Commons:Village pump/Archive/2007/06

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FIDES License Template

Since Vatican agency Agenzia Fides released a great part of his image archive with a free license, i created an attribution template (Template:FIDES) for the 4500+ free images available at http://www.fides.org/galleria/

Is it possible to have them transferred with a bot? --Jollyroger 11:13, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

It is currently not clear what the "free" here means. Does it mean that they are "free of charge", or that they are "free as in freedom"? We require the latter one. We require that both commercial and derivative use is allowed by anybody for any purpose. See Commons:Licensing. I think that we must sort this out before transfering, because I can assure you that else somebody will sooner or later request the images for deletion, and is likely to succeed in that. -- Bryan (talk to me) 18:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The website in Italian, which does distinguish between libre and gratis. Someone who speaks the language should be able to tell which is the case. --Carnildo 19:26, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Tutte le fotografie dell'archivio dell'agenzia Fides possono essere utilizzate liberamente. Explicit statements that commercial use and making of derivatives are allowed are generally preferred, though. Samulili 20:24, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Si richiede solamente la citazione della fonte. Am I right that this says something along the lines of "The citation of the source only is demanded"? In which case everything it says seems to be compatible with it being a free license, though it would be nice if the issue of derivatives was expressly addressed. WjBscribe 01:51, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Note that the site provide also interesting traditional songs. Here again, it is stated that the files are "exempt of rights" (public domain so, right ?) and can be freely reproduced (but nothing is clearly said about derivative work - I guess this is OK). — Xavier, 20:36, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

liberamente in Italian means "freely" in the broadest meaning. libero means "free of any constraint", as we request here.

gratuitamente means "free of charge".

those images can be used liberamente, not only gratuitamente

This website is about a Vatican agency that promotes work of the Catholic Church, making available images and media for use in promotional material. So obviously the derivative and commercial use are included, and there is no doubt about that for anyone who understand Italian language.

These images mostly left in public-domain, but website requires attribution for having them scanned and organized.

moreover, sorry to say, I feel I have quite a good idea of what a "free license" is, and I am proud to understand a little bit italian language. So, if I had any doubt about the freedom of those images, I would not have created the template, or I would have asked before... But my question was Is it possible to have them uploaded with a bot? --Jollyroger 08:56, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

It appears that that the licensing on www.fides.org, while not ideal as far as its silence on the subject of derivative works is concerned, is good enough for Commons, so I would not oppose www.fides.org images being included in Commons. Would any of you? If you would oppose it, would you be willing to contact the people responsible for that website to request clarification (preferably with the results stored on that website and/or in OTRS)? Thanks!   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs|supports deadminship for inactivity) 03:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Let's try again

Is it possible to have those images uploaded with a bot?

--Jollyroger 23:19, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is possible to have those images uploaded with a bot.   — Jeff G. ツ 13:20, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, how? --Jollyroger 15:32, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The bot would have to emulate a human looking at http://www.fides.org/galleria/, and for each box on that and each of the other 301 pages of the galleria (4,518 images in all), it would have to copy the caption, the page URL, the image URL, the image, and any hidden info like EXIF, and create a useful entry on Commons from that info. As a start to categorization, I would create a category under Category:Roman Catholic Church, perhaps Category:Fides Service, and one under that, perhaps Category:Fides Service - Images Uploaded by FidesBot 2007-06-06, where all the incoming images could be dumped. It looks like the image captions are mostly of the form [Italian name of country] - [year], so those could be used for automated creation of subcategories of Category:Fides Service - countries and Category:Fides Service - years (both themselves subcategories of Category:Fides Service), and later another bot or other bots could translate most of the country names to English using the "en" links on pages of the Italian Wikipedia (or this step could be done first, with human oversight and research, to minimize the use of Italian names of countries on this English-centric project).   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs|supports deadminship for inactivity) 03:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't have a bot that can do this, I'm just brainstorming here.  :)   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs|supports deadminship for inactivity) 03:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Who can do that? I am not into bot-making. Can anyone help? --Jollyroger 09:02, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

May 31

Abuse of Bots

Someone is using a Bot to move all the churches in Rome from the scheme [[Category:Nameofthechurch in Rome]] to the scheme [[Category:Nameofthechurch, Rome]]. This contrasts with the guidelines of Commons:Category scheme Italy, where the proper scheme is [[Category:Nameofthechurch in Nameofthecity]] and is therefore creating a real mess, since different towns now are following different criteria. If the guidelines should be changed, then this OK to me, but this should be discussed first in the appropriate page BEFORE using a bot.

I ask therefore to revert the categories that were moved without any previous discussion. I left a note to the bot owner but, "of course", he did not answer me.

Could anyone please help us in working without having our work undone all of a sudden upon a capricious decision by anyone? Thank you. --User:G.dallorto 12:25, 31 May 2007 (UTC) PS I notice that the same is happening with the resto of Rome: also entries in Category:Fountains in Rome have been moved without neither any request nor any warnings. --User:G.dallorto 12:41, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Please state facts, not FUD: as bot operator I referred you to the sysop that gave the command[1] within 6 hours of you asking the question. It appears that you didn't feel like following up there ^{1, 2} I suggest you try to follow up first. Siebrand 13:04, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

There is a difference between categories of the type [[Category:Nameofthechurch, Rome]] and the type [[Category:Group of things in Rome]]. In the first type, ", Rome" is used to specify that the category is for Nameofthechurch in Rome and not some other Nameofthechurch in another place. The standard for most (maybe all) other categories is to use "name of thing, name of place" for such categories and to not include the place name if there is only one thing with that name. The category scheme for Italy should not use a different standard than other categories. The other type of categories is used for divide large categories into subcategories by place. If all images of fountains were put in Category:Fountains that category would big and hard to find anything in, it is divided into subcategories Category:Fountains in France, Category:Fountains in Italy, and further into Category:Fountains in Rome. /82.212.68.183 17:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I need a solution to a problem, not a flame, so let's stick to facts, please.

First fact, I never received any answers: anyone can take a look at my talk page to verifiy this simple fact (not FUD). If I had an answer, I had tried and conctacted that operator first. I did not, so I wrote here as second resource.

Second, I had a look at Category:Commons category schemes, and did not find anything about the rule you mention. As a matter of fact, a national category scheme only exists for France and Italy, to date. But nowhere in the French one, a less detailed one, I found the rule you mention. This is not the place to discuss about the grammar to be used in category names, though. The proper place is this one: Commons talk:Category scheme Italy. We might eventually decide to adopt the grammar Nameoftheplace, City. But we should discuss about it first. This is my point. It cannot be imposed by decisions by one bot operator alone. No bot operator should throw everything apart without even warning or asking. Before moving a whole category, you are supposed to put a warning {{move|:category:Namepofthenecategory}}, which was not done (yet another fact, not FUD).

In short, I am not complaining about the grammar (we can discuss about it of course), but about the fact that a mass change was made without asking or warning those who, like me, are at work on that section of Commons. I ask bot operators to pay attention to rules before acting. The mess created in Rome will have to be settled, now. Now in some entries the grammar is "Nameofthething, Rome" and in some others is "Nameofthething in Rome". All the rest of Italy follows the grammar "Namoofthething in nameofthetown". If you want to change the grammar, well, let's discuss about it first, and upon reaching an agreement then let's change ALL of Italian categories, not just a part of one single town. --User:G.dallorto 19:11, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

The Commons uses English and therefore orientates itself towards the categories scheme on the English Wikipedia. It is unusual for buildings in cities to be named "Santa Maria in Rome" when neither the Italian Wikipedia or the English Wikipedia uses that format. The Italian Wikipedia uses brackets "Santa Maria (Rome)" and the English Wikipedia mostly commas, such as "Santa Maria, Rome". In order to have more harmony on the Commons, I would suggest you either use the Italian format or the English one, but I don't know where this "Name X in Rome" was invented, or how it even made its way into the Commons. IMO it should be abolished and shortened to either previously mentioned formats. ps: btw this does not constitute an "abuse" of bots. Gryffindor 21:59, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

OTrs and permissions

Maybe I'm wrong, but is "I release the rights to you to use my photos on my Wiki page!" a valid confirmation that an image is released to the public domain? I think it isn't, some other valued user think it is, so feedback please? It's related to an OTRS ticket for those who can see it. -- Drini 01:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Here "I"=original webmaster, "you"=a 3rd wikipedian. -- Drini 01:07, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know they need to explicitly state that their images are released under a specific license or the public domain. "I release the rights to you to use my photos on my Wiki page!" is not enough. --Erwin85 06:18, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

No, an acceptable licence on WikiWorld must add the right for third parties to use the picture with the same conditions, and have such a licence even in a commercial context. The authorisation given here is not enough for an inclusion in wikipedia, be it commons or any other file. Michelet-密是力 20:05, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

NARA images

The NARA's on-line digital collections have a minor problem in that individual images cannot be deep linked. There's a NARA mirror where deep linking works, and they even have the hi-res uncompressed master images as TIFFs. See also {{NARA-image}}. Lupo 07:17, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Copyrights problem

I am interested in the copyright status of this image. It's located at the site of the President of the Repiublic of Abkhazia and its laws permit free use of the government works (as usual). The problem is that Abkhazia is recognised internationally as part of Georgia. So according to Georgian laws it's just a picture on the ordinary site. Btw, the site is registered in the .org area, so what laws should apply here?

Do you think this image could be loaded here?

ps. probably one could find a replacement with clearer legal status for this particular image, however I'd like to establish a precedent in order to avoid further problems. Alaexis 09:15, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I think site domain is not matter. Only copyrights law of country of origin (sure this is not clear question).

However terms of use on http://www.abkhaziagov.org/ru/about.php is not cover question of derivative works. Materials with very similar terms of use from http://kremlin.ru were voted for deletion.

So I think images from http://www.abkhaziagov.org are not for Commons.

EugeneZelenko 14:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Arguable. The copyright owner (Republic of Abkhazia) says it is PD, so the correct status is "PD by owner's decision", whatever the country of publication is. So, PD-Self could be appropriate in that case. Michelet-密是力 20:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, PD-Self is if the owner releasing the image to PD is the uploader itself. If someone else created an image and released it to PD somewhere else, the right licence would be Template:PD-author Thanos 04:16, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, images are not PD on this site. You could reproduce images. Terms of use from http://www.abkhaziagov.org/ru/about.php: могут быть воспроизведены в любых средствах массовой информации, на серверах сети Интернет или на любых иных носителях без каких-либо ограничений по объему и срокам публикации. Это разрешение в равной степени распространяется на газеты, журналы, радиостанции, телеканалы, сайты и страницы сети Интернет. Обязательным условием перепечатки и ретрансляции является ссылка на первоисточник. Никакого предварительного согласия на перепечатку со стороны Администрации Президента Республики Абхазия не требуется. При использовании информации в сети Интернет обязательным является размещение активной ссылки на Официальный сайт Президента Абхазии www.abkhaziagov.org. Please compare this text with terms of use on http://kremlin.ru/articles/about_site06.shtml and see Commons:Deletion requests/License tags of russian websites for details. --EugeneZelenko 14:56, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

reuse "Vernacular names" template from Wikispecies?

When adding media relevant to a particular species, perhaps we could reuse the VN template from wikispecies?

VN template

See e.g. Larus glaucoides and Larus glaucoides in Wikispecies --Togr 13:30, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you could simply use templates like {{En}}, {{Ru}}, etc. See Category:Internationalization templates. --EugeneZelenko 14:43, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Probably, but that doesn't really address my point. I'm making an effort to collect lists of vernacular names from all over wikipedia and inserting them in wikispecies. When looking at the collection of media for a given specie, exactly the same lists appear there as well, so effort could be reused much more easily if the same wiki source could be used both places. --Togr 15:20, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

English native speaker needed

Me and User:Warburg need to know what the exact difference between a "cupola" and a "Dome" is in English, to know how to sort images of Domes in Category:Cupola and Category:Domes. Should they be merged? In our languages such a distinction does not exist, in Italian everything is a "cupola". The entry in en:Wikipedia was not of much help, apart for gathering that a cupola is a part of a Dome. But which part? Thank you in advance. And please write the definition at the beginning of the category. --User:G.dallorto 18:46, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

See http://www.answers.com/topic/cupola (and http://www.answers.com/topic/dome). Interestingly, in french we also have two words (coupole and dôme) that are usually used interchangeably despite they slightly differ (or used to differ) in meaning: in a dictionary, i have even read a note claiming that dôme is what you see from outside and coupole is what you see from inside (in other words, dôme would be the roof whereas coupole would be the ceiling). However, I don't know if this applies in english for dome and cupola. — Xavier, 20:53, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the answer is independant of the language. The cupola has the same shape than a cup. Therefore, if you enter a building which the roof is a dome, you'll (probably) see a cupola at the ceiling. --Juiced lemon 21:02, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

The Concise Oxford Dictionary suggests that a cupola may be either:

• ceiling of dome - i.e. the interior of a dome
• small rounded dome forming or adorning roof - e.g. a small independent dome, or as explained in the entry in en:Wikipedia a structure constructed at the apex of a dome (which may incorporate windows or apertures to admit light).

But I doubt many native Anglophones would distinguish as clearly (or even use the word cupola) unless having some knowledge of architecture. Man vyi 05:33, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

My question was a practical one, not an academical one: I need help to take a decision. Should we keep two categories, because they are necessary since in English there are two words to mean two distinct things, or could we keep just one, making the other one a subcategory or a redirect? And in this case, which one is the "correct" word? I am Italian, Warburg is German-speaking, we need a native English speaker to sort out the thing. I still can't see the difference, although it seems to me that english "cupola" is what in Italian we call "cupolino", the lanterna at the top opened in the dome to allow light inside. --User:G.dallorto 12:08, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

My opinion is that since all cupolas are domes and it would be difficult in practice to maintain a clear architectural distinction between small domes that my be termed cupolas and domes that would be unlikely to be termed cupolas, and if it is undesirable to maintain a large category for domes in general, why not try Category:Domes (interiors) and Category:Domes (exteriors) or something similar? Man vyi

Postcards

As you can guess, postcards show a great variety of subjects, which stands comparison with the variety of topics in Commons (postcards are just pictures, commercially printed on a card with space on one side for an address and a postage stamp).

At the moment, images of postcards are scattered in categories like:

• postcards (of TOPICS/LOCATION)
• Old Postcards (of TOPICS/LOCATION)
• Small Old Postcards (of TOPICS/LOCATION)

In my opinion, the adjective “old” and “small” are not pertinent because:

• due to copyright issues, most of postcards are old ones, and “old” is not informative
• the descriptions of postcard images generally leave out to give the original size of the card, so we have not any criterion to classify postcards between “normal postcards” and “small postcards”. Anyway, in Commons, we have only high or low definition images: the original size of a 2-dimensions object, like a painting, is not important for the purpose of illustrating encyclopedic articles.

A few examples:

• Category:World War I postcards
• Category:Old Military Postcards of France
• Category:Collections of Small Old Postcards
• Category:Small Old Postcards of World War 14-18

I suggest to rename all the categories regarding postcards, with “old” or “small” in their name. So, the contents of Category:Small Old Postcards of World War 14-18 would be moved to Category:World War I postcards. Do you agree this simplification? --Juiced lemon 10:33, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes. -- Túrelio 12:32, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

June 2

I have to "shut my fuck up (quote)"?

Sorry my mother language is not English so may be I did't get it, some one could explain me why

• "You(NdR I) aren't allowed to contribute to this userpage anymore."

and why I have to

• "shut the fuck up."

here

If someone could also explain me why D-Kuru is a sysop I'll be glad. Thanks a lot.

--DracoRoboter 14:19, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

If someone could explain why you're an admin on it.wikipedia I would be glad.

If someone is interested in the whole story: User_talk:D-Kuru#Image:Rorschach1.jpg

@ DracoRoboter: learn to quote "You aren't allowed to contribute to this userpage anymore. You are allowed to contribute under a new subtitel (new image or page or whatever), but you aren't allowed to contribute to this image talk any longer". I wrote that, because you can't stop interfering. I aked C++ que vos something and you disturb the talk which a question which turned up a subtitle above before.

You want to be an admin and than you do something like this edit. You behave as I did when I started contributing to de.wikipedia. I'm not good at criticising myself, but I fully agree that I really behaved like a small child when I was a newbee. Note: You are allowed to ask me why I wrote this on my talking page (see quotation).

Moreover I think that your english is not so bad as you pretend to. I think thats your way of pointing words and sentences out that you don't like.

--D-Kuru 14:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Edit:

Refering to "shut the fuck up":

Quote: "Maybe you're right, BUT (and I know that this is agains Wikiquette [ de; en; it ] ) I think an admin should also know when it's time to shut the fuck up."

I know that this wasn't very kind in anyway, but I told him why I did it (even it was not a good reason), but he can not stop annoying although the picture got uploaded again yesterday.

From my point of view there should be mentioned that the uploader C++ que vos said nothing until I asked him, but he/she uploaded the file again without contributing stuff.

What I don't understand is why DracoRoboter creates a universe out of nothing though he hasn't to do anything with that image.

--D-Kuru 14:57, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Good try, some one else? (please) --DracoRoboter 14:48, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

My take:

• D-Kuru was clearly out of line when he said "shut the fuck up" and when he forbade DracoRoboter to continue the discussion, especially since he talked about deleting any future edits by DracoRoboter.
• DracoRoboter was slightly less out of line when he said "because 'momma said'". That was unnecessarily inflammatory.
• I agree with D-Kuru that if an editor marks a certain image as being a copy violation and seems to have good reasons, then administrators should be free to delete the image (ie. I agree with D-Kuru's initial deletion of the image). Better safe than sorry. Isn't that the point of having speedy deletions of potentially copyrighted material?
• That DracoRoboter was not the original uploader does not matter. This is a wiki! Anyone can contribute wherever they want. Maybe DracoRoboter was writing an article with that image on the Italian wikipedia, and that's why he came here to investigate the disappearing image. Who knows...

Now, take a few deep breaths and calm down :) — Ksero 15:58, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

(I repeat: my english i pretty far to be perfect so maybe my word wasn't diplomatic. Sorry for that) Do you confirm that "someone said me" is a good rationale for deletion here? I'm astonished. :-| --DracoRoboter 22:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Please be civil, both of you. Regarding the class of images at hand, purely black and white images of Rorschach inkblot tests appear to be PD because Rorschach died in 1922 and their copyright therefore expired in 1992. The correct tag would, then, be {{PD-old}}. However, there is a claim by Ward3001 that this particular image Image:Rorschach1.jpg, with the greyscale, contains a printing error from much later than 1922 that is not Rorschach's work but is in fact the currently copyrighted work of Hogrefe & Huber Publishers - please see the full discussion at w:Talk:Rorschach inkblot test#Keeping the inkblots secret.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 18:27, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

That's the point: I saw no evidence and no proof of that, had you? "Someone said" that had sent a mail to Hogrefe & Huber, I'm waiting for response. --DracoRoboter 22:22, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Absent specific info from Hogrefe & Huber, and given their litigous nature, I think it's best not to have the WMF hosting images which may be covered by their copyrights. I think it would be ok to host digitized versions of purely black and white images of Rorschach inkblot tests that were only copyrighted by Rorschach or Hogrefe & Huber prior to 1937, if you can find such images.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 20:43, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok a plenty of infos today: also have a "litigous nature" is a good rationale for deletion. What about closing this project? --DracoRoboter 21:17, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I haven't followed this at all, but these two people are admins? — Omegatron 20:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes we are. --DracoRoboter 22:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

An old deletion request

Commons:Deletion requests/Template:Euro coin common face was started by Rtc in March, and has not yet come to a conclusion. I would appreciate it if some more editors and/or administrators could take the time to read up on this matter and take part in the discussions so we can find a solution. Thank you! — Ksero 14:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

 Done kept. Michelet-密是力 17:40, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

... why are you concerned with this one? There are many old deletion discussions, some started by rtc, some not, reaching back until January. --Iamunknown 22:48, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

The implicit decision for inactive discussions is that they are kept, anyway... ;o) Michelet-密是力 06:28, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Except when it takes five months to delete. --Carnildo 19:48, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

My option was: keep. Michelet-密是力 19:50, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

June 3

Category Help

How can I edit the Mandrillus category to put Image:Mandrill.JPG on the category? When I hit edit I can not put the photo in, just change the category! Help please. Thanks Wikihobby —The preceding signed but undated comment was added at 16:16, 3 June 2007 (UTC).

Just go to Image:Mandrill.JPG, edit the page, and add Category:Mandrillus there. You add categories to pages, not pages to categories. -- ReyBrujo 16:30, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Huge deletion request

I know this page isn't for deletion requests but I just wanted to make sure Commons:Deletion requests/Category:Icelandic name graphs got a tiny bit of extra attention since it involves thousands of pages and probably needs an admin with some automated or semi-automated way of deleting pages. Haukurth 20:00, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

These are 10.275 images in total. Siebrand 23:00, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry about finding someone to delete them if that's the result of the debate, I'd be more than happy to - I've done requests with more than 300 images in less than an hour, I could finish it up in a day or two. Believe it or not I like cleaning up requests like this :) -- Editor at Large • talk 01:03, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I heard User:SieBot protesting in the distance... ;) With this many images, as there has also been a much larger removal af weather images (35.000 IIRC), we need to get rid of them ASAP and not pollute the RC for days with those deletions. A bot with a put_throttle at 1 or 2 will do 25-30 deletion/minute, which means we will have dirty logs for 14,5 hours at most. If we would have 2 bots running, it could be done even faster. You do not want to do this by hand... Siebrand 15:00, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

June 4

Missing images

Image:Flag of Germany.svg Does someone know what happened to this Image? It is widely used in (but not limited to) the geman WP, have a look at this. So it would be a great idea to recover this picture. Thanks, --Gnu1742 05:59, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to User:Seewolf for re-uploading it. Problem solved, Question-Mark remains... --Gnu1742 06:15, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:Face-sad.svg disappeared as well. How odd. N 06:26, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

That's extremely weird... please report any other oddly missing images you find... pfctdayelise (说什么?) 06:33, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:Gnome-globe.svg vanished yesterday. Luckily, I had a copy in my browser cache. MaxSem 06:39, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Another missing image is Image:Nuvola apps kcmpartitions.png. --β₁₆ - (talk) 09:32, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Another missing image is Image:PiCM200.svg. MaCRoEco 21:58, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

• Image:Nuvola apps kwrite.png
• Image:Crystal Clear app package favourite.png

--Knopfkind 10:47, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

• Image:Wikify.svg. Open bugzilla:10128 --β₁₆ - (talk) 13:43, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
• Image:Drew Barrymore by David Shankbone.jpg --Iamunknown 17:07, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
• Image:Johnny Depp and Adam Galbraith.jpg

I'm an admin on the English Wikipedia, and I deleted a couple image pages there that included only content from the commons. However, when I deleted the pages, somehow the images here were also deleted. I don't know how that happened. The images are Image:Bass Islands map.png, Image:Cleveland Rapid map.svg, and Image:Warren County Canal.jpg. Could somebody please restore them? Thanks! - EurekaLott 18:19, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

It would be interesting to test wether this is directly related. Do image deletions on en cause image on commons to be deleted ? TheDJ 19:10, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd be glad to lend a hand if there's anything I can do to help experiment. - EurekaLott 19:21, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is related. I just deleted Image:PostFallsSubstation 20070317.jpg on enwiki, and the image data vanished from Commons. --Carnildo 19:54, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

ooops, edit conflict I think that it is related. Yesterday Giro720 has reported on #wikipedia-pt that the problem on the Image:Wikify.svg has appeared after the description page has deleted on pt.wikipedia (containing only a test edit made be a newbie). This is happening in similar situation on others images. Lugusto • ※ 20:00, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Please see Image:Stop hand.svg, which just went missing. Okedem 20:09, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Tim's working on this. The files appear to be recoverable, so it should be all cleaned up sometime todayish or tomorrowish. --brion 20:43, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

The immediate problem is now prevented, so it shouldn't happen anymore. We'll see about cleaning up the files as well in a bit... --brion 21:16, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Just a clarification request from an En admin: we can go back to deleting redundant images, correct? EVula // talk // 16:30, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it appears you can.   — Jeff G. ツ 17:18, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Groovy. I'm undoing the emergency "Oh shit!"-related edits to categories and templates. EVula // talk // 21:15, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:Kobe Bryant Free Throw.jpg. —193.224.70.6 03:22, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I reuploaded the Bryant image since I had a copy stored locally (I was the original uploader on en). --PS2pcGAMER 03:47, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

• Image:Searchtool.svg --β₁₆ - (talk) 14:36, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

• Missing images - Image:Cheung Tsing Tunnel.JPG

Well, I just wonder that why the image that I uploaded suddenly disappeared. Could someone give me a hand about this? With a thousand thanks.--Father Vice (惡德神父) 07:01, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Have a look at the topic above. --Gnu1742 07:08, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

• Image:Puz u moru.jpg - Image:Janolus_fuscus.jpg - Image:Phyllidia_ocellata.jpg - Image:Phyllidia_varicosa.jpg - Image:Pteraeolidia_ianthina_2.jpg - other images in Category:Dorididae disappeared on it.wiki --81.208.6.81 11:34, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
• Image:Sommer, Giorgio (1834-1914) - Milano - n. 3927 - Monumento a Cavour - Milano.jpg

• Image:Rijnwoude 019.jpg, Image:Benthuizen dijk dorpstraat.jpg and Image:Goodyera repens 1.jpg

These full resolution pictures are disappeared.Rasbak 12:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

What the heck is going on, I just restored an image that was never deleted according to log (yes I mean it, this isnt a logic error). Special:Undelete/Image:Trypanosoma cruzi crithidia.jpeg -- Cat ^chi? 02:25, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I need a little coherence

I am carryng on with my work of purging WikiCommons from all images of Italian artists who have not been dead for at least 70 years, and that are on display in Italy, since Italy has no Freedom of Panrama. I have been putting a regular deletion request per image, but here I have been requested to use the {{copyvio}} template since these are obvious copyiols. Now User:Polarlys is deleting my {{copyvio}} requests with the following motivation: "Reason: please use a regular request for deletion". Now, I can adapt to any procedure, provided that it is one procedure for the same situation, and is not subjet to caprice. May I know which is the proper procedure? By the way, the ridiculous thing is that User:Polarlys removed my copyviol request from pictures that I myself had shot before I knew that Italy allows no Freedom of Panorama! --User:G.dallorto 14:09, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

You may use {{Copyvio}} or {{Derivative}} with a reason. Samulili 14:36, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Please take a little time to use talk pages and wait for a few days before asking this in the village pump. You appear to have made a comment at his talk page and immediately after wrote a message here. IMO there is not need for that. Siebrand 14:59, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Though G.dallorto got the advise to wait a few days, my image Image:PirelliBuildingAfterPlaneCrash.jpg was deleted within hours after tagging it and without even one answer to my request for reconsideration. -- Túrelio 18:42, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

To Samulili: I ALWAYS give an explanation why. In the case under examination, the reason was that (1) the architect died in 1960, therefore the building is still copyrighted, and (2) Italy has no "Freedom of panorama" exception for buildings. Did we need anything else? No, of course. Nevertheless, my template was simply deleted (not changed into an ordinary deletion request: purely deleted).

To Siebrand: I simply thought the village pump was the best place to discuss about a matter which was not a private disagreement: there was a difference of point of views between two adms, which regards everyone here, not only me. But of course I thought it was polite to drop a line to the other person as well. Next time I shall write to the village pump first, then I shall drop a note to the other person. Ok?

To Túrelio. This has to do with an excessive haste in deleting images tagged with copyviol, not with the process. Since some of the images I tagged were taken by myself, I was surprised myself by the excessive speed in deletion (one, two hours after tagginge) which does not, for sure, allow the uploader to object, if he wants to. But the solution is asking adms to be a bit less quick in deleting, not in removing all the tags as it was done in this case. BTW I'd rather like your image to stay... But there are several images I tagged with the ordinary deletion template, that after one month did not get a single vote, neither pro no con (actually, 90% of images I tagged did not get any vote at all). Since the law is very clear, alas, there must be a compromise between "delete within one hour" and "refusing to settle the issue after one month". --User:G.dallorto 12:35, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:Blason-fr-en-Saint-Moreil.svg

Anyone know what happened to that image? There doesn't seem to be a deletion record. There was a complaint about this image on french language wikipedia a few days ago, but as far as the project involved could tell the complaint was unjustified. Seeing the above mention of missing images this might be part of a bigger problem. Anyhow, would be nice to know what happened and whether the image can be restored (seems it's still linked on at least french, italian and dutch language wikipedias).--Caranorn 20:31, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

See #Missing images. The image was deleted by the deletion of the local French description page (log). /82.212.68.183 20:39, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Download A .SVG File?

moved from Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems#Download A .SVG File?

Just joined and am interested in downloading several arrow files in .svg format. When I click on such a file link it displays the graphic. When I right click it I can only save the link, not the .svg file. How can I save the actual file? Thanks, Rob r.j.p@sbcglobal.net

The image displayed on the information page is a PNG thumbnail. To save the svg, click the image on the information page and it should open up with just the image on a blank background. Right-click the image here and select "save page" (in firefox - in IE it may be "save image"). It should save in svg format :) -- Editor at Large • talk 21:36, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

or you can use seamonkey to save link target.Geni 23:41, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

June 5

Image question

An image that was uploaded was credited to me Image:Petroica traversi.jpg . I did not take the image, does this make it's free-ness dubious? Should it be nominated for deletion? Sabine's Sunbird 04:28, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I think so. You could also use {{No source}} in this case. --EugeneZelenko 14:06, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:Flickr_ymimexico_247769858--Jalapeno_poppers.jpg

There's an image that I copied over from Flickr yesterday morning when the servers were having hiccups. One of those hiccups seems to have nailed the default-sized thumbnail for the image — the thumbnail that is shown when the size isn't specified, such as in the media gallery for Category:Mexican food. If a size other than the default is specified, say 179 pixels or 181 pixels, a thumbnail is generated from the original image that then displays properly. If no size is specified or 180 pixels is specified, no thumbnail image is available. — VulcanOfWalden 15:02, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, found the solution above. — VulcanOfWalden 15:08, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Commercial Linkspam?

I just noticed that User:The art master adds Weblinks to www.1st-art-gallery.com as "image source" to quite a lot of images (paintings). In my view this is commercial linkspam. Especially since the images here at commons are not from this site. See for example Image:Lautrec casque d'or ('golden helmet') c1891.jpg, uploaded by user Petrusbarbygere on April 14th 2005 without giving information on the source. Now The art master, giving the comment "Source of image" adds a link to [2] - where is it obvious, that is it a different image file, one with a watermark which the file here at commons does not show.

Is there some policy here at commons, that such links are desired? Or do we delete them as spam? --Tsui 17:56, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

The uploader should provide the link to the source, not some random spammer. If the files don't match up, as you say, I'd revert such changes. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 00:48, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I already did. None of the given links to sources (if they led to a reproduction of the painting at the shop and not to the shop's homepage at all) showed the same image as it as avalable here at commons. At the shop they all have a watermark, the shop's name, which the images here of course do not display. In some cases there even was correct information on the source already given (e.g. yorckproject.de. --Tsui 18:20, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

He starts again, claiming, that he has the permission to upload this images from the archives of the shop under the condition that the onlineshop has to be mentioned as source and according weblinks have to be placed here ... for images of paintings that are clearly PD-old. How do we deal with claims and spam like this? --Tsui 20:47, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems he has now switched to reuploading images in order to "justify" his source links. While his upload edit summary says "Better quality image", at least in this case his version has about half the resolution and much worse colors than the previous one. I'd recommend deleting all his uploads (as he himself demands if the links are removed). --Latebird 23:01, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Is Commonist dead?

The Commonist download link is broken, since a long time. Is it possible to have release 0.3.3. on another mirror? --Jollyroger 19:53, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Edit summary reminder

When editing a page on Commons there is a small field labeled "Edit Summary" or "Summary" under the main edit-box. It looks like this:

Edit summary: 

 

The text written here will appear on the Recent changes page, in the page revision history, on the diff page, and in the watchlists of users who are watching that article. See m:Help:Edit summary for full information on this feature.

Filling in the Edit Summary field greatly helps your fellow contributors in understanding what you changed, so please always fill in the Edit Summary field. If you are adding a section, please do not just keep the previous section's name in the Edit Summary field - please fill in your new section's name instead. Thank you.   — Jeff G. ツ 20:40, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Are you addressing this to Commons at large? :) (BTW is the template-sig a good idea?) pfctdayelise (说什么?) 01:23, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I was addressing this to Commons at large, based on recent edits by well-versed editors.   — Jeff G. ツ 13:31, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea of the template-sig. This way, I can stop promoting Commons talk:Administrators/Deadminship#Poll (deadminship for inactivity) once the polling is over (in just over a week), and I can give myself flexibility with future sig changes.   — Jeff G. ツ 13:31, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

It's bad for the servers. If you will be here for a long time, and have made ten of thousands of edits, and you decide to change your sig, the software will have to rerender all pages. -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:18, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please do not use a template for a signature. *Always* substitute it. -- Ram-Man 20:39, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Not even if I change templates after, say, a month?   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs|supports deadminship for inactivity) 02:53, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

File:Edificio Ministerio Interior - La Habana - Imagen Che Guevara (3).jpg

This picture dissapeared. It's strange because it was a public builing form Cuba, edited by me. Somebody knows what hapenned?--Roblespepe 20:54, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Seems to me that Image:Anpanman toy.jpg has gone missing, too. –Dilaudid 21:36, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Per this image's deletion log, it was deleted 11:04, 28 May 2007 (UTC) by Zirland (talk · contribs) because it was "In category Derivatives of copyrighted works; not edited for 0 days".   — Jeff G. ツ 21:55, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks, I wasn't aware of this bit and for some odd reason couldn't find the deletion it in the log myself. –Dilaudid 15:41, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure this exact image name existed here?   — Jeff G. ツ 21:55, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Approaching 2M

User:Przykuta pointed out to me that we are rapidly approaching 2 million uploaded files (currently: 110,916,592). Most people will remember that we celebrated 1M files just last November. So it took us about two years to get 1M files, and in less than a year we've doubled it. That's pretty impressive.

I thought if we make a press release anouncement once we hit 2M, it will be a good opportunity to promote some of the "add-on" features that have sprung up - so far I have thought of Mayflower search engine, geocoding stuff, AV in-browser playback, POTD RSS feeds, Flickr stuff (like the upload bot). What have I missed???

thanks --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 01:52, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Er, I just noticed we're not approaching it THAT rapidly. I was looking at number of pages, which is at 1.9M. So my calculations above are a little off. :) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 02:07, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Since there is a lot of time left before we reach 2M, we thought we might try and launch something new and exciting by then. See Commons:Coffee table book. Siebrand 13:05, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Preview errors

I am experiencing some preview errors uploading images in Category:Army_parade_of_Italy_2007.

• Some images display correctly in the image page, display correctly in big size, but have thumbnail preview broken in the category page. An example is Image:2june_2007_329.jpg, which works here but is missing here

• Some images display correctly in the category page, but are missing in the image page. They work in big size. Example: missing here but working here and here

How can I solve the problem? --Jollyroger 12:49, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Fixed re-uploading all images...

Oups !

I think I made a mistake when I uploaded on picture found on the US DOS website. This is the picture : Image:2006 0202 iran nuclear 600.jpg, taken from [3]. The problem is I didn't see the small copyright AP at the end of the description of the image, so I think the image should be deleted as it doesn't appear to be free. Can someone confirm that and delete the image ? Fabienkhan 14:57, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I have confirmed that and marked it as a copyvio. :(   — Jeff G. ツ 15:11, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Small mistake in watch confirmation message

The page "Image:Tifinagh Unicode table.svg" ([[[:Template:MediaWiki unwatch page]] unwatch]) has been added to your watchlist, which will list edits to this page and its associated talk page. The page will also be bolded in the list of recent changes.

You should probably fix that. -- Prince Kassad 16:25, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

This issue has now been resolved. Adambro 20:26, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Help with picture identification

This copy of a painting is of a lady in white, with a white hat, a face that is a bouquet of violets, and a parasol. Can someone please tell me the artist's name? Thank you . . .

please sign all contributions on talk pages with ~~~~. It might also be nice if you would let us know which image you were referring to so that we can actually give you an answer. Cheers! Siebrand 13:01, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind. I found the name of the painting: "The Great War" by Rene Magritte.71.164.186.56 16:54, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Art History Images

Greetings,

I am a visual resources intern attempting to create a comprehensive digital image collection list for use by art history students and faculty in a college setting. I am very excited about the Wikimedia project, and deeply impressed by the depth and quality of the digital images available. I want to include this resource on my list. However, I find the extensive navigation tiresome and I am certain the professors in particular would not use this site because it takes 7-15 clicks just to get to pages where images are plentiful (for example, Jan van Eyck's works and various manuscript collections). I am wondering if there is a "show all" button or feature that I have overlooked, so that I can see all the images available at once.

For example, on this (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Medieval_tapestry) page, I'd like to see the images for the Bayeux Tapestry and the Mille-fleur and The Lady and the Unicorn all together under the Medieval Tapestry section.

Can this be done? Is there a way to propose less navigation or "see all" options to someone with the knowledge and authority to make these changes?

My email is EMAIL REMOVED, if you have any suggestions.

Thanks!

I sent her an email advising about Catscan and Mayflower. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 00:46, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:Nuvola apps kcmpartitions.png

What happened to Image:Nuvola apps kcmpartitions.png? I can't see it anymore, the orginal upload specifies a size of "0×0 (15,194 bytes)", the MIME type is not recognized, despite being a png, and the file returns a not found error. Any idea what could be going on? Note: you can see the original image through Lupin's popups by hovering over the link. Prodego ^talk 20:20, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd ask this at Commons:Village pump, as it appears to be a Commons-only issue (yes, it doesn't work, but the problem is on their end, not ours). EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:22, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Copied over here from enwiki per suggestion. Prodego ^talk 20:31, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Probably related to Commons:Village_pump#Missing_images -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:51, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I purged it twice and it magically reappeared ... --Iamunknown 21:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

June 8th

Franco & Truman

I found a pic of Franco and Eisenhower and I am wondering if the pic can go on commons under the PD-USGov template. The pic is probably made by the american goverment durning the meeting of the 2 leaders. I ask this couse I learned hat I should ask about the pics from the post WWI period, beacuse some may be copyrughted so, wanting not to get into trouble and learning from errors, I ask if the pic can go on commons, and why can it, can't it ? The link where I found the pic is http://www.andrewcusack.com/blog/politics/

Beacuse it is ablog it does not mean that the pic is corpyigted, beacuse the blogger surely took the pic from somewhere.

Thanks in advance :-) --Edgar Allan Poe 22:18, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The onus is on the uploader to prove it is not copyrighted, unless it would be ridiculous to suggest it was. If you got a picture on the net, it's often difficult to determine it's status. Asking the website owner where they got it from would be the best option I can think of. Richard001 01:45, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I again ask, can the above mentipond pic go under PD-USGov or is it corpyrihgted. It surely an official government pic so the only organ who holds the copryight is the government. Beacuse it is 90% sure that the US Gov took the pic and hold the copyright, please tell me can the above mntiond Franco/Eisenhower pic go on commons.

And another thing. This photo of Truman] was deleted. I do not know why, but I ask, beacuse it may be wrongly marked, can I upload the same pic under the PD-USGov or PD-USGov-POTUS licence, beacuse the pic is an official govermnent photo, and of an US president made durning his term, so I am certain that it can go, so I would like some one to tell me why it can or can't.

Thanks in advance :-) --Edgar Allan Poe 12:38, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

CC-BY-SA 2.5-Israel o.k. for Commons?

After more the 35 hours without an answer on Commons talk:Licensing I post this question here:
Is the Israel-localized Creative-Commons license BY-SA-2.5 (for deed see here: [4]) o.k. for Commons? -- Túrelio 09:25, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Sure it is. We accept all free licenses, and cc-by-sa is a free license. Please create {{Cc-by-sa-2.5-il}} based on {{Cc-by-sa-2.5}} or any other template in Category:CC license tags and start using it. It might be nice if you also added a translation in English, as some might have trouble understanding Hebrew ;). Cheers! Siebrand 13:00, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Very bad deletion policy

Images are deleted far much too fast here. Even images, where the uploader very obviously only had forgotten to add a copyright information, are deleted after a short week. Example: Image:St katharina willich.jpg deleted today, reason: "In category Unknown as of 31 May 2007; not edited for 8 days". The uploader Special:Contributions/RvM added at the same time two other images showing the same photography, using "self|cc-by-sa-2.5" and obviously wasn't active during the last week. Now the image is gone. --88.76.198.193 10:57, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Why don't we use a template such as own {{Own work}} for such images, and give the uploader more time (for example 30 days)? Such images should eventually be deleted, but 7 days is not enough time IMO. Kjetil r 11:14, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

We should not go overboard facilitating uploaders that are not careful enough to read instructions and/or check uploads. The 7 day waiting period should suffice. Creating an additional backlog which gets 200-300 images a days is a bad idea, IMO. The topic name is incorrect, as the deletion policy is clear. You are simply proposing for it to be changed. {{Own work}} is used sparsely and personally I think it serves little purpose. Images are thrown into a category and have been sitting there for ages (50-300 days) and as long as we do not decide on what to do with thm, they'll stay there. {{No license}} is directly connected to the three main requirements all images have to adhere to (source, author, license) and not ambiguous in any way. Siebrand 12:54, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, although you understate how long images sit in Category:Own work – I just deleted some images that have been used since 2005 despite the fact that they were never actually published under a free license. Personally, I think a week is actually too long to keep images without a stated source and/or license. The requirement to provide a license is clearly stated during the upload process, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why it should take someone more than a week to add a simple license template to an image if they failed to do so immediately as they were instructed to do when they uploaded it. —LX (talk, contribs) 15:39, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

A week is managable at least. It means that we have, with the current flow, about 2500-3000 files in unknown. The actual number of files with running deletion requests is actually much higher, as there are many deletion requests and template/category deletion requests. I estimate the total number of images with deletion requests somewhere between 20k and 30k. Siebrand 15:48, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Why was my file deleted?

On 31 May I received a message that would be deleted, because the licence info was missing. So I corrected the error. And yet it was deleted today, reason: not edited for 8 days. Well, that was true, it was nine days ago. Should images be edited once a week to prevent deletion?

Well, I uploaded it again, but it appears that the wiki police is stronger: the picture does not appear on [5]

HandigeHarry 11:06, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Each file, once it has ever existed, has a history. The history of the file you are referencing can be found here. It was deleted because a license had not been given on the image. Siebrand 12:57, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

How do I give a license on an image?

When I upload a picture, I usually select "Own work, all rights released (Public domain or GFDL if the PD release is invalidated)". It is possible that I forgot to select this on 22 May, but I did not forget it on 31 May. What else can I do?

Your reference to http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Image:APLuparrow.svg means little to me. It doesn't show the images, only the times that they have been uploaded.

HandigeHarry 16:16, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Je kunt het beste even kijken op Licentiesjablonen. Groet, Siebrand 16:38, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

It baffles me. What is wrong with selecting "Own work, all rights released (Public domain or GFDL if the PD release is invalidated)" in the combobox? I select this in most cases when I submit a picture, because I usually submit self-made pictures. The picture Image:APLuparrow.svg is one of these and so are the other APL images. Is it sufficient to select something in the combobox? Are the other APL pictures at risk? Will Image:APLuparrow.svg be deleted again? HandigeHarry 19:56, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing —The preceding unsigned comment was added by HereToHelp (talk • contribs) at 22:32, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

{{Own work}} should not be used by uploaders - please see {{Own work}} and {{OwnWorkBoilerPlate}} for details. I suggest {{PD-user}} or {{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-2.5,2.0,1.0}} instead.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs|supports deadminship for inactivity) 23:14, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi Harry, it appears to me that you tried to "fix" the missing template by uploading a new version of the file with all the correct license info. Unfortunately there is weird behaviour of MediaWiki with regards to this: the first time you upload a file, the "summary" box becomes both the page contents and the file history log. On subsequent uploads, it ONLY becomes the file history log, and the page contents can only be changed by editing the image page directly, not uploading a new file. It is a known bug.

So I'm sorry this took so long to sort out, but please understand that hundreds of images without any proper info are uploaded here every day. If we delete some legitimate images among them we will always be quick to undelete them when they are brought to our attention. Hope this helps, pfctdayelise (说什么?) 23:22, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Geographic category system

I find the current category system for countries and subdivisions very confusing. As its a bit tricky to find a category if you don't have a link to it, the natural thing to do would be to go to a top category (Earth, for example), and then go to the next subdivision (continent) and then continue downwards. However, in the current category system this is very hard to do, as there is a lot of extra steps in the category tree before you can get to the next subdivision. For example, the current trip from Earth to New York is:

Earth > Continents > America > North America > Countries of North America > United States > Subdivisions of the United States > Political divisions of the United States > States of the United States > New York

I feel that this would be more natural:

Earth > America > North America > United States > New York

I see that if you eliminated some of the extra steps, many categories would get cluttered and I'm not certain how this should be adressed, but I feel that this is a serious issue. If a wikimedian like me can't figure the system out, how can we expect a newbie to find our media? Väsk 12:13, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

A search for "new york" brings up Category:New York. Search could certainly be improved, but I wouldn't have thought that navigation by category tree would be the most obvious first step. Man vyi 17:10, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I have planned to create a new category Category:Countries of the World which would be in Category:Earth. However, beforehands, we must go to a agreement about what is exactly a country (for categorization purposes in Commons).

The debate is located in the Commons:Territorial division of the World talk page.

In the previous document, I suggest to choose the 7 continents-model. With this model, we'd get rid of the “America” step. --Juiced lemon 17:18, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Editing in Safari

Hello. I seem to have trouble getting the page to save in Safari. That new in-you-face Copyright banner on the editing page stops before the edit summary box, yes, but if I click anywhere from there downward (including "Save Page"!) it takes me to Commons: Licensing. It also does this for the bottom half of the edit box--very annoying! I am going to use the keyboard shortcut to save the page (I entered an edit summary by using the tab key, since I can't click there either!) and see if it works…--HereToHelp (talk) 20:03, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Is it fixed now? -- Cat ^chi? 13:43, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Lagging watchlist

Don't know if I'm the only one suffering from this but lately the watchlist has started to not embold the pages that have been modified since I last visited them. Only a sporadic few pages get outputed in bold letters. Is this a bug? /Lokal_Profil 11:22, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Seems so - bugzilla:10172. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:43, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Seems to have been fixed. /Lokal_Profil 21:13, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I take that last coment back. /Lokal_Profil 19:45, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Where to put recordings and transcripts of interviews

I have recordings and transcripts of interviews with w:Rickard Falkvinge and the speaker of the Austrian Pirate Party, Florian. I plan on using at least parts of those for an article I plan on writing for Wikinews. I also would like to upload those (with the permission of the the interviewees). However, I do not know where to put them best - Commons, Wikisource or both? And if I put it here on Commons, I wonder how to categorize them. So far, I have not found a category for interviews or the like. Can anyone point me into the right direction here and advise me on where to put my material?
Thank you all, Florian Prischl 12:27, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

They are welcome at Commons. I don't think Wikisource is quite the right place for them, but it's possible Wikisourcians would disagree.

There are a few that might be relevant. Category:English language (or whatever language they're using), Category:Audio-Interviews (weirdly titled), Category:Wikinews audio, Category:Politics of Austria. hope this helps, pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:03, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Great, thanks a lot for your help! --Florian Prischl 17:30, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

A new template to link Wikipedia articles

We had template:W, but I have created a new template template:W article in order to make the links to other Wikipedia projects different from the links in Commons Wikimedia.

• Link in Commons Wikimedia: [[Roald Amundsen]]

Roald Amundsen

• Link to the English Wikipedia: {{W article|Roald Amundsen}}

Roald Amundsen

• Link to the Norwegian (Bokmål) Wikipedia: {{W article|Roald Amundsen||no}}

no

Feel free to replace the image with a better one. --Juiced lemon 16:53, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Is this intended to indicate in-text Wikipedia links in image descriptions? I think that's okay, but you'd better clarify this so that we don't get people using it as yet another template doing what interlanguage are already perfectly capable of doing. —LX (talk, contribs) 18:54, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

This template can indicate in-text Wikipedia links in any Commons page. Is it possible to superimpose text over the image? --Juiced lemon 23:54, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Weather maps

We've been experimenting with the elderly WeatherChecker application on en.wikinews, Polish wikinews have spotted them and want to share them via commons. Can anyone recall what the issue was last time that our Weather service was discontinued? Images would be uploaded as World_C_Current.jpg Asia_C_Current.jpg, etc. Once we get a small routine to automate the upload there would be a new version every hour. At the moment it is best-effort. --Brianmc 20:59, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

If you are replacing the same file every hour, I think you're going to find problems with out of date cached thumbs, unless you get your script to try and purge the thumbnails too. (See COM:FAQ) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 01:18, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

This may have been the problem last time... Or new files were being uploaded every hour and nobody here liked it. Anyone know? --Brianmc 08:37, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

AFAIK the weather service was never discontinued by *Commons*. When it was operating in 2005, Commons had very low traffic and the bot was extremely visible in Newimages. (See Commons:WeatherBot:Vote - but note nothing came of this page.) That would be less the case now, I imagine.

It doesn't really seem like a great situation, still. I'm not sure MediaWiki images are designed to handle hundreds and thousands of revisions (which is what will happen after just a few months).

Why not try using some system like w:Template:Location map? You could have the various temps as template parameters, then to update the map you'd only need to change the parameters. Use the same image as the background map. No "new" image necessary. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 10:02, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

The main developer left the wikinews project not long after that vote, and - from my point of view as a wikinewsie - it doesn't come across as particularly encouraging discussion. His hard work was described as spam. We have one or two people who could perhaps help out implementing an updating template with a static map. I will ask around. --Brianmc 20:43, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

June 10

MediaWiki:Anonnotice

I fully know that the entire Wikimedia Foundation is built thanks to donations (money donations and/or edits donations). But I think that MediaWiki:Anonnotice and MediaWiki:Sitenotice don't have the need to supplicate every second for a donation, but only to display special events/server failures and others kinds of emergences. Because I don't have found any discussion related to the implementation of the Your continued donations keep commons running! message to annon users here at the Commons, only a edit summary mentioning the cute-and-paste action, I will appreciate comments on it. To give a example, from the 10 wikipedias with most content pages, only en:, fr: and nl: have a ads requesting donations. Lugusto • ※ 04:49, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think having the reminder on the anonnnotice does any harm. If anything I think the other 7 top 10 Wikipedias should lift their game! Why shouldn't we try and do our part? The WMF keeps us going after all. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 10:04, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Problem with Commonist

I am not sure what the problem is, I have starte getting the following error, "could not login to commons (method failed)" I hadn't had any problems in the past, but I haven't used it in a month or so, didn't know if something had changed since then. --Holderca1 13:57, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Can't use it either. I suspect it has something to do with these d*** captchas (which I can't read most of the time anyway...) --AndreasPraefcke 18:59, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Please also see Commons:Village pump#Is_Commonist_dead.3F - if it still works, I'd like to get a copy of it, even if you don't have the bandwidth to host it on the web. Thanks!   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs|supports deadminship for inactivity) 17:06, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Transcluded image description pages

I don't know if this is the right place to mention this problem: When looking at a Commons image from a different wiki (eg. huwiki) there are [edit] links for each section, that lead to the corresponding section of the description page on the Commons. So far, so good, but the text of the link isn't localised (ie. it should be [szerkesztés] but its [edit]). I was wondering if there was a MediaWiki message to be translated, or some other solution.

You can see the problem at hu:Image:Cartesian Theater.jpg. --Bdamokos 17:48, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Categorisation

Please keep this heading, because I used it in an email. Thanks. Siebrand 05:37, 11 June 2007 (UTC) On behalf of the Election Committee, I post the following announcement. Please consider to forward this message and bring to other projects you take part in, thanks!

Scripting request: templates on user talk pages

I would like to make a general scripting request.

For tagging images we have MediaWiki:Quick-delete.js, which works very well. The script adds a few additional menu items to image pages for tagging nsd/npd/nld and automatically notifies the last uploader of the image.

We also have Commons:Welcome log, which lists new users with edits. Many of those new users need to have a template put on their page because the linking or naming of their images could use some improvement. {{Please link images}} is a tag that I use a lot in those cases. Now I put them in my copy buffer as {{subst:please link images}} ~~~~, and if I know of a particular language that a user speaks, I add "/lang" to the template. This is an ideal opportunity for a scripted task. Saves a lot of time on a repetitive task and provides useful information to new users. My detailed request is the following: please write a script, similar to MediaWiki:Quick-delete.js that will add menu items in the same fashion on user talk pages, that are able to add the following substituted templates (with option to choose a language variant) to that user talk page, including a signature (~~~~):

• {{Please link images}}
• {{Please tag images}}
• {{Please name images}}

Possibly any of you know other generic templates with information that are often put on your talk pages that can also be added to this script. I know that many community members will be eternally grateful to you, the user that will program this useful script!

While we're at it, a little request for quality improvement of the i18n-ed versions of the template: please check if your translation is still up to date and please add a header to the messages. Cheers! Siebrand 21:32, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Support, imvho a good idea. I have added the italian traslation to the three messages. --Trixt 03:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

June 11

Request for clarification

Sorry to cross-post this, my post didn't get any attention at the help desk. Go there to offer your opinion. --Iamunknown 00:15, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Never mind. --Iamunknown 06:20, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Move category

I can not find "move page" in commons. Is it only possible by request? I am planning to move category:dokdo to categoty:liancourt rocks the latter is consistent with en:liancourt rocks. Jjok 02:49, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

It is not possible to move categories (not only here in Commons, but also on Wikipedia). See Commons:Rename a category. --Trixt 03:04, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I see. Thank you very much.Jjok 14:41, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Popups

Can we get w:en:Wikipedia talk:Tools/Navigation popups installed here? I've installed the file in my .js file but it doesn't work, I'm guessing we aren't set up for it yet? Richard001 23:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I've been using them for a long while already... Works properly. NielsF talk/overleg/discussion/discussione 00:15, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Got it running, I must have either entered it wrong or not refreshed my cache. Thanks! Richard001 01:22, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

GUI annoyances

First it was Commons:Upload being linked instead of Special:Upload (and requires you to jump through a hoop to upload). Now it's a giant "WARNING! Copyright violations will be deleted!" below the textarea when editting. I have to say, you guys (whomever you are) are making editing on commons much, much more annoying. The warning box is half as tall as the textarea to edit! The warnings and hoops to jump through are getting ridiculous. Can we get a "non-newbie" skin or commons interface or something? If you want to keep the giant annoying box then put it below my buttons so I don't have to deal with it between the text and my saving button. Please! Cburnett 01:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Quoting in toto Cburnett.

Moreover, the "database locked" warning is broken and has a weird effect on the title.

--Jollyroger 07:29, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

You can disable the copyright warning by adding to you Special:Mypage/monobook.css:

.copyrightwarning { display: none !important; }

-- Bryan (talk to me) 14:48, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

So your solution is to make me and anyone else who finds the giant icons annoying to do work because other people wish to make commons more annoying and more in-your-face? That's a Bad Trend (TM) to start. The old one was just fine to me! Cburnett 15:59, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the new warning is not really impressive. What do you think of this one? (we can still improve it)

WARNING! Copyright violations will be deleted! and you'll go to Hell!

--Juiced lemon 17:53, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

At least that's amusing... Cburnett 22:34, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

ROFL@Juiced lemon...

@Cburnett: you can discuss the copyright warning at MediaWiki talk:copyrightwarning. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 01:59, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

New script for giving users information (and requesting behavioural change)

I'd like to inform you about a new script: MediaWiki:UserMessages.js. This script enables you to added three templates to users pages (more if you count language variants) in exactly the same style as MediaWiki:Quick-delete.js. It only adds menu items on user talk pages. Installation instructructions are on MediaWiki talk:UserMessages.js.

The following templates are currently supported and I do hope that more will be supported soon:

• {{Test}}, {{Test2}}, {{Test3}}, and {{Test4}}
• {{End of copyvios}}
• {{Please tag images}}
• {{Please name images}}
• {{Please link images}}

If your language does not yet have a translation of the above templates, please add it. Please update the templates to ensure they have a heading, some of them do not have one yet. Cheers! Siebrand 11:26, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Well done, Siebrand. (Reminder to people using this script: don't use auto scripts to spam people!!!! It is extremely counter-productive.) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 15:49, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

That goes without saying, obviously... Btw, this script is EXTREMELY HANDY if you work on Commons:Welcome log. Please DO work on that - we WILL get more informed users that deliver higher quality content... Cheers! Siebrand 18:36, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Well I wish it went without saying but it doesn't always. Sometimes I see people's talk pages with 20 messages, one is a welcome message, the other 19 are image deletion warnings - all posted by the same person within about five minutes!! --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 02:01, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Database of images used in other wikis

Hi,

Is it possible to automatically generate data such as fr:Projet:Histoire des sciences/Comparatif femmes scientifiques?

The idea is, for a given topic, to compare the existing articles in different languages, in order to obtain a list of images that are not used in some languages. For instance, taking all mathematicians, each one's picture is likely to be directly reusable in any language.

I already asked my question here, and was advised to querry in Commons...

Thanks, gene.arboit 20:01, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi Gene, I think this tool will help you out: http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/missing_images.php --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:05, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Great! Thank you. gene.arboit 19:32, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

A proposal: automated duplicate deletion

At the moment we have huge backlogs of both duplicate and incorrectly named images, we find more and more everyday, yet the true number is much higher. I remember hearing once about a study which compared all the images on the commons and it found that there were literally thousands of perfect duplicates - even with our huge admin team it will be impossible to delete them all.

My proposal is as follows:

• An automated script is run on a image dump of the Wikimedia Commons comparing all images using a SHA2 hash and a list of all perfect duplicates is created.
• A robot runs a checkusage on all of the images.
• If the image is in use it places a universal replace on the CommonsDelinker command page for the least used image.
• If not one of the images is deleted.
• It processes all the images that have not been deleted again and performs a checkusage on each one.
• If the images has been delinked the image that has been delinked is deleted.
• If not this process is repeated again.

While this is not ideal (since it will have some flaws as robots aren't able to chose the best filename) there is no other way to fix our huge backlog and once image renaming arrives we will be able to fix any bad file names that arise quite easily. This bot could theoretically be run continuously and once it does so many tries of removing a duplicate but has failed that image is put in a list that has to be processed by hand (presumably because it is used on a protected page) and the bot restarts itself and downloads and scans all of the images again.

Thank you for reading my proposal. Lcarsdata 06:28, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea. --ALE! ¿…? 08:21, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

 Oppose No automatic deletions by a potentially bugged and/or stupid script: deletions must remain human decisions. More, there is no urgency to carry out such deletions, so a message should be sent to the uploader each time an image is suspected to be a duplicate of another one. As a preventive measure, it would be better to warn the uploader when the uploaded image is a possible duplicate. --Juiced lemon 08:41, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it is better to redirect exact duplicates, unless they are recently uploaded or has really bad names. That is how duplicate articles are handled in Wikipedias. Image redirects has some minor problems now. But I think handling of them will be improved as part of an implementation of image move/rename. /82.212.68.183 09:13, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

 Comment seen as that there is primarily opposition to the automatic deletion:

• tag as a special dupe tag, so that the cat will not be cluttered
• automatic universal bot replacement
• manual deletion using BadOldOnes based on CheckUsage outcome

That way it's all done through proper current and accepted process and a lot if time is saved. The deletion is ususally just a formality and bot omissions are caught safely. Siebrand 09:18, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

A bot is unfit in doing the first operation of the process, since the choice of a file amongst several duplicate ones have to be done according to non-quantitative criteria.

In particular, images used in Wikipedia projects have sometimes incorrect or improper names, and the procedure have to be compatible with corrective actions. --Juiced lemon 12:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Red "this file" links on license templates

Uhm, I don't know if I've missed something, but why does the "this file" link within the CC-by-sa-2.0 template e.g. on Image:Rote_lupine.jpg show up in red? Could someone fix it? --Überraschungsbilder 20:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Weird, some minutes later and the links are blue now ^^

Any ideas? --Überraschungsbilder 20:54, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It happens sometimes. No idea why. Probably some database lag. -- Bryan (talk to me) 21:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Are these self-links required for CC licenses ? I assume yes but I'm not an expert in this. How about GFDL, does this license require a self-links as well ? --Denniss 22:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

They are not linked because they have to be, they are linked because it makes it look nicer and they are often interesting. Does it really matter, this was a simple MediaWiki error\database lag that went away. Lcarsdata 16:09, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Deletion request notify across sister projects

please about this isue see: Commons_talk:Deletion_requests#About the 'V.part of the process--Andersmusician $ 21:40, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Category: User_Murdoc

I've uploaded a few pictures, and I would like to add them to my page. Instead of creating a gallery, I was wondering if I can create a Category:User:Crazy_Murdoc and tag the images I uploaded in this category, then I would just place a link in my page to the Category. Is this against any rules (creating my own category)? Crazy Murdoc 13:50, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

As long as the category is a subcategory of Category:User galleries and all the images are also categorised according to what they depict there should be no problems. There might be more advice at Commons:User-specific galleries, templates and categories policy though. /Lokal_Profil 18:19, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your helpful reply. I've followed those links and created my category page at Category:Photos_by_User:Crazy_Murdoc. Crazy Murdoc 18:51, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikimedia Board Election: call for endorsement is opening soon

Hi Wikimedia Commoners,

As you may know, we are currently holding the Board of Trustees elections. We are very grateful to your collaborations for sharing the info, through translations, forwarding and other several ways.

Next Sunday, June 17, the Board Election will enter its second phase: call for endorsements from the community to the candidates. Only candidates who get 12 or more endorsements in the following week will be able to run in the election.

For further information, please see m:Board elections/2007/Endorsements.

Also we would like you to aware we are planning to use Wikimedia:Sitenotice to inform you that call for endorsement while it is open. Please modify the message in an appropriate way to your community. The notice will be placed at most in seven days.

We would appreciate your translation of this message as well as other Election related information. If you'd like to offer further help, just contact your language coordinator and regularly check the list of candidate statements.

If there's no coordinator for your language, please consider joining our translations team. Please contact User:Schiste or User:Aphaia on meta if you have any question.

Cheers, --Aphaia 14:30, 14 June 2007 (UTC), on behalf of Wikimedia Election Steering Committee

June 15

Question

I'm interested in learning about Zurvanism (Gnosticism) the original Zorastrian religion of Iran (Persia) BEFORE Islam. —the preceding unsigned comment is by 66.255.207.79 (talk • contribs) 17:29, 14 June 2007

Please ask on Wikipedia:Reference desk; the Humanities desk is probably the best place for your specific question. -- Editor at Large • talk 02:22, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

must the hippo remain a rhino by name?

the picture in question - clearly a hippo!

There's an image called Image:Pasoop_Rhino.jpg that depicts not a rhinoceros but a hippopotamus. I ran into this in the Esperanto article on the Afrikaans language, and it's a Commons image. I wanted to rename it Image:Pasoop_Hippo.jpg, but there's no "Rename" or "Move" tab on its page.

So I wrote a note about it (in Esperanto - sorry, all you anglophonic-afrikaans diglots!) on its talk page a few days ago, but nobody has responded, and I'm not sure where to raise the topic. So I thought I would try here. --Haruo 11:27, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Renaming of images is not supported, unfortunately. If you want to rename, you can copy the description page, and reupload the file under a new name, and then tag the old image with {{Duplicate}} for deletion. -- Bryan (talk to me) 12:37, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I have done that, using new name Image:Beware of hippopotamus.jpg.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 15:37, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:Pizza-oven.jpg

This image is currently tagged for deletion on July 1, 2007, as an image from SXC.hu. In the photographer's profile on SXC.hu[6], he mentions that "My pics are without use restrictions, in the spirit of sharing so - use them & enjoy. If u like or got some good results, mail/comment me if you can, that will b nice." Is this a sufficient license? — VulcanOfWalden 19:50, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

No, not by itself. Please consider contacting the photographer and asking he or she would be willing to release that photograph under a free license. Then, if he or she consents, forward the e-mail (both your e-mail and his or her reply) to permissions-commons AT wikimedia DOT org. Remember to use the standard declaration of consent. --Iamunknown 19:54, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

link broken on 404 page

I don't know if this should go somewhere in the mediawiki talk: ns, but I assume it is alright to put here. Anyways, the link for search for this image in the deletion log when you goto an image that doesn't exist, doesn't link the namespace, and therefor does not find anything. Bawolff 04:26, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

New Wikimedia Commons skin

There has been recent discussion on IRC and on the mailing list regarding creating a new skin for the Commons. Please list any suggestions for features of the skin here so anyone wishing to create a skin has some idea about the major features wanted by Wikimedia Commons users. I hope there is also a skin competition soon, however it would be better for someone else to organise that. Thanks. Lcarsdata 09:10, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Why are these images here?

This may have been posted before... but I'm wondering WHY are some of these images here? Curious as to why people upload some of these things - some seem really mundane (eg. a car in a parking lot) or highly personal (a girlfriend) - things of little public use.

Like this... a hand grinder: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Haakseslijper.jpg Or this... http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Blond_in_jeans_june_2007.JPG

Not that I really care.... just a bit baffled as to what the point is. —the preceding unsigned comment is by 168.103.209.223 (talk • contribs) 15:49, 16. Jun. 2007 (UTC)

Why should Image:Haakseslijper.jpg not be useful? O.k., the other one is not that useful and even ambiguous. Please sign your edits. -- Túrelio 16:31, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Here, you'll find uploaded images which fulfill the Commons requirements. Nobody forces you to use them. --Juiced lemon 16:33, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

The first one can illustratre an article like other pictures of tool (the quality is not very good) (see for example : [7]. Romary 16:37, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:Haakseslijper.jpg is used in nl:Haakse slijper, the Dutch (Netherlands language) version of w:Angle grinder. Image:Blond in jeans june 2007.JPG is used in w:Jeans.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 16:51, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Dear anon person, please consider that things that seem mundane and ordinary to you are not that way to everyone in the world. We (WMF) write material for everyone in the world, or try to, so even the mundane things need illustration. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:45, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Problem with SVG

Hello,

I have a problem with .SVG. Basically, I create them with Inkscape based on .PNG. They look fine on my computer when I open them in Inkscape. However, when I upload them on Commons, I can't see anything. (Image:Airbus Boeing orders.svg). Any idea ? Thanks. Poppy 07:16, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

You have to convert the PNG to vectors... Otherwise it is no Vector-Graphic... The Point is: The PNG is local on your PC, so Wikimedia Commons can't reach the File... --Stefan-Xp 07:38, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Watermarking

I was surprised when reading Commons:Deletion guidelines that watermarking was not explicitly prohibited. Over on Wikipedia, the image use policy forbids such watermarking. I listed watermarking as a reason in Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Justin.jpg, but it was kept for the sole reason that it was being used (after a short 69 days). hbdragon88 17:20, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

You could add {{Watermark}} to automatically add it to Category:Images with watermarks. Someone could fairly easily take out the watermark, which is generally why such images are kept (obviously, if it was a more drastic watermark, it wouldn't be as readily kept). EVula // talk // 18:05, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

In some circonstances, even a drastic watermark may be removed with some special tools like resynthesizer or GREYCstoration (see the astonishing "Image inpainting" section from the demonstration page). I used the former on Image:Ch-Rasti.jpg when the photo was tagged with a big yellow text. The result is quite satisfying. — Xavier, 22:25, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

June 9

Architectural images

User:SieBot recieved the following email in French I'd like to share with you. We can possibly learn something from it, but unfortunately my French isn't that good that I'm able to fully understand what Mr. Von Meiss exactly wishes to propose. Feel free to move this to a more appropriate talk page. Cheers! Siebrand 21:06, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

catégories et sous-catégories
Mesdames, Messieurs,
Je suis professeur d'architecture émérit. de l'Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale
de Lausanne (EPFL) qui m'a confiée la tâche de rendre nos dizaines de miliers
d'images en architecture, urbanisme, paysagisme et de génie civil accessibles
à tous nos enseignants, étudiants et à un public académique et autre plus
large. Ma politique est celle d'introduire nos collections sur un site web
existant, mais j'ai d'abord élaboré quelques principes de classement simples
que je suis tout à fait disposé d'adapter:

PRINCIPE D'ACCESSIBILITE

Il y a cinq répertoires de classement:
A) Auteur
B) Géographique (pays, ville, lieu, ...) 
C) Nom de l'ouvrage + année de construction 
D) Thème/Collection 
E) Genre d'ouvrage
Chaque image ou série d'images est attribuée à au moins un de ces répertoires.

Exemple 1: Images d'un pont de Brunel à Plymouth 
A) Brunel, I.K. 
B) U.K., Plymouth 
C) Royal Albert bridge (1859) 
D) ponts et viaducs 19ème siècle
E) pont ferroviaire (Pour ce cas précis j'ai trouvé des images bien meilleures
  que les miennes viaGoogle)

Exemple 2: images de sidérurgie en fonction 
A) - 
B) De, Ruhrgebiet 
C) ca. 1975 
D) - 
E) Industrie sidérurgique, haut-fournaux

Il y a deux types d'images:
- Celles sans annotation copyright qui peuvent être importées par n'importe quel
  utilisateur non-commercial.
- Celles marquées d'un © qui devraient être "bloquées".

Idéalement les utilisateurs devraient être en mesure de compléter la collection
un peu sur le modèle "Wikipedia" avec certaines conditions de qualité.

RESULTAT résumé de mes premières recherches sur 4 systèmes différents:

 DILPS   Système très professionnel/académique, lourd à manipuler et difficile
         d'accès
 FLICKR  Très "populaire", très riche en images, bonne qualité, pauvre en
         catégories
 PICASA  Moins riche que Flickr, peut-être un peu plus facile à organiser par
         catégories
  
 WIKIMEDIA Commons: me paraît intéressant, permet des annotations didactiques,
         possibilité de  liens internes et externes, offre de nombreuses catégories
         et s'efforce d'être "sérieux", mais il semble  être qu'à ses débuts avec
         trop peu d'images et renfermant encore trop de lacunes comme p.ex.:
       
- Même là où il y a des images, il ne s'agit que rarement d'images les plus utiles
  pour couvrir p.ex. la compréhension de l'architecture d'un batiment, d'une ville
  ou d'un parc ...

- Les catégories et sous-catégories sont trop arbitraires: p.ex.
  "Architecture>Architecture moderne"; là on trouve 9 sous-catégories aussi
  héteroclytes que "Contemporary  architecture","Constructivisme"et"Eames House".
  Ce sont tous des niveaux totalement différents et ce n'est pas gérable.

- Il n'y a même pas un classement simple par "nom" de l'architecte(auteur), ou du
  moins je ne l'ai pas trouvé.

Ce message est un peu long, mais les enjeux sont considérables à long terme.

Avec mes meilleures salutations
Prof. Pierre von Meiss
peter DOT vonmeiss AT epfl DOT ch

PVM wants to share architectural photos but :

1. some buildings photos are irrevelevant for architecture
2. categories under architecture are heteroclitics, unmanageable as is.
3. he didn't find any categorization by name of the architect

• he proposed 5 categories per photo (architect(author), place, name+year, topic, usage)
• He owns 2 types of images : 1 unfree, 1 free-but-NC

imho, everything ok except a misunderstanding about licensing(no NC). Greudin 23:17, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Can someone who's a lot better at French please pick this up? If you come to an agreement on material to be uploaded, please talk to the bot guys before uploads hundreds of images, as they may be able to make your job a lot easier. I think all of PVM's conditions can be met, except for the "no commercial use" clause. Those images cannot be used. Siebrand 23:35, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I can see that pictures which could be uploaded to Commons Wikimedia. Give me the mail address of this professor, so I'll answer him. --Juiced lemon 09:18, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

The question makes me wonder if you actually read the email I fully quoted. The email address was mentioned. I'll put it here for you again: peter DOT vonmeiss AT epfl DOT ch. Cheers! Siebrand 09:32, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I have read this email, but I think you didn't quote the original message. Informations which are not expressed in an expected form are not always understood. --Juiced lemon 10:47, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

We try and protect the innocent where possible ;) Please keep us updated if you make any progress or ask if yiu need advice or feedback... Cheers! Siebrand 20:17, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Somehow a propoer translation might help. Here a start...

TRANSLATE

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am retired professor in architecture, from the EPFL Lausanne which has me entrusted the task of making our tenthousands of images in architecture, urbanism, landscapism and engineering accessible to our lecturers/teachers, students and to the academic and also wider non-academic public. My policy is to put our collections onto an existing website, but first I have worked out some simple classification principles that I certainly want to adapt:

There are five sets(?) of classification [...] each image or image series is attributed to at least on classification set.

[...] There are two image types:

• Those without copyright annotation that can be downloaded/used by any non-commercial user.
• Those marked with (C) that ought to be "blocked"

Resume of my first look into four different systems:

[...]

wikimedia commons: seems interesting, allows didactiv remarks, possibility of internal and external links, numerous categories on offer and the push to be serious, but seems to be at its start with too little images and still containing too many gaps, i.e.

• If there do exist images, rarely they are the most useful ones to cover i.e. the architechtural understanding of a building, town or parc...
• The categories and sub-categories are too arbitrary, i.e. Architecture > Modern Architecture, here one finds 9 subcategories as disparate(?) as "Contemporary architecture", "Constructivism" and "Eames House". These are completely different levels and cannot be administrated/maintained.
• There even is no categorisation by name (architect, author), or at least I did not find it.

This message is somewhat long, but the long term implications are considerable.

With best regards ...

/TRANSLATE

Any desire to have more translated? --????

His brief is to make the architectural image collection of the EPFL accessible, and has looked into several approaches as found on the web. Regarding the wiki side, he may need some clarification as the EPFL might use their own wiki, or these photos might end up on commons-wikimedia proper (at least the ones not restricted to NC). His comments are on shortcomings of the commons as they are.

Is the discussion going on elsewhere since? -- Klaus with K 17:14, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Election Committee announces Wikimedia Election

On behalf of the Election Committee, I post the following announcement. Please consider to forward this message and bring to other projects you take part in, thanks!

--Aphaia 06:42, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

______________________

Dear all,

We, the election committee, hereby announce the opening of a new election for members of the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees. At least three positions will be filled from this election, with the elected members serving a two year term.

It is important to note that election processes are slightly different this year than in previous years: all candidates should be certain to thoroughly read the FAQ at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/en

From today, June 10th, we're accepting candidates for the Board of Trustees. If you're interested, you must make a candidate statement and list yourself on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Candidates/en

We also need the help or translators for the elections, so if you're fluent in any language other than English, and willing to help, please list yourself here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Translations

If you have any questions, please first read the FAQ, then list your questions to the talk page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/FAQ/en

The official announcement is available on Meta: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/en

We are confident that this election will draw very qualified candidates, and we wish them the best of luck.

Regards,

Kizu Naoko (Aphaia) Newyorkbrad Philippe Beaudette Jon Harald Søby

No text in {{En}}

Hello,

Does anybody know why nothing is showing up in Image:Child labour distribution chart.png in the "English" and "Français" part ? If you look at the wikicode, I did add a description, but nothing shows up. I can't figure out why.

Thanks for your help, le Korrigan →bla 18:31, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Hello, the language tags dont allow equal signs (=). You can use a colon (:) instead. --GeorgHH 20:26, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki treats everything before the first equal sign in the description as a parameter name for the template. For numbered parameters you need to explicitly say that the parameter name is 1, by writing:

 {{en|1=description with a = sign}}

/82.212.68.183 20:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I forgot that ! Thanks for correcting it :-) le Korrigan →bla 21:36, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Optionally you could use = which will create an equal sign as such: =. (61 is the decimal ASCII value of the equal sign.) Cburnett 02:34, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

There is also a template for this : {{=}}. Much more readable IMHO. — Xavier, 21:57, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

"Error creating thumbnail: Invalid thumbnail parameters"

Hi, I am getting the subject error when viewing the larger {4465×5731 (181,655 bytes)) version of Image:Bellis perennis ellywa.png with my "Special:Preferences/Files/Limit images on image description pages to:" set to "800×600px". This is also happening with the 80-120px thumbnails of it in its categories and the gallery at Bellis perennis#Illustrations. What's wrong? Thanks!   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs|supports deadminship for inactivity) 15:37, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Very large images (dimension wise) cannot be thumb nailed correctly. The main solution is to upload a down scaled version on top of it so a version that thumbnails correctly is available and the high resolution version is available too. Lcarsdata 19:34, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

There might be a simpler solution to this problem : 1. changing the PHP configuration and increasing the per-process memory limit; or 2. changing the thumbnail generator for a less memory hungry one. See my comment here. — Xavier, 15:18, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Artists and illustrators

Some photographs are very difficult to get, though an illustration would often do the trick. Do we have any artists (not the musicians type, though that could be helpful all the same) here that offer to make images on request? We seem to have plenty of people that can photoshop, but I can't find a category or page for people who can draw. Can anyone help? Richard001 09:08, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

A couple of examples of images I've requested here and on Wikipedia are a gazelle stotting and a graylag goose pulling an egg towards her next (like this. They needn't be photographs - I know we don't have that many editors who want to run around with cheetahs and gazelles and take photos. An illustration would be nice, but who would I ask? Richard001 09:15, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried Commons:Image requests, which is currently redirected to Commons:Picture requests (I think those positions should be swapped)?   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 16:46, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I have a few requests there but I doubt any will be picked up. It would be much better if there was an organized group of some sort, if enough of such artists exist. I also asked about creating a category system to go with the list, though I haven't had much feedback (unless everyone agrees with the one reply, and they are all saying so by remaining silent). Richard001 07:40, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Upload pages localisation

Hi! Could you please give direct links to the upload interfaces individual pages and subpages, so it can be translated? Thanks --Bdamokos 12:44, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Redesigning the upload form for more information. Feel free to ask here if it's not clear. -- Bryan (talk to me) 13:26, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I have one question: Is it against policy to create a wrapper template for {{Information}}, so the uploader doesn't have to deal with foreign names for a parameter? --Bdamokos 15:20, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think wrapper templates are against policy, but I would suggest that any wrapper template be substed, so that the result in the page is {{Information}} (perhaps with an HTML comment about which wrapper template was used).   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 16:42, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I was thinking of a subst: solution as well. Regards, --Bdamokos 21:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Introducing Commons:WikiProject Museums

Bibi Saint-Pol and myself are pleased to announce the birth of Commons:WikiProject Museums. The goal of the project is to coordinate and rationalize our work on museum collections by proposing guidelines for naming museums or pictures, describing pictures or managing museum category trees.

The project also aims to help museum photographers by offering technical advice and practical information concerning museums, such as permission to use the flash--or take pictures at all--and "must-have" objects in the collections.

We gladly welcome any feedback, suggestion or help. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 20:49, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Problems with category display containing many images: Category:Churches in Belgium

Hello,

1. Can anyone help, correct or explain why the images in Category:Churches in Belgium are sorted wrongly (images with piped argument/name seem to be sorted with an image namespace prefix). The resulting sort order is explained on the category page. A similar problem on smaller scale can be experienced on Category:Castles in Belgium. Thanks --Foroa 07:38, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the sort order is correct. Images without pipe argument are sorted with the namespace prefix. And images with a pipe argument are sorted only by the argument. /82.212.68.183 10:38, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Such a mixed sort doesn't sound very useful to me as the sort result is first the piped images till "image", then the images sorted by file name and then the remainder of the piped images. Is this clearly documented someway ? (I couldn't find it) The jump table seems only to work in the list of non-piped images. --Foroa 16:00, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

2. Is there a way to force the display all categories before starting with the images ? (For example, try to show a page containing the category churches in Ingelmunster). Thanks --Foroa 07:38, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I think if you add a |* to all the categories it will work. Richard001 07:42, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

This is not a very elegant solution. Moreover categories are already piped with a name as we don't need a sort on churches in ... --Foroa 07:54, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

3. A category display option that shows no thumbnails but the complete file name would be very handy (and much quicker). --Foroa 09:39, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

__NOGALLERY__ can be used in categories to only display file names. Other users may want to see the thmbnails, so you should probably not put it permanently in the page. But if you use it in page preview mode, you can see the first 200 filenames. /82.212.68.183 10:38, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. In a list of many hundreds images, this has limited interest. A dynamic swicth should be very helpful. --Foroa 16:00, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

June 19

PD in some countries but not in others

Hi, I'm from en, but occasionally edit at fr. I was concerned at seeing so many fair use images in user boxes and templates at fr, and raised the question here at the fr Village Pump (Le Bistro). I gave a list of user boxes I had found which had FU images, mostly logos. (I had already removed some from templates, replacing them with an image from here, but didn't want to continue without being absolutely sure I was doing the right thing.) An administrator removed all the fair use images from the userboxes I had named. (Examples included "This user likes McDonalds" with the McDonald's logo, and the same for Burger King.)

After the administrator had removed the FU images, another user went to all the boxes and added images from Commons. A picture of a hamburger was used to replace the McDonalds and Burger King logos. The user added Image:Snow white 1937 trailer screenshot (6).jpg to the Disney userbox. Another administrator rolled back without comment.[8] I asked him why, and he said that the image isn't free everywhere; he mentioned Switzerland in particular.

I think the issue is now settled as someone has added Image:Magic Kingdom castle.jpg to the userbox. But, regardless of the issue of which image should go in a particular userbox at fr, I'd like to understand this better. If a particular image is PD in some countries but not in, say, Switzerland, does that mean that:

• A user in Switzerland is not allowed to download it?
• A user in Switzerland is not allowed to upload it?
• A user in Switzerland is not allowed to add it to a page?

Sorry if I'm being a bit thick. I'm really not challenging the policy in any way: I'd just like to understand it better. I'm puzzled at the idea of an image that's free but not free, and would like to know if I'm mistaken in thinking that if an image is at Commons (assuming that it's not an unfree image that was wrongly uploaded here), it can be added to any project. Thanks. ElinorD 11:48, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I cannot speak for Switzerland, but the magic castle image might be a problem. France has no freedom of panorama, and thus the image is a copyright violation. I however do not know whether is is the magic castle from Disneyland in Orlando, Florida, or that of Paris, France. -- Bryan (talk to me) 13:36, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

That image should be a non-issue; it is credited to en:User:Raul654, taken in 2005, at which time it would appear that that user was visiting Disneyland in Florida. I can't find the original image, though; presumably it was saved under some non-obvious filename and then deleted as a duplicate. -- Visviva 09:40, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

U.S. film trailers from before 1964 are sometimes claimed to be {{PD-US-not renewed}} and sometimes claimed to be PD in the U.S. due to having been published without © notice. In cases where that indeed is true, the trailer may still be copyrighted elsewhere. Other countries typically did have neither renewal requirements, nor requirements for a © notice to be present. Many other countries also do not know the "work made for hire" concept. In such 70-years-p.m.a. countries, the copyright would thus expire 70 years after the death of the director. (Or other persons, such as the scriptwriter, cameraman, composer, etc.; in the case of that Snow White trailer, there's also the animator to consider. IIRC, the list varies between countries.) Unless the other 70-year-p.m.a. country applied the rule of the shorter term to U.S. works. Switzerland does not do so. Germany doesn't either. I don't know about France. So much for law.

Next comes the policy of the French wikipedia. What law(s) do they pretend to operate under? French (and EU) law exclusively, or French(+EU) and U.S. law, or French(+EU), Canadian (Québec!), Belgian(+EU), and Swiss law, or all four plus U.S. law? Depending on that, and depending on in which of these countries that trailer was still copyrighted, the image may or may not be acceptable at the French Wikipedia.

Finally, for your precise questions about a Swiss user (the trailer being copyrighted in Switzerland):

• A Swiss user may (still) download it. Unlicensed downloading (for personal purposes) of copyrighted works is still legal by the Swiss copyright law. That might change with the pending revision of the Swiss copyright law, which is intended to make the law compliant to the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WPPT.
• Theoretically, a Swiss user should not upload it anywhere. That'd be publishing the image, and thus a copyright violation under Swiss law. That might get the Swiss user in trouble, if the upload could be traced to him or her, but hardly the WMF. Personally, I just don't worry about the remote possibility of me getting in trouble for uploading to the English Wikipedia or the Commons U.S. works that are PD in the U.S. to the U.S. servers of the WMF, even if such images might technically be copyrighted in the country where I reside. But I would not upload such images to my own web server (subject to the laws of my country, as the servers and the provider also are in that country) as "PD works", nor would I upload such images to Wikipedia projects where such content may not be acceptable.
• A Swiss user may add the image to a Wikipedia page, AFAIK. I am not aware of any "contributory infringement" clauses in Switzerland that would cover linking between web pages. Even if there were such a rule, I doubt a Swiss user could be held accountable for such a simple edit on a website where everyone may edit. However, if an image is not deemed acceptable on a Wikimedia project due to licensing concerns, then no user of that Wikimedia project should add the image to any page on that project.

HTH, Lupo 10:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

If I own a picture by an artist, do I own the copyright?

I want to use a pen and ink drawing by artist Saul Raskin, which I own, in an article. Do I own the copyright, or does Raskin (or his heirs)? If I own it, what type of copyright to I specify when I upload the file?

Tnx,

--Ravpapa 06:24, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Raskin (heirs) own the copyright, so you can't upload it here. --Fb78 10:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

While you can't upload it here, if you can write a Fair Use rationale, you might be able to upload it straight to the wiki you'd like the article to appear on. EVula // talk // 00:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

June 18

"Contact us"

Why does the "Contact us" link in the "participate" box link to Commons:Contattaci instead of Commons:Contact us? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 01:57, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I saved MediaWiki:Contact-url without making any changes, and it seems fixed now. Random cache error I suppose. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 04:38, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

New CheckUser vote

With Gmaxwell gone, we have only have left one active and one semi active CheckUsers left. According to m:CheckUser#Removal_of_access, we should have at least two CheckUsers. So we are now on the borderline. CheckUser lar has nominated Herbythyme for CheckUser. Please see Commons:Administrators/Requests and votes/Herbythyme (rfcu) 2. -- Bryan (talk to me) 10:48, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

What happened to Greg, is he gone for good? --Kjetil r 11:14, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it is unlikely that he has gone for good but he relinquished his admin rights about a month ago with no reason given --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:25, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Categories (drummers/percussionists)

I notice that right now Category:Drummers inherits directly from Category:Musicians. Image:Artis the Spoonman and Jim Page 1993.jpg shows Artis the Spoonman, probably the best-known spoons player in the world (some of you may know Soundgarden's song about him). He's a percussionist, but not a drummer. I'm inclined to set up a Category:Percussionists intermediate between drummers and musicians; I'm hesitating only because Artis could hardly be the only such person and the absence of such a category so far makes me wonder if I'm missing something. - en:Jmabel | talk 16:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Drummers don't play triangle. So, we want percussionists to hear this marvellous geometric instrument. --Juiced lemon 17:37, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Done. - en:Jmabel | talk 23:40, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Categories

Does this kind of category combination really make sense? Category:Black and white photographs of religious buildings - shouldn't we be working on a search function instead, where you can look inside category:Black and white photographs and category:Religious buildings at the same time? It seems to me like this kind of combined categories is too much work and could go on infinitely - category:Black and white photographs of Roman-catholic religious buildings in Mexico taken by User:Fb78, for example ... especially, since this way of categorization doubles the existing category tree inside Category:Black and white photographs. --Fb78 11:47, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree it's not a good idea. CatScan can already do the kind of search you mention, but it an advanced tool and few people know about it. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 00:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

This is probably a more fondamental discussion than only talking of black and white pictures. First, yes, CatScan is not very well known and I think very few person use it. To be honnest this is the first time I have heard of it, and I am doing things on Commons since 2005. But, I agree this is not a good reason because that seems to be a very good tool. Secondly the question we have to ask ourselves, do we want categories with hundreds or thousands of files and use a technical tool like Catscan or do we want category with a decent numbers of files which allow people to search in the category which is probably more intutive. No system is perfect, and this second solution is not in contradiction with the use of Catscan. I appears to me that the second solution have more people which agreed with than the first one. Personnally, I feel a lot more confortable with category than using a tools like Catscan. We have had this discussion of the French Bistro. It appears to me that the consensus (only on the French Bistro, which is not the place to decide anything, it was just a discussion) was not to have to many files on a category. Example, In France with have an adminsitrative division named “region” and there are several “département” in a region. When there to many files in a catégory for a region (example : Region : Category:Churches in Auvergne and departement Category:Churches in Puy-de-Dôme, the Puy-de-Dôme is a département of Auvergne). So why not putting all these files in huge categories “Church” (with church from UK, India, Africa etc), “Auvergne” (with all the picture of landscape, cities, peoples etc etc) and use Catscan. I do not know if that subject have been discussed on larger extand, but I feel (I wrote I feel) that the consensus. (or at the least the majority) thinks that smaller category is more convenient. Again, this nothing against Catscan this I think complementary with this tool. I know also, that very few peoples are interrested with Black anr white pictures. But that does not mean people are not interrested. I started my categorisation, because I was searching black and write picture and believe me, it was more than difficult to find anything.Romary 14:02, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Whatever the final decision, this shows the need for a tool that can combine easily (ie my younger sister can do it) the content of two categories and their subcategories. CatScan doesn't do it, as far as I know (you already have to understand the way Commons works, it doesn't display a nice gallery and has way too many options). Any toolserver magician around to create something mayflower-ish ? :-) le Korrigan →bla 14:25, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

More important: we should not use categories as keywords. In Commons, we need a special feature to tag files with keywords, which would be selected from a defined list. --Juiced lemon 20:40, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes catscan is very useful, and it has a tab on every category page so it's been staring us in the face for a long time :-). Now what I want is a tool that combines the power of catscan with a keyword search, so that I can do something like search for all pages containing the word "seagull" that aren't categorised somewhere in category "larus" or below. :-) --Tony Wills 12:53, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Categories for discussion

I want to separate Category discussions from rest of COM:DEL/COM:VP/Whatever since the fundamentals of category discussions are rather unique. -- Cat ^chi? 11:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Support, but I prefer it with a small D. -- Bryan (talk to me) 13:07, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Support - good reasoning --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:09, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean a page for general discussion of categories, or a page to put requests for renaming/deleting categories? If the former, then just call it Commons:Category discussion and if the latter, Commons:Category move requests... "Categories for discussion" is a kind of weird name to me.

But either way I think this page will attract some scary debates... --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Better there than here. Scary debates are inherent to categories, so we will have then anyway. And better on a clearly visible page then on this overcrowded Village Pump. -- Bryan (talk to me) 13:51, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Concern about WikiProject WikiWorld images

I am concerned that the images related to Wikipedia:WikiProject WikiWorld are improperly licensed. The images contain text pulled from GFDL-licensed Wikipedia articles yet they are licensed cc-by-sa. It is my understanding that GFDL derivative works must be licensed GFDL also. I should note that I brought this up on the project talk page, but I don't feel the issue was resolved. -SCEhardT 23:09, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Given that the author Greg Williams has been in contact with the WMF staff about the appropriate licensing (on his talk page he says the current Creative Commons ShareAlike license was recommended and instituted by the Wikimedia Foundation), I don't think it's really an issue for Commons. If you are still unhappy about it I suggest you contact Foundation staff directly. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - I hadn't noticed that part of Greg's talk page nor had I seen the discussion at Image talk:Redshirt comic.jpg. If the WMF thinks it should be a CC license that's fine with me. It just didn't seem consistent with the rest of our licensing to do a license switch due to fair use, but exceptions to every rule and all that :-) -SCEhardT 15:27, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Flickr upload tags

With the Flickr to Commons upload form, I was wondering, which copyright tags are not OK on commons, but fine on Wikipedias? Could it possibly be included on the form? Jack · talk · 00:28, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The only acceptable licenses at Commons for images from flickr (unless permission is obtained in another method) are listed on the form. Otherwise, all the fair use/non-free licenses at Wikipedia are only for there, why add them here? The flickrreview system will catch all non-free licenses from flickr if someone tries to slip one through saying it's free when it's not. MECU≈talk 00:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

H.F. Helmolt

Example of what I can get by scanning

I have two volumes of H.F. Helmolt's massive History of the World (Dodd Mead 1901-1902). Obviously public domain. I notice that we already have quite a few images from that work (most of them copied from other web sites, some of them duplicates), and I created a Category:H.F. Helmolt History of the World to bring these together. However, it appears that up to now all we've had is portraits, and there are quite a few other illustrations. I've scanned one as an example (and did about 20 minutes of cleanup), and can scan more if people think they are worth doing. I have a decent (though not fantastic) scanner; I'm somewhat limited by the binding of these massive volumes, which limits how cleanly I can scan near the spine (this will be especially a problem for illustrations that cross over to the facing page). What I want to know: do people think the result is high enough quality to make this worth doing? I don't want to launch into a time-consuming project where no one will care for the outcome. - en:Jmabel | talk 01:40, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

• Why not see which articles on your home wikipedia could benefit from the files and upload a few and put them in the articles to see if people appreciate them? Very beautiful job by the way. -N 06:10, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Because I'm not very active in my home Wikipedia these days. I'm an admin on en:, and was one of the most active participants there for years, but I've gotten a little sick of the need to cite for the sun being visible in the sky at noon, so to speak, and have decided for the present to focus my efforts here on Commons, where there is generally less to argue about. - en:Jmabel | talk 06:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

• • Well ok. I added the picture to w:Hanseatic League and they loved it so much they changed the infobox picture [9]. So, you know, so far you're 100% on these uploads. -N 07:30, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

    Hey Jmabel! Good to see you again. I'm still referring users to your PR subpage. :)

    I'm sorry to spoil the mood and say that I'm the one who went ahead and put the map on the top of the Hanseatic League page after seeing this discussion, as it appears to be the only map specifying the extent of the Hansa on that page. You can watch and see if the folks there start breaking out the torches and pitchforks.

    Speaking more generally, some people seem to follow interwikis and grab whatever Commons image is on the en wiki article. If you believe your work to add value, you'd be shortchanging your own efforts if you didn't add those images to relevant en wiki pages. I'm not aware of anyone from a project journeying to Commons to thank people for uploading specific images, so I doubt you're going to get positive feedback, even if people view the images positively.

    To my eyes, the shadow along the top of that map is quite distracting, but it's overcome by the uniqueness of the info. If the raw scan is still legible, it would be worthy of being uploaded, especially if the 20 minutes of cleanup would result in the map not being uploaded. Cheers, BanyanTree 07:38, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Hey Jmabel... maybe you should change some of your sig to refer to Commons now? :)

BanyanTree is right that Commons users often have to do quite a lot to "push" their work out to other projects. If you can add a picture to an article that previously didn't have one, that tends to give that image a lot of visibility amongst the other Wikipedias. Adding a picture where we didn't have a single example before = high value, in my book.

Whether you think it is "worth it" is only going to depend on if you think it's worth it yourself. Unfortunately working in Commons is still really "low visibility": it's near-impossible to see what cool things other people are working on.

One impressive page almost complete compiled by one user is Kunstformen der Natur. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 09:40, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Also: try asking User:David Kernow. I have noticed he has done a lot of work on Commons concerning maps. Also Wikisource may be interested - might be worth leaving a note on their VP. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 09:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I should change my Commons sig, and will.

I often put Commons pictures on en: (and often add {{commonscat}}). I agree with the concern about the discoloration: I don't have great graphics tools, and it was much worse in the original scan. This was as clean as I could make it without investing a ton of time. I don't think the original scan would be easier to clean than what I uploaded: much of my cleanup was to remove various artifacts. Of course further cleanup would be very welcome.

I'll eventually upload more of these; I've got a bunch of projects under way here (see Category:Snoqualmie Moondance, Category:Solstice Cyclists, and Category:Kubota Garden for some examples); I'll put this one on the list. - en:Jmabel | talk 03:50, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Weirdness on category redirect

I'm not sure why, but the category redirect from Category:Legends of the United States to Category:Folklore of the United States isn't showing up correctly. Can someone fix this? Thanks. - Jmabel | talk 16:58, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

 Done   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 18:56, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

June 21

Do Commons' rules apply to all Wikipedia projects?

Hi, I'm seeking an advice if all wikipedia in different languages have to obey all commons' rule about copyright and US Copyright Act? If it's not strictly applied, any advice on localization of these rules? Thanks!--Kevin wong 18:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they do, unless they have an Exemption Doctrine Policy (EDP) like w:en:Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria. Please see w:en:Fair use, w:en:Wikipedia:Non-free content, and Foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy for details. Thanks!   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 19:15, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

What is the coding needed to produce a image gallery page?

I need to do an image gallery page for the wiki I work with. I kow where the php code for SpecialNewimages is, but I don't understand it enough to make a page that will show all the stored images in alphabetical order as it does on this page: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Fantasy. I know just enough PHP and Wiki to be dangerous, but not enough (yet) to get it done. Any ideas? —the preceding unsigned comment is by 69.72.2.70 (talk • contribs)

This is already part of MediaWiki, simply make a page like the following:

<gallery>
Image:Imagename.ext|Image description.
Image:Imagename2.ext|Image description.
</gallery>

You can add as many as you like and it will automatically format into rows four images wide. UberHalogen 06:10, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Phone number

We find (WP:fr) this picture : Image:07-04-29 269.jpg.

Is it usual?

If no, what's the Commons procedure? Commons:Deletion requests or something else?

If yes : I would be vey surprised! jpm2112 07:25, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand. What's the problem with this picture? What with the phone numer? Jastrow (Λέγετε) 07:33, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is not with the image itself but with its name. Clearly, images on Commons should have names in relation to the depicted object, but not a random number given by the digital camera. As a direct renaming is not possible on Commons, the image should be up-loaded again (but with a correct name), and thereafter the one with the bad name can be deleted. -- Túrelio 09:18, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes of course, but I wonder if that's exactly what Jpm2112 had in mind. I mean, this problem is not unusual and does not justify a deletion request. I'm still puzzled by the phone number line. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 09:28, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The name of that image (07-04-29 269) looks actually not like the typical image # of a DigCam but like a phone number (now open for conspiracy theories). -- Túrelio 09:36, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

(Thump head) All right, I see it now. I'm afraid the truth is more mundane: the beginning of the filename (07-04-29) is the date of shoot, as can be checked in the EXIF data :-) Jastrow (Λέγετε) 09:47, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Personally I think image file names are fairly irrelevant, they can quite legitimately be in any language (although some character sets are problematic) which would be just as meaningless to me (other than English) and I don't think there is even a search option to search on filename. So a filename which is the image's date is as good as any other. The only naming that I think is a real problem is when a file is misleadingly named, eg says it is one species of animal when in fact it is another and that causes ongoing problems as people keep moving it back to the 'correct' category etc. Renaming files is just a make work scheme, there are plenty of more useful things to be done :-) --Tony Wills 09:56, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but no. On the up-load page (new [10] and old version) each user is clearly told to use a descriptive destination (file) name, not a random one. Thanks to the users who ignore this, we have a full Category:Images requiring renaming. -- Túrelio 10:09, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the misunderstanding at the beginning of the discussion. When I saw that, immediately, for me, it was a phone number! It was looking like that on my screen (now open for conspiracy theories, as Túrelio saying, or I do not know what else!).

It was only a mundane random number!

My question : now, what have I to do with this picture? Nothing? Now I know the trap of this representation. Or something else? Regards. jpm2112 11:29, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

This is what the {{Rename}}-tag is for. /Lokal_Profil 12:24, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I renamed the picture Image:Interior synagogue Casale Monferrato.jpg. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 15:01, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm coming back home. And the picture is renamed : thanks a lot! jpm2112 17:45, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Searching for animals and plants

We need a more efficient way for this. An average person will come to this by looking at a plant not knowing its name much less the plants family. An average person is not a PHD professor in botany.

Plants and animals have basic characteristics. Some plants Pine tree has needle shaped leaves for instance unlike Maple trees.

A user should be able to identify a tree or animal they have seen by cycling through a series of questions on the targets characteristics.

-- Cat ^chi? 00:11, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Cat, can you point to any other website that has a system such as you describe? I think you underestimate how difficult doing that would be. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 02:19, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

There is at least one book that categorises flowers by their petals' number and approximate colour. So while it may not be feasible for everything that lives or has lived, it may well be possible and useful for subgroups such as flowers. (I haven't checked whether the Commons already use such a system.) Dustsucker 20:51, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

What you're talking about is a dichotomous key, which is something best assembled by specialists, and certainly waaaay out of scope for commons. As an example of how quickly one can get into trouble, there are a number of common desert plants that have needle shaped leaves, and they're not at all related to pine trees. Commons includes images of both rare and common species, so it's not good enough to make a key just for the common species. Stan Shebs 03:46, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Hey, Wikibooks has one: b:Dichotomous Key. pretty incomplete still. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 04:42, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Transwiki files procedure

I tried to follow the instructions for transferring a file from another wikimedia project at [11], but they are very confusing and assume I know a lot more than I do about how the process is supposed to work. Those instructions ought to be revised and links added to useful explanations for the procedure. I uploaded Image:Amativephrenology.gif strictly according to the instrcutions, but the resulting page information is incorrect as a result.

This issue is of particular relevance, since we have about 100 image/audio files on Wiktionary that need to be deleted or transferred, and the same process will apply to most of them. --EncycloPetey 19:26, 22 June 2007 (UTC) Wiktionary admin

The reason is that the source image is fair use, which is not allowed on Commons. -- Bryan (talk to me) 21:38, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Also note that we require a proper source on Commons. -- Bryan (talk to me) 21:39, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Please read your welcome template. There is a link to CommonsHelper on there. Cheers! Siebrand 22:01, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I did read my welcome template, and it doesn't answer my question. Bryan, what you're telling me is that I should just know where to look for information and that loading templates will not be improved for inexperienced users. I also am left with no information about what is deemed a "proper source". Fair use and "out of copyright" are not the same thing. In any case, your policy page says that fair use is OK. --EncycloPetey 01:20, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I've now tried Commons Helper (move-to-commons assistant) and have run into more problems. First, wiktionary is not listed, but I tried anyway. I loaded all the information it asked for and got a red message back warning: "This image has no verificable good license, and can thus not be uploaded to commons through this tool" However, there is no means of entering the licensing information in the first place! Many of the files to be transferred have license information on the Talk page, or embedded in the edit history, or various other odd places. Most of the files to be transferred are (1) original works, (2) from US govt sites, (3) sound files. I'm not impressed by the disfunctional tools or lack of helpful advice. Question: What is a "verificable" good license? --EncycloPetey 01:30, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

The Policy page you linked to says The Wikimedia Commons does not accept fair use. With improper source two things are meant. Firstly all of the source information on the original image page must be included on the commons page, linking to the "old" image page is not enough. Secondly the source must include who created the work (not only who uploaded it).

In the case of the phrenology image the wiktionary image page has no info about who created the work or when it was created and thus it doesn't have enough source information to be allowed on commons independently on which license it has. /Lokal_Profil 02:20, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

The automatic transfer tools are only useful if the original file already has information like a license template. In general they are geared to Wikipedia, it's true, because that's where the vast majority of transfers have come from. Hopefully we can try and help improve them for use on Wiktionary too. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 08:33, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

EncycloPetey, User:Dvortygirl contacted wikt:User:Polyglot directly and had his (written, e-mail) permission to re-upload these to commons with CC-by + GFDL. And yes, all the files he uploaded were his own personal recordings. He isn't able to do it himself, but understood that as the creator of those .ogg recordings that that was the most appropriate license. (That is in addition to the GFDL license they already had.) --Connel MacKenzie 15:13, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, pfctdayelise, en.wiktionary.org has (for quite a long time) not allowed local uploads. After we are done with EncycloPetey's batch, we should be done done. So it may not be worth a complete re-write of those instructions. (Then again, it might make translations easier. I don't know if all Wiktionaries have disabled uploads, or not.) --Connel MacKenzie 15:13, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Pollution of Special:Recentchanges

Special:Recentchanges will be heavily polluted for a few hours. We need to delete 10.000 or so images. At both a slow and a high pace, this will take a long time. At a slow pace, it would pollute RC for days, so I decided to make it as quick as possible (@ max. 150 deletes/minute). First two batches (of three) are running now and should be finished in 2 hours from now. Cheers! Siebrand 23:15, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

 Done All done. Siebrand 11:59, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Interwiki links for commons

Is there a way to make from a specific wikipedia and interwiki link to the commons so that in the left pane (with header "other languages) it can display a link to the commons ? That way, this could be done by automatic robots. --Foroa 18:32, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Not that I've found, sorry. My test failed. :(   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 20:08, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I used to wish we could do that, until I thought about it a bit more... none of those side-area interwiki links are for other Wikimedia sites; they're just for other language editions of Wikipedia. It just doesn't make sense to do so. EVula // talk // 21:21, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

It's a known bug. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 02:16, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The sidelinks aren't just for wikipedia, but they are meant for links within the project. Eg. English Wikibooks will have iw-links to Spanish and French wikibooks etc. Commons seems to be the only place where iw-links point to another project, Wikipedia . /Lokal_Profil 12:29, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

It's also the case on Wikispecies: -- which, aside from Meta, is the only other language-neutral project. Since these projects are language-neutral, the interwiki space doesn't need to be used for interlanguage links. And since both of these projects are intended to feed information/content to the language-bound projects, especially to Wikipedia, it makes sense for the space to be used for Wikipedia links. It is a pity that there can't also be interwiki-style links for Wikibooks, Wiktionary, et al. -- Visviva 17:02, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Er, yeah, that's what I meant (not just Wikipedia). Sorry, poor wording on my part. EVula // talk // 17:58, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The way to make an interwiki link to the Commons from a specific Wikipedia so that it will be displayed in the left pane is here: Template:Interprogetto. --Juiced lemon 08:56, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Commons as webspace?

Selma Louise Norton and many other pages by the user (some in his user namespace) seem to be used as private webspace. While I see some relevant use of some picture (as examples of private photos in the 20th century), I doubt that galleries like that are within the focus of the Wikimedia Commons. The talk page Talk:Selma Louise Norton isn't used as talk page, but in some sense as a substitute for a Wikipedia article (which wouldn't be possible to obtain since the person is simply irrelevant to an encyclopedia of any sort) or, again, for a private genealogical and family website. Any thoughts on the issue? --AndreasPraefcke 17:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I think people who upload pictures of their loved ones (which I assume this may be) are rather brave as they are licensing anybody to use the images however they like, the images might just turn up in distasteful places :-(. Other than that I think the images uploaded are fine, and potentially useful (want a sequence of photos of the same person from age 1 to 85?, want shots of a 'typical' American 1950s family ... etc). The images should be categorized in places where they might usefully be found by others, their value should be evaluated individually and any considered un-useful can be nominated for deletion like any other (remembering that one acceptable use of images is to illustrate one's own user page). The gallery pages of an unknown person are less useful (unless you wanted that progression through the years thing) and are probably more suited as sub-pages in the users user-space (but the page itself really consumes few extra resources). In this particular case the user has contributed many hundreds of images (most not just family), and I certainly wouldn't begrudge him the space. --Tony Wills 04:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and that's why I didn't cry "delete". But as soon as more people (and there are loads of genealogists and people with personal homepages out there) started to do that, Commons would become pretty much unusable in many areas. Category:People of New Jersey was certainly not meant to include none but 4 private individuals without any distinction from anybody else. It's just strange. --AndreasPraefcke 06:59, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

From a quick look at a few images, it looks like the original uploaders didn't categorise much and things like "cat:People of New Jersey" were added by others to try and make the images useful. Perhaps such categories need to be changed to "Notable people of New Jersey", defining "notable" in a similar way to en:pedia. (Is there any reason anyone would want to find a random picture of a New Jersian, do they look different from New Yorkers?). Some have been categorised in more useful areas such as "1920s fashion".

I note that the Selma Louise Norton talk page contains material that was originally on the gallery page, and was moved there as not appropriate for a gallery page - could be completely deleted (and perhaps a note to the contributor explaining).

I don't think we should worry about being over-run by genealogists - if they're told biographical material is not accepted, but their photos can be useful in other areas if well described (ie they usually know time, date and place), we could receive a valuable resource. There is a question about quality (eg some are very small, and some documents very badly scanned), but that is an image-by-image assessment.

Perhaps we (you :-) could develop a "genealogist's welcome banner" that explains to them that biographical pages are not useful here, but high quality scans are welcome, especially with time/date/place info and useful categorisation :-) --Tony Wills 08:45, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure I agree. By getting more images (even though we have more than 1,5M and I think that's a lot), we gain relevancy. Compared to the (commercial) image repositories, we are just a tiny fly, as there are billions of images on PhotoBucket and Flickr. We are special because we only have free images. I think you may have spotted the beginning of a trend and of Commons possibly starting to enter main stream. We love free media. Bring 'em here! But {{Please tag images}}, {{Please name images}}, {{Please describe images}}, and {{Please link images}}. {{Provide better quality}} would also be nice... You can get to know new users through Commons:Welcome log and check out their contributions from there... Cheers! Siebrand 09:41, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I already came across such pages (non-encyclopedic subjects). I usually rename them as an user's subpage. --Juiced lemon 15:45, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Where?   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 16:29, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I think people who upload pictures of their loved ones (which I assume this may be) are rather brave as they are licensing anybody to use the images however they like, the images might just turn up in distasteful places Dunno about Florida, but in many jurisdictions, there are laws on "privacy" and "respect of persons" that are unrelated to copyright. For instance, if I take a GFDL picture of [[Bertrand Delanoë] and I stuff it into gay porn, then he can sue me for abusing his image. David.Monniaux 06:48, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Good to hear that, but you're releasing them world wide (universe wide? :-), good luck with the case :-). It would be sensible to tag them with a {{Personality rights}} warning.

I note that all the Selma Louise Norton images were unceremoneously deleted, which in the general case I think was the wrong thing to do as regardless of the reason for uploading them they were released under an appropriate license and should individually have been evaluated and nominated for deletion if of no conceivable use to the project (and I pointed out some conceivable uses). There is not an imperative to purge images just to make space or something, only to avoid copyright violations. But in this case I won't stress about it as the uploader is still active and if he really does wants to donate them for use other than for biographic reasons he can be asked to upload better versions (higher resolution etc) when he asks for them to be un-deleted :-) --Tony Wills 10:56, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Interwiki links

To my knowledge, we have not any definite policy regarding interwiki links in Commons pages. Below, I have listed the 9 possible configurations between Commons page(s) and matching Wikipedia page(s) in a given language. For each configuration, I have added the most plausible linking options.

Generally, Commons pages can be linked to several Wikipedia projects, so the configuration can change for a given subject.

I think we should specify some rules in order to standardize the setting of interwiki links.

Example: A Commons category is always linked to a Wikipedia article, otherwise to a Wikipedia category. (this rule would be consistent with Commons:Naming categories).

Please, make comments below in the Comments section. You can also examine and comment The Tchaikovsky case. --Juiced lemon 17:27, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

1 page in Commons/1 page in Wikipedia

1. Gallery Article

• Gallery Article
• Gallery no link

2. Gallery Category

• Gallery Category
• Gallery no link

3. Category Article

• Category Article
• Category no link

4. Category Category

• Category Category
• Category no link

2 pages in Commons/1 page in Wikipedia

5. Gallery + Category Article

• Gallery + Category Article
• Gallery Article
• Category Article

6. Gallery + Category Category

• Gallery + Category Category
• Gallery Category
• Category Category

1 page in Commons/2 pages in Wikipedia

7. Gallery Article + Category

• Gallery Article
• Gallery Category

8. Category Article + Category

• Category Article
• Category Category

2 pages in Commons/2 pages in Wikipedia

9. Gallery + Category Article + Category

• Gallery Article AND (Commons) Category Category
• Gallery + Category Article
• Category Article

Comments

This looks pretty much complicated to me. Commons are a supporting infrastructure for wiki's.

Categories are a way to link and organise data. For the date, on one side, we have articles, on the other side a bunch of pictures. If there are too many pictures to document an article, they can be put in a gallery (which quickly become incomplete as other related pictures are uploaded with similar categories). Galleries require a substantial second pass editing effort, so I wouldn't count on it.

To me, mainly the interwiki links to categories are important as it helps to navigate quickly to the available items. --Foroa 17:46, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I think we cannot reach any agreement before we have agreement over the category/gallery problem. Gallery users would want article <> gallery, while pure category users want article <> category. I prefer article <> gallery. -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:11, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

• If you are going to make this a guideline, please be more explicit about why it's necessary. What is the harm of linking to one (or both!) inconsistently? What are the benefits of consistency? Are they worth the effort of writing and (others) complying with such a rule? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:56, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it is a good idea to check first what is happening "naturally". I am under the impression that currently, courageous bots are working day and night to link articles with galleries and articles, categories with categories. In other words, what will the situation become if we do nothing besides creating comparable structures ? --Foroa 14:07, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

The first question about this issue is: “Do we want interwiki links, and why?”

How to set up the links should result from the answers to this preliminary question.

In my opinion, there are 2 main advantages to add links to other wiki projects:

• easiest browsing for the average internaut. In particular, when the Commons page have been accessed from a Wikipedia page, the links allow the return to the originel Wikipedia project.
• direct access to reference articles, in order to ensure consistency of Commons organization and informations with encyclopedic sources (grounds to Commons Wikimedia has no encyclopedic purpose).

Why do we need guidelines? Because there are different incompatible ways to add these interwiki links. And when you don't have clear instructions to do something, the best is often to do nothing: there are not a lot of people who want to spend time doing useless or harmful tasks.

I don't care of bots. Bots which would not adapt to our requirements will be deactivated. --Juiced lemon 09:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The first question “Do we want interwiki links, and why?” is indeed fundamental.

If the robots make interwiki links, they probably don't do it for the fun; they have without doubt a good rationale, so they can give you an idea why interwiki links are created to/from commons. It is possible however that bots see the commons as any other wikiproject and just link wiki's in a blind generic fashion. Interesting to find out.

As for my personal opinion, this will have to wait for several days as I have no time in the coming day, but I think that we have to think more of commons as a general service provider to the other wiki projects, not as a stand-alone project that dictates the rules for the others. Stating that you don't care about the bots might be a quite unfriendly attitude towards commons users.--Foroa 09:51, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

You maintain: they (robots) have without doubt a good rationale.

You should not be so sure, since interwiki bots operate on binary relations assuming they were symmetric relations and transitive relations, while they are not symmetric, nor transitive. Therefore, these bots work in a fundamentally erroneous way, and my only concern is to prevent them to harm to the Commons project.

Concerning your last sentence, you could say I had an unfriendly attitude towards George W. Bush, as well as any other spurious accusation which is unrelated to the argued issue. --Juiced lemon 20:16, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposals

Juiced lemon

According to Foroa's and Bryan's comments, I suggest:

• to link a gallery to a matching article in any case
• to link a Commons category to a matching article. If there is no available article, the category is linked to a matching category.

So, the links would be, for the 9 configurations as specified above:

1. Gallery Article

2. Gallery no link (so, the only way to establish a interwiki link is to create a Commons category: configuration 6)

3. Category Article

4. Category Category

5. Gallery + Category Article

6. Category Category

7. Gallery Article

8. Category Article

9. Gallery + Category Article

--Juiced lemon 19:50, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Example: Category:Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich (no gallery, 1 page in Commons)

• link to the English Wikipedia (1 page, configuration 3) Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
• link to the Russian Wikipedia (2 pages, configuration 8) ru, no link to ru

--Juiced lemon 09:57, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Subject to disclaimers

We need to change the en GFDL templates in some way so new pictures moved from en will not have the subject to disclaimers bit (as the upload form was recently changed, and the templates were changed, etc.). CommonsHelper, Template:GFDL-en and Template:GFDL-user-en probably all need to be updated\changed in some way. Yonatan ^talk 15:57, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

• We cannot remove disclaimers from images that have them. Unless the software gets smarter, people are going to have to double-check which license the image had when it is brought over. -N 19:09, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Check Usage in classic skin

I'm sure this must have been asked before, but I can't find any reference to it:

Is there any way I can get the "check usage" link to appear in classic skin? I don't seem to have a link to it, and I don't like the monobook skin. – Tivedshambo (talk) 20:57, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

It's possible, but somebody has to create a javascript for that. -- Bryan (talk to me) 21:35, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I tried and it doesn't work :( -- Bryan (talk to me) 16:30, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for trying. I've raised this as a bug. – Tivedshambo (talk) 21:03, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I have made a javascript that adds a check usage link to the classic skin. The script can be seen in my standard.js file. /EnDumEn 22:02, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

That's great! Many thanks. – Tivedshambo (talk) 07:23, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Help with purge

Hello. I have over time tried the suggested ways and failed to fix Image:Lake_Calhoun-Minneapolis-2006-07-22.jpg. Can you help? Thank you. -Susanlesch 14:38, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Would whoever fixes the above image also have a look at Image:Bowden cable throttle.jpg? Thanks! -SCEhardT 14:48, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Er - both these show up fine for me - could you let us have some more details as to what is wrong. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 14:50, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I purged the 800 px versions [12], if there might be other versions in the cache, these might need purging, as well. --Matt314 14:52, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

So are these two links: [13] [14] showing the same image? (The first one is the view from the image page and the second is the link from Matt314's post.) They are two different images for me; the second link is correct and the first is an old version. -SCEhardT 22:35, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

What does the "&c" do, exactly? I can see both of those images from SCEhard's post directly above. Here follows a small gallery of the images under discussion, which both work for me at the default 120px (although the thumbnail of Image:Bowden cable throttle.jpg shows the blue lowlighting and aspect ratio of this upload from 03:25, 14 October 2006 (UTC)):

• 
• 

Just to explain the "&c": When you open the image (in Firefox right click and "show image"), then you get the image by itself. If you add "&c" (the "c" can replaced by anything you want) the parser thinks it's a different address and creates a new thumbnail. --Matt314 02:12, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks for that explanation about "&c"!   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 02:57, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Please note that these images are .jpg compressions of images which are actually 22.7 MB and 8.72 MB, respectively, and that memory limits on the processes doing the thumbnailing are IIRC known issues.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 22:42, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, the bowden cable image was working fine in thumbnail form for me. I was seeing this on the image page. (a prior version of the image stretched to the current dimensions). I just reverted the image twice, which seems to have fixed the problem - it is working fine now :-) -SCEhardT 23:03, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. -02:05, 24 June 2007 (UTC) —the preceding unsigned comment is by Susanlesch (talk • contribs)

You're welcome!   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 02:07, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Files saved as "progressive JPGs" often have thumb problems. They should be overwritten with the same file saved as non-progressive. Not sure if that's part of the problem here or not. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:12, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems that progressive JPEG images have to be fully uncompressed into memory before being resized, and that there is something like a 32 megabyte memory limit for the thumbnailer, which is about 8 megapixel. I note that the above image is 8 megapixel. David.Monniaux 20:28, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Images in Category:Money of South Africa a violation?

Hello,

First time poster here, so if this isn't the correct place to be asking this, I'd appreciate if someone could point me in the right direction. I'm addressing the issue here, because it concerns a lot of images and it seems impractical to have to repeat the enquiry 14-odd times on each image's talk page and I'm not sure who'd notice it on the category's talk page. The South African Reserve Bank has a very strict policy regarding the depiction of SA currency, as can be seen in this PDF [15], entitled Policy on the reproduction of images of South African currency: Policy of the South African Reserve Bank. One of the requirements is that permission has to be obtained for each instance of usage. I see no indication of any permission of any of these images and as such, I'm wary of using these images in an article for the Afrikaans Wikipedia.

Can anyone shed light on the validity of these images as "free" images? Anrie 13:23, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

• The word copyright doesn't appear anywhere in that document. It appears to be more concerned with anti-counterfeiting law. I am new to Commons, but as much as I know about the policy, any restrictions on image use (personality rights, counterfeiting law) that are above and beyond plain copyright law are not binding on the Commons, but rather up to the individual user of the image to evaluate. To me this sounds more like an issue you should discuss on your local Wikipedia (as Afrikaans is the language of South Africa). If they don't yet have a policy on this it might be wise for them to develop one. -N 19:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

You are probably correct that those guidelines concern counterfeiting only, but that does not mean that there is no copyright on the images. In fact, there is no reason to believe those images are freely licensed. Copyright expires in South Africa 50 years pma, but I don't know about company-work. Anyway, I believe those images are not allowed here. -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:23, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Photos not showing up

All the photos on Commons are showing up as blank boxes. Is something wrong on Commons' end or mine? 24.93.170.200 20:09, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Photos are now showing up. 24.93.170.200 20:48, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

If this happens again, please try getting the image's URL and pasting that into your browser, and post any error message(s) received when doing so. Also, some browsers have a neat increased-security option to load images for the originating web site only, which should be bypassed for originating web site commons.wikimedia.org and image hosting web site upload.wikimedia.org.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 18:30, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Is this image derivative?

[16]. Some silly questions on top of that: is that a 3D object? Is it permanently installed? (Canadian freedom of panorama requires an affirmative to both of those to apply). Also I should note the rainbow banner portion of it is most likely pd-ineligible making just the sun portion potentially copyrighted. -N 02:04, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd say it's definitely derivative. Whether it meets freedom of panorama is harder. IANAL, but I'd say the art itself is 2D. I don't think anyone can tell if it's permanently installed from just looking at it - was the banner put up for a specific event, or is it intended to stay up until Kingdom Come or the fabric wears out (whichever comes first)? —Angr 05:41, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Apparently "Davie Village" was planned in 1999 as a upscale gay tourist destination. The banners are designed to stay up, marking the area [17] [18]. Not sure if that helps. -N 07:02, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Moving an image

How to move an image? I forget to rename probably and it has a bad name. That's Image:Nga Tsin Wai Road.JPG. Could anyone rename it to Image:Nga Tsin Wai Road.jpg without capital letters in the extension.

Images can not be moved. Upload it again with the new name, and tag the old one with {{badname|"name of the new file"}}. ---- Fernando Estel · ^{(Talk: here- es- en)} 10:42, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

IIRC, images in signatures are discouraged here, as they place undue load on the servers.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 18:32, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Lmbsm.jpg

Can someone with OTRS access dig the ticket out for this and comment on it? Much obliged. -N 04:08, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Why does "Check usage" not work?

I've had problems with "check usage" for a long time, and now it doesn't work at all. When will it be fixed? Entheta 22:00, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

hist Toolserver status

The Toolserver shut down on July 1, 2014.

More information...

The toolserver has bad lag (from the Wikimedia wiki databases), which makes Checkusage not work properly. The toolserver is not high priority, so if/when it gets fixed seems to be pretty random. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 03:28, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Weather maps - take 2

I don't know if anyone has spotted that I'm now uploading weather maps to Commons...

• Image:Asia C Current.jpg
• Image:Oceania C Current.jpg
• Image:Europe C Current.jpg
• Image:Middle East C Current.jpg
• Image:North America C Current.jpg
• Image:World C Current.jpg

Some process may need set up to delete old versions of these, and if there is anyone could help with some software to automate the upload/page refresh process I would really appreciate it. The app that generates the images runs on Windows, and I know I'm missing S. America and Africa - I can't get it to generate them. There are probably quite a few better ways to do this, if you can help out with that it'd be great, we really need something running on the toolserver that does this job and lets us forget about it. As far as I am aware this is currently in use on en. and pl. wikinews, it is a best-effort as I have to do the upload manually (and I need sleep). I get degrees F maps, but as I telecommute and can't take too much time out I don't upload these (Sorry USians). --Brianmc 11:40, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

If you are interested I believe someone wrote an upload script, I think it is at Commons:File upload service/Script. It only needs perl (which can be downloaded from ActiveState) and you could probably set up some sort of scheduled task to fully automate the upload. It would probably save you a load of time - and allow you to upload all the F ones. UberHalogen 15:34, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Over use of warning symbols

Whose idea was it to have a blinding " WARNING! Copyright violations will be deleted! " message on every edit page. This is not wikipedia, we are not writing articles. Have there been significant text pages here that are copyright violations (as opposed to uploading copyrighted media etc)? Seems a pointless and de-sensitising thing to have. It will get to the point where I automatically ignore large exclamation marks in red triangles because they have little significance. --Tony Wills 13:10, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree - it is too large and blaring for the circumstances. Someone else has brought this up on MediaWiki talk:Copyrightwarning. -SCEhardT 15:38, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I assume most copyvios are images and not text. --Erwin85 17:51, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I also agree. It's like living in a police state. Don't punish everyone. ¦ Reisio 02:38, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Thats the point, it needs to be noticeable for newbies. Oldies can simply disable it via monobook. I seriously doubt two images makes us a police state. -- Cat ^chi? 04:58, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

The point is that it is hardly relevant, warn them when uploading images, don't batter them over the head about nothing - what examples are there of people creating copyright violations in these talk pages (there is really few other places to put text material as it's not generally useful or accepted in gallery or category pages). Don't 'cry wolf' all the time, put eye jarring warnings where they are actually needed. --Tony Wills 06:21, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I am not a wolf, a cat a cat! :P

The point is very relevant. Just define a class="copyrightwarning" in your monobook to disable it. You obviously know not to copy paste material from the web to here. The warning also tells users that this isn't an encyclopedia.

It is possible to define the copyright waring template by namespace by the way (so that it doesn't appear on talk page osts for example)

-- Cat ^chi? 06:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Do I take it that this warning message is your baby, err ... kitten ? ;-). You don't seem to have addressed the question of necessity, nor the question of over use of warning messages. I suppose where I'm coming at this from is that this place is a community of people giving their time and creative work freely, but the environment is slowly being made more un-welcoming. This sort of message is a symptom of that. I've got lots more to say on this subject, but will collect my thoughts and find an appropriate venue to discuss them. --Tony Wills 07:55, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I do not procreate via templates. :P

Unfree work is not welcome on commons not even in the form of fair-use. It is important to explicitly point out that we only accept free material and we do not accept encyclopedic articles. Commons however still gets a significant amount of text. For example by posting your reply to me you assert that you are the creator of it and/or that it doesn't violate third party rights. YOu also agree to publish it under GFDL. If we remove that from the warning we will run into copyright problems. It is more than necessary to have the copyright warning.

A warning by nature should be noticeable. You can't really complain about that. You can disable it via your monobook if it bothers you that much.

-- Cat ^chi? 08:29, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

In reality it's a message to cover our butts, its a message that needs to be stated but we don't need "Danger, Danger, Will Robinson" signs :-). Just look at the message, it doesn't say "WARNING Don't put copyright text here because we will be sued and go to jail", it says "WARNING Copyright violations will be deleted" (ho hum, and spelling mistakes corrected perhaps) and no one even notices the next three lines. The message doesn't warrant alarm bells and lights, its a disclaimer to keep the lawyers happy (you're not by any chance a lawyer ;-)

(Here's a fur ball) Is fair use allowed in text contributions? --Tony Wills 09:11, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair use is not allowed on commons, however on some local wikis it may be (such as on wikia). I know fair use text is not allowed on practically every language edition of wikipedia.

You can disable images on the warning by adding to Special:Mypage/monobook.css the following code:

.copyrightwarning2 { display: none !important; }

You can disable the warning completely by adding to Special:Mypage/monobook.css the following code:

.copyrightwarning { display: none !important; }

"Covering our backs" is part of the reason. More importantly the template is meant to be informative. It is not a disclaimer. Everyone is required to read and agree with it. Provided that you understand its content, you can disable it.

I seriously suggest you better review warnings in the future so as not to run into trouble.

-- Cat ^chi? 09:42, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

• I was just wondering if you quote something from say some website copyright notice, if you are violating their copyright :-) --Tony Wills 12:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
• My point was that this is un-necessarily in-your-face for everyone. The emphasis of the first line is wrong, the glare unnecessary --Tony Wills 12:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
• Make it an information box then. --Tony Wills 12:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
• That sounds a little patronising :-) --Tony Wills 12:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Please do NOT ever cut into my post like that. I dislike it very much.

1. You cannot copy paste large amount of text from other websites. A single line wouldn't be an issue, an entire paragraph would be. You should be linking to the page rather than copy pasting its copyright notice unless the copyright notice itself is available with a free license.
2. "WARNING! Copyright violations will be deleted!" I can't emphasize that enough. That warning has been on the MediaWiki page since 07:59, 19 April 2006. I merely adjusted it's size to make it more noticeable. This very discussion is proof that it is noticeable which is exactly to the point of it.
3. MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning is an information box.
4. Patronizing? You and every person that uses the edit button are responsible for the content of each and every warning template, commons policy/guideline page, and other documents. "I didn't know" is not an acceptable excuse. We are not required nor expected to warn people violating our policies. We are however recommended to do so. Unless you want to risk getting blocked, I suggest you pay close attention to warnings and policy. I do not believe the contrary is negotiable. I however do not expect any person to repetitively read the content of MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning assuming you dissected it, I would recommend glancing it after every edit since the contents may have changed. I would encourage against hiding the warning with the css code (though you can remove the images if you desire) since you will be held responsible to any change made to it.

-- Cat ^chi? 18:36, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I suggest that MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning be put on the watchlist of anyone who disables it via their Special:Mypage/monobook.css, so that they can be apprised of changes in policy. It's on my watchlist.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 00:44, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

That is good advice. -- Cat ^chi? 11:47, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

• I think our discussion is becoming repetitive, and for the time being we'll have to agree that we see things differently. So I won't say any more just now :-) --Tony Wills 12:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I have to strongly disagree with what's being advocated here. Basically, this website is increasingly getting more annoying (first the upload page now the copyright warning) to "cover our backs." And the proposed solution is "put up or hide it". I firmly put any and all responsibility on you hiding advocates if I miss something because my only choice was to edit my style sheet.

A simple warning is all that suffices and that's what we had. That covers you. If anyone disregards it and continues on anyway then a 3-ring circus will not stop them. You people do not understand meta:instruction creep and the en:KISS principle. Cburnett 12:48, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes it used to work fine. And I also prefer a wiki were all those warnings are unnecessary. The truth however is, that for every 5 images uploaded, 1 is deleted. 20 % of the images we receive are copyright violations or otherwise lacking information, and the backlog is growing. If all users respected copyrights and read the instructions, all those warnings are unnecessary. The truth however is, that you and I do that, but a lot of other users don't, if they don't get a big warning smacked in their face. -- Bryan (talk to me) 14:04, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

So, this is some kind of collective punishment for the 20% of images which are copyright violations...

I agree with Cburnett: annoying warnings will not improve this proportion. If some users don't apply the instructions regarding copyrights, you would consider that these instructions could be incomplete, incomprehensible or illegible, that the uploading procedure does not really help to fulfill the requirements. --Juiced lemon 14:34, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

And upload statistics necessitate oversized, obnoxious warning signs on the edit page how??? (On a side note, I would like to see actual hard numbers for your assertion that 20% are deleted.) Cburnett 14:45, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

You have many choices. We the people who maintain this site want to decrease the amount of copyright violations we deal with. If the template reduces the number of copyrighted material posts then it is a success. You are welcome to put the responsibility on me, but it will be you who is going to get blocked if you commit anything disruptive such as mass uploading copyright images, posting text stolen from non-free images, and etc. Editing is a privilage not a birth given right. -- Cat ^chi? 18:36, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

You are out of line. Before you go an insult me with what you just said you should probably check my contributions. If I miss something new to that box because I was told my only choice was to hide it then I am placing blame squarely on you and everyone who supports making editing commons obnoxious. And to be frank, my contributions have gone down because of both this, Commons:Upload, and attitudes of people like you. (It's like trying to deal with the developers of PHP.) Uploading files is annoying. Editing articles and image pages are annoying. And your concern for staving unfree images is blinding you. Cburnett 22:41, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I am out of which line exactly? Is it out of line to suggest we are dealing with mass amounts of copyvios?

Do you have any idea how many unfree images are deleted from commons every day? Unfree images isn't just my concern, it is the largest and most notable threat Wikimedia commons is facing. Admins waste hours on deleting unfree images uploaded to commons every day. Most of us do not even have the time to look at COM:DEL for regular issues.

Like I said, everyone is responsible on themselves, cause disruption and you risk blocks. You are welcome to blame anyone you wish. No one is forcing you to contribute if the site became "unbearably annoying"...

-- Cat ^chi? 19:47, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, you are en:User:Cool Cat. I should have known sooner.

Well, heck, if the problem is the users then it seems active education is in order instead of the passive, annoying, in-your-face kind (none of the instructions or any of it actually prevents them from being uploaded). But I guess if you "the admins" are willing to "waste hours on [the issue]" then passive education is dandy. The rest of your post isn't worth back tracking and re-explaining because you seem to be taking offense to people knocking your work. Cburnett 04:33, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

edit point

Seeing the amount of non free images we get, this warning is quite needed. Yann 18:48, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

"Thats the point, it needs to be noticeable for newbies. Oldies can simply disable it via monobook."

Then I'd lose their perspective. You ever try to explain something you cannot see to someone?

Yes, I can customize the UI locally, but that doesn't mean admins should let the defualt UI be ridiculous.

¦ Reisio 22:27, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I do not understand what you mean? Why do you care about their perspective? Is it a critical aspect of your editing? You can always log off to check for their perspective. I am sorry if that is inconvenient... -- Cat ^chi? 19:47, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I said it once before but I didn't get a response so here it is again but knocked up a notch:

WHAT DO THE QUANTITY OF UNFREE IMAGES HAVE TO DO WITH A GIANT OBNOXIOUS & ANNOYING WARNING FOR TEXT!?

My answer: nothing. Cburnett 22:41, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

It is bad practice to ask a question and immediately answer it yourself. Allow me to explain. Hardly anyone notices this. This is even less noticeable however

THIS one is quite hard to miss.

If a warning isn't noticeable, it fails to meet its objective. People on wikipedia and commons are mostly here to help and do not have a malicious intent. When people see a warning they are more likely to actually read and obey it.

-- Cat ^chi? 19:47, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, maybe my objection was too strident and you missed my point. I was not saying a dirty great warning symbol doesn't catch the attention (initially at least), I'm saying quite the opposite: In this case it catches the attention, you read the message and see it is a warning about something that is not an urgent problem on commons at all (take a deep breath and read on :-). By its context (we are about to submitt written content) the message relates to text content not images (where we can all agree there is a significant non-free image problem). The message tells us that we agree our text contribuition is GFDL and our own work. The message also tells us articles aren't needed (but doesn't say they will be deleted) and copyright violations will be deleted. Looking at 'image:' pages, 'talk' pages and 'commons:' pages I do not see a lot of textual copyright violations, I don't even see much opportunity for them - articles are not wanted and (without being stated in that warning) are deleted anyway, image pages generally do not (and should not) contain more than a few lines of text, and talk is by its very nature original work. It's like putting "Danger! Falling objects kill!" signs every few feet along a footpath (pavement) because if something falls out of a building it may kill you - a serious event. You may at first look upward every time you see one, but will quickly learn falling objects are fairly rare and so you will ignore the signs very quickly (and may well miss 'real' warnings). This is commons, not wikipedia if you wish to demonstrate that copyright violations in text contributions are a problem here I will listen, if you suppose the message relates to media content I suggest you are mistaken :-) --Tony Wills 10:14, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I removed the silly disclaimer you placed after my comment. Don't do it again.

Copyright is an urgent problem in commons. You do not seem to be aware because you do not deal with the backlog. People aren't genetically engineered with the knowledge of copyrights and free licenses. They are however genetically engineered to avoid falling objects. The copyright warning does not mention "text copyright violations" and is for copyright violations in general including text and images.

-- Cat ^chi? 17:59, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

For the images, it would help if the warning was on Commons:Upload and all languages of Special:Upload including http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Upload&uselang=ownwork.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 18:26, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

More Commons Helper difficulties

So I tried to copy over an image from Wikipedia (en) that was marked with the GFDL tag. I got the following message:

Warning: mysql_pconnect() [function.mysql-pconnect]: Lost connection to MySQL server at 'reading initial communication packet', system error: 111 in /home/magnus/public_html/database_functions.php on line 27

Could not connect to mysql : Lost connection to MySQL server at 'reading initial communication packet', system error: 111

I have yet to see the CommonsHelper perform its intended function successfully. Some of the difficulties I was having have been explained to me (such as the fact that I should not include the Image: portion of the name, which I'm just supposed to know, since the CommonsHelper doesn't mention that at all). Can someone else try moving w:Image:House of the Seven Gables (front angle) - Salem, Massachusetts.JPG here? I've tried three times and get the same error message. --EncycloPetey 06:05, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah! Nevermind, the files exists here. I suppose that's what the cryptic error message was trying to tell me. The "error" may have been caused by the fact that the existing file has a lowercase .jpg, so it wasn't an exact match. --EncycloPetey 06:08, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The toolserver is also having some troubles lately, it seems, which means tools that run on the toolserver (such as CH) typically don't work as well. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 06:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Dont upload here?

Hey guys,

I'm uploading on commons since a while; since today after uploading I get a message about Successful upload - thats really nice to get this message but I would see it as well in the "tradtional" way; and even better as I have seen the image an the description immediately. Is this text trying to tell me that there are to many Images on commons and so to avoid more images the procedure is getting more difficult to anoy the uploaders? (already Commons:Upload does it make more laborious; but I understand that it is needed for new users) Maybe its a feature and I just did not get the benefit? ...Sicherlich ^Post 07:41, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

No, it was a change introduced accidentally, and is being changed back. Given another week or so it should be back to the old behaviour. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:59, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Clarification needed over IMF material

I believe this page on the IMF website http://www.imf.org/external/terms.htm makes clear that material on the imf website UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE (i.e. here http://www.imf.org/external/photo/allphoto.asp?g=12 where it states public domain) is permission only, therefore I believe this template Template:PD-imf.org should be deleted as not all material on their website is public domain. Gustav VH 09:58, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Particular agreements supersede general assertions. Therefore, you didn't put forward any valid reason in order to delete this template. --Juiced lemon 10:06, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

If there is a link to OTRS on a license template, added by a trusted user, that means you ask first, then possibly take action. Stephen Jaffe, Group Leader/Senior Media Officer/Imaging of the International Monetary Fund has declared in an e-mail to User:Bryan on May 21, 2007 5:07 PM that the images on http://www.imf.org are in the public domain and that the IMF is aware that this includes f.e. commercial use. Siebrand 10:47, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Of course something is wrong when their copyrights page says something else than the OTRS email. Why don't they update their copyright page? Most likely because the images aren't really PD. --Kjetil r 11:03, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Some images on the imf website may be public domain where it is stated as such ( here http://www.imf.org/external/photo/allphoto.asp?g=12 ) - I think the IMF person contacted just confirmed that in these cases they are public domain. They have surely not agreed to place everything on their website in the public domain as this page makes clear http://www.imf.org/external/terms.htm. Gustav VH 12:40, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The template may be a little bit misleading. The OTRS email only applies on images where it is stated that it is "public domain, free for publication purposes". I will change that on the template. -- Bryan (talk to me) 13:18, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Surely there is not much point in having the template if only some images are public domain- I am sure it will only lead to confusion. Gustav VH 13:38, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

People should read templates before applying them. Our licensing templates generally cause confusion to those who do not read. -- Bryan (talk to me) 14:03, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Well they will cause confusion if they have confusing wording- the template begins with

"This file is in the public domain, because it comes from http://www.imf.org/". That implies that BECAUSE it comes from IMF it is public domain which is not acceptable. And again I repeat if only some images from the IMF are public domain there is no point to the template. Gustav VH 14:33, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

It's a wiki. If it confuses you, so fix it. -- Bryan (talk to me) 15:08, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

 Done —LX (talk, contribs) 20:03, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Does someone have a Christmas Tree icon?

I would like to have such an icon for my Christmas music list. As far as I know, Windows XP (my version) will only accept ICO files. So all the SVG and PNG files won't help. I don't have the ability to convert the file types. Other sizes are acceptable, but the size I need is 32x32. 32-bit color should work. (The only ICO editor that I could possibly install only does 16 colors.)

One other note: The monitor that the icon will be in does not handle reddish colors well. RGB(255,0,0) gets turned into something like RGB(3,0,0). Will (Talk - contribs) 08:33, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Dear Will,

A Google query provided me with the following link: [19]. Seems like a fine set of Christmas icons including a tree! Kind regards, Erik1980 00:45, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Tsk, the license on them is unfree. -N 19:31, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

The license is free for my purposes. Only redistribution and commercial use are prohibited. Thanks. Will (Talk - contribs) 02:13, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

All the ICO files turned out to be 16x16. No 32x32 ICOs were included. I don't suppose you know of another source. Will (Talk - contribs) 02:23, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Canal bridges

If started a disscussion at Category talk:Canal bridges suggesting it be renamed to "Canal aqueducts". If people have an opinion could they please contribute.Geni 16:19, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

SADR vs Western Sahara

Apparently, there is a dispute about the naming of files with either files for this area should be named Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic or Western Sahara. The issue is mostly about the flag image (mostly on en.wikipedia, but the file is hosted here). What do yall think should happen? User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 08:33, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Well. There is an article w:Flag of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, but the article w:Flag of Western Sahara lists two flags including this one. So it seems more systematic to call it the flag of SADR. (Where was the discussion on enwp?) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 09:52, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The most relevant is probably w:Wikipedia:Western Sahara Infobox/Vote, which was carried out precisely to find consensus on which, if any, flags to include in the infobox. The option with the most support was "no flags". The article for the region is w:Western Sahara, being on the w:United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories, among other reasons. This is of course contested by the government of the w:Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which does not actually control most of its claimed territory. To sum up, Image:Flag of Western Sahara.svg is contrary to the generally agreed status and should be something like the newly created and edit warred over Image:Flag of sadr.svg w:Image:Flag of sadr.svg. - BanyanTree 10:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Anyone else see that last image as a redlink? I can't figure out what is wrong with my markup, but here is an ext lk to it. BanyanTree 10:15, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Well it's only been uploaded to en.wp, not Commons, hence the redlink. :) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:36, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

DOH! <slaps forehead> - BanyanTree 20:44, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

• Hi folks and thanks a lot Zscout370 for having brought the topic to this agenda.
• I am not that familiar with all this but my aim is to reach a renaming of the file.
• As rightly mentioned above the "sadr" is the name of a republik in exile which owns the flag. Western Sahara is however the name of the territory which is claimed but not "owned" by this republic.
• The flag that is mostly used in/for this is the moroccan flag which you see in the article above. Morocco does largely administer the territory.
• By renaming it file name will be clean from POVs and refelcts that the flag in question is "sadr's" flag while the territory remains disputed though laregely under Moroccan control.

Thanks all - Wikima 17:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Pro-SADR users are carrying out a disinformation campaign in Wikimedia Commons, the English Wikipedia, and probably in other Wiki projects. Their objective is to associate items regarding Western Sahara with symbol(s) of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. A kind of ownership sign on the territory: insidious...
So, we have the same problem with Image:Coat of arms of Western Sahara.svg, which would be renamed Image:Coat of arms of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.svg. --Juiced lemon 18:40, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

And that is why I asked for the discussion, since I don't know much about the dispute, yet the files are hosted here and whatever happens on the English Wikipedia might affect the other projects directly due to the renaming of the files. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 19:39, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Disinfo campaigns, indeed Note that these two users have made several contentious edits and moves on those pages. The main page is Flag of Western Sahara, and that's where the file should be named until the main page gets moved (which it shouldn't, as per a long discussion, vote, mediation, etc. on the talk of that page; see its archive.) Either way, even if the page is moved and the corresponding image as well, it certainly should not go to "Flag of sadr.svg;" if anything, it would be "Flag of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.svg." For instance, see Image:Flag of roc.svg and Image:Flag of the Republic of China.svg. Note also that Wikima has routinely uploaded redundant images, untagged, and then they get deleted. See his talk on en.wp for three such examples in the past week of redundant, untagged maps. Koavf 20:35, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I would agree on "Flag of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.svg" as a filename. After extensive edit warring w:Flag of Western Sahara now lists two flags, so it can hardly be used to argue the name of a single file. "Flag of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic

Republic, which claims the territory of Western Sahara but does not control most of said territory.svg" has the benefit of clarity but just doesn't roll off the tongue. - BanyanTree 20:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll wager that Nightstallion uploaded the image as Flag of Western Sahara because (1) that's the most common name used to refer to it, (2) that's what the en article is named, and possibly even (3) our naming conventions here.

It is still most commonly known as the Flag of Western Sahara, the article on en is still Flag of Western Sahara, and, well...our naming conventions have barely moved. :p

This debate really does not belong here, but at en, only Wikima hasn't been (permanently) successful so far at en, so I guess he's trying new things. The question is whether someone looking for the Flag of Western Sahara will expect what they see now, or a Moroccan flag. I highly doubt they'll expect to see a Moroccan flag. Even if you renamed the image to of SADR or the like, it would still only make sense to redirect Flag of Western Sahara to it - this is simple disambig stuff.

As far as I can tell, Wikima won't be happy until every last article on en says "SADR is unrecognized, yay Morocco". I wouldn't be surprised if the Jif article eventually got his characteristic edits.

It's not a good idea to base any decisions on the current state of the en article, either, as it could say just about anything at any time of day (I just reverted it again myself).

It's called the Flag of Western Sahara... that's just what it's called. It's that simple.

...and oh yes, Juiced lemon, the voice of reason...

¦ Reisio 02:36, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

• All this has a long history:
• Pro-polisario militants have been misusing wikipedia for long time to push pro-polisarian propaganda.
• It took some users a huge effort to just balance some their article and minimise the damage they did to wikipedia.
• Their aim is, as said above, to confuse Western Sahara, the actual disputed territory, now largely under Moroccan administration, with the sahrawi republic, a governement which is in exile, out of this territory, and which is under the control of the Polisario organisation and largely unrecognised in the world.
• Users like koavf have been doing this so vehement until they got blocked for long time, then on indefinite.
• Their aim is to be able to say at the end: "the name is used also for Western Sahara, just keep the confusion as fact"
• This is now the case here and we see this propaganda argument coming again.
• So, an other time: Western Sahra is Western and the sahrawi republic is the sahrawi republic. The latter claims the first but it does not mean that both are the same.
• If we ignor this and if we let this further happen, also at the level of the file naming, then this means we are encouraging misuse of wikipedia for politcal propaganda.
• And I don't think this is acceptable.

Thanks - Wikima 18:56, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Save it for the jury. :p ¦ Reisio 23:07, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

A simple proposal How about we stop arguing about this here as a proxy for the article w:Flag of Western Sahara? What would be the point of changing the filename if the article has the same old one? Anyway, to reiterate, there has always been consensus to leave the article where it is and never consensus to move it. For those not familiar with Wikima, it is common for him to make accusations about "pro-polisarian militants," propaganda conspiracies, and rash ad hominem attacks on wp. The logical response to any of them is to just say "You're a pro-Moroccan militant POV-pusher in on a conspiracy by the Kingdom of Morocco." Koavf 03:35, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

• A bit of retention would be good for you. Apprently you have learned nothing from all your long and indefinite blocks.
• If it was the case like you say, I wouldn't speak for a neutral (file) naming but just push a third version like "Flag of the Southern Provinces". But I don't do since that would be pro-Moroccan POV.
• You, however, feel no shame to use "Flag of SADR".
• This is the difference.
• The fact that you are a pro-polisarian activist, fighting for the independence of the "SADR" and using pro-polisario propagadna is an already established fact. You basically said it yourself just using other words.

Cheers - Wikima 10:11, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

As many users have already noticed it, the issue is quite clear here. There is a disputed territory, Western Sahara, claimed by both the Kingdom of Morocco and by the Polisario front, which has declared a government-in-exile called the SADR (Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic). The SADR has its flag that it claims is that of Western Sahara, and Morocco, considering Western Sahara as part of its Southern provinces considers the Moroccan flag applying also in there. What should the position of Wikipedia be?. Simply neutral. The flag of the SADR should be used as that of the SADR and the Moroccan flag is for Morocco. Western Sahara has no flag, and when the issue of sovereignty is resolved, and depending on its outcome, the flag will be accordingly. Till then, it none-sense to take sides and anticipate the result by baptizing a flag of one of the parties to the conflict as that of WS. I don't see how the flag, the Polisario officially calls "the flag of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic" suddenly changes name on Wikipedia to become the flag of Western Sahara. Sad that some users (koavf and Reisio) have mainly been shooting at Wikima instead of explaining why the flag of the SADR can't be named the flag of the SADR.--A Jalil 12:32, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

It didn't suddenly change its name - it's always been most popularly known as "flag of Western Sahara" - that's why the article on it was put at w:Flag of Western Sahara, that's why we referred to it as "flag of Western Sahara". The only sudden changes have come from you, A Jalil, and Wikima - both members of w:Wikipedia:WikiProject Morocco. :p ¦ Reisio 17:54, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

So if something is named wrongly in Wikipedia, it should stay that way?. No. the name is wrong, and even koavf, above, after opposing, conceeds that in the end it can be renamed to the Flag of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (instead of flag of the sadr). Everyone looking closely at this finds it quite simple: the flag flies at the AU and where it flies, as the flag of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. I don't see what you mean with "popularely" and among whom. As to the membership in the Morocco project, what is wrong about it?. It does not strenghten your position anyway.--A Jalil 07:48, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

• I don't see your point.
• Instead of making things complicated, you should adhere to the facts.
• And the facts say that Western Sahara is a disputed territory, mostly under Moroccan control and the so-called "sadr" is a government in exile which claims this territory.
• This means that WS and "sadr" are two different things.
• But you are doing everything to keep this confusion. A confusion that goes along with the Polisario propaganda, ideology and POV.
• Your referrence to the Project of Morocco I can't understand. I don't know what projects you are member of and I don't care to be honnest. I want arguments if you have any.
• If you want to suggest I do pro-Moroccan edits because I am member of the Morocco Project then this is not only wrong but also ridiculous and offensive.
• If I were to push pro-Morocco POV like you do together with koacvf, I would simply replace the flag of "sadr" with the Moroccan one.
• And see, this wouldn't be even wrong at all since the Moroccan flag is indeed the only one really and widely used in and for Western Sahara.
• To finish: I have started all this and I want now this flag file to be renamed, not according to what reisio, koavf or any pro-Polisario propaganda think, but according to the facts.
• Facts are verifyable. So please do release us from this.

Thanks - Wikima

Don't waste your keystrokes. Nobody cares. Nobody cares here and nobody cares at en. If anyone else cared, you guys wouldn't still be systematically working to remove all information on Western Sahara that doesn't involve claiming it's an internationally recognized part of Morocco, which is a complete fantasy. If anyone else cared, people like Zscout370, an administrator both here and at en, would actually do something to curb your rampant deceit, instead of prompting more "discussion" involving you spouting ridiculousness while nothing changes. We'll just keep our revert warring that spans 20+ articles going, and eventually maybe an admin will finally _act_ like an admin, and do something to stop it. How many brainwashed Moroccan admins do you think there are, you guys? I bet there are a lot more admins interested in accuracy than pushing your sad agenda. ¦ Reisio 00:17, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Reisio, you are completely messed up. We never claimed Western Sahara is an internationally recognized part of Morocco ( though in almost all treaties it is considered as such), for the simple reason Morocco never cared what others think about what it sees as historically belonging to it. After shooting at me and Wikima and Juiced Lemon, here you are shooting at Zscout370, just because he sees clearly that the flag of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic is called the flag of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. You seem to take this personally, and invested a lot of your time in reverting, that it became a matter of life and death for you. Don't worry, you will lose your mind when more and more admins will look at it and endorse Zscout370's decision. And about the reverting, no, you will not continue to edit-war forever about this, I promise.--A Jalil 06:49, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

No, Zscout370 saw clearly that "Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic" is better than "sadr". He hasn't made a decision - he's only done bureaucratic things, which is why I have picked on him slightly. :p ¦ Reisio 21:59, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Equivalent categories

Is there a difference between Category:Language spread maps in the United States and Category:Linguistic maps of the United States or should these be merged and if so under which name.
Also is Commons:Categories for discussion the right place (although not very active) for these types of questions or is there a better venue? /Lokal_Profil 19:39, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

June 17

quality.wikimedia.org and wikiquality-l launched

Original message can be found here.
[Please translate this announcement into other languages.]

Wikipedia's roots in the more conservative Nupedia project are reflected by many in-depth discussions we've had over the years about quality assurance, filtering, and labeling.

In her "4 wishes for the year 2007" [1], Wikimedia Foundation Chair Florence Devouard also identified "reliability" as a key goal for the Wikimedia Foundation. Today we're taking two small steps towards that goal:

• the launch of http://quality.wikimedia.org/ as a portal targeting readers and volunteers to summarize key information about current quality initiatives, combined with http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiquality as a more in-depth description of our plans,

• the opening of wikiquality-l as a mailing list for related discussions:

http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiquality-l

Notably, these pages describe our current plans with regard to the "FlaggedRevs" extension, a MediaWiki extension developed by Aaron Schulz and Jörg Baach (with financial support from Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.) which makes it possible to identify revisions of articles that are known to be of a certain quality, and to change the default view based on that information.

The public beta of this feature (initially on dummy websites, i.e. not production environments) will begin as soon as a security review of the current code has been completed (expected later this month). In the meantime, please give your feedback on the quality.wikimedia.org portal, add translations, and subscribe to wikiquality-l to join future discussions about the specifics of any particular initiative.

[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/4_wishes_for_year_2007

Sincerely, Erik Möller Board member, Wikimedia Foundation