Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive 34

Löschung einer Datei inklusive aller Versionen

Ich ersuche um Löschung folgender Datei inklusive sämtlicher versionen [[1]] Grund: Ich bin neu in der Wikipedia Commons, versionen Sind bedienfehler. Datei überflüssig, WIRD NICHT MEHR Benötigt. ~ ~ ~ ~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Petrus3743 (talk • contribs) 2012-02-24T22:50:00‎ (UTC)

Hallo und willkommen in Commons, Petrus3743! Die Datei File:Finden eines Bruches nahe Pi.png habe ich auf deinen Wunsch hin gelöscht (diese meintest du doch, oder?). Wenn du Angaben auf der Dateiseite ändern willst, dann musst du einfach, wie auf jeder Wikiseite ganz oben auf "Bearbeiten" klicken. Viele Grüße --Saibo (Δ) 00:14, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Resolved--Saibo (Δ) 00:14, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

@Saibo, ein herzliches Dankeschön. Jetzt passt alles wieder! --Petrus3743 (talk) 16:04, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Copyvio on the main page?

Please can someone look into this quickly: File:Scientist-meets-publisher-English.ogv is currently on the main page (as media of the day). But I cannot find the cc-0 release anywhere on the source.This has been pointed out to me in the DR. And anyway, it seems inconsistent with the terms of use at [2] (which say personal use only, etc, etc). It's nearly bedtime here, but this looks urgent to me. (And I've got some funny "script error" which means my usual "Nominate for deletion" tool is broken :-(). --99of9 (talk) 12:19, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I've blanked the following pages. Please revert asap if you think I'm wrong.

• Template:Motd/2012-02-25‎
• Template:Motd/2012-02-25_(de)
• Template:Motd/2012-02-25_(en)
• Template:Motd/2012-02-25_(zh-hans)

--99of9 (talk) 12:35, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

How can something like that become the Media of the Day? Some random quotes from that video: "Sign here, sign here, sign here... Our operating profit margin is over 30 percent, thank you for your work... please give me the copyright on your article and I will buy a house on the beach... I like to buy houses on the beach..." And so on. Thats an disapointed writers personal opinion pressed in some non-creative, not very suitable, aninmation with bad 'camera work' and a computer voice. That file not worth beein featured on Wikimedia Commons. Dont we have any standards or any selection process for MOTD?? --Martin H. (talk) 12:42, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

The video has been created using Xtranormal, whose terms of service (WebCite) state "For clarity, Xtranormal does not assert any ownership over your User Content; you retain full ownership of all of your User Content and any intellectual property rights." The creator has put it under a CC 0 license (cf. YouTube copy), so it isn't a copyvio. For background, see the blog post announcing the video, or another recent post (WebCite) on the matter by the same author.

Yes, the animation is very limited from a technical point of view, and no, there does not seem to be a selection process for MOTD at the moment.

As to whether that is a personal opinion, see, for instance, this statement by the Association of Research Libraries or the following pieces in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, or Wired. -- Daniel Mietchen - WiR/OS (talk) 15:52, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I've nominated it for deletion. We can discuss the copyright there. --99of9 (talk) 02:09, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Remove duplicate upload

While uploading a new version of File:Deputy sheriff Mogollon New Mexico.jpg the server generated an error screen and instructed me to try the upload again "in a few minutes". I did so, and now there are two copies of the same file. If it won't damage the database, one of the two most recent versions should be removed to save storage space. —Quicksilver^@ 16:38, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but what's the duplicate file's name? -- Blackcat (talk) 00:06, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

It's in the file's history. Techman224^Talk 00:58, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

ResolvedBlackcat (talk) 11:29, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Garage de l'Est

Hello admins. Looking for help with a series of photos: back in the easy-going days of 2006 or so, the owner of a classic-car shop in the Netherlands promised a now retired user that they could upload any and all car photos from their website. Category:Photographs from the Garage de l'Est contains all the photos uploaded since, currently to the tune of 87 shots, many of which are in use in several dozen articles across WP. User:Lymantria correctly pointed out that it wasn't really a good license, so I again contacted Mr. Stedehouder, the owner of the firm in question. He responded immediately and sent me a response, which is still languishing in OTRS. Nonetheless, it currently looks as if a good chunk of these pictures are going to be deleted anyhow, as User:Kobac has begun tagging all of them with lacking links to the images. This is true, and since many of them have been up for nearly six years already, naturally they are no longer all available.

Anyhow, what I am looking for is an admin who can go over these images with me. I will look up any image which is still available on the site, or of which there is a shot in the same series (often they archive one shot of particularly interesting cars, but not always the same one as was uploaded here).

As for the ones of which there is no record, I suggest each one is dealt with individually on the basis of the following:

• Background - most of the photos are shot in and near the garage, and most backgrounds are easily identifiable
• Subject - is it a car which is likely to have been offered by them, in light of their other vehicles?
• Image size - I have not seen any images above 675 x 506 pixels
• lighting - is it taken in Northern Europe or in a tropical zone?
• Camera info, when available

Thankful for any help, Mr.choppers (talk) 18:26, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Diablo del Oeste

Diablo del Oeste (talk · contribs · page moves · block user · block log · upload log) has uploaded about 80 copyright violations since 2007 and continues to do so in spite of multiple warnings and two previous blocks. Please block them again. —LX (talk, contribs) 09:03, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

 Blocked - indef next time --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:09, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

File:Kikiatiqah.jpg etc.

Please check the contributions of User:Atikah. They all seem far out of focus. -- Ies (talk) 13:17, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Uploads of Special:Contributions/Karlamato

Uploads of Special:Contributions/Karlamato seems to be pages of some book, what you think. Plenty of pictures. My opinion are, delete--Motopark (talk) 16:33, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Apparently the images are screenshots of a powerpoint presentation by himself (the presentation gives "Carlo Amato" as the author), so copyright-wise I don't think there is a problem. On the other hand, it's another question whether this is in scope for Commons. Hard to tell without knowing any Italian, really. Jafeluv (talk) 09:33, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Old edit request

Can someone please handle this request that I posted about 2 months ago: [3]. It remains unfulfilled. Magog the Ogre (talk) 19:11, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Category:Media uploaded without a license as of 2011-12

In this category are plenty of files without licence, could somebody delete them.--Motopark (talk) 19:18, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

The task is more complex than "delete them all", see for example File:Ludgercollege logo.gif, a text logo. --Dereckson (talk) 22:30, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

File:Anime Girl.png

Please unprotect Bulwersator (talk) 21:54, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

• And this Bulwersator (talk) 21:55, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

 Done. --Túrelio (talk) 08:57, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Child porn claim - neutral opinion needed

Ianmacm has claimed at Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Hotel_Karada.png that a woman shown naked in a sort of bondage position is under 18. The same woman was also uploaded in File:Hotel Karada from Rear.png. I am very skeptical of this claim (otherwise it might be better to pursue in another forum) for several reasons I've detailed at the deletion request, but this is too serious a charge to leave sitting around on a talk page unevaluated. Could we get some neutral parties to weigh in here? Both the age of the woman and the classification as porn ("Dost test") might be up for debate; see Help:Sexual content. But this was here, uncommented on, all during the Sanger allegations, his calls for an FBI investigation, the Jimbo Wales deletions etc! Wnt (talk) 22:02, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

The very small image size, and also given the fact the Flickr user is no longer active, gives me pause to say and perhaps delete the images in question. But as for is she young, the only thing it says is "young girl" and I know women my age (25) who are that small in the breast department. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 22:43, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Vorhandenes Bild (Datei) in Kategorie einfügen?

Hallo WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, ich bin neu hier. Seit einiger Zeit versuche ich hochgeladene Dateien nachträglich in eine Kategorie einzuordnen. Mit der vorhandenen Beschreibung komme ich nicht zurecht!. Ich ersuche euch die hierfür erforderlichen Schritte aufzulisten. Meine Dateien: [[4]],[[5]],[[6]]. Ein herzliches Dankeschön im Voraus! --Petrus3743 (talk) 12:45, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Ich schreibe gleich was auf deine Diskussionsseite / I'm going to answer at your talk page. - A.Savin 13:05, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

@ A.Savin, danke für deine schnelle Antwort. Jetzt habe ich es verstanden! Gruß --Petrus3743 (talk) 14:43, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Kensico Grave Marker.JPG

I'm not sure where to take this question, but here seems like a good place to start. The picture in question was a tombstone carved in the shape of the famous Trylon and Perisphere of the 1939 World's Fair. It was deleted from here on the grounds that it's a "work of art" and hence fails the lack of "freedom of panorama". This was done with virtually no discussion, and the admin who zapped it keeps dodging my general question: Are ALL tombstones "works of art"? And if not, where do you draw the line? Furthermore, that tombstone was essentially a "ripoff" of the famous World's Fair symbols, by someone with no apparent connection to it, so it's not even "original". I'd like to get a definitive answer on which tombstones (if any) are fair game and which ones are off limits due to being "works of art". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:24, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Why is this a good place to start? No, not all tombstones are a works of art. Some are. Drawing the line is difficult. Nobody will or can give you a definitive answer on which tombstones are fair game; if there's any sort of art that's not clearly PD, it will take the eyeballing of what passes for experts around here to make a decision.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:47, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

And what makes one nominator and one deleter "experts" on the matter, with no other discussion beyond the question I raised which was ignored? And how is a knockoff of something else a "work of art"? And where is the right page to take this? Not the talk page for the deletion page, certainly, since it's already boxed up. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:49, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Commons:Village pump/Copyright, perhaps. Or Commons:Undeletion requests. The standard for copyrightability is not high, but I can't speak to this case because I didn't see it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:46, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

The tombstone is a representation of the Trylon and Perisphere from the 1939 World's Fair. Since they were pre-1990 architecture, they do not have a copyright and so the tombstone is a DW of a PD work, hence probably PD itself. I think an UnDR for this image should succeed.

In general, though, tombstones are as much works of art as any other sculpture and the same standards of originality apply. In addition, any text, beyond a few words, may also have a copyright.

Bugs, in thinking about DRs, please remember that Commons Admins delete around 1,300 images every day; half a dozen of us do half of those and the backlog is growing, so we necessarily work fairly fast. This was a case where the Admin agreed with the nom -- it probably appeared fairly obvious to him. I would have done the same thing except for the special circumstances of the Trylon and Perisphere.

Remember, too, that the community (25,000 editors are active each month) reverses about 1/10 of 1% of the deletion decisions made by Admins. An error rate of 1 in 1,000 is not bad.

     Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 14:37, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

That's a misleading figure. It would be more accurate to list what percent of actual challenges get reversed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:43, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

All well and good. If only he would respond to all this, he could just correct his error without going through a bureaucratic process. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:31, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

His unwillingness to answer the question raises questions of its own, specifically about his fitness as an admin. I have to conclude that commons is desperate. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:53, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Very old rename request

People, oo, my people. :) What should we do about this?

• Categories for discussion/Category:Admin reviewed Flickr images

Just to mention that category in question have at the moment 205,531 files. And more to come... --WhiteWriter ^speaks 00:00, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

It looks like the images are linked to the category through the template {{Flickrreview}}. All that's needed would be to edit the template, but I bet it would crash the server having to update all those pages :D Techman224^Talk 00:54, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually I think it just adds lots of jobs to the job queue. Techman224^Talk 01:03, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Created Template:Flickrreview/sandbox for testing. Techman224^Talk 01:19, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I've tested the sandbox template. It was pretty easy, replacing the category with a different one, but now we need consensus on what to change it too. I don't want to change it several times when we're talking about so many pages. Techman224^Talk 01:44, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd say: don't fix what isn't broken. No need to recat some 200k files.--Denniss (talk) 03:31, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Nothin's broken Denniss, I think this is more of an improvement... :) Rehman 08:25, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

How does FlickreviewR detect false reviews? Does it use the category or does it use the template links? Please clarify before changing. Thank you. -- RE rillke questions? 11:32, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with FlickreviewR, it only affects human-reviewed images. BTW FlickreviewR uses the template. Techman224^Talk 02:59, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

And FlickrViewR checks the "human" template. Did you follow the link? But if it is using Special:WhatLinksHere to detect those, there is no problem. So I did some investigation and found that File:Happy Flower (Tecomaria capensis).jpg was added to Category:Admin reviewed Flickr images on 2011-11-04 23:18:47 (database internals, might be before in this category but somehow it was re-categorized) and a few hours later FlickreviewR added this to its list. So I assume it isn't using the template-links (what links here) but the category. So you have to ask the operator before making any changes. Thank you. -- RE rillke questions? 17:06, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Images of Ahmad Shah Massoud

Can someone here please help me fix this and this because the images are used in so many Wikipedia articles and I'm not sure if they even qualify per the rational given. The subject in the image (Ahmad Shah Massoud) has been photographed so many times if you google his name. Thanks.--Officer (talk) 10:10, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you want to fix, but since neither of these are Commons images -- they are both on WP:EN -- there is no reason to ask for help here. We have no more power on WP:EN than any other editor.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 15:26, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Many admins who deal with copyright issues here are also active in English Wikipedia and they should be able to decide if these 2 images are copyright infringement or not. I believe that they are and that they don't qualify for fair use. Under the licensing it states: "It is believed that the use of a limited number of web-resolution screenshots for critical commentary and discussion of the film and its contents qualifies as fair use under". However, they are used only to identify a person who died in 2001 and who has many dozens of images available. Plus, the fair use limits the number of articles in which they can be used but each is presented in 3 different articles. People will decide to upload images of celebrities and all kinds of prominent people with the same kind of fair use rational.--Officer (talk) 08:25, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

How to apply the English Wikipedia's non-free content criteria at the English Wikipedia project really is a matter to be discussed at the English Wikipedia, not here. —LX (talk, contribs) 11:50, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I posted this here for interested admins or non-admins.--Officer (talk) 20:39, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

user talk page deletion

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Matt.munin

when you google my name this page comes up, can i request that it be deleted or at least renamed please? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.141.143.24 (talk • contribs) 20:28, 27 February 2012‎ (UTC)

Good evening,

Your talk page couldn't be deleted, as you used your account to upload a file on Commons.

But, yes, you can rename your account, as described on the page Commons:Changing username.

If you're in a hurry, simply click here to add a rename request. --Dereckson (talk) 00:15, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

You can also add __NOINDEX__ to your user talk page to prevent it from being indexed by search engines. —LX (talk, contribs) 10:03, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

 Done I've deleted the user talk page as it is an orphan. Renaming the account will help too. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 22:46, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Temporary undeletion templates

I've drafted two templates relating to temporary undeletion. Please comment at Commons:Village_pump#Requesting_temporary_undeletion. Thanks. Rd232 (talk) 01:16, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

File:Marisa Tomei - Before the Devil Knows Youre Dead - 1 1.jpg

Tagged as "own work", but obvious copyright violation given that it's a screenshot from a film. Thanks, NawlinWiki (talk) 16:54, 28 February 2012 (UTC) (admin, en.wiki)

 Done thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 17:28, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

39 videos of masturbating males

Hello fellow admins, is there any use in keeping all the 39 videos in this category? Couldn't we just keep three or four at the most? -- Blackcat (talk) 21:19, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Hello fellow admin, why do you feel we should delete images which are within our scope and appropriately licensed? -mattbuck (Talk) 21:39, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Is our scope to make easier exhibitionists' satisfaction? --Cotton (talk) 21:57, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Hello person who somehow despite having been on Commons for 4 years has never had a talk page message. The reason why people upload things is really quite irrelevant if what they upload is within scope and appropriately licensed. You say they are exhibitionists... maybe, but on the other hand, if they weren't, they wouldn't have uploaded them, and we wouldn't have any sexuality-related media at all. -mattbuck (Talk) 22:11, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry to still not have a talk page in this project, because discussions seems to be quite similar to cabaret, so I think I lost a lot of possible fun during these years and I wasted my time boring myself on it.wikipedia. Well, now I know that according to one of commons' sysop the scope of the project is hosting an undefinite but enormous number of unuseful and roughly made files about the same subject. Let's wait for someone else. --Cotton (talk) 22:43, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I just find it impressive that you somehow avoided the welcome bots. -mattbuck (Talk) 23:13, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

The film in that category from 1930 is an education in itself. More generally, I don't believe this is the right noticeboard for such a question. The Village Pump might be worth trying, though I would have thought that all realistic variations of policy interpretation for deleting on the pure grounds of Commons having "too many penises" have already be well thrashed out. --Fæ (talk) 22:31, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I suspect that the motivation for the question is the recent discussion of search results. I've created Commons:Requests for comment/improving search to try and broaden the discussion. As for the question itself, I think it's covered by the guideline Commons:Nudity#Very_similar_to.2C_and_no_better_than.2C_existing_images. Of course, interpretation of how much additional educational use is to be had from any given additional file is highly subjective. Rd232 (talk) 22:49, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, it's a better space for discussion. Such questions would tend to be vigorously beaten batted off if poked at the Village Pump. --Fæ (talk) 23:04, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Mind you, I have no moral issues against masturbation (to quote Woody Allen, "it's sex with someone I love"): I just was asking whether 39 (!) videos on basically the same subject were useful. I didn't ask, "let's delete them all", just wonderered wheter we could keep just a handful -- Blackcat (talk) 00:00, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Well there's no magic number for any given subject of how many files there should be; the issue is avoiding unnecessary duplication. I suppose, for any given subject, you could go through the category and say File:X is very similar to File:Y; File:Z is very similar to File:ZZ... etc. Then in a DR people can discuss whether the files are useful enough to keep. To be honest, there is an underlying philosophical problem: Commons has historically been focussed getting more and more files, and enforcing the "we don't really need that" rules is not done very much, except for individual cases where it's pretty obvious. But as a collection of similar files in a category - it just grows and grows, with no real way to systematically review and say (a) what's not needed from existing files and (b) what's missing. Rd232 (talk) 00:23, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

A complete uniform collection of male masturbation should have at least 20, to cover angles and positions. Since we're not building a uniform collection, we're going to need more.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:44, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

And like every discussion on this subject, we have at least 200 pictures of one statue Category:Statue of Liberty. And yet the sex categories come up for discussion.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:56, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

 Comment - This comment, directly-above by Prosfilaes (talk · contribs), is very revealing and extremely astute. -- Cirt (talk) 03:18, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Well it is and it isn't. Yes, the same "pruning" issues apply to non-sexual categories... but nobody ever felt the need to put NSFW next to a link of an image of the Statue of the Liberty. It's pointless to pretend that an unwanted image of the Statue of Liberty in a category or search result is equivalent to an unwanted sexual image popping up. In a different domain, it would be equally silly to pretend that an unwanted chilli pepper in your food order is equivalent to an unwanted cockroach in it. Rd232 (talk) 04:27, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. That makes it clear that the images/videos shouldn't be removed because there are to many of them. You directly say that they should be removed because they are NSFW. That is the real intention and only this. You goal is definitely not to improve the project and working on a solution. It's just to enforce your thin minded personal view point. -- ／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 苦情処理係 09:55, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Now you're being deliberately insulting and putting words in my mouth. I have no opinion on whether we need 39 videos in that category or 390, and forming one is a very long way down my list of priorities. My point is simply if I'm searching Commons for work or family purposes (let's gather round the computer and find something that... aarrgh. Daughter - that's not something you need to worry about. And please don't talk about "what Daddy showed you" at school! Wife, no, it's not doing that because like Google it knows my search history and I'm always searching for porn! It's a really dumb search engine!) And I'll tell you this for nothing: I know well where Firefox' Private Browsing mode is, and if you want to know exactly what I use it for, I'll be happy to tell you by email! :P Rd232 (talk) 11:33, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Now you came to the point. Doing such things in private and for yourself, no matter what might be the reason, is perfectly fine. That is your own decision that you made for yourself. But asking for an imbalance between topics is another thing to do. I say imbalanced, because every discussion does only focus, and that again and again, on sexual related material, that has to be banned, hidden, shouldn't be shown, listed at the end, and so on. From my viewpoint this is ridiculous and has nothing to do with curating of content. It is the attempt (if not already and/or partially done) to connote personal prejudice upon the reader or viewer. Traditional Libraries (and Commons is more or less a traditional library for images) had to select content. They did this because the space is limited and it has to cover various topics. This leads to a selection of certain media, which is at best done at random, with equal distribution over every topic. You hopefully see the purpose behind this kind of necessary selectivity. But on Commons we don't have this limit and therefore don't have the need for such selectivity. Additionally we don't need categories/labels that aren't meant to aid viewers, but to discourage them to look up certain content. -- ／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 苦情処理係 11:54, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

You want a comparison with traditional libraries? Be serious then. Do traditional libraries include porn DVDs? If they do, do they randomly intersperse them in unrelated topics? A DVD on cucumber masturbation in the Food section, perhaps? Rd232 (talk) 12:37, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes they do have pornography related material. Because it is a research topic as well. You might not find it in the cucumber section, because it can't be at two places at once. In Commons it can be easily shared by multiple shelves/categories at the same time. But as stated this is an issue of the search algorithm which does a bad job. I also prefer to see a plain cucumber if search for it, because i was looking for it. What i suggest is to improve the search in the way that it does include categories in the word matching. A cucumber under cat:cucumber should have preference over an image that contains the word somewhere in the description. It is as simple as that. Another approach would be to give the user the option that he first sees the file description instead of the thumbnail. I guess that you would agree that presenting the text "sexual act with a cucumber" would be much better solution for people who have a problem with sensible material.

There are many other ways to this without even making a step into the direction of censorship or unequal treatment. -- ／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 苦情処理係 15:27, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

First off, is someone proposing that they devise a metric by which to rate these videos for inclusion? On a side-note, why are they sorted by year? Is the content somehow different year-to-year? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 04:33, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Sure the content's different from year to year, compare 1920 with 2012, lots of differences. :) -- Cirt (talk) 04:41, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that was pretty dumb. Change it back, there is no point in differentiating videos from 2010 and 2011 and 2012. You want to do it by quality, fine, but year is just stupid. -mattbuck (Talk) 04:55, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

We can do it by quality and by chronology. :) -- Cirt (talk) 04:57, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

There is nothing different about a video of a person masturbating in 2000 compared to doing the same in 2012. It might make sense if we had multiple videos of say 10 people, who each uploaded 1 video per year. But we don't. Unless someone objects in the next six hours, I am going to undo it all, on the grounds that categories are meant to make things easier to find, and this just hides them. -mattbuck (Talk) 11:24, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The same issue applies to categories like Category:Nude or partially nude girls in anime and manga. It's only intent (as repeatedly stated in the linked discussion) is to hide content from the user, and not to serve as an directional aid to improve navigation. -- ／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 苦情処理係 11:30, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Some users' intent is irrelevant. The only issue for deletion is whether it's useful. It is. Rd232 (talk) 11:38, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

For what? -- ／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 苦情処理係 11:55, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I don't know. What's Category:Euro coins useful for? Finding media specifically related to euro coins, perhaps? As opposed to Category:Coins, which is more general? Rd232 (talk) 12:32, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree, having so many categories with just 1 file in them seems obviously unhelpful and does not address the question raised here. For me, seeing all the images at once and spotting those of potential historic interest was of more educational value than anything else. I would probably overlook these if I only had time to examine the most populated sub-category. --Fæ (talk) 11:36, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

•  Comment - Interesting that the title chosen for this particular subsection sounds a lot like 37 photographs. -- Cirt (talk) 05:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

  I wasn't aware of that, actually. Further, I find nothing obscene in those videos, just wondering whether we needed 39. -- Blackcat (talk) 09:41, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

This section is misplaced here. Please read the intro, "fellow admin". --Saibo (Δ) 16:50, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Saibo (Δ) 16:50, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of derivative works

Can derivative works (such as photos of 3D artworks, etc) be tagged for speedy deletion under no source/no license criteria? Kelly (talk) 01:38, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Obvious {{Copyvio}} can be speedied, but otherwise, it will be good to hear from the uploader on what he thinks IMO --Sreejith K (talk) 08:39, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The general rule is that photographs of works of art -- anything that might conceivably fall under COM:FOP is a {{Delete}}, not a {{Speedy}}. Therefore you will see DRs, not speedies, of recent outdoor sculpture in France. There are two reasons for this: First, while France is obvious, many other countries are not, or have subtleties that are best seen by more than one set of experienced eyes. Second, often the fact that his photo is a DW is a surprise to the uploader, and the DR gives more room for explanation, questions and discussions. This was debated widely and agreed about 18 months ago.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 11:56, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Help needed tidying up after account rename (sexual images related)

Resolved

In relation to an OTRS request (2012022010002111) and agreement from both involved parties, there are a number of images involving various photographs of the same person's penis that need to have the upload history changed so that the account User:Timtight does not get falsely credited (He is Tim Tight in real life, whereas the image uploader (now renamed to User:Tim111) was not). All the images listed here will need re-attribution, presumably by revdel of the history. There are also 11 images with "Timtight" in the title that should be renamed without a redirect, probably changing it to just "Tim" would be sufficient. Hopefully a friendly admin can spare the time to help fix this situation of potentially mistaken real life attribution of sexual images. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 15:41, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

• http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Timtight_flaccid_1.jpg&redirect=no
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Timtight_flaccid_2.jpg&redirect=no
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Timtight_flaccid_3.jpg&redirect=no
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Timtight_flaccid_4.jpg&redirect=no
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:TimTight_phase_1_jpg.jpg&redirect=no
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:TimTight_phase_2_jpg.jpg&redirect=no
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Timtight_erecting_1.jpg&redirect=no
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Timtight_erecting_2.jpg&redirect=no
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Timtight_erecting_3.jpg&redirect=no
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Timtight_erecting_4.jpg&redirect=no
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:TimTight_ejaculation_jpg.jpg&redirect=no

Please delete these redirects, thanks. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 20:32, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done - Tiptoety ^talk 20:37, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikihelperaz & Paperquest

This edit [7] by Paperquest who was later indefblocked [8]. And the same kind by Wikihelperaz: [9] .

I believe that that activity is senseless. I think that there is not any real superseding, just pointless format transformation with increase of file size. And probably both users are the same person. Longbowman (talk) 16:08, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification, I've not finished to clean the mess made by Paperquest on Commons. Both account seems to be active also on English version of Wikipedia to replace link with their "work". I don't know if we should be looking for a cross wiki ban or just let CommonsDelinker removes their contributions on Wikipedia as the images are deleted on Commons. A priori all the edits of Wikihelperaz are rolledback, I will delete the image as soon as I can. It would be interesting to know if both accounts are linked or if it's just a new trendy script for spammers. --PierreSelim (talk) 16:26, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

User:Mbz1 making personal attacks

Resolved

• Mbz1 (talk · contributions (views) · deleted user contributions · recent activity (talk · project · deletion requests) · logs · block log · global contribs · CentralAuth)

Hello, Recently it came to my notice in Jimbo's talk page, the mess Mbz1 has been making. He's blocked on enwiki, stating that he's requested the block upon himself, to prevent abuse from Gwen Gale, an enwiki admin. He's up to dispute here. He is complaining about Gwen Gale ever, from the beginning. But what came to my strict notice is this sentence: I was not banned by the community.I was banned by a very dirty,very cowardly, and mostly anonymous lynch mob. (the diff here) I think he should be blocked as on enwiki indefinitely here, too. If user goes and starts the same dispute in some other project, impose a global block by a steward. Dipankan001 (talk) 10:23, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

She (it's a she) is just complaining to Jimbo (on Commons because blocked on en.wp) - and the last comment is from 17 Feb. I'd say ignore it. Rd232 (talk) 10:27, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't looks her behaviour on Commons is hurtful (or unacceptable) for the project. We should stay mellow: as long as there is no disturbance here, there is no reason to act. --PierreSelim (talk) 11:04, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

She was already blocked for this on Commons anyway on Feb18 for a week--Ymblanter (talk) 11:08, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

If you want to seek a global block go to Meta. As far as Commons is concerned Mbz1 has contributed far too many outstanding images for a block to result because of such a talk page edit with nothing since. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:07, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Let me comment on this. Regardless of how many photos one may contribute to the project, I won't stand for harassment and other non-collegial behaviour from any contributor. An editor's positive contributions to the project should not, and will not, be overlooked when they are engaging in disruptive behaviour by bringing disputes to this project which don't belong here. I have advised Mbz1 that if they wish to contribute to Commons, to do so, but let those contributions be focused on they have done that is positive here. As has been noted, I blocked Mbz1 for a week in mid-February for this "negative" behaviour, and have placed them on notice that longer blocks will result if a return to disruptive behaviour is seen. Only in this regard, is this matter is now resolved. I do hope that Mbz1 forgets about troubles on other projects, leaves those problems there, and continues to contribute here in a positive way. russavia (talk) 13:30, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

However - there is no current disruption - that is what blocks are for. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:53, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

To be clear, if the disturbance starts again here, I won't oppose a block (however I'm against an indef block if the disturbance is not big enought, what happened on english wikipedia stays there). --PierreSelim (talk) 16:28, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The disruption clearly isn't happening right now - blocks should not be punitive. If Mbz1 starts to harass people over her enwiki block/ban again, then perhaps a block is in order. Ajraddatz (talk) 16:33, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Commons:Requests for comment/PD review‎

Resolved

User:Saibo has repeatedly made disruptive comments at Commons:Requests for comment/PD review‎, per his apparent belief that the second bullet point in the heading of COM:L (media must be "in the public domain in at least the United States and in the source country of the work") is not in fact policy, and that therefore attempts to ensure that PD-tagged images comply with this are some sort of "US-centric" chauvinism. I eventually moved those disruptive comments to the RFC talkpage (quoting on the main RFC page the only part that actually was relevant to the RFC), and pointed out by email that if he wanted to change policy, he was welcome to try. In response he raised Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/Vandalism#Arbitrary_discussion_deletion. He is now edit-warring this claim into the RFC page, and from discussion at AIV and his user talk page clearly is not going to desist.

Please assist in preventing further disruption. I ask that an admin give him a final warning, and remove his inappropriate claim. Thanks. Rd232 (talk) 14:07, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

You may want to see also Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/User_problems#Arbitrary_discussion_deletion_by_Rd232. --Saibo (Δ) 14:11, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The sideshow is over thatta way. russavia (talk) 15:28, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Removal of admin and CU rights?

Hi all. Tomorrow the inactivity run of Feb-Mar 2012 will end. Seven administrators will lose their admin rights, besides one who resigned earlier and ones whose rights were already removed. So far so good you'd say, but I need your input. User:Gmaxwell will lose his admin rights too. This could be problematic because he holds also CheckUser rights. On Commons:Checkusers I can't find anything about inactivity of CheckUsers of Commons. Meta-Wiki tells a bit more: according to this there is no local policy of Commons which means we should follow the Wikimedia wide policy. And that policy says the following: "Any user account with CheckUser status that is inactive for more than a year will have their CheckUser access removed." He's not inactive for a year (judged by his normal contribs), but I don't know how active he is as a CheckUser. I'm inclined to ask for removal of his CheckUser rights too. What do you think? Regards, Trijnstel (talk) 16:03, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

• I don't see a big problem. By reading this section («Checkusers are highly-trusted administrators with the technical ability [...]») I think the answer is strictu sensu that any CU loosing his sysop tools will also have their CU rights removed. On a more personal level, and despite some wikis having them, I've never liked the idea of CU without admin, simply because it's disfunctional at all. --Marco Aurelio (disputatio) 16:16, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
• IMO, the CU bit should be removed, as it would place us in an odd position of having a CU without admin status. If needed, someone could take his place by way of request. russavia (talk) 16:21, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
• Removing the checkuser bit makes sense. If they aren't around to use their sysop tools, then there is no point in removing one but not the other. Ajraddatz (talk) 16:30, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
• I go back further than others - GM at one stage in the past had CU not admin rights. Just for info. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:44, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
• For what it is worth, looking over the logs, Gmaxwell last used the tools a few days ago on February 23rd. Tiptoety ^talk 20:13, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Which tools? I can't find anything in the logs. Rd232 (talk) 20:23, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
    • Oh, sorry, thought that was clear. The CU tools. :-) Tiptoety ^talk 20:32, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
      • I thought that's what you meant, but apparently I didn't know where to look. It's moot now, but just for future reference, where should I be looking? Rd232 (talk) 21:01, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
        • The CheckUser logs are only viewable by those with the CheckUser bit. Tiptoety ^talk 21:03, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
          • Oh. I suppose that makes sense, depending on what's in them. Is not even a log of users taking unspecified checkuser actions at a certain time/date visible to non-CU? I would have thought that would be OK, and useful. Rd232 (talk) 23:10, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
            • Well— it wouldn't be the end of the world, but often people have their character attacked just on the basis that they've been checked. Sometimes people will make a spurious sounding request and I'll half-check but then "reject" the request. E.g. some troublemaker alleges "BannedTroll is really a sock of evil user Rd232", I may check BannedTroll just in case (it's not like there is a high bar on the protection of privacy for a banned troublemaker), but not check you (of course if there was a really strong connection I could see it from either side— but if there is little/none I avoid being exposed to your private information). If there was a log that showed that I'd performed a check the person making the allegation may be emboldened to continue harassing people with allegations, and you may feel wounded because you think that I took an obviously bogus allegation seriously. Likewise— sometimes the CU data is unclear and the CU prefers to be silent rather than to lend support to someone's claims that they _aren't_ sockpuppeting "See, they checked after you made the request and I'm still not blocked!". Also, checkusers sometimes ban IPs and users on the basis of CU information, but the fact that there is no public evidence that they'd even been CUing lately (unless they tell you) reduces the amount of information leaked from doing this. Six one way, half a dozen another but I think the balance favors additional privacy here. --Gmaxwell (talk) 23:21, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I suppose in some low-usage situations there may be information just from "X did an unspecific CU action involving an unspecified user at time/date Y", which was what I was thinking of. Rd232 (talk) 23:31, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

• CU goes with admin status because it's presumably often useful as part of an investigation to be able to look at deleted content (at least to check it's not relevant). Per MarcoAurelio, I think policy is clear enough that the two are expected to go together. Rd232 (talk) 20:23, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
• If the CU is (justified) used by GM, the sysop bit should not be removed. This way! But I would appreciate if he would be more active :-) -- RE rillke questions? 20:56, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
• I don't know why I didn't notice the admin notice— didn't get the email for it either— weird— I've been a little active in fact too. In any case, I've responded to the admin heartbeat mooting the issue. But as noted above I'm not inactive, and I've had CU without admin before. --Gmaxwell (talk) 20:59, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Delete duplicate upload

While uploading a new version of File:Elliptical trajectory on ripples.svg, the upload script gave an error. So I uploaded it again, and now there are two new versions (also garbaging the appearance of older versions). Can someone please delete one of the two newest uploads? Thank you, Kraaiennest (talk) 16:05, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I deleted the 2nd upload from today as per your request. Has this now fixed your problem? Also, on a humourous note, I only saw this request as I was reading the request above, and read the file name as "Ejaculatory on nipples"...oops. russavia (talk) 16:19, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, the file shows three nipples :-)

The strange thing is that in the upload history, the actual file shown now for the upload date/time 11:20, 30 March 2009 is one of the two (identical) files I uploaded today. So something was messed up by the near-simultaneous upload of 2 identical versions, i.e. the shown file is not the one the history says that should be there. If people want to revert to the situation as it was before my upload(s), they cannot at this moment. -- Kraaiennest (talk) 18:27, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Move page--User:Adminbhavya

The page User:Adminbhavya is showing up in the main Gallery namespace in Specialpage:Newpages. Although the tab at the top shows User page.--Gauravjuvekar (talk) 16:57, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

That's probably because that page was first created as a new page in the gallery namespace, without the "user:" prefix, and only after was it renamed to the user namespace by adding the prefix. That said, that username contains "admin". Isn't that forbidden by the username policy? -- Asclepias (talk) 23:32, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Technically that's proposed policy, not policy.--Gauravjuvekar (talk) 13:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

March 1st is Admins' May 1st?

So what's going on today with the deletor-on-duty and with the rename Bot ...?.. I wonder really,,, Seems irregular with that delay.. or doesn't it....? Orrlingtalk 23:35, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Could you give us some more information? -mattbuck (Talk) 23:57, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Why not. Kindly refer to: this page (see the time of the earlier postings) and this one where roughly 7 "please-delete-me-hard" are waiting while on normal days I can just count to 10 and they disappear. Orrlingtalk 00:07, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Photo of Shahbulag

In the description of this photo I added an information that this castle is Shahbulag, cause that's true[10]. I also added an inf. that this object situated in Agdam district of Azerbaijan and sourse where photos of this castle are published. But this user remove[11] my creates, saying that only he knows what is on his photo. I think this action is desinformation and vandalism. Please do something. --Interfase (talk) 13:44, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I have put a warning on his talk page. You both must discuss it before either of you makes any other changes. Google has many images which appear to confirm your belief that it is Shahbulag.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 14:57, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

If it is Shahbulag, what is this, this and this? --Ліонкінг (talk) 16:35, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Tigranakert is an archeological site (not a castle) near this castle - ruins of an ancient city. The castle was built by Panah Ali khan in 18 century. --Interfase (talk) 16:47, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Can You proove by neutral (non pro-Azeri), reliable and identifying sources that the modern name of the castle is not a Tigranakert and that the archaeological site and the castle have different names? --Ліонкінг (talk) 17:00, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

This sourse also is "pro-Azeri"? --Interfase (talk) 17:20, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Do You have any doubts that Turkish sources are not pro-Azeri and anti-Armenian? (Look an adress at the end of Your source. --Ліонкінг (talk) 17:26, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Here is the article "Agdam" from "Dictionary of modern geographical names" published in Russia in 2006, where we see "Крепость Шахбулаг (XVIII в.)", which means Shahbulag castle (18 c.). What can say now? Also "anti-Armenian" sourse? --Interfase (talk) 18:45, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I repeat the question: Can You proove by neutral (non pro-Azeri), reliable and identifying sources that the modern name of the castle is not a Tigranakert and that the archaeological site and the castle have different names?

You're editing Russian chapter of wikipedia for more than 4 years, You've made there more than 12K edits and I can't believe that You don't know that this site is a clone ^{en, ru}. I mean that all information from the source dic.academic is copypasted from the several version of the article in ruwiki. It seems to me that You listen me, but can't hear me. Firstly You give unneutral, not reliable but identifying source and then You give neutral, but not reliable and not identifying source. But most important is that nor of this two sources gives an answers on my two questions. Is it smth really difficult? The problem is that there're no such source and we returns to the start. You're continuing affirming that the name of the castle is Shahbulag while You've never been there and I've visited the castle for three times in different years, have uploaded this photo and have more than half hundred photos of the castle and I know that the name of the castle is Tigranakert. If You can prove another point of view, do it. --Ліонкінг (talk) 19:30, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

The article in the site is published in the "Dictionary of modern geographical names", word to word. Go to library and watch. All sourses added by me are reliable (and 1st, and 2nd...). And you also know that this is Shahbulag. I think you only play with the rules. --Interfase (talk) 20:39, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Can You read attentive what I ask? You've not written anything on the plot of my questions. Only proposing for me to visit the library, dispute about reability of sources which don't gives an answers on my question (by the way, if You can't understand that unneutral (1) and "mirror" (2) sources are not reliable when I've prove it, You can call a mediator and he will say You the same) and discussion on my personality. I'm still waiting for answers on my questions (they are in bold). --Ліонкінг (talk) 21:07, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I already proved that the modern name of the castle is Shahbulag. I showed you a reliale sourse where castle is called Shahbulag. But you cannot prove that the name of the castle is Tigranakert. --Interfase (talk) 21:13, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Look, I've asked You two questions for three times [12], [13], [14]. I've given a links on the video, photos and official site + as You know and it's not a secret, I've uploaded the file, so You understand, that I was there at least once (on the question if You ever had been there You have answered that it doesn't matter). Forgot about Your links, they are not a plot of the dispute. I just ask You to give an answers on two questions:

1. Can You prove by neutral, reliable and identifying sources that the modern name of the castle is not a Tigranakert
2. Can You prove by neutral, reliable and identifying sources that archaeological site and the castle Tigranakert which are situated in one place have different names?

It is all what I want to hear. You're wasting at least both Your and my time. --Ліонкінг (talk) 21:34, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

1. I alreadey showed you a sourses using Shahbulag name.
2. See articles about Shahbulag castle and Tigranakert. Different places. --Interfase (talk) 08:43, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

--Interfase (talk) 08:43, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I've seen them. They represent the point of view of Azerbaijan which don't control this castle for 19 years and have not done anything to repair it. But the question was another.

Article in enwiki "Shahbulag" is created by users Angel670, Anastasia.Bukh and Interfase. All this users can't be neutral in AA-related articles, because all of them "sympathize" to Azerbaijan. No one neutral user or user with another believes have not checked this article. As a result there are 12 sources, 9 from them are Azeri sources. About three another sources:

• 1 - not neutral source. There is mentioned that in this sources are collected the texts with the perceptions of Muslim authors from Central Asia and the Caucasus. Also there are mentioned that the team of the source is consisted by 5 authors, one of them is from Azerbaijan and no one is from Armenia. It's not a secret that Armenians are Christians.
• 2 - The text is reproduced on the publication: Adigezalov Mirza Beg. Karabag-name. Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan SSR. 1950 - no comments.
• 3 - unreliable source with unneutral phrases like ...confirms that this land belongs to Azerbaijan.

You've mentioned that castle and ancient city has different places. I again understand that You've never been there. Ancient city is consisted of two parts: lower city and upper city. Between them is situated the castle about which we're speaking now. Both articles are mentioned with the same coordinates: 40°03'55?N 46°54'21?E. So Your statement that they're situated in different places is wrong.

Can You give direct answers on my question? Note: don't waste the time providing different pro-Azeri or not reliable links saying that the position of Azerbaijan which don't control the castle is that the name of the castle is Shahbulag. It is not my question, if You can't understand.

If You've smth to add, You can do it now. If You think that we can start discuss the final result, decide if we can do it without mediator or with a help of mediator. If we need a mediator, propose Your variants. --Ліонкінг (talk) 14:01, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I think he also knows that this is Shahbulag because he was there (as he says 3 times). --Interfase (talk) 15:56, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

A suggestion, if I understand this discussion correctly. Is it true that this place has two names -- because of language, ethnic, or custody differences? If that is correct, we can certainly show both names in the image descriptions, without any comment on which one is "correct". There are many geographic places that have more than one name -- "La Manche" and "The English Channel" -- neither is correct, they are just different.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 15:40, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Place has two names: Azerbaijani - Shahbulag, Armenian - Surenavan. Castle has one name - Shahbulag. Archeological site near the castle has one name - Tigranakert (name of the ancient city). But the name of the castle on the photo is Shahbulag, only Shahbulag. --Interfase (talk) 16:06, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Interfase, during our discussion You couldn't confirm that Tigranakert isn't the name of the castle and that both archaeological place and castle has not the same name. You're continuing Your statements that there're one name (Shahbulag) even taking to advantage that You have never been there. I don't know, where from You've taken the name Surenavan, but I repeat that I've visited this place at least three times, once by hitch-hiking from Ukhtasar, once by bus from Martakert and once by foot from Nor Maragha (I've passed this place more than 10 times, because it's situated near the highway from Martakert) and have provided the evidence that it is named by locals as Tigranakert. This name is used for the place, ancient city, castle and the museum which is situated in the castle. I've some dozens of additional photos of the castle with both internal and external view.

Even taking to attention that Azerbaijan don't control this territory for more than 19 years and there're disputes about the connection between the castle and Azerbaijan, I  Support the idea to mention the alternative name, according to this link. In this link is mentioned by Azeri author the name "Shahbulag" in 1950. The problem is that Azerbaijan gives the names of the different places in Republic of Armenia and in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic to show that they have alternative name. For example cities Martakert (in Soviet era - Mardakert) and Martuni have been never named as "Aghdara" and "Khojavend", but after collapse in war Azerbaijan renamed this cities which were populated by Armenians. In this situation, during the discussion Azeri user has renamed the name of the article, make a request for protection and after protection the became uninterested party to continue the discussion, because they gain their point of view with a help of administrator. As those my opponents uses such unhonest methods, I've got no choice, because user Interfase (who by the way also supports Azerbaijani POV) could do the same. --Ліонкінг (talk) 17:01, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

If we will add an alternative name, this alternative name must be only Tigranakert, because only in occupied territories of Azerbaijan this castle is called so (and we must mentioned this fact). In the generally accepted science this castle is called Shahbulag (all sourses you've seen). --Interfase (talk) 18:33, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

You start again Your story? I've seen Your edits before in ruwiki and enwiki, so I know that You're too politically biased and I was sure that there're no sense trying to find a compromise with You. I've lost a lot of time for this discussion only to not mislead the community that I don't try to find "one language" with You. By the way, I've noticed you were always the first one to complain and to blame Your opponents, but never try to be the first to start a discussion. I don't think that it's a good idea to continue this discussion with You, so I recommend Jim to make a decision on this case. --Ліонкінг (talk) 20:46, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

You told that because you see that all reliable sources are on the my side. You have not any arguments, only saying that I do so, I do that. If you want to stop the discussion, if you don't have any more arguments, fine, let's stop our discussion. We both lost many time here. Let's wait Jim's decision. --Interfase (talk) 21:37, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid that we are not able to resolve this content dispute at this board. I suggest the following approach: Ліонкінг is free to restore the original description and Interfase is invited to add a {{Fact disputed}} tag and to provide another description at the corresponding talk page. It would be also a good idea to refer to this discussion. --AFBorchert (talk) 08:06, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

There are two possibilities.

• You both agree to use both names in the description, as I suggested above. Many places have two names. This is by far the preferable choice, but it looks like you may not be able to agree.
• If you cannot agree to do that, then the original name must stay in the description. As AFBorchert suggests, Interfase may add {{Fact disputed}} to the file page and a short summary of his reasons to the file's talk page. A permanent link to this discussion would be good. To do that, use the instructions here.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 11:26, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Jim, unfortunately the first variant is unreal. I well understand that it's not interesting for anyone to react on such requests, so I want to thank You and AFBorchert, that You've spend Your time on this, but there're no possibility to have a consensus in such questions without mediation. For ages Azerbaijan have been building his foreign policy on Armenians in the atmosphere of hate, humiliation and disrespect. This week a president of Azerbaijan again confirmed that "Our main enemies are Armenians" (BBC), so my opponent don't respect me and he is really not interested to gain a result which is acceptable for both parties. So I'll choice a second variant with some modifying. As I assume good faith, I'll add an information that in Azerbaijan the castle's name is Shahbulag. Later I'll upload more images from this place. --Ліонкінг (talk) 12:24, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

User:Northiran

...was recently blocked for abusing multiple accounts on the English Wikipedia, as a serial sockpuppeteer (with copyright issues). In that investigation, he was linked to the User:Mazandiran account, and his uploads here are the same uploads Mazandiran made to the Farsi Wikipedia (and presumably to Commons too, although only one of them survives) . Mazandiran is blocked here for the same reasons as on en.wp: therefore, might a block and/or upload nuke be in order? Regards, Jarry1250 (talk) 18:51, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

 Support block and upload nuke. This and other edits match the M.O. See Commons:Requests for checkuser/Case/Mazandiran for background. —LX (talk, contribs) 19:21, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

The remaining uploads of پارسا آملی (talk · contribs · page moves · block user · block log · upload log) should also be deleted. —LX (talk, contribs) 23:50, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Wakey wakey! Is this thing on? —LX (talk, contribs) 12:06, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Can't get the staff these days... Didn't see it -  Done thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:21, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, but there are still a bunch of uploads to nuke.[15][16][17] The reason that I noticed that this still hadn't been dealt with was that I stumbled across File:Kaoon.jpg when fixing files with bad Panoramio source links. (Like with their other uploads, that file description page is a complete fairytale. Panoramio doesn't do GFDL, and the source link points to a completely different photo.) —LX (talk, contribs) 12:46, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah - nuke is not happy for me at present and just times out after doing nothing and I've not got time at present to go through them by hand. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:52, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Are the admin tools still broken? —LX (talk, contribs) 08:23, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Apparently few folk read things - I have more than enough to do but I've just tried it again and got - for me - the usual 502 error - it sometimes still works and sometimes doesn't. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:35, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Could someone else have a go? Another couple have been declared copyvios since my last posting, so they probably all are (nothing's changed). Jarry1250 (talk) 00:03, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Bon_Maître_Bon_Chien

Usser name seemd to be same than this--Motopark (talk) 17:10, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 17:30, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

User:Dukes85

Check images of User:Dukes85. Licenses seem to be false. --Stryn (talk) 21:02, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

User:Fidelity Inv

Corporate promotion/spam on en:wikipedia. We are going to block and revert. They've added three images of their CEO to commons - File:Kathy Murphy 2012.JPG, File:Kathy Murphy Headshot.jpg and File:K Murphy 2012.jpg. One claims to be CC-BY-SA but I wouldn't presume any of them are. You probably want to delete them all. Secretlondon (talk) 21:37, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done All images were obvious copyvios, so I deleted them. The username violates Commons:Username_policy#Inappropriate_usernames so I gave it an indefinite block.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 14:28, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

User:Ilovechoclate

Ilovechoclate (talk · contribs) has been uploading copyvio files here and at en.wiki [18]. The editors says xe has learning difficulties.[19] Dougweller (talk) 10:50, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Gee...just look on his discussion page. --Yikrazuul (talk) 11:16, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done Techman224^Talk 18:24, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 06:10, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Gadget-autodel.js

Is not only outdated but I also have security concerns as automated deletions by URL are always evil (cosider hidden iframes in external pages or fakelinks). Does anyone opposes against its removal? -- RE rillke questions? 16:19, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I support removing it. Helder 12:41, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Tolling the bells - animation of cock and balls

My experience of trying to do something about the (incorrect) top match of the search tolling bells which is still showing a close up animation of a swinging penis has pointed out a glaring hole in how image searching works on Commons and is subject to blatant abuse. Whilst the revision history shows the uploaded original title text of "Masturbation Techniques: Tolling Of The Bells" this will mislead readers searching for bell ringing topics. To repeat, there is no recognized masturbation technique with this name, it may as well have been called the "Justin Bieber technique". Can someone please delete the upload comment from the displayed revision history or suppress it? The GIF file is File:Cock swinging.gif. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 16:22, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

(Off topic) Note: Such things could be solved in the future with this approach: [20]. -- ／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 苦情処理係 16:39, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

People searching for ringing bells would search for ringing bells, and find what they're looking for. If you want a search for tolling bells to return ringing bells, add "tolling" as a keyword to the appropriate images, which currently don't include it. Suppression is not a tool intended for search engine optimization, nor is it necessary - search only uses the text of the current revision. I also see no reason here to make a special exception to our normal rule of preserving the original edit history in its entirety - I can construct thousands of searches that return surprising or unexpected results, but changing content rather than the search algorithm is not the right way to fix this. Dcoetzee (talk) 19:31, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Hang on, the history displayed on the image page is misleading. Tolling bells as in the search link above shows this swinging penis and bollocks as the top match even though it is not in the image description, only in the version history. You appear to be arguing that this loophole where any misleading text (such as my example of "Justin Bieber technique" on an video of masturbation) would be forced to be retained on Wikimedia Commons and appear high in any search. That does not sound like common sense. This is not censorship, it is only ensuring that Commons content is accurately described rather than misleadingly or mischievously described. I can see this particular loophole being deliberately used to damage the usability and public reputation of Wikimedia Commons and the Wikimedia movement. --Fæ (talk) 21:28, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Please improve the search. Would be much more usefully invested time as to fix such minor problems on case by case basis. -- ／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 苦情処理係 22:45, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Stop arbitrary move-war initiated by user

Re Category:Casualties of terrorism by country, user has changed this page's name - which had in fact originally been "Terrorism deaths by country" - to "Casualties" and thereafter is repeatedly attempting to move the content accordingly, i.e Fatalities of Arab terrorism in Israel –> to "Casualties", giving no account to the fact he's overriding and undergoing the meaning of this cat . It would maybe look different if the user cooperated with any arguments as e.g here but the user won't discuss, only "fight" & abuse the delete permission given to him. Orrlingtalk

I mainly reverted after the various renamings done by the complainer with the completely wrong name Category:Terrorism Fatalities by country. Moreover, we don't need fatalities as yet another term and variation of the existing victims, casualties and deaths. --Foroa (talk) 09:08, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

protests images

(I copied this from my talk page because it deserves a general discussion - Jim)

Hello. Please I need your help in proving the copyrights of some pictures, because I have a permission from their authors, but I don't know how to prove the copyrights. Look; the pictures is for protests in Syria against the regime in the last few months, but, because there is no international media serves the rebels well, they depends mainly on news networks on Facebook as their media, and they publish all of their news, pictures and videos on these pages. I have contacted the owners of some of those networks, and asked them to give me protests pictures under creative commons license. They agreed, but because of the current status, all protests pictures are published and transported between all protests Facebook groups and becomes everywhere on the internet, and so were those pictures (Although, few of them were given to me directly, and weren't published anywhere before). So, how can I prove the copyrights now?? Note that all pictures are in their original resolution, and, as I said before, some of them weren't published anywhere else before --عباد ديرانية (talk) 02:57, 4 March 2012 (UTC).

Hmm. This is a hard problem. The photographs are taken by many different people, each of which must give a license to his or her work. All of them are living under difficult conditions and have many better things to do than to be giving licenses. Some of the copyrights may be valuable -- certainly their are news outlets that will pay very well for good images -- so we cannot assume that every photographer is willing to give a CC license. I might be willing to Assume Good Faith and trust you -- even though you are a new editor -- but I am not certain all of my colleagues will agree. I am going to copy this to the Commons:Administrators' Noticeboard where it can be more broadly discussed.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 10:44, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Is it not possible for the authors to email OTRS to confirm permission, if they have access to Facebook? Rd232 (talk) 11:12, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, in theory. But, as I said above, they have better things to do -- according to the reports I've seen, survival is a full time job. And, I think, each contact with the outside world may increase the risk of retribution from the government.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 11:21, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

The people who takes pictures and videos for the protests are different than the activists that organize demonstrations. If seen taking pictures, they are caught immediately, but the security forces have no time now to identify and chase all photographers around; they are in thousands. So, if it is all about OTRS, I can get it from them, but how will I prove that a Facebook group was the original author in the first place? Also, some of the pictures (few, but some of them. those who were in taken in Hama city) dates back to august 2011, and because of the high activity of the news networks, maybe they were deleted by now. Anyway, if OTRS can solve the problem, it is easy to get it --عباد ديرانية (talk) 13:21, 4 March 2012 (UTC).

I would be OK with getting OTRS permission from each photographer if you can organize it. Although we like to believe that OTRS very tightly ties the photographer to the image, in fact, we Assume Good Faith there much of the time. I cannot, however, speak for all of our colleagues, so a few more comments would be useful.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 14:08, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I think it is consistent with COM:SCOPE to encourage and support the publication of this content on Commons. Jameslwoodward's view seems sensible to me. I would emphasize that the copyright holder is the photographer, unless s/he has transferred ownership by means of a legal document. Hence, the OTRS permission must come from the photographer. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 16:26, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Okay. I have sent an OTRS email with a copyright's permission from Hama revolution group, which I have uploaded some of its pictures here. If this gonna works, I will ask the other groups that published pictures to send OTRS emails --عباد ديرانية (talk) 23:57, 4 March 2012 (UTC).

Category:Enclave of Treviño

Page is locked. Kindly add to it "[[Category:Exclaves and Enclaves|Treviño]]". Thank you, Orrlingtalk 21:31, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done by User:Ezarate. In future, there is {{Edit request}} for this sort of thing. But while we're here: can anyone explain why the category is protected indefinitely (since December 2008)? Rd232 (talk) 01:46, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Followup to my own question: see Category talk:Basque Country/Category scheme Basque Country and Category talk:Basque Country. Rd232 (talk) 17:41, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

{{CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0}}

Hallros (talk · contribs) created {{CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0}} and Category:CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0 in early February, apparently for his own pictures (he later changed his mind). Now it's used by more than 50 pictures mostly by Eric028 (talk · contribs). First, can a Chinese speaker ask Eric to remove the NC clause from his pics? The older ones were first tagged as {{Cc-by-3.0}}; perhaps if we explain we don't accept NC clauses he will revert to using CC-By even for his newer pics. My second question is: I thought we sort of detected the use of unfree licences and tagged them as such? Jastrow (Λέγετε) 13:44, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

For new uploads, yes. But he changed the license long after upload [21]. We should ask him to revert himself as the old license is still valid (point him to CC FAQ). --Saibo (Δ) 14:12, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Although I normally insist on license changes being made by the uploader, I think that cases like this -- where the uploader applies a more restrictive license after the upload -- can be reverted by anyone.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 15:21, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, they can - but he should cleanup what he broke. ;) And it is just nicer. --Saibo (Δ) 15:57, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I completely agree on both counts, but sometimes we can't make "should" actually happen.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 00:12, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Apparently Eric028 lives in Hong Kong, and his descriptions are written in English, so I left him a message myself. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 14:47, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

• This template should really be redirected to {{Noncommercial}}. I would do it, but it's currently linked in the aforementioned user's images. Killiondude (talk) 08:46, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done. --Martin H. (talk) 09:20, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

But a person can distribute stuff under -nc- licences here. The restriction is that one must also distribute it under a free licence as well, so redirecting a non-free licence to the deletion warning is not acceptable. If somebody can't understand why somebody may want to distribute under both NC and free licence, please contact me, i'll draw you a table. VolodyA! V Anarhist Beta_M (converse) 15:04, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Distributing under an NC licence in addition to a different licence may be useful for a number of reasons, but the thing is that the easily accessible {{CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0}} template made some people license files only under an NC licence, which is not OK. Users wishing to use NC licences can create a custom licence template in their own userspace which can be used together with a different licence, or you could use a multi-licence template such as {{GFDL-CC-triple}}. The templates shouldn't just be too easily accessible, since it may risk resulting in errors. --Stefan4 (talk) 17:51, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Valid point. But that's still not the reason to replace the tag with the deletion notice. It should be more along the lines of GFDL review licence. VolodyA! V Anarhist Beta_M (converse) 17:58, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Flickr Upload Bot, local or global blacklist

I'm trying to upload 5 images that are cc-by-sa 2.0 licensed on Flickr. Flickr upload bot says they're blacklisted for some reason. The images were taken by a participant at the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center. The photographer has a Pro account on Flickr, and I've corresponded with her through email. She wants to release the images. Can someone unblock them or upload them for me? That would be great. Thanks.

images

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/misturaviva/3823447239/ A view from the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center (Patagonia, Arizona)
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/misturaviva/3823448241/ The restaurant at Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center (Patagonia, Arizona)
• https://www.flickr.com/photos/misturaviva/3823449481/ Welcome art at the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center (Patagonia, Arizona)
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/misturaviva/3823461209/ Recipe at the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center (Patagonia, Arizona)
• https://www.flickr.com/photos/misturaviva/3823450935/ Food spread at the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center (Patagonia, Arizona)

Ocaasi (talk) 14:52, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Not listed at Commons:Questionable Flickr images/Users or Commons:Questionable Flickr images/Users/Inactive so I don't know why the bot says that they are blacklisted. On the other hand, two different cameras were used for the photos taken on 23 March 2006, which looks suspicious. Also note that this one might suffer from freedom of panorama problems. --Stefan4 (talk) 15:03, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the photograph of the welcome art infringes on the copyright of the designer and will be a {{Delete}} if uploaded unless it is pre 1989 and is in one of the several possible exceptions then applicable to USA copyrights.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 15:18, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I'm happy to exclude that one then. I'm removing it from the list. How about the other 4. Could someone upload them for me or recommend an alternate tool for me to use? Ocaasi (talk) 15:25, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, it started working! No idea why the change. Thanks for your help! Ocaasi (talk) 15:41, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

User:FabGirl12

This user is repeatedly uploading copyvio images taken from other websites and facebook pages claiming them to be "own work". He/She isn't stopping even after being warned. Please block this user. Thanks!--Sodabottle (talk) 16:36, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks &  Done. 2nd offence so longer this time - indef next if they fail to take the time to understand - regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:40, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

New feature (currently for admins only, in file namespace only): X-To-DR

Often files are tagged for speedy-deletion but do not qualify for speedy-deletion.

Then you had to find out, who added the tag, remove the template, copy the reason and start a deletion request.

This is now much easier with X-To-DR. The code is located at MediaWiki:Gadget-AjaxQuickDelete.js and you can add the X-To-DR-feature to any template by using Template:X-To-DR. Example usages are by {{Duplicate}}. You can see it in Category:Duplicate.

If you find logical errors, please report them on MediaWiki talk:Gadget-AjaxQuickDelete.js. Thanks! -- RE rillke questions? 20:03, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Tools to make our work quicker are always appreciated, thank you. Could you take a look at MediaWiki_talk:Gadget-DelReqHandler.js#New_Problem?. Thanks,      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 23:49, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Very nice. Needs the AjaxQuickDelete gadget activated of course. Why is it for admins only though? For initial testing? Rd232 (talk) 12:20, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Promotional user

The user Areasiete is a promotional user which has been bloqued in spanish wikipedia and has uploaded copyrighted images about his company. 62.83.20.70 22:06, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done Nuked all images, blocked indef for inappropriate username.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 23:46, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

User:TheDarkFever

Serial copyright violator. Was blocked for a week on 27 feb for copyvio. The block expired yesterday. He has comeback and uploaded yet another copyvio image (similar to the ones he/she had uploaded earlier). Requesting a block for a longer time period.--Sodabottle (talk) 03:12, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done For 6 months. --M0tty (talk) 09:37, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Probable sockpuppet

Hi. JoséContreras12 is uploading new versions of deleted pictures. All pictures says "own work" but includes others names, but link to other sites, copyrighted CD cover's, a picture of 1930 as "own work", etc. I think is a sockpuppet of Elder 99, a permanent blocked' user in es:WP for SPA about Esquipulas. I'm not sure where should I ask for a checkuser. Thanks. --Andrea (talk) 11:42, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

You normally ask for Checkuser support at Commons:Requests_for_checkuser. However, I am a CU, and have looked at the problem. Unfortunately the system keeps information of this sort only three months and Elder 99's last edit was just outside that, on December 4. I will look at JoséContreras12's uploads.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 12:35, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done Deleted several obvious copyvios, closed DR on four images as delete, tagged the rest with {{No permission since}}      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 13:20, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! --Andrea (talk) 15:30, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Tommyoliveruk

Removes my speedy tag and creates out of scope pages.--Motopark (talk) 14:58, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• Page deleted. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:05, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Uploader removed source information

see File:Facundox23 el 6 de enero el todas mias.jpg history, what we shall do with this case.--Motopark (talk) 16:39, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

File:Angelo-rebelo.jpeg

Picture seems to created again after deletion and no OTRS-received, could somebody delete--Motopark (talk) 19:39, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done 02:45, 10 March 2012 by Techman224 --      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 15:17, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Problems related to new versions of an image

I just stubled upon a problem related to uploads of new image versions. After cropping two files and reuploading them (1, 2), I saw error messages that MediaWiki couldn't copy the files from /tmp/phpEARi4R to mwstore://local-backend/local-public/4/44/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-B1229-0008-001,_Berlin,_West-Berliner_Besucher_in_Ostberlin.jpg and from /tmp/phpwUzKqQ to unter mwstore://local-backend/local-public/7/7e/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-C0325-0007-003,_Berlin,_Karl-Marx-Allee,_Kino_International,_Eisbar.jpg :/ Is this a known problem? (full hard-disks?) --32X (talk) 21:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Maybe related to Commons:Village pump#"upload a new version" replaces old version. Go to bugzilla: and find the answer there. -- RE rillke questions? 22:19, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Outing by user:O'Dea

Please take a look at this, user O'Dea outed another user and I removed outing lines, then he went on inserting them again. --Vituzzu (talk) 10:17, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

That's not good, but you seem to be handling it. Do you have a question or request? Rd232 (talk) 14:15, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not so aware of Commons' habits so I wanted to point out the problem to administrators' attention, furthermore I hope there wont be the need of a block but, anyway, policies don't allow me to do them by myself around here ^^

--Vituzzu (talk) 18:29, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Well if there's any more trouble it will need a block. You and a Commons admin already warned the user. Rd232 (talk) 18:57, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

COM:REVDEL

The discussion on whether to make COM:REVDEL a policy (at Commons talk:Revision deletion) has been open a month now. Can someone please decide if it's OK to close it as supported, or if we need more input (maybe through a site notice)? Thanks. Rd232 (talk) 14:14, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

We do not, as far as I know, have an official policy on how we make policy. Since this is a fairly minor, non-controversial codification of widespread current practice, I think we can close it as "adopted". With that said, please read my note on "redact" at Commons talk:Revision deletion.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 14:56, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I know we don't have a policy on making policy, so it's really a judgement call on whether there's enough community support, and since I wrote and instigated the proposal, I didn't want to make the call myself, even though it seems straightforward. As you say, it's non-controversial codification of practice, but nonetheless, it's a new policy... I made that change about "redaction". Would you do the honours with the {{Policy}} tag then? cheers, Rd232 (talk) 15:49, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done COM:REVDEL is now policy. Techman224^Talk 19:18, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Rd232 (talk) 19:49, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Spammer

User:Chinmay235, see my revert Bulwersator (talk) 07:55, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Gone. --Denniss (talk) 08:15, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Cross wiki issues affecting Commons plus logs/deletions etc

In part this is a response to a comment on my talk page here. However it is far more a general notification to Commons folk of cross wiki abuse that is affecting Commons too in a largely unseen way. By way of quick background I came here as a cross wiki worker and have continued to work cross wiki on and off. The past three months or so have brought a massive increase in abuse of Foundation sites via various forms of link placemnet and bot activity. Websites are actually selling tools to allow web owners to spam Foundation sites. This is affecting Commons quite widely and has meant I have had time for little else in the past few weeks (I've been working from Meta on this too). So - addressing speedy deletion of user pages and the like (+ blocks) some deletions will appear out of policy if this general/cross wiki issue is not understood. I am using a number of abuse filters to try and get to grips with this problem and two of them flag up link placement on user page (talk and user). There are three forms

1. Validation of useful contributions to Commons - great - or TUSC links on talk pages - fine. I find some great new users this way :)
2. Folk who upload their profile picture and a link to their website/Youtube/whatever (sometimes with the image!). I tend to look for cross wiki contributions firstly. If there are some I tend to be tolerant. If not then they are probably confusing Commons with facebook or any other social networking site - these people need advising on our scope.
3. Bot account creation/abuse of mutiple accounts/individuals promoting themselves or their businesses via Foundations sites because someone told them it was possible/a good idea. These need eliminating to ensure that the message gets out that it is not a good idea - they are not appropriate for DRs (indeed I often blacklist repeatedly abused web links).

A further form of abuse which is very prevalent at present is edits from "comment bots" who are intended for spamming forums/blogs and the like. These are IP edits from proxy servers (either open or often mailservers). In discussion with a number of stewards we are now blocking these as soon as we find the edits. A number of admins have deleted - to them - rather strange talk pages recently - the giveaway is the edit summary. An abuse filter is now starting to deal with these here. Sadly I see I have pleaced over 550 blocks in the past 3 months (on Commons, likely similar on Meta). I have also requested global locks/blocks on Meta for many many users and IPs.

Hopefully this explains anumber of my actions/log activities recently. If folk don't agree with my actions - please say - the result will be for me to hand in the tools if I am unable to use them for the benefit of Foundations projects here. If folk would like to help I would be happy to let them have more info. I am not an expert of filters but the ones I have are working ok at present. It is likely that I am one of the very few on here who are more than marginally aware of the problem. Billinghurst is involved from a Meta perspective however he is now a steward and dealing with issues with those tools. I'll post more if folk are interested or contact me - thanks for the time. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 14:30, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• It's quite reasonable to begin with Commons creating your "profile" and uploading of your picture. Where is any wrongdoing here? Trycatch (talk) 14:49, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
  • "uploading of your picture" - because Commons:SCOPE#File_in_use_on_Commons_only is meant for users who are active contributors, not those who upload an image of themselves and then leave (Commons:NOT#Commons_is_not_your_personal_free_web_host). Rd232 (talk) 14:54, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
    • If the profile is one year old -- ok, but how would you know that a recently created "profile" wasn't created by a user who is going to contribute? Trycatch (talk) 15:27, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
      • A user who only created a profile and has done nothing else a few days later almost certainly never will. Rd232 (talk) 17:03, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
        • Very interested in where this discussion goes, because according to Admin Herbythyme, I am NOT allowed a profile page in the Commons. Suggestion: A list of things allowed on User Pages would be very helpful to new entrants in the Commons, like me. --Ne0Freedom --Eternal-Entropy (talk) 17:34, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
          • @Rd232 Do you have any statistics or something? Anyway, thanks to User:Eternal-Entropy, it's obvious that Herby deletes new profiles immediately after their creation, not in a few days or something. Trycatch (talk) 18:08, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
            • • Statistics? No, just experience. And in Herby's schema above, type 3 (promotional content - COM:ADVERT) needs deleting ASAP to ensure people get the message, and get as little as possible temporary promotional benefit. Rd232 (talk) 21:48, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
            • Yep and you do really need to read the fact that that page said "please explore our website" - that is promotional plain and simple (particularly in view of the other contributions which I see they are still arguing about). Still - if you don't like it say the word & I will be off. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 18:24, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
              • I've just taken a look at the deleted revisions and I have to support Herbythyme here. The contents of this page was promotional and thereby out of COM:SCOPE, even on user pages. While we are quite permissive with user pages this must not be used to promote some web site. And promotional pages should be speedily deleted on sight. (An exception would be a link to a private home page of the user but this wasn't the case here. In the moment the linked site is even on sale.) --AFBorchert (talk) 18:37, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
                • I can't see the deleted edits, however, anyway it's always easy simply remove only promotional content keeping important information about affiliation of the user. "In the moment the linked site is even on sale." -- so that "promotional" page "promotes" what exactly, an expired domain? And why do you that it was not a private home page if the site currently is unavailable? Trycatch (talk) 21:30, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
                  • The site was available at the time the page was deleted (it expired some weeks later), and the only other content was a quote related to the site. Combined with the "please explore" request, this is simply promotional, and nothing else. Rd232 (talk) 22:19, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
              • Please take it in context: "Networksite is currently down. Please explore (xyz)". It was meant to be a temoprary place holder, and was only in the first version. "It's always easy simply remove only promotional content keeping important information about affiliation of the user." So why was the second and third version deleted ? --Eternal-Entropy (talk) 19:28, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Thanks. I wonder, what, if anything, can be done to make it easier to deal with these issues (apart from perhaps making COM:CSD an actual policy instead of a draft occasionally relied on as if it were policy). I just created COM:ALTOUT which may usefully supplement COM:PS - we can then refer people not just to "COM:SCOPE" ("not here"), but also "COM:ALTOUT" ("try there"). Rd232 (talk) 14:51, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

These are rumer-generated gibberish, it's even useless to try giving them advices. Basically the only thing which can be done is delete/block/blacklisting/checkuser/lock--Vituzzu (talk) 15:12, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• Herbythyme, you have my full support in this. I looked at some of these filters and checked some random cases which exhibited the problem. Particularly noteworthy appears to be Special:AbuseFilter/85 with typical samples as this: [22], [23], [24]. If we are hit by spambots we need such filter rules for our defense as this cannot be done manually. Even if this means that we will encounter false positives, the best approach seems to me to observe this and to tune these filters where necessary (what has already been done multiple times). --AFBorchert (talk) 16:42, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• I would suggest to simply disallowing indexing of user-pages by third-party crawlers in robots.txt - if required, globally. -- RE rillke questions? 18:51, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Can be done via MediaWiki:Robots.txt, or by filing a bug asking for $wgNamespaceRobotPolicies to be changed for Commons (see en:Wikipedia:Controlling search engine indexing footnote 1). However, people may think this overkill. Rd232 (talk) 22:10, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
    • This approach does not solve the problem but could possibly cause some grief. It does not solve the problem as most spammers are likely not to be aware of these settings and spambots do not tend to evaluate robots.txt beforehand. Hence such a configuration will not stop the spammers from creating promotional pages at Commons. They would have less effect but they would still need to be cleaned up. The other point is that it is usually preferably to have user pages indexed. See, if a photo of Wikimedia Commons is reused somewhere with attribution and someone wants to google the user name, it is a good thing to find the corresponding user page with possibly links to more photos, options to contact the photographer etc. This is helpful as few reusers provide backlinks to Wikimedia Commons or to the user page. --AFBorchert (talk) 07:04, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
      • Thanks for the thought Rillke but until that message gets through we will still be dealing with cleaning up the junk. Equally some bots will not be put off as they just don't realise that their attempt to spam are not configured for Wikimedia - see this for a classic example! We could protect it but that would stop legit folk commenting if they wished to. I guess we could just leave it but that seems wrong. Blocking the IPs is sensible as - because of their nature - they could well be misused. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:33, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
        • Thanks. So it's a lot of manual work. -- RE rillke questions? 09:55, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
      • Thanks AFBorchert, that's a clear explanation of what I was vaguely thinking. Rd232 (talk) 12:34, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
• Thank you for your vigilance, Herby. I fully support what you're doing, for what it's worth. Killiondude (talk) 08:28, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
• And another proposal: File a feature request to make automated account creation more difficult, e.g. by only using random IDs for the inputs, placing the labels absolute and not in a table and adding hidden (e.g. behind another HTML element) trap-inputs. -- RE rillke questions? 09:55, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
  • I don't know if that would help, but there's no harm in requesting that sort of thing which only changes things behind the scenes (as long as it doesn't cause unexpected accessibility issues). Rd232 (talk) 12:34, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
  • +better captcha would be nice. The current one is too easy to overcome using primitive OCR tools like gocr. Trycatch (talk) 21:34, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
• I think Herby was looking for some help with the fight (yes, spam is a war!) against these spambots and also he wanted to advice you to block these accounts on sight, they won't ever read notices left on their talkpages but, actually, these people are paid to violate our policies. If you find on of these bots please leave a line at meta:SRG, asking for a global lock. --Vituzzu (talk) 18:33, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Filters

For those who are that way inclined the filters involved are Special:AbuseFilter/6 (to a degree but this is one from the last lot of attacks), Special:AbuseFilter/85, Special:AbuseFilter/86, Special:AbuseFilter/88, Special:AbuseFilter/91 & Special:AbuseFilter/92 at present (similar ones on Meta) --Herby ^{talk thyme} 15:34, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Example

Revert of spam on village pump (link active for nonadmins). This account uploaded also 3 spam images and placed spam on usertalk and userpage Bulwersator (talk) 08:16, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Category:Video game logos

This category is full of copyright violations. Many of the logos meet the threshold of originality in my eyes, or consist of more than just simple geometry. Could some administrators look into this category and delete the ones that fail their tags that say that they are not subject to copyright? One obvious example is File:Fzero-nopatterns.svg. Jesse Viviano (talk) 17:48, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Just a note: you can use {{Request fair use delete}} to request that some of these images be deleted and re-uploaded to the English Wikipedia and other places as fair use candidates. They usually permit video game logos for games that have articles. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:49, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Please use DR if you see a {{PD-textlogo}} template on the picture, as we've different sensibilities about the originality threshold. --Dereckson (talk) 23:55, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Userpage moved

this edit, can someone restore this.--Motopark (talk) 06:58, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Done by another admin. Rehman 11:46, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Out of scope gallery, only text ?

This Commons:MyGallery/Mester mohamad gad, are it out of scope, see also other edits of this user.--Motopark (talk) 08:13, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done Deleted the gallery, blanked his talk page. Although I don't read Arabic, Google translate made it clear that these were polemics, way out of Commons scope.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 15:10, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Corrupt version of images

When I uploaded File:Potter's Covered Bridge underside.jpg, I had an upload error that made me think that it had uploaded my description but not the image, so I tried the upload again. Turns out that everything uploaded fine the first time, while the second image upload is somehow corrupted. Please delete the most recent revision of this image (uploaded at 13:56) so that thumbnails will display properly. The same situation is true with File:Potter's Covered Bridge northern portal.jpg; the image to delete was uploaded at 13:58. Thanks! Nyttend (talk) 14:00, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Both last version seems fine, might be duplicate of first version. However deleting the reversion will not delete physically the image from the server, it will not save space. I can purge the image to force the creation of new thumbnails. Is this solution ok for you ? --PierreSelim (talk) 14:07, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Painting replaced by the wrong one.

I just noticed the following problem: If you look at the thumbnails below the main image, the C.M. Russell painting currently placed here, File:Broncj.jpg "Camp Cook's Troubles" was originally supposed to be this one -- "Bronc to Breakfast' Anyone can see that the theme is similar, but the horse is at a completely different angle. When I noticed the wrong image was up, I fixed the text so the title is correct for the image there now, but I totally forgot (brain fart, I guess) that this was a file I had originally created with a completely different painting. Anyway, my question: Can someone figure out how to restore the original "Bronc to Breakfast" file AND keep the current "Camp Cook's Troubles" image too? Bronc to Breakfast is the more famous painting, but both should be here if we want to have as complete a collection of Russell works as possible... thanks. Montanabw (talk) 16:26, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

The other user should have uploaded the different painting under a different filename. You can revert the displayed image of the page Broncj.jpg to the "Bronc" image, using the "revert" link by the thumbnail (although it wouldn't hurt if we could have a better copy of that painting) and copy the "Camp" image to your system and reupload it to Commons under a different filename. -- Asclepias (talk) 16:56, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the other user should have chosen another filename (COM:OVERWRITE), but since "Camp Cook's Troubles" was uploaded on 7 October 2009, it may be better to leave it. Caption and link corrections have probably been made. Instead, I would upload "Bronc to Breakfast" under a different filename. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 17:51, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Will give that a shot, thanks. Montanabw (talk) 17:54, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Full text search in deleted pages/files?

Hi there, Is there an admin tool for searching deleted pages/files for certain phrases (like: name of author, who recently entered public domain)? A.J. (talk) 10:57, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

AFAIK there is no such tool. Search in DRs (intitle:"Deletion requests"), search in logs (if the name of the author was copied to the deletion description) -- it may help sometimes. Trycatch (talk) 11:29, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Category move?

I followed the instructions at Commons:Categories for discussion#Closing a discussion and listed the rename at User talk:Category-bot, but I'm not sure said bot is operational. Are those instructions out of date? Powers (talk) 14:53, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Bot Behavior

Is this correct bot behavior? A bot changed a soft redirect on my user page to a soft redirect template. The link in the edit summary goes to this talk page guideline. As far as I am aware, a soft redirect is acceptable on a user page but not a user talk page. Is the bot operating out of compliance with guidelines?--TParis (talk) 18:48, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

1. Real interwiki redirects do not work. Did you read the user page of the "bot"?
2. The summary is wrong. It was fixed after a user told me about the problem.
3. It does not operate. This one is from 2011-08-05
4. I fulfilled a work request from User:Foroa. Do you need the diff-link?
5. What is your problem?

-- RE rillke questions? (ریلکه) (里尔克) (リルケ) 18:58, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Redirects between wikipedia projects do not work and appear in the broken links reports. A softredirect is a compromise, but doesn't change the behaviour. Now that the "broken" redirects are cleaned out by a bot, we adapt such links manually as they appear for example here. --Foroa (talk) 19:11, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

That's not the point of the question. The question is: "Why are you running a bot on user pages based on a guideline that only applies to user talk pages?" I was very clear in my original message that this was the question and the source of the request nor the 5 questions above do not negate the difference between the policy and the actions of the bot. Why are you making mass changes that the guideline doesn't support? If there was a community discussion/consensus on this, then why was the guideline not updated?--TParis (talk) 21:47, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

There is no Commons policy or guideline specifically covering user pages. However, the conversion of an attempt to use #REDIRECT to create a cross-project redirect into a soft redirect template falls under uncontroversial maintenance. As noted, such broken redirects pollute database reports; for you, the result is the same. I'm a bit mystified why any of this seems worthy of comment. Also, if you asked the bot operator before coming to AN (or notified him of the thread, for that matter), I've missed it. A bit more collegiality would be nice. Rd232 (talk) 23:01, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Hello, Your criticism may be valid in the sense that the standard edit message left by the bot was perhaps poorly worded for this situation, as the guideline to which it links does not seem relevant to it. The guideline does neither support nor forbid this change. Perhaps a better edit comment might have been something along the lines of "Formatted soft redirect. For more info., please see template documentation." But other than the wording of the edit comment, the change itself seems proper and certainly made in good faith, in the spirit of the documentation of the Softredirect template, and in compliance to good pratice. On a level of principle, I don't think it matters if such a maintenace change is made by a bot or an "ordinary" user, although on a technical level I guess a bot is certainly useful for such routine maintenance. Now, what are the actual effects of the change? The soft redirect remains in place and works exactly as it did before. However, it is now formatted in compliance with the usual Commons practice. The differences, as far as I can tell, are the following : 1) the page is categorized together with the other softredirected pages, 2) the interwiki link that was in the side column is removed, as it merely duplicated the soft redirect itself, and 3) the template allows some relevant mentions to display in different language preferences (not sure about this last effect, as I'm no technical expert). So, as long as the main effect of the soft redirect itself is not affected, it seems to me that you were not criticizing those small changes, which I think represent normal maintenance, formatting the soft redirect in the usual manner for all soft redirects. -- Asclepias (talk) 23:14, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Asclepias. You gave the most thorough answer. The bot operator completely missed the question, the original task operator had nothing of relevance to say, and Rd232 spoke of collegiality but offered none from himself or from the other two. It's nice to have someone actually answer the question with understanding and compassion for those of us who don't know common's practices.--TParis (talk) 23:40, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Everyone tried to be helpful in different ways; your third sentence is way off base. And as an en.wp admin you don't need to know Commons' practices to know that talking to the bot operator about a disputed bot edit from 6 months ago before going to the Administrators' Noticeboard is a good idea. Anyway, is everything cleared up now? Rd232 (talk) 01:43, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and the not talking to the bot operator first was a slip of the mind - not on purpose.--TParis (talk) 03:50, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Move request

Please move فرح دیبا to فرح پهلوی according to the relevant article on the English Wikipedia and the Persian Wikipedia. Thanks in advance. Americophile 14:01, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Rd232 (talk) 11:50, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Please undelete File:Kf cropped.jpg

Hi, OTRS permission is in for File:Kf cropped.jpg; ticket:2012030210001501. The identity of the uploader has been confirmed. Please undelete the image. The licence was not mentioned in the ticket (but is unncessary if there is a licence in the file). I will have a look at the licence afterwards and if it is incomplete get a complete licence. Thank you, Taketa (talk) 19:21, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Trijnstel_talk 20:13, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Please undelete File:Bronfman sara.jpg

Hi, OTRS permission is in for File:Bronfman sara.jpg; ticket:2012031310013013. The image is released under CC-BY-SA 3.0. I will make the necessary changes to the file after it has been restored. Thank you, Taketa (talk) 20:24, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

•  Done --Captain-tucker (talk) 20:31, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Thank you for restoring. I can now see that there is a small irregularity and I need to ask the contact for clarification. In the mean time I will make the necessary changes to the file. Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 20:47, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Image Cat

File:Close window X.gif is protected. Admin needed to add a category. Since this icon is without cat since 2010, no rush! :-)) Thanks! --Hedwig in Washington ^(MAIL?) 00:31, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Forgot to mention: keep protected, according to Peter Symonds it might be used in fundraising stuff. --Hedwig in Washington ^(MAIL?) 00:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

What category are you proposing be added? Tiptoety ^talk 02:39, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit war

We can find an edit war on File:SogdiansNorthernQiStellae550CE.jpg Evidence: here.

Unfortunately both users (User:Orijentolog & User:Maikolaser) didn't use talk page.

Takabeg (talk) 03:54, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I've just planned to report this issue, please check out explanation on talk page which he ignores. Everything has started when User Maikolaser (and his friend/perhaps sockpuppet Tirgin34) tried to manipulate date of picture from 550CE to 700CE. see this in attempt to atribute it to later historic period because it fix with his ideological views. --Orijentolog (talk) 05:48, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

File:Emblem_of_TuAF.svg

Can somone reupload the Emblem of the Turkisch Air Force with the de:Vorlage:Bild-PD-Amtliches Werk? Thx--Sanandros (talk) 10:37, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

As long as I understand, you'd better upload it as "non-free use rationale" like en:File:Kkbrove yeni.png in each project. Takabeg (talk) 10:53, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Commons:List of administrators

There is a count mismatch in Commons:List of administrators. Can someone remove the user who does not have sysop rights. It looks tedious to check the entire list manually. --Sreejith K (talk) 10:53, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I keep a daily eye on the list, but it seems to be correct now. If you ever need to check the detail, compare the system's official list

• http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers&limit=500&group=sysop

to the list from

• http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:List_of_administrators&action=edit

Putting them both into Excel and sorting makes this easy.

Note that sometimes after a recent change, a purge of the page is necessary to update the number.

     Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 11:36, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

"Alert about user puppet"

I'm on my way out the door, so I can't handle this, but this was on the Village Pump, I'm copying it here. - Jmabel ! talk 00:52, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

[START COPIED]
Sorry for my english.

This user Cvkfekjf238 (talk · contribs) has recently uploaded fictional or invented flags of the Dominican Republic municipalities that were deleted the last year by a deletion requests. So i suspect the user is a puppet.--Inefable001 (talk) 19:02, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
[END COPIED]

• I nominated first group as "Author Dominican Government of Issues + own work. Requires COM:OTRS" Bulwersator (talk) 07:53, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
  • I do not think this issue requires spending time in another delete request, because there was a delete request before and these flags were found to be invented by a user who used several puppets for upload them. The flags are falses, so they need to be deleted under the speedy deletion policy.--Inefable001 (talk) 21:18, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done I have deleted all of the flags. All of the rest of this user's images have been deleted by others as copyvios. I cannot prove that he is a sock, but I left a warning.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 11:54, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Dumb question, perhaps?

I note that User:Harej recently lost his or her Admin bit. I would expect to see that action in his or her public logs, but it isn't there. Why not?      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 13:24, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Stewards remove sysop rights on meta, so you should check meta logs -- [25] (don't forget to use @commonswiki postfix). Trycatch (talk) 13:38, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Bureaucrats on Commons don't have the ability to desysop - that's why Stewards have to do this. It's possible to give bureaucrats that ability - en.wp did it last year, and this has the advantage of keeping logs local, and avoiding this sort of confusion. I think it's not given by default because on smaller wikis with only one or two bureaucrats it may be too much power. Rd232 (talk) 15:29, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I guess I don't completely understand. When I click on (verify) on my User page, I get a list on Commons. Why is it that a change to that list is logged on meta?

I see no reason why our 'crats should not do desysops as needed. We trust them not to create Admins outside of process, why is it that we don't trust them not to remove Admins without process?      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 15:49, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

"Why is it that a change to that list is logged on meta"? Because the desysop action is taken on Meta. Actually I'm not sure whether the steward action couldn't be local... And I agree that on Commons there should be no problem with 'crats desysopping. If we show community support for that, it's a simple bug to change a line in the Wikimedia settings file. Rd232 (talk) 16:17, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Jim, this is how things were done in antiquity, even for projects like the English Wikipedia. Local 'crats only recently (a year? 1.5 years?) were able to start removing the admin bit. Like Rd said, we just need community consensus to enable Commons 'crats to do this. Killiondude (talk) 16:53, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

For information, it's not THAT simple to get this right. French Wikipedia voted it after a 3 weeks of discussions and 3 weeks of voting (82% for about 100 users), but it's getting stuck on the bugzilla [26]. PS: yes I'm bored a community can waste 6 weeks in discussions and vote and then just not get the decision applied, for obscur reasons. --PierreSelim (talk) 17:17, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

CSS for input.historysubmit

When you go on "history" and look at button "Comparer les versions sélectionnées" (compare selected versions) we notice that text isn't well aligned vertically. Firebug tells me it's from load.php:

input.historysubmit {
    cursor: pointer;
    font-size: 94%;
    height: 1.7em !important;
    margin-left: 1.6em;
    padding: 0 0.3em 0.3em !important;
}

It would be nice to remove/edit either the font-size or the height. Cœur (talk) 18:58, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

But as far as I can see, we don't have this styling rule on Commons itself. That's why I filed bugzilla:35323. Please follow this bug report. -- RE rillke questions? 16:31, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Harassment

Account Eternal-Entropy is being represented by User Ne0Freedom. All our edits and uploads in Wikipedia Commons are bieng deleted by User:Herbythyme and User:Jameslwoodward without sufficient explaination.

1. User:Eternal-Entropy has been deleted repeatedly by User:Herbythyme, without citing any concrete rules or giving explanations on what exactly is allowed on a User Page.
2. File:Wikipedia 11 Kolkata Cake.jpg is a photo donated by Wikipedia:User:Ne0Freedom, and uploaded by User:Jayantanth. When edited by us, User:Herbythyme reverted the edits, and User:Jameslwoodward locked it.
3. File:Pollution at Ganga banks.jpg is a photo donated by Wikipedia:User:Ne0Freedom, uploaded through User:Eternal-Entropy, deleted by User:Jameslwoodward without any warnings or valid explainations.

Deletions and censorship by User:Herbythyme and User:Jameslwoodward is disrupting the very purpose of the commons, ie. hosting Copyright-Free files to be used on other Wikimedia projects. --Eternal-Entropy (talk) 11:49, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Info for folk here

On point 3 - the file was deleted because the licensing was not compatible with freely licensing required on Commons - the deletion rationale reads "Non-free license, or license disallowing commercial use and/or derivative works: Limitations on license are not allowed on Commons".

On point 2 - again there was an attempt to impose additional licensing on the file repeatedly - see the history

On point 1 - Please explore our website is attempting to promote a website.

Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:56, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I have only two additional bits of information to add to Herby's summary.

Point 3 - The license on the file was:

"License: Knowledge (Vidya) http://collectiveconciousness.info/Knowledge_License.html Not to be used for purposes of Lust(eg. Sadistic pleasure), Wrath(eg. Terrorism), Pride(eg. Bragging), etc."

The linked site is now a dead link. The prohibited uses are unlikely uses, to be sure, but Commons does not allow any restriction on use.

Point 2 - I protected this page because User:Eternal-Entropy three times tried to add a link to the now-dead web page license cited above. Note that this image was originally uploaded by User:Jayantanth, so that User:Eternal-Entropy had no right to make any change at all to the image's license.

     Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 12:19, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

More Info...

Point 1 - there was no to attempt to suggest what exactly is allowed on a commons User Page. Only repeated deletions with the sole excuse of "Out of project scope"/"Out of commons scope".

Point 2 - Wikipedia:User:Ne0Freedom does not believe in taking credit for doing work, therefore it dosen't matter who claims his work, so long as the work is labled as "Vidya"/"Knowledge" instead of intelectual "property". When uploaded through User:Eternal-Entropy, the credit is attributed to God.

Point 3 - With the project scope as a "repository of freely licensed media for use elsewhere", deletions of "freely licensed media" is very counter productive. And, the additional license labels the material as "Knowledge" rather than someone's Property, therefore no prohibitions can be enforced. Also there was no warning, discussions, suggestions, or nomination before the deletion.

  --Eternal-Entropy (talk) 17:09, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

• Point 1 - Please don't be disingenuous. User:Ne0Freedom (who is the same person as User:Eternal-Entropy) has been on WMF for seven years, with 1,500 edits. His or her User Page on WP:EN has been the subject of a DR process there, so I am sure he or she has a good idea of what we do not allow. In addition, of course, each of the edit comments was linked to Commons:Project scope, which would have provided more information if Ne0Freedom had actually needed it.
• Point 2 - While Wikipedia:User:Ne0Freedom is perfectly free to "not believe in taking credit for doing work," he or she is not free to change the license on other people's work. Such an action done once was a serious violation of our rules. Done three times, as was the case here, it might have brought a block from a different Admin.
• Point 3 -- no warning is required when deleting files that have restrictive licenses. Please remember that Commons Admins delete about 1,300 files every day. The rules do not require us to discuss every deletion.

     Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 17:46, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Correction - Wikipedia User Ne0Freedom Has been on Wikipedia for the past Six Years; and through User Eternal-Entropy, on Commons for Two Months. Commons:Project scope does not explain usage of User Page, only File usage. --Eternal-Entropy (talk) 18:03, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

They seem to be supporting the mission to my eyes. The actions on File:Wikipedia_11_Kolkata_Cake.jpg were clearly appropriate to my eyes, and even if I were inclined to quibble with how the other two were handled, they needed to be cleaned up and you acting like you were completely in the right doesn't help your case at all.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:38, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Please delete this image, This image is creating unnecessary misunderstanding.[27]. I would like to upload one image from my camera.Personally I don't think this is "Harassment". Please delete this image and close this Arbitration. Yes during Wiki meetup Kolkata 8, Neel captured this image, I upload for workshop example "How to upload image at commoms", Yes had take one mistake I didn't mention original photographer. So please delete this image. Neel may be upload this image in future.--Jayanta Nath (talk) 04:05, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

There is no reason to delete the image. I will unprotect it. Simply change the author line. We cannot, however, accept the silly "license" which User:Ne0Freedom/Eternal-Entropy tried three times to put on it, particularly since the site is now dead.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 12:27, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for unprotecting it. "Kopimi" is a valid liscence, I hope. Could you also please undelete File:Pollution at Ganga banks.jpg ? --Eternal-Entropy (talk) 19:45, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

No, it's not a valid license. It in no way tells the reuser of the file what they can do with the file.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:35, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

It seems "kopimi" is supposed to be a sort of public domain declaration - so {{PD-author}}. Though I'm not sure if the Wikipedia logo on the cake at File:Wikipedia 11 Kolkata Cake.jpg doesn't need some sort of acknowledgement as a source. Rd232 (talk) 23:45, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Commons licensing norms appear to be being properly applied. The licences given have not been compatible with Commons' requirements. Whatever the beliefs of the uploader, regretably "higher consciousness" is not an accceptable description of a work's author. WJBscribe (talk) 22:37, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but it is a puzzle to me in which way the previous comments you made should have been revision deleted; perhaps it would be useful to take a look at the policy in Commons:Revision deletion. - A.Savin 23:22, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry WJB, but I too believe that revdel was wrong. I came here after that revdel edit summary which showed up on my watchlist. Maybe if you quickly accept that that was a mistake, it may stop a potential finger-pointing pile on... Rehman 02:33, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree with the REVDEL. You can't use it to protect yourself from criticism. It was designed to be used in specific circumstances. I've undid the rev del on the username, and will restore the revision if these concerns continue. Techman224^Talk 03:32, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, this specific application was well outside the scope of revdeletion and should be undone. Tiptoety ^talk 03:46, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

+1. RevDel is not a tool to nicen up version histories or your own contribution history. If you made a over-the-line comment, admit it and apologize, but don't cover it up. That being said, I don't think the comment would have had to be revdeleted anyway. Regards, -- ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 09:29, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I have undone the revdel on the 4 edits in question, as they clearly are not inline with our policy. I will drop a note onto WJBscribe's talk page to remind them not to use revdel in such situations in the future. russavia (talk) 10:03, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

File:Mukhe Bhaat.jpg was deleted due to attribution to God. The problem of Harrasment has now escalated to Discrimination: Discrimination against those working for God, i.e Ascetics, Monastics, etc. --Eternal-Entropy (talk) 12:19, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I bet we have a lot of people working for God here who manage to put themselves as author. In fact, I find your statement a little bigoted; yours is not the only brand of asceticism or monasticism. What we are discriminating against is people who won't fill in an author box in a legally correct way.

At least part of the problem is that you're more interested in seeing this in terms of harassment and discrimination then trying to understand why we're having a problem and work with us.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:12, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Search engine indexing

I discovered recently that COM:AN and its subpages are indexed by search engines, even though they may contain sensitive discussions. In response I added those pages to MediaWiki:robots.txt, so that they are no longer crawled by search engines. However a video pointed out by Dcoetzee (this YouTube source by Google's Matt Cutts) suggests that this action might leave those pages in the search engine indexes from past visits by the search engines. I think we may need to apply NOINDEX on each AN page and subpage (including archives), and remove the Robots.txt entry, because then spiders will see the NOINDEX request and apply it to existing data in their index. Robots.txt should be fine for pages that were never indexed though (like DRs created after the robots.txt entry banning their indexing).

So...

1. are we agreed that removing these pages from external search engines is desirable?
2. is there any easy way to apply NOINDEX on all AN pages (without editing each page individually)?

See also Commons:Controlling search engine indexing. Rd232 (talk) 15:37, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

#1 is a tough question. I understand and agree with your line of thought, but Google search is so much better than our own search that from time to time I search the AN archives on Google. On balance, I think I favor allowing indexing. Yes, there are sensitive discussions here, but we are by design and philosophy very transparent, and I think that forbidding indexing reduces our transparency.

As for #2 -- if the decision goes that way -- there are about 75 pages of archives -- isn't it just a few minutes with AWB to add one line to each of those? I think what I would do is to create a new version of {{Talkarchive}} (maybe {{Anbarchive}}) just for the four sets of ANB and add NOINDEX to it. Then if we changed our minds later, we could just change the template.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 15:59, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I understand Google search is better, but the internal search is adequate for searching archives, even if it's less convenient. I don't think publishing things on Google is a requirement for transparency; anyone who actually wants to can find these things. So we're really trading off privacy for minor convenience, and I think privacy wins that argument. On point 2: yes, good, template makes sense. Rd232 (talk) 16:13, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I think that having a template on each NOINDEXed page is not a burden - in fact, I think it is best for all such pages to have an actual visible notice that they are not indexed, so that there is no confusion one way or the other. Wnt (talk) 20:06, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

It is trivial for a bot to NOINDEX these pages, and any new pages that appear, using the allpages API call (which can list all pages with a certain prefix). We should decide if we want them noindexed or not - if we do, I'll write the bot and run it on Toolserver, if we don't, we should remove them from robots.txt. Dcoetzee 00:02, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Can someone check File:AK-12 Izhmash.jpg?

I probably won't be able to get around to coming back, but I think someone should check the copyright status of that file. The user stated that it is his own work, but the image is clearly taken from a website somewhere (as evidenced by the logo in the bottom right hand corner of the image). If someone needs to contact me leave a message at w:User talk:Ryan Vesey. 130.91.93.243 19:28, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Thanks for notifying. --Túrelio (talk) 19:40, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Copyrighted images

Can someone check File:SA M 7 rifle.jpg and all other files uploaded by User:AK47Expert. His files can be found here. The permission for all of his files state that "The license statement can be found at" then he gives the same link as the image. The ones I have seen have had no information to prove that they are in the public domain and some have information to show that they may be copyrighted.165.123.232.127 23:19, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

All seem to have been nuked or tagged. Thanks for the notification. Rodhullandemu (talk) 00:56, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Quick block may be necessary

Please check the contributions of User:Dandy vg. I just blocked them on Wikipedia ([28]). Drmies (talk) 16:25, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Blocked 48 hours so we can review the mess and the user can read related policies before continuing. --Marco Aurelio (disputatio) 16:45, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. User does not seem very communicative, unfortunately. Drmies (talk) 16:53, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Slow/problematic deletions

I experienced slow and problematic deletion for several days. Deletions are often ended with Wikimedia Error or database error. May be somebody familiar with state of servers could comment or request system administrators to look at issue? --EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:36, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I can fully confirm this experience. --Túrelio (talk) 15:37, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

See https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35047 for my experience.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 16:01, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

All your frustration belongs to bugzilla:35047. :-) -- RE rillke questions? 16:03, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

See also my complaints at VP --Denniss (talk) 17:46, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

See also bugzilla:35326. --Marco Aurelio (disputatio) 19:46, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

CommonsHelper blocked?

I'm suddenly unable to upload files from en Wikipedia using CommonsHelper - when I tried using CommonsHelper 2 I get a message saying the Upload bot is blocked on Wikimedia Commons. Kelly (talk) 18:13, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Have you tried CommonsHelper 3? --Stefan4 (talk) 21:06, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/2012-March/006420.html Uploads need to send the wpEditToken. Many older upload tools don't; they'll need to be updated to do if they're to work again. Lupo 21:08, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

This will kill tools:~luxo/derivativeFX/. (or let's say it killed, no way to get the token over there) -- RE rillke questions? 22:21, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah, that's why Rotatebot started deleting rotation requests without actually uploading rotated images. A bit annoying... --Stefan4 (talk) 02:08, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I just hope flickr2commons gets fixed soon. -mattbuck (Talk) 03:35, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

en-wiki main page image

Could an admin protect File:Goose Green - Altrincham, Cheshire - geograph.org.uk - 1608511.jpg please? Due to a snafu, it's been on en.wiki's main page for a while, unprotected. I've temporarily removed it from our main page, but if you could protect it here, I can re-add it before anyone there yells at me for making our main page ugly. Thanks! --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:00, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Nevermind, someone who (unlike me) knows what they're doing uploaded a local copy and protected it there. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:18, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Protected via cascade from Commons:Auto-protected files/wikipedia/en --Denniss (talk) 01:32, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Denniss, but is this something you did to help me, or is this something that happens automatically now, and I panicked for no reason? We used to get yelled at by Betacommand all the time because we had images on the main page that weren't protected here. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:55, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

And, again, nevermind, as I've now looked at the page and see what's going on. Didn't know that, that's cool. Thanks. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Date exception - 2 FEMA files

FEMA pictures, serial numbers, 12037 and 12034 both show a 2004 date in the file name and the Date field, both of which appear to be wrong resulting from apparent errors in the original FEMA data.

• The Metadata for both of these pictures show the year as 2003.
• Pictures preceding and following these pictures uniformly show 2003 as the date.
• I don't see evidence of a 2004 tornado in Clarksville.

I have therefore set the category for each to Tornadoes of 2003 and added a discussion to each picture's talk page.
Is there anything else that should be done to clarify the dates of the pictures? SBaker43 (talk) 04:21, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry corrected Jackson to Clarksville above.SBaker43 (talk) 04:28, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

The "date" field in the description should be corrected as well. As the date is in the filename as well, the files need to be renamed in addition (easiest would probably be to remove the date there). --  Docu  at 04:32, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Its related to en:May 2003 tornado outbreak sequence#May 4 event, infos at http://www.fema.gov/news/eventnews.fema?id=965. A typo in the FEMA file caption possibly. --Martin H. (talk) 05:53, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Non Latin Alphabet Usernames

First, I certainly understand that this is a multilingual project -- I think my record shows that, particulary my two recent RfA nominations of people whose native languages are not English. Also, let me remind everyone that, except for a very little French, I am a monoglot. However, I have lived and traveled in sixty countries and have lived with six alphabets besides the Latin, so I think I have a good world view. However, I am at a loss when trying to read or even recognize words in most non-Latin alphabets. I cannot dependably tell one word in Arabic or Thai from another and I am certainly not alone.

Our username policy says

"The purpose of a username is to identify contributors. If your username or your signature is unnecessarily confusing, editors may ask you to change it. Usernames like "Dasdpoieqdmcoiaq" that are random characters, or are too similar to other contributor's usernames, or confusing for other reasons can be blocked, but the user should usually be allowed to register under a new name."

It does not say that names must be in the Latin alphabet, but I wonder if we should prohibit non-Latin names since most of us will not be able to tell one from the other.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 11:18, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

• Accidentally, I also traveled into sixty countries, and I think that given the existence of SUL prohibiting non-latin names would mean that we exclude a huge number of SUL users from participating in Commons or force them to use a second account. I would be against this.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:10, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

This might be especially useful to checkusers ;-) but I would oppose. I don't see so many different active users here with similar non-latin characters that it would be confusing. Forcing a Japanese user to use latin characters is not an invitation to join our project. But I would be happy if you can describe the problem more in detail giving examples. Greek letters are really easy to read for me - and I never learned this language. Should they also prohibited? -- RE rillke questions? 12:14, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

• Barring non Latin alphabet usernames would discriminate people. However I would strongly recommend to add a transcription on their home page. Yann (talk) 13:42, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

To keep the comment short, I didn't mention the possibility of Greek and Cyrillic being readable by many of us, also Hebrew. I raised the question because as I read the Arabic name in the section immediately above, I realized that I had no way of categorizing it mentally and therefore no way of remembering this user as the contributor who raised an interesting question. If he or she posts another edit a week from now, I won't be able to say (assuming my senior brain is up to it) "Oh, yes, he's the guy who asked about....".

A good analogy, I think is that I am Arabic-blind -- like a color blind person who cannot tell a red light from a green light, I cannot tell "Smith" from "Smyth" in Arabic. I hasten to say that that is not the fault of the Arabic language, but of my own lack of training. However, as a practical matter, I doubt that any of us comes close to being able to distinguish words in all of the non-Latin alphabets that Commons supports.

Although this could, as Ymblanter says, potentially affect a great many users, as a practical matter it need affect only a very few. The name above is the first Arabic username I remember seeing.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 14:03, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

[Added after edit conflict with Yann] Strongly requesting (maybe requiring) a transliteration on the User page would go 90% of the way.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 14:03, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

No demands! A polite request to make the signature a bit distinctive is enough. I am also blind to some alphabets (certainly for those that my computer renders as empty rectangles), but it is no worse than with ip-numbers. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 14:09, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I think we could ask for (i) a transliteration of non-Latin alphabets into Latin on the user page (ii) that transliteration to be added to the signature. Recognition of users is a basic necessity, and this would ensure that it's possible by most users. (Perhaps not all, eg if you think of an Arabic username being read by a Chinese user?) Rd232 (talk) 14:18, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I have a problem with that also, but basically, you want to forbid SUL accounts for non extended latin user names. There should be other solutions. --Foroa (talk) 15:06, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm confused by that; I don't want to ban anything and I offered an alternative to banning... Rd232 (talk) 15:12, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

First, how is this issue related to admins only? I think this discussion should be on VP.
Comment: I have the same mental problem with most non-latin scripts - sadly, I just remember those usernames like this: "the chinese user, the arabic user, ...". That is probably the same for a person who does not know latin script. Banning is not an option for me, like it was discussed above (SUL, ...). Probably we could write a gadget which transliterates usernames to latin (or to other scripts). There is just the problem that this would probably need quite some processing power on the client (for slow pcs). --Saibo (Δ) 15:21, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

The signature in my preferences - user profile could be adapted indeed; would it be possible to make it multi-lingual ? --Foroa (talk) 15:55, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Not without templates. But we have discouraged templates in signatures for good reasons. -- RE rillke questions? (ریلکه) (里尔克) (リルケ) 16:17, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

An alternative would be to do the multilingualism within MediaWiki - give an extra preference option to display the username differently to users with other interface languages. Rd232 (talk) 16:27, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Re: Saibo: I think this should be discussed at Commons talk:Username policy. Usernames should be in the Latin alphabet, in my opinion. Signatures offer more flexibility. But I'd like to hear from those with non-Latin first languages. Do such users view this as an inclusion issue? --Walter Siegmund (talk) 16:06, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, definitely. In Russian Wikipedia, a large fraction of users (I would estimate it as roughly 25%) use Cyrillic user names. Moreover, many of them do not speak any English (which is partially the reason why they have chosen Cyrillic names). They only come to Commons to upload files and use the Russian language wizard. Your suggestion would just cut them off from Commons since they would not be able to upload files anymore and will not understand what is needed from them. For regular Commons users taking part in discussions I would indeed suggest to take a Latin name (remember SUL currently can not be renamed) or to modify a signature or to leave info at the user page, but we do not have any means to impose this.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:52, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Walter, you won't get many comments from such users, because they are probably not fluent in English. As I live in a country where a majority of people use non Latin alphabets, I can understand very well that they want to have their name written in their native script. Yann (talk) 17:55, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I've struck my opinion above. I think Rd232's initial suggestion (14:18, 4 March 2012 (UTC)) is best. Rd232's MediaWiki suggestion seems good to me, but I suppose that it will take months or years to implement (16:27, 4 March 2012 (UTC))? Thanks, Ymblanter and Yann. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 20:34, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

This has been brought up time and time again and always rejected. What more is there to discuss? -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 16:49, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

The discussion is, とある白い猫, that I cannot put a name to you -- I cannot remember you other than as "the-user-who-made-a-comment-in-the-Username-discussion" -- surely you would prefer that I remember you uniquely?

Well, とある白い猫 is a native English speaker, according to his home page. Yann (talk) 17:55, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

He's a Cat whose colour is the opposite as mine! :-) -- Blackcat (talk) 23:19, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Requests for name changes like these from User:White Cat or User:Cool Cat should not be done. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 09:04, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I like Rd232's suggestion very much, thank you (why didn't I think of that at the outset?). Asking editors who are active on Commons to add a transliteration to their sig is a reasonable request, I think. Since sigs are specific to each Wiki, that need not impose any difficulty for other Wikis or SUL accounts. The only problem that it does not overcome is that it is easy for me to type the five characters in "Rd232", but I must copy and paste とある白い猫. I can live with that.

I started the discussion here because this page is widely read by active users of all languages -- not just Admins. We have no better place for discussions. The 42 different Village Pumps are language specific -- which one should we raise it on? Commons talk:Username policy is not widely read.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 17:17, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I understand Jim's concern: it's difficult to interact with people when you can't even read their names. I'm not comfortable with making Latin characters a requirement, but Rd232's suggestion is simple and shouldn't offend anyone as long as it's only a strong recommendation. It's difficult enough to build a community on Commons because we all speak different languages, and few of us consider Commons as their main wiki. Being able to remember people as distinct individuals is important. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 18:05, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I think it is helpful to announce policy and guideline discussions using site notices. Otherwise, participation is low or previous discussion are difficult to find because they are lost in the archives of Village Pump or Administrator's noticeboard. To create a site notice, please see MediaWiki talk:Sitenotice. とある白い猫, I wonder if you might be kind enough to link to the previous discussions that you cite. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 18:17, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Blocking names with non-latin characters would be highly inconsistent with the use of single-user login and discourage participation from other projects, and so I think it is a quite bad idea. However, doing something like enwiki policy and encouraging such users to also have a latin signature (or part-latin signature) would help provide the non-latin illiterate among us with something they can grab on to. Dragons flight (talk) 18:26, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

As a native speaker of Persian who uses the Arabic script, I just support the Latin transliteration of the username in signatures. I strongly oppose to any other restrictions. Americophile 20:16, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I can accept a recommendation to add a latin transliteration of the user name in signatures, but nothing more. Requiring more is "asymmetric" in my opinion. And certainly usernames in any characters set should be acceptable as long as it isn't gibberish in the locall alphabet. Assume you were Russian or a Chinese and was not familiar with readng the latin alphabet (Jim looks the same as Walter). Seen from these users, it would be just as resonable to expect all user names having only latin charecters should have a transcript in the Cyrillic alphabet or another set of characters familiar to them. "We" would not like that would "we"? Honestly, I think it is not a very good excuse that you cannot separate them. If you do an effort you can. Not as easy, but doable. I think it would be alienating to require anything "latin". I think it is better to try and attract more admins familiar with the other character sets (and languages), such that the overall communication with these users could be improved. --Slaunger (talk) 21:02, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Banning non-latin alphabet names wouldn't be a good policy I guess. But we could ask for the users whose name is not written in Latin alphabet to write in their UP a name they want to be called with. -- Blackcat (talk) 23:22, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, as I am the reason behind the problem, I will say my opinion. I would agree on a policy for non-Latin signatures rather than non-Latin names. I have been contributing to Wikipedia since more than two years, and I have hundreds of edits on English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, I don't see a good reason to let me make a new account after all of this. Anyway, in my early days on English Wikipedia an editor has asked me to use a signature with Latin alphabet to make conversation easier with others, and since then I didn't face any further problems with my non-Latin username. I think this is a good solution for the problem --عباد ديرانية (talk) 23:39, 4 March 2012 (UTC).

Proposed Closure

Thank you all for good thoughts, and, particularly to Rd232 for a solution that I should have thought of before opening this topic.

Are we agreed that it is acceptable to recommend that all active Commons users with non-Latin Usernames add a Latin transliteration, translation, or nickname to their sigs and their user pages? By "active" I mean one who is participating in discussions or doing things other than simply uploading images.

How about starting with User:عباد ديرانية and とある白い猫 (White Cat)?      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 13:20, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

とある白い猫 is the only non-latin name that I always recognise as White Cat. --Foroa (talk) 13:29, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

I can endorse the proposed closure, which combines a recommendation with active users as suggested. Fine compromise solution, which should not be too alienating with users not so familiar with the Latin alphabet. --Slaunger (talk) 15:30, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

I support the proposed closure. This has been a good discussion. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:38, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Instead of deciding something language-specific, couldn't this be made more international? If you frequently participate at places where English is used (such as COM:VP), provide an English signature. If you frequently participate at places where Japanese is used (such as COM:井戸端), provide a Japanese signature. This would maximise readability for most people. --ᛌᛐᛁᚠᛆᚿ4 (talk) 18:26, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

That's a good idea! -- 黒猫 (talk) 18:37, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

If the suggestion is that we should make a japanese signature if we write in a japanese page etc. many of us would have a problem. I would not know if I wrote my username or "Your father smells like a pig". Personally I think that more users can write Latin letters than any non-Latin letters. --MGA73 (talk) 18:47, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Note the word "frequently" in my proposal. If you don't know the language, you would not be a frequent contributor at a place where the language is used. Besides, I believe that the proposals here only would be to recommend users to provide transcriptions, not to force them to do so. --ᛌᛐᛁᚠᛆᚿ4 (talk) 19:01, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Stefan4 ("ᛌᛐᛁᚠᛆᚿ4")'s proposal to universalise it. Although the large majority of cases will probably be users adding a Latin alphabet version to a non-Latin username signature, it's reasonable to point out that for a few users the same logic applies "in reverse", i.e. adding some appropriate non-Latin version of a Latin username. I'm also tempted to a file a bug to ask for some kind of automated transcription, with a preference option for the user to provide their own. This would help with history pages and logs and other places where the presentation is controlled solely by the software. Rd232 (talk) 22:50, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Added a paragraph at Commons:Signatures (Commons:Signatures#Signatures_supporting_multilingualism). We don't have a userpage policy, so there's nowhere to put that recommendation. Rd232 (talk) 23:56, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm late to this discussion, but I've had an idea: Could there be a "romanization gadget" as a solution? One that you can activate if you can't read e.g. Arabic, and which adds an automated romanization of usernames into Latin alphabet for you, e.g. following the ISO standards. So, the username عباد ديرانية mentioned above would read something like 'ebad dyranyh, I think, and could be displayed using a gadget like this: عباد ديرانية ['ebad dyranyh], allowing remembering for us who can't read Arabic script. The benefit of this approach would be that it requires no action on the part of the user with a non-Latin user name, and that the romanized names would only be displayed to those who really want to see them. However, of course we would need someone who would like to write such a gadget. The romanization wouldn't need to be particularly sophisticated - just a way for those only reading Latin script to easier attribute and remember non-Latin usernames. Gestumblindi (talk) 02:28, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Although it would probably work fairly well with alphabetic scripts, it would not work very well with Chinese characters. Each character has a meaning rather than a pronunciation and the characters are used in multiple languages (mainly Chinese and Japanese, to a lesser extent also Korean and Vietnamese) with vastly different pronunciation. For example, 人 (man) could be ren (Chinese), hito (some Japanese words) or jin (other Japanese words). Even more possible language-dependent and contextual pronunciations are listed on Wiktionary. I'm not sure if it would be possible to design an automatic transcription system would would give an adequate output. Of course, the tool could just skip scripts it isn't able to handle and just convert between easy things such as Greek and Cyrillic. --Stefan4 (talk) 02:50, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Which doesn't strike me as too useful: the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic alphabets are reasonably mutually intelligible. Someone who is fluent in one of the alphabets is likely to be able to distinguish usernames in the other two, even if they can't pronounce them. --Carnildo (talk) 19:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Followup

I support the point that it is fine to have a recommendation but this should not be an excuse to hound contributors that don't fancy adding potentially superfluous detail to their signature or feel it undermines their cultural identity. My username goes outside of the core Latin script and I have no intention of making my signature unnecessarily long, particularly as I have never had any complaints about it. --Fæ (talk) 10:39, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment: I oppose the mere mention of this in official policy let alone be a recommendation. People are already expecting others to follow this recommendation as optional they make it sound. If you want to make a recommendation you do not need a policy to back it up. Even in this discussion I am almost expected to modify my signature. This idea undermines the multi-culutral and multi-lingual nature of commons as it declares Latin alphabet as the norm. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 23:14, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I am tempted to remove the proposed text from policy because I do not see sufficient consensus here to consider this official policy. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 23:17, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I support removal if the only evidence of consensus is here on AN. The wider community should be involved in a recommendation that affects how all Commons users are expected to sign their discussions. Limiting discussion to a noticeboard targeted at administrators seems to lack sufficient openness or community inclusion. If someone put a cross-link on VP or elsewhere could they point it out? --Fæ (talk) 23:42, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

It's not policy, it's a guideline. The recommendation cuts both ways, as the text explains. There is sufficient consensus here for the addition; if you want to remove the text, you'll need to try and develop a consensus for removal. Rd232 (talk) 23:45, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I see, is AN where guidelines are supposed to be discussed for a consensus? If so, then I am not sure why you create community RFCs in another place. --Fæ (talk) 23:59, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Instead of fussing about where a discussion ended up, move it. Bring it up on the Village Pump if you think it needs to be discussed there.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:07, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

The English Village Pump is not obviously a better location for this discussion than AN. Rd232 (talk) 00:12, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Obviously it isn't where it's supposed to happen. But IMO the discussion involved enough people for a recommendation to be added to a guideline. No-one said otherwise at the time. But it's not set in stone, and if someone wants to start another discussion with perhaps a wider audience (probably would need a watchlist notice or sitenotice to guarantee that), I've no problem with that. Rd232 (talk) 00:12, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. "an official guideline on Wikimedia Commons" requires significant consensus. I do not see it. I also see no evidence of this being a problem. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 15:46, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

It's been made clear that people know you because you are the only user with a Japanese username. It's like a bad Hollywood movie, where heaven forbid the audience be asked to distinguish two ethnic characters. We'd like names to put to the users, so users aren't just "that guy with the Japanese username" and we're willing to make the reverse offer, that if we discuss on a Russian or Arabic or Japanese-speaking board, we will use a signature with a clear name for them.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:04, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

That is the price to pay in multi-lingual/cultural projects: you have languages/cultures you are unfamiliar with. You should be adapting to commons. If this is something you are unable to cope with, commons is not the right project for you. Prosfilaes your username despite being in pure latin characters is completely meaningless to me. This does not mean I am unable to recognize your identity. I do not expect people to pronounce my username とある白い猫 but recognizing the pattern and shapes should not be any harder than remembering a username made out of random letters and number such as Rd232.

The end result of the proposal is having an arrogant "Euroamerican" supremacy over other languages even if that is not the intent. This would undermine what commons is about. Consider how much of an issue this was made when I posted a complaint about another user. Quickly the conversation was diluted as a complaint towards my signature. Even as a guideline recommendation this text already created an environment where users are required to either have Euroamerican compatible signatures or any complaint they make is at risk of being ignored completely. It is enough to intimidate people from other cultures to the point that they abandon commons all together.

-- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 15:55, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

You're over-reacting. And the reason your complaint at AN has made no progress is lack of good evidence. Furthermore, "Euro-American" as a description for Latin alphabet signatures conveniently ignores much of three continents (Latin America, Africa, Australasia). I suspect, frankly, that your decision to change from a Latin alphabet username (User:White Cat) to a Japanese one places you in a uniquely poor position to judge the reasonableness of the recommendation. Looking at your userpage, just adding a Turkish version (Babel: Tr-4) would be reasonable and solve that issue. Rd232 (talk) 16:12, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

recognizing the pattern and shapes should not be any harder than remembering a username made out of random letters and number such as Rd232. - Really? Recognising a sequence of unfamiliar patterns and shapes is no harder than recognising a sequence of very familiar patterns and shapes? Rd232 (talk) 16:13, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I do not need to provide evidence of any kind. I claim that there is no problem with the use of non-latin signatures. To create official policy or guideline there needs to be considerable evidence proving a problem. Otherwise people would draft policy based on baseless arguments. I am not in a poor position to judge unless people with non-latin usernames aren't allowed to remark. The proposal will always lead to people feeling their remarks are not taken seriously because it isn't in latin characters that are meaningless to the owners of said signature.

When I see your username I think of RS-232, an old school computing protocol. I can associate your nick as "that guy whose name is similar to that old school protocol". If there is a new user called Rs232 I may easily mistaken him for you. I can tell the difference based on your userpage. Human brain is pretty robust in pattern recognition.

-- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 18:05, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Is it that much of a hardship for you to add Latin characters to your signature? If you don't write your messages in Latin characters, most people won't understand it. It's unfortunate, but true; I do not believe that most of us know a language not usually written in the Latin script, and those that do speak a variety of languages and can't communicate with each other. For someone for whom Latin characters are meaningless, they will likely never know this (English-language) policy exists, nor will the people they communicate with be concerned with it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:32, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

𐐝𐐆𐐤𐐝 𐐏𐐅 𐐂𐐡 𐐝𐐄 𐐀𐐘𐐊𐐡 𐐓𐐅 𐐒 𐐣𐐊𐐢𐐓𐐆𐐗𐐊𐐢𐐓𐐟𐐊𐐡𐐊𐐢 𐐌 𐐎𐐆𐐢 𐐊𐐒𐐈𐐤𐐔𐐊𐐤 𐐜𐐆𐐝 𐐂𐐒𐐝𐐊𐐢𐐀𐐓 𐐈𐐢𐐙𐐊𐐒𐐇𐐓 𐐈𐐤𐐔 𐐊𐐔𐐂𐐑𐐓 𐐁 𐐓𐐡𐐅𐐢𐐀 𐐝𐐊𐐑𐐀𐐡𐐀𐐊𐐡 𐐎𐐊𐐤 𐐙𐐃𐐡 𐐣𐐌 𐐢𐐈𐐥𐐘𐐎𐐆𐐖. Surely you can adapt?--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:32, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Certainly, if that were a signature I don't think you would get confused with many other editors, though you might get complaints about how much real estate you were eating up in discussions. :-) --Fæ (talk) 18:42, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

This is similar to me requesting Katakana representation of all non-Japanese signatures. Again I see no evidence of a problem. I also see no reason to have this text in policy/guideline as you can make that recommendation without relying on it. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 19:19, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Interesting sequence of square boxes with hexadecimal numbers in them, although the partial derivative sign displays properly... Another issue with To Aru Shiroi Neko's signature is that it doesn't use {{lang|ja|

とある白い猫

}}, so the characters end up in a strange font. Japanese on Commons without a {{Lang}} tag often gives a Chinese font, and characters with the

示

radical often ends up as kyūjitai. Compare

神

(with language tag) and 神 (same character without language tag). Looks quite different, doesn't it? --

ステーファン四

(

会話

) 21:20, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

No, actually they don't appear quite different to me. On my Macmini Firefox displays them slightly differently in weight but not form, while under Chrome they are completely identical. --Fæ (talk) 22:22, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I promise every time I post on a Japanese language board, I will add a Katakana representation of my signature. You're posting in English; you don't need a Katakana representation, so not at all similar. What evidence do you want of a problem?

I notice that you've ignored the Deseret text. How utterly offensive that you ignore something written in a language you speak just because it's not in a script you understand!--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:36, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

See that is the point. In a Japanese language board having a kana-only rule would make sense because such a board is neither multi-lingual nor multi-cultural by very definition. Commons is not an English language board so any special treatment of any language or writing style would be problematic. We have no reason to treat any language differently.

I have not ignored the unicode characters you have posted. I just do not have a comment to make towards it. I would be equally non-responsive had it been in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish. I do not speak these languages. While I will use Google translate to understand what people are trying to say, I will delegate communication to a person who has better language skills. I am unsure what your question is.

-- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 20:26, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

You're getting special treatment; you are the user with the Japanese username. You've been told several times that people have a hard time distinguishing names in a foreign script, and multiple users with Japanese usernames will be confusing; you've dismissed such claims off-hand, basically accusing them of being liars.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:07, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Logically, if とある白い猫 is the user with a Japanese username then there can be absolutely no confusion with anyone else. You should be aware that one of the suggestions in this discussion was to have a transcription on your user page, which とある白い猫 already helpfully does in English and Turkish. Your suggestion that とある白い猫 is calling people liars is inflammatory and appears to be an assumption of bad faith, please reconsider it. It has been emphasised that the recent change to Commons:Signatures is a recommendation, your behaviour here would indicate this is not understood by everyone and illustrates that this change might be a mistake if we value a positive welcoming environment for contributors in all languages. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 00:18, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

The fact that it is a recommendation means that no sanction can be applied for not following it. However, users can still be frustrated by a failure to follow that idea/suggestion/recommendation, and that is true regardless of whether it is written down in the guideline. The frustration is multiplied when a user, instead of simply declining to follow the recommendation as gracefully as possible, makes a lot of effort to attack the very basis of a perfectly reasonable recommendation, in particular by saying that a recommendation designed to assist communication across scripts is somehow an attack on multilingualism. Rd232 (talk) 09:06, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Rd232, "no sanction can be applied for not following it" could easily be misinterpreted. As an administrator, could you please make it unambiguously clear that hounding or harassing other Commons users for not following this recommendation is unacceptable behaviour? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 09:33, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

"Easily misinterpreted" how? And it's entirely unnecessary to say that hounding or harassing Commons users for doing something they're allowed to do or not doing something they're allowed not to do is not acceptable. At the same time, users may legitimately be frustrated by permitted behaviours and may express that frustration; it is difficult to specify in any detail in advance where such expression shades into harassment or hounding. You just have to hope that people will be sensible, and deal with problems if/when they arise. Rd232 (talk) 09:44, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I'll spell it out for you. Your statement "no sanction can be applied for not following it" can be read as everything else that is not a sanction is fair game. You have now compounded that view by using words that appear to legitimize anyone who makes a claim of feeling "frustrated" to be able to "express" their frustration against any user that chooses not to follow the recommendation. In consideration of your support of Fred the Oyster's use of colourful language, this could include swearing or otherwise making Commons a non-welcoming environment for such people to contribute here in good faith. I am merely asking you, as an administrator, to make an unambiguous statement that making bad faith personal comments or otherwise continuing to make related comments, after the contributor's choice about following this recommendation on signatures is clear, would be judged as harassment and acted on as such. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 10:23, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Right - it is the same issue as Fred the Oyster. You want to draw boundaries around freedom of speech, and give admins the right to unilaterally judge and enforce those boundaries, and I don't. At the margins, there may be reason to act unilaterally (with possible community discussion afterwards), but in general, there is not. Where legitimate speech shades into harassment (or unacceptable levels of incivility) cannot be specified in advance, because it depends too much on context. And there is clearly a lot of subjectivity involved, which means a community discussion is required to make judgements about disputed behaviour. There is also a role for warnings here; I've mostly been thinking about blocks because of the tenor of your comment. Rd232 (talk) 11:00, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but back to my request for an unambiguous statement, in the scenario that someone is "making bad faith personal comments or otherwise continuing to make related comments, after the contributor's choice about following this recommendation on signatures is clear"; this is not a free speech issue, it is a Commons non-hostile environment issue. Our users should be able to expect to be supported in their good faith attempts to further this project, this includes their personal choices to not follow a signature style recommendation. Some users may feel that adding Latin (or Anglicised) transcriptions of their names to their signature undermines their identity as a non-English writer, they will probably feel that being hounded about it is tantamount to a dubious anti-diversity stance by other contributors. For example, if I went out seeking to tell off every contributor with {{Babel he}} on their user pages that their signature was offensive to me because I do not like being forced to read Hebrew script, I can't tell one Jewish name from another, they should add a readable English version of their name to their signature and that my request is fully supported by the Commons:Signatures guideline then you might think my motivation would be suspect, in fact generally such behaviour would be considered racist. I believe such behaviour is not an unrealistic scenario with the recommendation for signatures as it currently exists and with leading administrators such as yourself not prepared to make an unambiguous statement that any such behaviour is unacceptable. In fact based on your comments here I believe you might try to support their actions under a poor rationale of "free speech". --Fæ (talk) 11:30, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Jesus H. Christ, Fae, what the fuck? I've said that I don't want to pronounce in advance on hypothetical scenarios. Give me a real situation, an actual user actually doing something, and I'll give you my opinion. Really, don't you have better things to do? PS anglicisation is a complete red herring - don't start with that. Rd232 (talk) 11:44, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

You seem to have got my first name wrong. I'll take your reply as a no. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 11:59, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

It's not "no", it's "it depends". On context. Get over it. Rd232 (talk) 12:05, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

If とある白い猫 is the user with a Japanese username, then most of his arguments have been gratuitous, since then it would not be a cultural issue and definitely would not involve someone who didn't understand Latin. I believe that とある白い猫 and I agree that we need to accept multiple users with usernames in any one script.

Of course, I do understand that this is a recommendation. I'm not sure why you would come to the conclusion that I don't; and I don't understand why you come to the conclusion that I don't and that とある白い猫 does so understand.

Again, we can hardly provide a positive welcoming environment if we have a hard time recognizing them as individuals, and most of the people posting on this board would have a hard time reliably distinguishing الرشيد and الدين as usernames.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:59, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to remove the local username length restriction in Mediawiki:Titleblacklist

An earlier discussion] raised the issue of the restriction that Commons puts on usernames at 30 characters, yet this is not a restriction set for WMF wikis and it can cause issues for SUL users, hence we are forcing users to have multiple accounts.[sanity check?]

From my review, the edit came into Titleblacklist here and it was merged from a very early edit in Mediawiki:Usernameblacklist.

I propose that we remove the restriction and monitor the effect. To note that all user accounts are monitored in the IRC channel #cvn-unifications and bots highlight problem accounts through a series of regex filters.  — billinghurst sDrewth 14:19, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I  Support the removal of that line on the titleblacklist. Trijnstel_talk 16:04, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

An island-solution is never useful in the wiki-empire. If our stewards care for us, I see no problem. -- RE rillke questions? 16:05, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

 Support - breaking SUL is not a good idea. By all means monitor the effects though. Incidentally, does anyone know if it's actually 30 characters or 30 bytes? It can make a big difference for some scripts. Rd232 (talk) 22:27, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

File:Paula Wagner.JPG

This appears not to be a picture of Paula Wagner. There's a discussion about it here.

Thanks. FormerIP (talk) 02:19, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

• See Commons:Deletion requests/File:Paula Wagner.JPG.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 11:20, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

User with copyright image issues

I wasn't sure which noticeboard to post this on, so hope this is OK. As can be seen on User:Vrallan's talk page, they keep uploading copyrighted images that get deleted. Notices don't seem to be changing their behavior. Don't know what action is appropriate, but thought it should be reported somewhere. Thanks. --Ebyabe (talk) 03:24, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I've deleted the last copyvios and use the proper warning template (the user only recieved notification of copyvio). Now, he is warned, next time he will get a block. --PierreSelim (talk) 07:42, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

CommonsDelinker

CommonsDelinker replaces filenames that have been changed, but it misses filenames that don't have the prefix "File:" or "Image:", for instance, if they appear in templates. Thus, CommonsDelinker recently replaced a filename at "en:Template:Infobox court case/images/doc" (i.e., on the documentation subpage), but did not replace the same filename on the template page "en:Template:Infobox court case/images". Is it possible to tweak the bot so that it also replaces filenames not prefixed as indicated above? (Is this the right place to be posting this query? The talk page of CommonsDelinker says to do so here.) — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:48, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

The best place, I think is making a ticket in jira - the toolserver bugtracker but it seems to work? -- RE rillke questions? 22:31, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Strange. It doesn't seem to work with the template at the English Wikipedia which I mentioned. Could you please make a ticket? I can't seem to figure out how Jira works. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:51, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

this worked, too

I would feel better if we could collect some more examples. -- RE rillke questions? 22:18, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, if you compare the histories of "en:Template:Infobox court case/images/doc" and "en:Template:Infobox court case/images", you will see that CommonsDelinker and OgreBot only edit the documentation subpage and not the template page. The same problem appears at "en:Template:Infobox legislation/images/doc" and "en:Template:Infobox legislation/images" – if you look for the bot edits by date and then see what happened at the template page on or after those dates, you will see that all the changes on the template page had to be done manually. (Is it possible that there is a lag, and that if the manual change had not been done the bot would have got to it eventually? If so, this is not ideal.) — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 08:07, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

That might be a though one; file name spaces/prefixes are internally generated by other templates. There might be somewhere a list on delinker exceptions and namespace specific limitations. --Foroa (talk) 08:26, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

File:Osho.jpg

Hi, i would appreciate it if someone would look into this image and tag it accordingly. This image's author is highly suspect. Thanks. Joyson Prabhu ^{Holla at me!} 18:02, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Not really easy as the image was uploaded to Commons nearly 4 years ago. I have posted some findings on thre talkpage. --Túrelio (talk) 23:31, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Based on the findings on the talk page, the image should be deleted as copyvio. -- Cirt (talk) 16:09, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

File:Osho.jpg tagged as copyvio, with info from comments on talk page added to copyvio tag. -- Cirt (talk) 04:16, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done, it's been deleted, as copvyio. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 05:33, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Meta:Global_bans

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Global_bans&diff=3588548&oldid=3405149

I'm hear to spread awareness of meta:Global_bans. Anyone wishing to critique or comment on the draft global policy may do so at meta:Talk:Global_bans. Help with translating the draft into other languages and with spreading word to other projects would also be appreciated. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 02:35, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

This isn't really an admins-only issue to be clear, so we should post a regular Village Pump note as well if it's not been done already. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:32, 27 March 2012 (UTC) Ignore me, just saw what I was asking about. :) Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:33, 27 March 2012 (UTC)