (talk) 18:21, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks! JopkeB (talk) 04:49, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --JopkeB (talk) 04:49, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
the FOP rules are from distinct copyright laws of countries or unrecognized territories (e.g. Taiwan, Crimea, Abkhazia); cities typically do not have their own copyright laws
not useful to track for future undeletion because the subcategories are not specific to one or two architects/artists
all case pages are ultimately categorized under "Category:Ukrainian FOP cases/deleted / kept / pending", making these three city-specific subcats redundant.
I think we create subcat for Donetsk and Luhansk because Russia has the de facto control in these two oblasts. There may be a chance that these two oblasts follows the Russian copyright law instead of the Ukrainian copyright law, just like Crimea. Right now, these two oblasts is still using the Ukrainian copyright law. I have no objections in deleting these categories, regards. --A1Cafel (talk) 04:29, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
I think it good to make subcategories by cities if many deletion requests exists in FoP cases category. Ox1997cow (talk) 10:04, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
@Ox1997cow too much subcategories, which already conceal the real total number of deletion requests that may be needed for some Wikimedians to make decisions or lobbying movements for FoP introduction. The quantity of deletion requests should encourage more Wikimedians to try to make efforts in FoP introduction. JWilz12345(Talk|Contrib's.) 11:22, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
There might be some use for the Donetsk / Luhansk categories, though I'm not sure how much. I don't see any use for the Kyiv category. --Rosenzweigτ 17:05, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
Should there be a new type of categorie? In hot sunny southern Spain it is not easy to maintain a good looking grass. But can these stil be considered a grass-covered tram track. I disaprove of these type of coverings (better use drough resistant plants), but this is not relevant.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:48, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
@Smiley.toerist: That's not real grass, for sure. It's either a green carpet or green painted concrete (or some other paving material). I don't think these categories are correct. DarwinAhoy! 13:18, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
Hi, Jmabel. First, thanks a lot for monitoring and picking it up. I was trying to club pictures of persons / users under one single category by the person's name / Username. I wasn't aware that this goes against the naming conventions or can create any issue for other categories. I appreciate you highlighting that. Please go ahead and delete the categories which you find violating the standards. Please feel free to share any other feedbacks / tips for more insights on this. --Chinmayee 11:32, 22 November 2023 (UTC)Chinmayee 08:09, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
@Chinmayee Mishra: Great, I'll do that then. By the way, you really ought to have a link back to your user page in your signature (and probably talk page as well), otherwise someone reading your posts doesn't know what account they came from without reading the page history. - Jmabel ! talk 20:09, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Arabic/Persian/Urdu and Chinese/Japanese help needed
Toward the bottom of https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:UncategorizedCategories&limit=500&offset=2500 are a fair number of parentless categories with names in Chinese ideographs/Japanese Kanji, and a bit above that several in the Arabic alphabet. We need someone who can make sense of these to help with cleanup (hook into category tree, nominate for deletion, whatever makes most sense). I can't really take these on myself because I am effectively illiterate in the relevant writing systems (a tiny bit of Japanese, but not enough to be useful).
Also similar issues for smaller numbers of parentless categories in some other writing systems (Hangul, some Indic languages, etc.). If you read any script that is not used somewhere in Europe, you are likely to be able to help out with some tasks here that might otherwise languish indefinitely; please do have a look. - Jmabel ! talk 01:31, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
i will do some cjk ones.--RZuo (talk) 09:50, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
User:Jeff G. and I recently revived a long-moribund discussion about the wording of this template at Template talk:PD-AR-Photo#Public domain in US. The two of us are in consensus on a wording, and I've pinged the people who had discussed it previously in hopes that the will agree with that proposal. Would anyone with an opinion please weigh in within seven days so that this discussion does not go stale again, and can be driven to a conclusion? Thanks. - Jmabel ! talk 00:16, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
Should categories for extinct taxons begin with "†"?
Should categories for extinct taxons begin with "†"? I would think not, but four currently do:
Does anyone disagree? - Jmabel ! talk 19:15, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
I think they should not. It's not part of their name, I do not see the need to distinguish these from others as far as their identity, it's not readily apparent what that symbol is, and it's one more variable that interferes with ease of linking/consistency among naming. If this sort of identity is useful to have at all, then having it as a category is the way to go. DMacks (talk) 19:28, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
I would say definitely not. It is ugly for sorting and in many cases a species was considered as extinct but then a new populations is found. GPSLeo (talk) 19:29, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Unless the extinct taxon was overwhelmingly Christian, I’m sure it’s inappropriate, even if found to be typographically acceptable. -- Tuválkin✉✇ 11:58, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
The symbol is mainly German and is usually called a "death dagger". It does look rather like a cross, but it is not particularly Christian in its origin.
Anyway, it's pretty clear we have consensus here, and I will move these categories (I'll leave redirects for now). - Jmabel ! talk 16:06, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
That somewhat explains it, but there's still no clear advantage over Category:Acacia fossils. They're not even useful as shortcuts/redirects for quick categorization via HotCat because virtually nobody will be able to type the dagger symbol on their keyboard. Just Delete them all. El Grafo (talk) 09:52, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
Definitely the names should not include "†", it is not part of the name. Sneeuwschaap (talk) 17:21, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
I agree. The category names should not include "†". Nosferattus (talk) 21:19, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
Will commons become a depository of all movies？
two things are certain:
users have been uploading public domain movies to commons.
Support Uploading all free materials to Commons provided that they have educational and/or historical value Юрий Д.К 11:47, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
Info When interpreting movies, we can learn a lot about culture, and in case of older videos, history. First of all, older movies give us an idea how movies looked like and how they were recorded. Movies can give a hint to events (historical references) at a time when they were produced. This gives us an idea how people thought about events back then or how they were seen by them. Having several movies over the years, we can see how techniques of cinematography and other techniques changed over years. Sometimes, movie are subject to research. I think these points qualify to be educational, which is a condition to be uploaded to Commons. Culture is manifold and so are movies. Movies don't just record some scenes. Furthermore, the director puts many ideas into this, and this makes a movie special, unique, and often educational. And these point make movies worth to be conserved :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 18:31, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
Support Wikisource is transcribing those movies, and it would be nice to see cross-Wikisource translations of transcriptions. I don't see any reason to include books and photographs and paintings and not movies.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:49, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
As a note, several pornographic films, like w:Behind the Green Door and w:Deep Throat are more well known and culturally important than the vast majority of films. The legalization of pornography is late enough that we won't get many films in the PD until the 2050s, at least.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:57, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
Please be cautious. A (full-length) movie is not like a photo or a painting, it's often a complex creative process that involves many people such as director, actors, cameraman, screenplay writer, and so on. We can only be sure the movie is PD if really all participated people meanwhile have been dead for >70 years. --A.Savin 22:29, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
Well, it depends on the country. For example, Indian movies get into the public domain 60 years after publication. Yann (talk) 22:33, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
@A.Savin not at all movies. For some movies like U.S. ones, those become public domain years after publication or first release (many after 95 years due to the copyright extension law by the late Rep. Sonny Bono). One great example is the Steamboat Willie, an animated theatrical short from 1928. It turned 95 years old this year, and will officially enter public domain around 2 months from now, provided that the attempts of Disney and their fellow stakeholders to lobby U.S. Congress for another U.S. copyright extension fail.
We actually should not just include movies in this discussion but also theatrical shorts (cartoons or any other shows) that were originally meant to be shown in movie theaters. Someone should list the public domain dates of Disney, Looney Tunes, and Tom and Jerry shorts. JWilz12345(Talk|Contrib's.) 23:02, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
OK, however by default it's surely the same as for any other copyrighted work -- 70 years after creator's death. Thanks --A.Savin 23:52, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
There are many countries for which 70 p.m.a. is the law, but plenty where it is not. Obviously we take only what is clearly PD or free-licensed, as with any other media. - Jmabel ! talk 00:12, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
There is no default; more than half the people in the world live in countries with less than life+70 terms, even not including the US. Moreover, according to w:List of countries' copyright lengths, many nations that normally have life+70 terms have 70 or even 50 years from publication for films. Even in countries with life+70 terms for films, I think the set of people who count as creators differs from country to country.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:41, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
Support Yes, as said above. Old movies have multiple educational values: history, culture, social, cinema technics, etc. Yann (talk) 22:35, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
Supportas long as the movies themselves are in public domain both in the U.S. and the country of origin. Proper categorization should be taken into account. Treat movies just like any other audio-visual file that we currently have. JWilz12345(Talk|Contrib's.) 22:56, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
And, second in motion to inputs of Prototyperspective and @Юрий Д.К.. Only movies that are worth for educational and wholesome purpose can be shared here, not porn movies. The inclusion of only wholesome movie in terms of educational, historical, cultural, and other useful purpose should address some of concern on the server space ("trash" like porn movies just consume needless space that should be utilized by more wholesome movies). I think there should be some condition that only users with xxx user rights can upload movies or theatrical shorts. JWilz12345(Talk|Contrib's.) 12:50, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
@JWilz12345: I think that softcore videos like 1980-90-00s erotic films and porn films/movies with professional models also [will be] in scope. Obviously homemade porn videos clearly not for Commons likewise tons of dicks and exhibitionist photos of non-model people. Юрий Д.К 13:30, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
@Юрий Д.К. that's why I think it is best to implement the movie/theatrical short uploading rights to a specific group of users, like admins, sysops, image reviewers, and autopatrolled users (or those who really deserve some uploading rights). Obviously, users like new users and users with less than (n) contributions should not be allowed to upload such audio-visual works. JWilz12345(Talk|Contrib's.) 13:41, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
Support Movies are for example useful regarding prior imagination, techniques, concerns, cultural viewpoints, predictions, art styles, and so on. Since some people may consider porn videos and porn movies to also be "Movies" and a set of decisions elsewhere on WMC seem like users here would like WMC to become a (non-amateur-) porn site, I think it's necessary to clarify that I don't think WMC is the right place for such media, of which there are many TBs, and do not support that. The Internet Archive also hosts many PD films – if file-size or server-load are an issue maybe it's worth considering whether it's possible that the content is on their servers but embedded here in a way that allows them to get categorized and used as if it was hosted on WMC. The value of movies in this context is similar to the value of other art which is also hosted on WMC. Documentaries may be of special value.
my concern wasnt so much about copyright. all copyright will terminate one day.
i'm more curious about plenty of things that need to be considered if commons really become the netflix or fmovies several decades from now. for example, storage is cheap so probably not a problem, but bandwidth and pressure on servers, if 100 million people are simultaneously streaming 1080p movies from commons. also, it would probably be difficult to set exclusion criteria, which means, although acclaimed movies would be hosted, the majority will be shitty b movies, as long as someone makes the effort to upload them. and the problem of movie ratings and parental control. etc.--RZuo (talk) 13:54, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
This is not a valid comparison. We will never host recent movies. All movies on Commons will always be decades old (probably at least 70 years), with a few exceptions (en:Night of the Living Dead). Yann (talk) 14:04, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
it's hard to estimate how many people watch old movies, but certainly plenty of people do. a magnitude of million or above is not that difficult, considering there will be 10+ billion people on earth.--RZuo (talk) 14:19, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
I think that such problems should be solved as soon as they appear. The problems about videos are obviously not ours, for example, a 1990 softcore film can be legally uploaded to Wikimedia Commons in 2111 (120-year rule). Юрий Д.К 14:06, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
i think 95 years after first publication is more common. that means, many Audrey Hepburn's movies will become available no later than 2050s; 1980s movies will become available in 2070s.--RZuo (talk) 14:19, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
also, publication+95y or creation+120y is only valid if us keeps both its own longer duration and rejection of the "rule of the shorter term".
bern convention only requires 50y after first showing or creation. hypothetically if us changes its laws towards the bern convention, commons will be able to host more recent movies pretty soon. RZuo (talk) 14:27, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
or if wmf and servers move to a country that recognises the rule of the shorter term. :) RZuo (talk) 14:29, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
@RZuo server migration may become legally controversial, and will always be impossible to achieve. Note some past proposals to have Commons servers migrated to a country with FoP were thumbed down due to potential legal implications in linking and transcluding content (see Commons:Requests for comment/Non-US Freedom of Panorama under US copyright law). A similar forum tackled the same proposal but over URAA reasons (see Commons:Requests for comment/Commons Abroad and related ideas). It just ended up creating the so-called Wikilivres, the freer version of Commons that did not need to respect U.S. laws and was last hosted in New Zealand (that has 50 years p.m.a.), but is now practically a dead website as well as a dead free culture project (proofs: [4] and [5]). No further attempts to migrate Commons has been made after the 2012 URAA RfC discussion. JWilz12345(Talk|Contrib's.) 16:03, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
@Yann and Justin: Is there any chance of reviving Wikilivres or making another project with similar goals? — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 14:18, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: There are dumbs of the site on Internet Archive, i.e. [6]. So from that, it could be restored. I can't do that, but if anyone wants to try, it is more than welcome. Technically MediaWiki has become much more complex, and Canada, where it was initially hosted, changed its law. Yann (talk) 15:10, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
I hope these are rather dumps than dumbs :D --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 17:47, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
There is not: I gave up the domain years ago and Canadian copyright changed. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:35, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
Support Commons is a media repository, and so as long as the movies are freely licensed or public domain in the U.S. and the country of origin, we should host them. Obviously, we should be mindful of copyrighted modern scores of silent movies and new copyrighted title cards with public domain movies. Abzeronow (talk) 17:07, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
Harassment
My name is Alie Craig. I am a model and an actress whom is also a celebrity in the united states. About in 2018, I had someone who has recently won an Emmy named Bill Phill 1 make a wikipedia for me. It was then deleted by a user name by the name of jo-jo eumerus. I have to complain because I am worried I am going to be bullied and harassed for this. I am currently trying to make my wikipedia, and I have no idea who this woman is. I looked the name up on Google and apparently she's a singer. I am very scared that my work will not make it online due to people like this.
Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexandracraig (talk • contribs) 01:15, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
@Alexandracraig: this is Wikimedia Commons, not Wikipedia; both are umbrella'd by the Wikimedia Foundation, but they are distinct sites
I assume by "my wikipedia" you mean an article about yourself in the English-language Wikipedia. In general, you should not be directly editing an article about yourself. Please see en:WP:COI and, especially en:WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
User:Jo-Jo Eumerus is a very established Wikimedian (I think an administrator on the English-language Wikipedia) whose native language is German. I'm pretty certain Jo-Jo is not a singer, but I know little or nothing about their private life. In any case, it is very unlikely that they are harassing you, but very likely that they are enforcing the policies laid out in the two pages I just linked and suggested that you read. - Jmabel ! talk 02:54, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
edit conflict...
This is Commons; it is not the English Wikipedia.
The English Wikipedia has a notability requirement. You may not have met that requirement in 2017. Given [IMDB nm5450593], you may now meet the notability requirements of the English Wikipedia. However, some of those entries identify uncredited roles; notability may still be an issue. The English Wikipedia wants to see you mentioned in secondary sources. That requirement can be a high bar.
In any event, you should address the article issue at the English Wikipedia.
I doubt that Jo-Jo Eumerus is harassing you; she is just trying to keep articles up to certain standards. The English Wikipedia is not a social media site, it does not provide articles for everyone who wants one, and it discourages biased and/or paid editing.
A second editor (not Jo-Jo) has rejected your recent draft.
en:Alie Craig does not exist as of 25 November 2023.
Aye, I deleted her article five years ago because folks here thought that it didn't meet our inclusion criteria - I promise you it wasn't because I have any opinion on you or want to erase your contributions. I don't know you at all and can't say if you now meet the inclusion criteria. I am pretty certainly not a singer, though. For reference, the discussion on the draft continues at WikipediaJo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:39, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
Comment I deleted 2 images which are obvious copyright violations (not uploaded by the photographer, and no evidence of a free license). Yann (talk) 10:01, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
I believe it's just the official portrait, as the same image set is used in the biographical dictionary published by the parliament. Krisgabwoosh (talk) 13:56, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
That seems plausible, but how does that translate into CC BY 2.0? RoySmith (talk) 23:23, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
If the Bolivian government (the parliament specifically) owns the rights to a copyrighted work, it also follows that they're free to release it under a creative commons license. Why that specific license, I couldn't say. Krisgabwoosh (talk) 23:42, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
I'm not trying to be a pain here, but the image page says, "The copyright status of the image was undeterminable by the bot, and requires human attention." So I think we really need to wait for somebody who understands this better and is uninvolved to figure out what the status is. RoySmith (talk) 15:03, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
@RoySmith: Ah, there's an explanation for that. Since the images are so low quality, I touch them up in Photoshop before I upload them. I used to upload the original image straight from Flickr then override it with the touched up version (Example), but I had another user ask me not to do so. Now I just directly upload the touched up version and tag it as from Flickr. Because of that, the bot isn't really able to detect and always requires human intervention. Krisgabwoosh (talk) 00:08, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
@Krisgabwoosh: A1Cafel is right, you should upload the touched up ones with different filenames and thus not bother the license reviewers. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 00:22, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: So should I continue uploading as is or upload two separate files each time? Krisgabwoosh (talk) 00:30, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
@Krisgabwoosh: Two separate files each time if you insist on touching up. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 00:33, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
That's fine by me. Krisgabwoosh (talk) 00:37, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
@Krisgabwoosh: Given that you are your retouching (which is always controversial), I agree with A1Cafel here. A retouched image should almost never be an overwrite. On the other hand if you were (for example) uploading a higher-res version of the same image, overwriting would be fine. However, you should wait until after license review to upload that higher-res image. I do this often with images from Seattle Municipal Archives, where they tend to put relatively low-res versions on their Flickr stream, with a link to their own site for the higher-res version. Typical example at File:Seattle - Aerial of Central District, 1965 (53303991494).jpg. - Jmabel ! talk 03:16, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
Makes sense to me. For the time being then, I'll start uploading two images at a time to avoid this issue. Krisgabwoosh (talk) 06:20, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
Similarity detection and updating of already-existing images
Is there some work ongoing regarding that? Many other websites run checks for similar images rather than only identical images before adding newly uploaded images. Such may be useful here as well – one way it can be useful is that it could lead to more people updating more charts instead of uploading them as new images, especially 'Our World in Data' charts.
One complications is that stats of prior years can in some cases also be useful and one currently can't embed a specified version of a file in articles (maybe that would be a useful feature?).
Having the same file multiple times can lead to many issues such as redundancy, category pages getting cluttered by the same file(s), differing/non-synchronized categories for the same file, unmaintained file-descriptions, articles embedding quickly outdated charts rather than the ones that get updated, and so on.
Typically, "very similar" images are acceptable on Commons. E.g.
Multiple reproductions of a two-dimensional work of art.
People's possibly controversial retouching of other user's photos.
Maps that disagree in small details.
Similar charts labeled in different languages.
Similar charts or maps showing equivalent information for different dates.
So there is not a ton automated that could happen here. So far, our policy has been either to link these with {{Other version}} or, especially when there are too many variants for that to be practical (or when they represent a single work of art) to create a category for all the variants. Yes, I agree that there are cases where removing redundant versions would be good, but I suspect it may often be more controversial than it is worth, with different people preferring different versions.
This is not about whether they're acceptable or not.
Thanks for clarifying that since I missed making that clear. The person uploading may want to know that there are similar images (they'd be shown during upload but uploading regardless would be possible) and also it may be optimal to somehow define which version of a file is getting updated and which isn't and probably also to keep the number of versions minimal, especially in cases when they don't meaningfully vary or one of the image has a lower image quality.
Moreover, please look at the examples and the exemplary issues I listed above that paragraph. A further related issue not mentioned explicitly is that most OWID charts for example do not get updated despite that OWID has newer versions of them. Sooner or later there probably should be some updating process where files selected to be the always-latest get updated. But that also is not a specific proposal, I made this post so these things and issues are discussed. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:15, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
So are you proposing that there should be a warning on upload that a very similar image already exists? Or, if not, what are you proposing?
In any case, variants of the same image should certainly be linked to one another, which I will do for the examples provided above. - Jmabel ! talk 03:22, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
Clouds clinging to mountains
I cant find a cloud type category for this image. There is 'clouds from above', but this is from the side. Mist and clouds are the same thing. Mist is inside the cloud.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:13, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
Heads up: we passed 100 million files (about a half-million ago)
@Koavf: Could you find a suitable file please? Yann (talk) 12:38, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
How's that now? A file to put in the site notice for instance? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 12:39, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
Here's something that I dashed out that needs some styling fixes to it: File:Commons 100M logo.svg (it renders correctly when you view the file directly, but not in preview...) If you like it in principle, I can debug it and make it prettier with some textpath and gold colors, etc. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:07, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
IMO would be strange to celebrate the 100 millionth file without to know for sure what file it is. --A.Savin 12:56, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
Agreed. Someone can do the forensics, but on the other hand, knowing exactly when we had 100 million is a bit tricky, since files can be deleted. :/ —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:07, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
Wikipedias and Wikidata celebrate such milestones despite they are also not able to say which article or item reached the threshold. The other thing we should think about is the 20th anniversary of Commons next year. GPSLeo (talk) 15:10, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
Yes, the 100 millionth file is always an approximation (unless the developers have a magic script for that). It seems we reached the milestone on November 16th, around 19:52 UTC (see IA capture). So pick up a nice picture around that time, and go. I am surprised the WMF didn't issue a press release yet. Yann (talk) 15:27, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
OK, I got one. A nice consensual image uploaded at 19:51, 16 November 2023. Yann (talk) 16:06, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
I would not say "This is image 100000000" as it is just not true. This image could be. GPSLeo (talk) 18:13, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
From french Commons Bistro about a Category
(Google traduction)
Hello, a contributor of goodwill created the Category:Fleißkärtchen or Bon point in French (google: hard work cards!) - The article Bon point and Fleißkärtchen exist in French and German, but no article in English. The category names must be in English on Commons, so we would have to rename the category, what name should we choose? - Siren-Com (d) 12:57, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
Wikitionary offers us "house point" and "brownie point" while wordreference.com offers "gold star". None of the translations seems entirely satisfactory to me. “House point” is like in Harry Potter with a team reward, while the “good points” are individual. "brownie point" does not really have the meaning of a reward linked to the school environment, it is more in the "good deed" of scouting. "Gold star" seems closest to the idea to me, even if it's not exactly the same thing (the reward is stuck on a board in the classroom). The big problem with "Gold star" as a category name is that it is also used for many other things and in particular military medals. cf. Gold star.
In the end 'Fleißkärtchen' doesn't seem so bad to me, because the only three Wikipedia pages that currently exist for this concept are Fleißkärtchen, Good point & Good note. The only practical improvement that I see would possibly be to create a redirect. Miniwark (d) 11:41, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
Have you some idea about ? The solution will be to create an article in W:en about this subject, did this thing is also used in the english schools ? - Thank you. - Siren-Com (talk) 12:47, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
As a speaker of American English, I'd use "brownie point" (if not specific to school) or "gold star" (if specific to school). - Jmabel ! talk 20:33, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
I do not have a good answer about advertising new images that can be translated. I do not even have a good answer for translating SVG files that are already being used in foreign wikis. A translatable SVG file might include a link to SVG Translate when it is used in a foreign wiki.
Maybe there could be a link like "Random file" that suggests an experienced user consider adding a new file to an article. Maybe that link would be specific to an article: ask the user to consider adding a file to the current file she is viewing. The set of files to consider might be tied to a Wikidata item or templates on the file page. Some weighting function might be used.
If I take Anticomplexan specifically, it leads me to Apicomplexa (Q193030). That item shows many Wikipedia articles that could use the new image. That suggests the file could be used in many articles.
The Apicomplexa Wikidata item also shows a multilingual site, species:Apicomplexa. That suggests putting the image on that page. Maybe someone will see it, translate it, and add it to an article.
For Apicomplexan.svg, there should be more room for translations. The "APICAL COMPLEX" should be further to the right to allow longer translations.
@Σ: I believe the only way you can do this is to download, create a JPEG in a tool such as GIMP, and then upload the JPEG to a new file page as a derivative version (linking the two with {{Derivative works}} / {{Derived from}} and otherwise copying the content of the original page; you will almost certainly want to use Special:Upload for this purpose rather than, for example, Special:UploadWizard. The JPEG's file page won't have the history, but the PNG's file page will retain that, and it can be found by anyone who is interested. - 06:22, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
Yes, these are different MIMEtypes, so an extra upload is necessary --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 18:09, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
Thank you, I've gone and uploaded File:Noam Chomsky portrait 2017 retouched.jpg. Is it possible to turn the PNG into a redirect or is there a script to run to replace the usages across wikis? Σ (talk) 06:29, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
@Σ Redirecting would require the intermediate png to be deleted - we don't normally do that. For replacing: CommonsDelinker might be able to do that. El Grafo (talk) 09:31, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
@Σ: I replaced all the usages that were left. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 13:58, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
500 terabytes (455 tebibytes) threshold exceeded
Hi!
Commons just exceeded the data amount of 500 terabytes. See: Special:MediaStatistics. 1 PB is expected to be reached in this decade. --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 17:49, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --From Hill To Shore (talk) 07:49, 3 November 2023 (UTC) 
You are invited to join the discussion at Commons:Village_pump/Technical#Bad changes to the upload wizard. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 04:57, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
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Comment I just added two colons to your contribution because you added two wrong categories to the village pump page by their omission. -- Robert Flogaus-Faust 10:27, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
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Done Deleted the Kyiv subcat, moved the cases to Category:Ukrainian FOP cases. --A.Savin 13:21, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
Delete them all. El Grafo (talk) 09:52, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
Support Uploading all free materials to Commons provided that they have educational and/or historical value Юрий Д.К 11:47, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
Info When interpreting movies, we can learn a lot about culture, and in case of older videos, history. First of all, older movies give us an idea how movies looked like and how they were recorded. Movies can give a hint to events (historical references) at a time when they were produced. This gives us an idea how people thought about events back then or how they were seen by them. Having several movies over the years, we can see how techniques of cinematography and other techniques changed over years. Sometimes, movie are subject to research. I think these points qualify to be educational, which is a condition to be uploaded to Commons. Culture is manifold and so are movies. Movies don't just record some scenes. Furthermore, the director puts many ideas into this, and this makes a movie special, unique, and often educational. And these point make movies worth to be conserved :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 18:31, 23 November 2023 (UTC)_Chamber_of_Deputies_of_Bolivia.png){kind=link}
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