Commons:Village pump/Archive/2017/10

Inkscape SVG file help ?

This section was archived on a request by: --Offnfopt^(talk) 16:17, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

For some reason, File:Leiden University Campus The Hague.svg doesn't render correctly. Inkscape says: "WARNING: SVG input document uses 1 flow text elements, which won't render on browsers!" and the W3 Markup Validation Service reports: Line 108, Column 247: SVG element flowRoot not allowed as child of SVG element g in this context. (Suppressing further errors from this subtree.) ...ht:19.43999863px" xml:space="preserve"><flowRegion><rect x="885.82" y="88.407"... This is way beyond my expertise. Can someone please help me get rid of the flow text element that sneaked into the file ? --oSeveno (talk) 14:40, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

OSeveno looks like Furfur already fixed your issue. - Offnfopt^(talk) 15:02, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much! --oSeveno (talk) 16:01, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Pixabay Image

Hi, I recently downloaded and uploaded File:Van-2613934.jpg however the uploader has since deleted the image - As the file info was valid at the time of uploading and as licences are irrevocable can this image stay or should it be deleted?,
The licence info is still on the Google cache thing (I've also taken a screenshot of the whole page so I'd be more than happy to email this if the cache page disappears,
The image was uploaded to Pixabay back in September so it's not as if it was uploaded yesterday,
Thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 18:13, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

@Davey2010: I found a less processed version at Unsplash which unfortunately is unfree, due to their change from CC0 to a custom license. Unless we can show that Alex Iby and "12019" are the same person or otherwise obtain permission, I wouldn't trust this. It may have been deleted from Pixabay for the same reason we delete Unsplash images. Guanaco (talk) 18:28, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Hi Guanaco, Ah good find!, Agreed or it may not even been there's in the first place!, Okie dokie I'll request deletion, Thanks for your help :), –Davey2010^Talk 18:36, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Guanaco (talk) 18:38, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Watchlists still broken

It seems that the VP thread about this issue was archived, but the only new develppment about the whole watchlist debacle is that the new normal is not one database error message when trying to check it, but two or three in a row. (Just now: Wa0CZgpAMFYAAEWyb8oAAACT, Wa0CGApAAEEAABk2w0AAAABK, and Wa0BmwpAEK4AAF7WrfAAAAAW.)

WMF, you’re duping the public into donating a few millions every month into your purse, based on our work. Please try at least a bit to hide the scam: Drop some of your pretend work and reroute the freed workforce into fixing this issue. Thank you.

-- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 08:07, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Was there a Phabricator ticket tracking this? --Fæ (talk) 08:25, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

phab:T171027 and phab:T164059 come to my mind. --AKlapper (WMF) 08:40, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

@AKlapper (WMF): Your signature is not linking to your user/talk page, as required by policy. --Steinsplitter (talk) 12:34, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

@Steinsplitter: I'm sorry - I had problems to even add my signature. I still had all available gadgets on Commons enabled (was testing some gadget issues lately) and maybe some gadget somehow interfered. I switched back to default gadget settings now. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 13:19, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks.

For any "experienced user" getting buzzed by this problem, the trick to getting this made a priority is to log in to Phabricator (start by clicking on a Phabricator link above), subscribing to phab:T171027 and awarding a token to it. The more volunteers that bother to log in and give this a token, like a gold coin or a thumb's up, the more likely that WMF developers and ops will want to keep nudging its priority behind the scenes. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 12:29, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

@Fæ: Logging in to Phabricator needs not only OAuth (which is okay) but an independent e-mail confirmation — so much for Central Login. Why WM core debugging is being conducted in diggs so far removed from the “main building” is puzzling. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 16:32, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

• Yesterday: Wa2aKwpAEKsAAEq7D@4AAAAU, Wa2e4ApAADsAAJ1sY2QAAADP, and Wa2fWgpAIDoAAENY4WsAAABF. A few minutes ago: Wa7EkwpAMFQAAANEavAAAACD, Wa7E6ApAMFYAALM6SvAAAABQ, Wa7FMgpAIDkAAGJ12iwAAABB, and Wa7FeQpAIDgAABphcbMAAABJ — yes, it needs for pushes now, growing from last week’s two and then three. @AKlapper (WMF): Are you guys really this incompetent, or is this some kind of “social experiment”? («Let’s rile those power users and watch them sputter — fun!») -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 16:32, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Take a chill pill. The indivudual employees of the WMF, such as devs and scrum masters, don't deserve your poignant critisism. They do what they can to help fix the holes in the boat as they appear, while at the same time try to innovate new stuff which the community is demanding constantly. The fact that MediaWiki breaks from time to time when put under stress is nothing new, just be nice to the devs an you'll see thay'll be nice back. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 17:16, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
    • You understand we’re talking about the WMF’s basic role, maintaing our technical infrastructure, the same WMF that gets funded by very, very generous donations, right? I’m not addressing volonteers tinkering with scripts in their spare time. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 00:14, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
      • @Tuvalkin: If "you guy" want others to hear and consider what you have to say, please use civility when interacting. Cheers, --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 20:26, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

• @AKlapper (WMF): Lets remember that the same week these errors started happening, our esteemed Tech News was bragging about implementation of a new skin (why skins need specific implementation instead of being standalone upper layers under which everything else runs unperturbed is yet another mystery). Remember thet fixing whatchlists (or not ruining them in the first place) is part of your job; my civility or lack thereof is irrelevant: Bus drivers go their route and don’t get to demand passengers to be cheerful. Meanwhile, civility me these three from yesterday: Wa9b0ApAAEEAAEjES@wAAADY, Wa9cLwpAIDQAAGOR2pIAAAAJ, and Wa9cuApAADoAABPOdLkAAAAK. This is not something I «have to say» that needs «others to hear and consider», this is merely a continued bug report. (You’re welcome.) What I have to say about Commons has been said elsewhere, most often with a fair amount of civility, thanksverymuch; how much the powers that be do «hear and consider» it, that’s another matter: I want Commons to be a world-wide comprehensive media repository created and maintained by a vibrant communitity of engaged volonteers with disparate perceptions, to serve a world hungry for free media and for unshackled sharing of knowledge — “you guys” want obviously something very different, and you’re dead set in getting it. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 23:37, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Just a point of note, Skins are just a layer that runs on top. They don't perturb anything in the bottom layer. The particular skin you mention was entirely implemented by a volunteer developer. WMF had nothing to do with it (Other then to say it was ok to turn it on). Bawolff (talk) 22:59, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

• Hi, I just wanted to report that my watchlist is still broken. ;) --Eleassar ^(t/p) 22:51, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

([WbB44gpAADkAAHBe1XwAAAEJ] 2017-09-06 22:39:26: Usodna izjema vrste »Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError«)

• Still broken: WbCJdgpAMEsAADb2xf0AAAAE and WbCKZgpAIDcAAFJ184EAAAAN. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 00:14, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

• And today’s crop:

• WbHYpgpAMFUAAEcryZcAAABF
• WbHZfwpAAD8AAFyPlesAAAAX
• WbHZ8wpAMEwAAK6UxqcAAABO
• WbHbqQpAAEMAABbA@IcAAAAM

as this bug refuses to be squashed, that Redmond job is looking less and less likely. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 01:01, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

• WbMZ3QpAADgAADq91kcAAABD 2017-09-08 22:30:49: Fatal exception of type "Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError" WbMW7ApAMF0AAARa@wwAAAAB -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 22:32, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

• Yesterday, three more in a row: WbJ@AQpAMFIAACjZ1KsAAAAJ, WbJ@4gpAMEsAACqZUWIAAACR, and WbKA7ApAADkAAISRePUAAABL. (Does this help in fixing the bug?) -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 12:40, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

• the WbJ@AQpAMFIAACjZ1KsAAAAJ one was a read timeout issue (i only checked one of them, but i imagine the others are similar). In the past this could be caused by people who have insanely long watchlists. If more people are experiancing this, it probably means something changed to be less efficient so more watchlists dont make the cut off. Further investigation is needed as to whats changed. Bawolff (talk) 19:55, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
• addendum: looking at recent bugs, this is definitely phab:T171027. As for helpfulness of posting those error codes - not really. They can tell us if you are experiancing the same issue or a different issue. But once we have one of them, all the others for the same issue tell the same information (usually). Bawolff (talk) 20:01, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

• "insanely long watchlists". I guess those are people who have made "insanely" substantial contributions to Wikimedia Commons. Thanks for your assessment of this project's most active and hardest working contributors. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 22:49, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
• Bawolff, a few months ago I linked en:OCD to a mention of some work habit here in a discussion and was threatened with blocking for making fun of mental disease. No sure how this case is similar, considering the specific psychiatric terminology used, the people in question and their good faiteh assumptions, and the subject and objected of each simile — but you might want to rethink your use of "insanely". -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 23:33, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

I apologize if I offended anyone with that choice of wording. I meant only definition number 4 at wikt:insane#Adjective ("impractical"). I would note that I believe this is different than using the term OCD as a colloquial adjective to describe behaviour, as OCD is the current proper name for a medical condition, where "insanity", to quote Wikipedia "is no longer considered a medical diagnosis". In any case, I apologize if I offended anyone, and I did not in any way mean to use that word in any way that implied anything about mental illness. Bawolff (talk) 00:27, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

• Any idea if/when watchlist function will be restored? -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 23:46, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Not really no. The only known work around I could suggest at this time is to reduce your watchlist to less than 20,000 entries. I have some ideas about possible solutions which I posted on the bug, but they need input from a db expert to say whether or not they are sane (And someone to actually do them, since they are not simple quick fixes but would take time to implement). Bawolff (talk) 01:36, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

I have uploaded more than 20,000 photos. So this bug is affecting worst those who have worked hardest and contributed the most to Wikimedia? -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 22:24, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm trying hard not to be snarky, but the situation and your reply has made that a bit difficult for me. I am not aware of any existing policy discouraging people from contributing to Wikimedia beyond a certain level. Should there be a ceiling on how much any user can contribute? Should those who have already exceeded that ceiling start working, not to contribute more but to instead start deleting their existing contributions? -- Frustrated, Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 22:30, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Do you really need to add all your files in your watchlist? This seems way overkill to me. Regards, Yann (talk) 22:32, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

My uploads are added to my watchlist automatically; I've not seen a reason to remove them. Vandalism to my uploads spotted is irregular (sometimes just one-off case, sometimes multiple pattern vandalism). If I don't watch my own uploads for vandalism, who will? I thought being able to keep track of one's own uploads was one of the reasons the watchlist function is supposed to exist? I'm sorry, but this talk of "overkill" and "insanely long watchlists" seems to me to have an air of blaming Wikimedia's most active contributors for their numerous contributions. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 23:06, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Also, I sometimes see completely baseless "drive by" deletion requests by vandals/trolls. Some useful media can wind up deleted if not watched. I'm concerned what might be happen during this time when I have no watchlist. Thanks. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 23:45, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Infrogmation of New Orleans, there's nothing to suggest that anyone is trying to discourage long-term contributors from contributing or maintaining watch over their work. You shouldn't imply that then express your frustration over it, when it is clearly nothing more than an unintentional bug. Also there are other ways that one could keep track of changes to a large number of pages. For example, a user subpage can be created that has wikilinks to every file so that Special:RecentChangesLinked will show recent changes for all of those wikilinks. It will also work for categories if your uploads can all be found in a single category. These may help as temporarily solutions while the bug is fixed. seb26 (talk) 22:54, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your civil reply, and your optimism that the bug will be fixed. Cheers, Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 23:08, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Goodness, so much upset for so little prospect of profit. Yes, we work with software that is antiquated, poorly organized, limited in various kinds of scope, and otherwise inadequate. Yes, we can throw a tantrum if that makes us feel better, even though it won't make a difference outside our own troubled soul. Those who want the software to be better will do other things, and ignore the tantrum. Me, I noticed the problem several months ago when my watchlist approached 20,000. This was more due to watching every cat-wrangled file, than to my own uploads. So, I started unwatching the ones I didn't create, and the problem went away. If this measure were to prove inadequate, I could try creating another account, and another, obviously linked together in their userpages and with ample explanations. Or I could figure some other workaround. And who knows, maybe one of these years the bug will be repaired and such a clumsy workaround will no longer be necessary. Jim.henderson (talk) 23:14, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

"Tantrum"? Are you referring to me? I was assuming watchlists were down for everybody, not just for significant contributors, until I saw this discussion. I've been on Wikimedia Commons since shortly after it was founded more than a dozen years ago, and a few years before that on Wikipedia, and happen to have been in some significant events with a camera on hand. If you think I have contributed "too much", or that daring to note my complaints in no longer having a functional watchlist is a "tantrum", I suggest you put your effort into going to deletion requests to have all my contributions deleted and campaign for me to be blocked. Otherwise, as a great man once said, FY,YFF. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 23:38, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

• For me it has gone from not working at all to working irregularly. Progress, Yay. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 00:44, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

@Infrogmation: Sorry if my message earlier came across as "you should just live with it" - that wasn't my intent. I recognize the feature is broken and it should be fixed (For reasonable sized watchlist. For example, I am aware of a user (not you) on commons who has 988,000 entries on their watchlist. That's past the point of reasonableness. I have no idea what "resonable" actually is as a number, but I agree we should be doing better than the current situation. Just making the point that its unlikely we will ever fix it so good that one could have a million pages on their watchlist without issue. There will always be limits) . At the time I wrote that post, I had a vauge idea of what the problem was (I now have a much better idea, I think), and at that point, it looked like the fixes would be really complicated (require basically overhauling the entire system) and take a long time to make, so the sad state of the world was that in the short term, all that could be done would be to reduce the size of your watchlist since any proper fix was going to take some time to make. Alas, sometimes the news isn't good news but just frustrating and that's just the way things are. That said my current opinion has changed a bit - I think there might possibly be some band-aid solutions that might help a bit in the short term, even if in the long run we still have to overhaul the system, but I'm still looking into it so I'm not sure right now. Bawolff (talk) 04:57, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

FWIW, I have about 45,000 uploads here, 90+% of them photos I've taken myself and, yes, I believe I should have them all on my watchlist. I want to be responsive when someone asks a question on a related talk page, when someone changes categories on them or otherwise edits the information (over 90% of such changes are improvements or neutral, but a quite detectable number are not, and some are outright vandalism), when someone nominates them for deletion (in this case I've been upheld well over 90% of the time, but the images would probably have been deleted if I didn't participate), etc. And I have no way to know in advance which will raise questions, be vandalized, or be the victims of inappropriate deletion requests. - Jmabel ! talk 05:29, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

@Bawolff: You seem to be saying that Commons should not allow mass upload projects like the ones I routinely manage which result in 100,000 or more images being added to my Watchlist, at least for a few weeks to ensure I can spot post upload issues. I'm sad you find my contributions here "unreasonable" rather than unusual.

My Watchlist today is just below 500,000, which gives a view of about 100 relevant changes to glance at in a day. Neither abnormal nor unmanageable for my volunteer contribution, even though I'm traveling and am limited to a tablet. --Fæ (talk) 07:46, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

I by no means mean to suggest your contributions are unreasonable. On the contrary, I think they are awesome. However, fact is that watchlists on the order of a million entries are significantly beyond what the current system is designed to handle (instead of unreasonable I should have said unfeasible. I apologize for the unfortunate connotations of my word choice). I don't think any improvements we could make to the current system will cause watchlists of that size to work consistently. Tweaks to the current system could probably fix the current issues for watchlist's the size of Jmabel's, but not for people with a million entries. If we move to an entirely different tech stack for watchlists (Something that in the long term I think will be necessary) we may be able to have a system that supports watchlists of that size but not with the current implementation. Bawolff (talk) 08:11, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

i agree watchlists are broken for over 1000 items, and they are going to stay broken. it is unreasonable to expect that people will jump up to help you in this task. rather we will have to adopt content management methods using wikidata queries and maintenance categories. they are more powerful tools, then the hacked-up watchlist. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 17:46, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Watchlist has generally worked just fine for several years for those of us who have made numerous contributions to the project, until fairly recently. Why on earth has an extremely useful function stopped working, and why is it unreasonable for this project's hardest working and most active contributors to expect it to work again as it has in the past? -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 20:02, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

nothing lasts forever, watchlists have stopped working for me long ago. Expecting unlimited updates in an open software community is silly, submit your phabricator and wait. Or submit a wishlist. Venting here will not motivate the coders. Flexibility in tool use is a valuble skill. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 17:07, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Okay then, can you please direct me to a page with tools I can use instead of the watchlist with similar functionalities? If expecting a working watchlist is "silly", we should no doubt remove the link to it that is on the pages of all logged in users, no? A page discussing such tools seems to me to be a very much more useful potential link to present prominently to users than a page to something that is not merely broken but "silly". -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 21:10, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

you have not defined what task you are doing with watchlist. - you would have to create a maintenance category; and then produce a work list using wikidata : here is the tool page https://tools.wmflabs.org/admin/tools ; here is the vizquery http://tools.wmflabs.org/hay/vizquery/ ; here is a tool that lists uploaders in a category http://tools.wmflabs.org/ptools/uploadersincat.php?category=Paintings+by+Titian ; here is an example of a list generated automatically from wikidata https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jane023/Europeana_Art_Challenge -- Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 18:40, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

• (Unindent) Thanks for the reply. The particular task which I wish to have performed is a centralized place where I can see changes to items which I've put on to my watchlist. Assembling and editing my watchlist is one of the tasks I've been using continuously over the past 13 years to improve Wikimedia Commons. It has seemed to me that watchlist, along with upload and edit, is one of the 3 basic fundamental tools needed to work on Wikimedia Commons. Is what I added to my watchlist back when it was functioning stored anywhere so I could somehow start reworking on it? Is there any tool that would allow me to see changes on media which I've uploaded (an important subset). Thank you for the links. It's not immediately apparent to me how they can be used to assemble something resembling the functionality of a watchlist; I'll spend more time looking at them later but I again bring up that some sort of page here on Wikimedia Commons explaining how to do so would probably be enormously helpful, and a link to it should replace the now broken "Watchlist" link that is template linked into every page of the project. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 17:24, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

@Infrogmation: In regards to your question of "why now". It appears (Emphasis on "appears", I can't 100% garuntee this statement is correct) that the main changing factor was including wikidata edits in the watchlist, which pushed things over the edge. There is a more technical analysis on the bug report. Bawolff (talk) 16:08, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Then why hasn't that change been rolled back yet? It's been weeks. This is ridiculous. —LX (talk, contribs) 08:51, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Looks like my watchlist is now broken. I had no problem with it any time prior to this, and it was fine 18 hours ago. ℯxplicit 07:12, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Hi, after a month, my watchlist is still broken. Error: Wc2MJwpAIDoAAHq4E7EAAABR] 2017-09-28 23:57:23. Thanks, kind regards. --Eleassar ^(t/p) 00:00, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

714 files in my watchlist and it does not display any changes (I know there are some) - no error message shown. I'll see if the update helps. Finavon (talk) 20:23, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-39

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• Wikitext syntax highlighting is a beta feature on Wikimedia wikis with text written from left to right. This beta feature is based on CodeMirror. You can now search through the entire article with CTRL+F or cmd+F when you edit. Before it just searched through a part of the article. The developers are also fixing a couple of other bugs. [1][2]
• Administrators on wikis that use Structured Discussions as a beta feature or by default can now create and move Structured Discussions boards. Structured Discussions was previously called Flow. [3]

Changes later this week

• You now get a notification when someone tries to log in to your account and fails. If they try from a device or IP address that have logged in to your account before you will be notified after five failed attempts. For security reasons you will soon get an email by default when someone tries to log in to your account and when someone logs in to your account from a new device or IP address. This can be turned off in your preferences. [4]
• Users with extremely old browsers (for example Netscape 2–4, released from 1995–1997) which do not support Unicode will no longer be able to edit. They should try to install a new browser. [5]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 September. It will be on all wikis from 28 September. (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 27 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Wikimedia Foundation Readers department has proposed changing the mobile website. You can read more on mediawiki.org. This would be a big change.
• You can't use OCG to create PDFs after 1 October. This is because of technical problems. You can still create PDFs. Tech News 2017/37 said the function to create PDFs from books would still work. It is now clear it will not work for the next few months. The developers are working on fixing this. You can read more on mediawiki.org.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:59, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

• Flow was renamed? Good news: Looks like someone got the memo that addressing a community of volonteers in the role of infrastrucure caretaker is not the same as addressing the guillable public in the role of shameless profiteer. Hark! But the new name is Structured Somethingorother? That’s a clever Newspeak trick right there: Try and say «We don’t want our discussions structured!» without feeling that you’re losing your geek membership card… (Of course Flow is still an awful way to organize talk pages, but under this new name it feels nerdier than a pocket protector.) Well played, WMF. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 01:49, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

• @Johan (WMF): We, the people of Wikimedia Commons, want to keep our discussions footloose and fancy free. We want to be able to bottom post, top post, or inline post as the needs arise and as particular discussion pages dictate. Long live wikitext!   — Jeff G. ツ 20:03, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
  • "We, the people of Wikimedia Commons'"? Speak for yourself there buddy! --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 23:14, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Hey Jeff, just acknowledging that I've seen your ping – I'm not personally involved in any work around Structured Discussions (in this particular case, I just try to make sure the communities are aware of what's happening through Tech News), but if you have questions/feedback around the feature and Commons, mw:Talk:Structured Discussions will reach the right folks. (: /Johan (WMF) (talk) 22:10, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

September 26

File:Flag of Morocco.svg

Please correct flag of Morocco. The star in the flag you are using is smaller than the correct one as in the specifications.

Spec text says "The star is inscribed in an invisible circle whose radius equals one sixth (1/6) of the fly's length..."

The developper got confused between 1/6 of length and 1/6 of flag width.

Thank you best regards — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.65.202.1 (talk)

This will have to be done by a administrator since the page is protected so only administrators can upload. - Offnfopt^(talk) 19:57, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

This file has a history of edit warring over star size. Can you provide a reliable source to settle this issue? Ruslik (talk) 16:59, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

196.65.202.1 I went ahead and created a derivative and uploaded it here File:Flag of Morocco-2005.svg. I've seen multiple sites and documents that say it should be as you said but haven't found any newer documents that say the star should be smaller. So if a administrator isn't willing to make the correction, then this alternative file can be used assuming the wiki sites in question come to a consensus. In the off chance there is another document that updated the specifications and said for the star to be smaller then this derivative can remain for historical purposes since there is a official document that did describe the flag with these specifications at one point. - Offnfopt^(talk) 17:52, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

October 01

Adding MP3 audio output for iOS compatibility

Related to, but distinct from the earlier discussion about MP3 uploads, we are planning to shortly enable MP3 derivative transcode output for audio files:

Due to expiration of relevant patents, MP3 (MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 layer 3 audio) is now a free format and considered usable for Wikimedia projects by WMF legal[6].

This means it should be possible to auto-convert existing Ogg/Opus/FLAC/WAV audio files to MP3 for playback in Safari, IE, and Edge browsers which don't support Ogg Vorbis natively. While we have a JavaScript decoder[7] as a workaround for desktop, it does not yet work on mobile and is a prohibitively large additional download for audio clips on slow mobile networks.

More information:

• Phabricator ticket T165717

Goals:

• Audio clip playback on iPhone or iPad mobile browsers should work (does not yet!)
• Audio clip playback on Safari, IE, or Edge desktop browsers should be fast (currently loads a JavaScript shim)
• Readers and reusers should be able to conveniently download audio clips in a format that's more widely supported and immediately usable than Ogg Vorbis

Details:

• How does it work?
  • The server already converts Opus, FLAC, and WAV files to Ogg Vorbis for playback in Chrome and Firefox. Extending the software to also produce an MP3 is a matter of flipping a configuration switch.
  • The HTML output includes a list of multiple sources which are checked for compatibility. Chrome and Firefox will continue to play the Ogg Vorbis files, while Safari, IE, and Edge will skip over them and see the MP3 files.
• What about downloads?
  • Both Ogg Vorbis and MP3 versions will be available for download from the File: page. Initially the MP3 version (along with the Ogg Vorbis if the source file is Opus, FLAC or WAV) will be listed in a table at the bottom of the page. Eventually we hope to provide a cleaner interface for picking downloads.
• What about uploads?
  • Earlier discussion seemed strongly in favor, and should get done soonish -- see phab:T176781 for updates on that in the future.

If folks have any comments or concerns, please drop a note here or on the phabricator task. Thanks! --Brion Vibber (WMF) (talk) 17:16, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

•  Support Great, no potential copyright flood here, this can be enabled straight away. Regards, Yann (talk) 18:44, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
•  Support John Vandenberg ^(chat) 03:07, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
•  Support Seems sensible. JesseW (talk) 04:20, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
•  Support Finally, all that lobbying I've been doing for the past year is paying off. Dispenser (talk) 10:40, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
•  Support no brainer. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:34, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
•  Support Yes please. Kaldari (talk) 23:25, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

September 27

Login "from a computer you have not recently used"

Hi there, Recently I received three times this automated e-mail message (Someone (probably you) recently logged in to your account from a new device. If this was you, then you can disregard this message. If it wasn't you, then it's recommended that you change your password, and check your account activity.), despite the fact that I didn't login to Commons from any other computer than mine. The first time I received it I subsequently changed my password. And there are no other contribs or login activities of my account other than by me so far. What does it all mean with the messages, can anyone help? Thanks --A.Savin 11:34, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

@A.Savin: Just scroll a few pages up and read Tech News from 25th September. --jdx ^Re: 13:39, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

@Jdx: Does it mean that for each failed login I will from now on (unless deactivated in Special:Preferences) receive a message about a successful login? --A.Savin 13:52, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

@A.Savin: No, at least according to my knowledge. More info: m:Help:Login notifications. --jdx ^Re: 14:07, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Again, my situation is the following: I receive multiple messages about a successful login to my account from another device. Whereas I for myself login to Commons from one device only, that is, from my notebook and usually at home. What does it all mean, and what can I do? Can anyone help? Thanks. --A.Savin 14:15, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

If you have not yet done so, enable m:2FA. --Fæ (talk) 14:38, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

"an email when a user logs in successfully to your account from an unfamiliar device and IP.". The "and IP" is important here. That means that when people travel, or for other reasons log in over internetconnections that are different from their standard (EVEN with the same device), this might cause an email. I figured these emails were disabled by default, but maybe my memory is mistaken.. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:43, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

We only send emails when neither cookies nor the IP are familiar. Max Semenik (talk) 22:07, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

@A.Savin: You can disable this notification from your preferences. Just go to the Notification tab and look for "Login from an unfamiliar device". Kaldari (talk) 23:28, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Toba people flags - possible fake?

In WM Commons there are two flags which they say represent the Toba people: File:Bandera-toba.gif and File:Qom flag.gif. In the first place, they are not "own work" because these files were on the internet several years before (Bandera Toba, 2009-06-08). But the important thing is that I can not find a reliable source (not blogging) to confirm this information, it is possibly a fake. This website apparently confirms the information, but says that its source is the blog I mentioned before. This blog has as flag of the Toba people a flag very different, but this information is also not verifiable. What if it is certain is that one of its symbols is the wiphala (Leader Toba Felix Díaz with several Wiphalas - Félix Díaz). Possible fake? --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 22:44, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-40

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• You can now use preload features in the visual editor. This means you can create links to create new pages and some text will already be in the edit window when someone clicks on it. [8]

Changes later this week

• If you have turned on "Automatically enable most beta features" you will now get the 2017 wikitext editor. Before this you had to turn it on manually even though it is a beta feature. [9]
• Special:Block and Special:Unblock will get the OOUI look. [10]
• The jQuery library will be upgraded to version 3 on all Wiktionary wikis from 2 October. It will be on all non-Wikipedia wikis from 4 October. It will be on all wikis from 5 October. [11]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 October. It will be on all wikis from 5 October (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 3 October at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 4 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• A new feature called Reading Lists are coming to the Wikipedia mobile apps. First it will be in the Android version. Reading Lists are a private user preference where you can see lists of articles on multiple devices. You can give feedback on this feature. [12]
• The search function has used fallback languages for language analysis. This means a language could be analysed with the grammar of a completely unrelated language to find related words. This will be removed from most wikis the week starting with 9 October. You can read more and give feedback.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

23:25, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

October 03

People and bots trying to delete my uploaded Coats of Arms

I come from OpenStreetMap. My current aim is to improve Wikimedia projects, mainly in the subjects which overlap with Openstreetmap, such as cities and places.

I needed to upload an Israeli local council's Coat of Arms. This is permitted by IL law. I looked around, and I found out everyone uses the Template:FoP-Israel permission and Template:Insignia-Israel restriction. The permission says:

The reproduction of this architectural work, work of sculpture or work of applied art[see definition below], is covered under the Israeli copyright statute (2007), which states that "Broadcasting, or copying by way of photography, drawing, sketch or similar visual description, of an architectural work, a work of sculpture or work of applied art, are permitted where the aforesaid work is permanently situated in a public place." (paragraph 23)

Additionally, its template page explains Israel uses the definition of art more liberally and that it may be applied to coats of arms. I also notice there used to be a debate about this on the template talk page, but eventually it was deemed OK.

Despite this, I am encountering obstacles for some mysterious reason. Please help me understand.

1. The uploader did not accept this.

This was my interaction with the uploader page:

• > This file is not my own work.
• < Now tell us why you are sure you have the right to publish this work...
• > Another Reason Not Mentioned Above
• > [Asks me to manually input a template].
• > I type in FoP-Israel. (with the double brackets on each side)
• < "The wikitext you entered doesn't contain a valid license template."

I had a similar interaction with the older version of the uploader. Eventually I resorted to a manual upload.

2. User:YiFeiBot

That bot marked the file as "Category:New uploads without a license"

3. user:4shadoww

Shortly after, user user:4shadoww marked this for deletion. After explaining the situation, he kindly apologized and reverted the change.

4. User:Magog_the_Ogre

User:Magog_the_Ogre marked this as invalid.

I'm at loss. What is the problem exactly?

Edit: I found some scattered resources of previous similar disputes (Mainly user:Drork and User:Deror_avi vs User:Pieter_Kuiper (now banned))

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Nilfanion/Israel
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Template:FoP-Israel
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Freedom_of_panorama#Israel
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:De_minimis#Israel
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Freedom_of_Panorama_in_Israel
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:IDF_insignia.png (it says "kept", but it wasn't kept?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by SafwatHalaby (talk • contribs) 11:35, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

-- SafwatHalaby (talk) 07:08, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

The two templates {tl|FoP-Israel}} and {{Insignia-Israel}} are not licenses templates. In all cases, they should be supplemented by a proper license template like {{PD-self}} or {{Cc-by-3.0}}.

FoP-Israel is meant for images like this. Its purpose is to say the sculpture's copyright is irrelevant to the upload, all that is needed is permission for the photograph. In that case, the photographer has done that by adding PD-self. It should only be used on photographs.

Insignia-Israel is an additional template, that should be put on images of coats of arms. Its purpose is to say there are restrictions on their use in addition to copyright issues. It does not directly address any copyright.

As for your file - File:Daliyat al Karmel 2013 Coat Of Arms.png - who created the actual image? The copyright holder of the file is the creator of the image. It looks like you have directly copied the image from Daliyat al Karmel's website, if so it is not appropriate for Commons unless you have permission from them to use it. If you created the file, then you can add a valid own work template. If you took a photo of the image, on display in Israel, then that would presumably be covered by FoP-Israel and then you could add a valid own work template. But it clearly isn't that second case.--Nilfanion (talk) 07:25, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I'm still trying to understand the situation and you might be right. The old discussion is dense. But as far as I understand so far, the definition in Israel is broader than other countries FoP allows copying and redistributing. What's keeping https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coat_of_arms_of_Beersheba.svg and the countless other coats of arms which aren't "own work" from being deleted? Drork seems to have fought to keep them and he provides very good evidence he's right. -- SafwatHalaby (talk) 07:39, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

FoP doesn't apply to these images, regardless of how liberal it is in Israel compared to other countries. FoP is for photographs of works displayed in public, not abstract images on a website. That file may be OK if it is his own work. If it isn't its not. The focus of that debate was on photographs.--Nilfanion (talk) 07:42, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

I see. I'm new to this. Please confirm I'm understanding correctly. You're saying: 1. If I take a photograph of the coats of arms, it's own work and it's fine (does a photo scan or a custom svg recreation apply too? a screen capture?). 2. These others files should be deleted as well.

Although this could be right, it doesn't sound right to me. I"m not an authority on the subject, so I'm trying to contact some knowledgeable IL contributors just to be sure. @Deror_avi is a lawyer who was involved in the previous case.-- SafwatHalaby (talk) 08:04, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

To specifically counteract "FoP doesn't apply to these images", here are some quotes from the above articles. :

"And since you said the template is confusing, let me explain once again what the Israeli law says: if a creative work is placed permanently in a public place in Israel (whether indoors or outdoors), then anyone can take a picture of it, draw it, make a sketch of it or copy it in any visual way, and publish the copy. The law is not restricted to sculptures and buildings, and it is not restricted to copying by photography. You could say that placing a creative work in an Israeli public place is almost like releasing it to the public domain, however some rights are kept, most notably the moral rights. Now the ball is in your field - if not a special template, what would you suggest? "

"About municipality emblems - the Israeli law doesn't say anything specific about the copyrights to which they are subject. There are non-copyright limitations for using them, but nothing clear about copyright limitations is said. However, since all municipality emblems are placed in public places, e.g. at the court of the city hall and in other similar places, they fall under the Israeli FOP principle. It is okay to copy them by photography, sketching, drawing, etc. because they are permanently displayed in public."

""According to Dr Sarah Presenti, an Israeli copyright lawyer, the scope of the term "work of applied art" in Israel is broader than the equivalent term in Commonwealth jurisdictions (see the United Kingdom). Presenti suggests that "it includes art work (like adverts, advertising, maps etc.) which transfers useful information" and that "it does not matter if it is 2D or 3D as long as it is a work of art that is meant to deliver useful information"." — Preceding unsigned comment added by SafwatHalaby (talk • contribs) 11:57, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

These arguments seem to be directly based on IL copyright law. -- SafwatHalaby (talk) 10:53, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

>Alternatively we could just make it policy where if you add one of these templates to a file and it is removed/reverted that the nominator should then create a proper DR so there is a better forum for discussion, this would also help so that these matters don't spill out into other non-DR areas.

That makes sense. The discussion was fragmenting over several talk pages (Mine, 4shadoww, Magog_the_Ogre, file's talk page) so I decided to collect it all here. A dedicated page would have prevented this. -- SafwatHalaby (talk) 10:35, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

SafwatHalaby, Going back to your upload: here is the problem. I believe that majority of files in Category:Coats of arms of local councils in Israel are not properly licensed and quite possible might get deleted unless we find some legal reasons why bey would be in public domain. As Nilfanion mentioned {{FoP-Israel}} is not a license and applies only to sculptures and architectual buildings and {{Insignia-Israel}} is a warning that this image depicts a symbol "which was declared a protected symbol in Israel" there are some restrict on use of this image. Majority of images are licensed under {{Cc-by-sa-3.0}} however I could not find any information on the pages they were copied from indicating that the original designers released those files under CC-BY-SA license. Majority of properly licensed Coats of Arms (CoA) on Commons fall into few categories:

• CoA's are very old and were published in a book now in Public Domain
• CoA's are very old and were described by text. Than someone drew the Coa based on the text description or some old and released it under some license they chose.
• Country has laws about legal status of their symbols or CoA's or about work performed by or for government employees. See here for the list of such countries. Images in Category:Coats of arms of local councils in Israel do not fit into any of those categories and are likely still copyrighted, that is why you have such a hard time finding proper license template. See also here. --Jarekt (talk) 11:39, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed reply, but why do you believe it only applies sculptures and architectural buildings? Have you seen the links or the quotes I added? -- SafwatHalaby (talk) 11:49, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

"According to Dr Sarah Presenti, an Israeli copyright lawyer, the scope of the term "work of applied art" in Israel is broader than the equivalent term in Commonwealth jurisdictions (see the United Kingdom). Presenti suggests that "it includes art work (like adverts, advertising, maps etc.) which transfers useful information" and that "it does not matter if it is 2D or 3D as long as it is a work of art that is meant to deliver useful information".

Now, the FoP-Israel template says: "The reproduction of this architectural work, work of sculpture or work of applied art,". Assuming the people of the previous debates didn't make up quotes, there's a strong case. Then again, I'm not a lawyer and I'm hoping actual IL lawyers join the discussion. -- SafwatHalaby (talk) 11:55, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

SafwatHalaby, All FoP templates work about the same way and they are saying that buildings, sculptures and other works of Art publicly displayed are not copyrighted so if you take photograph of them than you can release your photograph under license of your choosing. So if you find your Coat of arm carved or painted on a side of a building and you take your own photograph of it than it is OK to upload it. --Jarekt (talk) 12:13, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

The premise of past debates (apparently backed by good evidence and opinions of lawyers) is that the IL FoP is broader than you think. I've provided some quotes and there's a lot more. It's apparently not limited to photographs and not to 3d art. ~~ ---- — Preceding unsigned comment added by SafwatHalaby (talk • contribs) 12:32, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

It's worth noting they didn't focus solely on coats of arms but it was discussed on several occasions. -- SafwatHalaby (talk) 12:49, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

See Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Coats of arms of local councils in Israel. --Jarekt (talk) 12:13, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

I think that was a bit hasty. This needs discussion with professionals before actions are taken. -- SafwatHalaby (talk)

Oh. Sorry. I'm still getting used to wikimedia. I presume this is the new discussion page? -- SafwatHalaby (talk) 12:25, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

The Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Coats of arms of local councils in Israel page is to discuss common faith of all the files on the list, and hopefully will allow discussion with professionals. @Geagea and Matanya: could you help to find people familiar with copyright law in Israel. --Jarekt (talk) 12:47, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. I don't have much else to say regarding this discussion then. This list of people may be relevant. -- SafwatHalaby (talk) 12:53, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

With regards to coats of arms - these are usually set by legislation (חוקים או תקנות) state or municipal. The Israeli Copyright Law specificly states the legislation is not copyrighted see article 6 (translation to English)therefore coats of arms which are usually legislated are not copyrighted (do note that I did not find the specific legislation, and if not found the image should be deleted) - having said that, if someone would take a picture of it permenantly displayed in a public location, the COA within that images is not copyrighted due to Israel's FOP. Deror avi (talk) 10:53, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Would it be ok to process the photo and extract a copy which looks like the original, then putting it at Wikimedia? Is it still treated like an unprocessed photograph and protected by FoP? -- SafwatHalaby (talk) 19:21, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Commons:Photo challenge August Results

Panning: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	What a flight!	San Francisco Cable Car 10	Southern ground hornbill in flight
Author	Sally V	Dllu	Alandmanson
Score	50	14	13

Caves, Mines and Sinkholes: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Crepuscular rays in Upper Antelope Canyon, Arizona	Phong Nha cave in Phong Nha-Ke Bang national park, Vietnam	The cave Riesenburg in Frankonian Switzerland in Germany
Author	Jarekt	Shansov.net	Ermell
Score	13	12	9

Congratulations to Sally V, Dllu, Alandmanson, Jarekt, Shansov.net and Ermell. -- Jarekt (talk) 04:06, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks to all that voted, and well done to the other winners! --Alandmanson (talk) 11:01, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

name of bird

Does anyone know what this funny-looking bird is? Sardaka (talk) 07:40, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Added to Category:Unidentified birds. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:41, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Sardaka You may want to try posting over at /r/whatsthisbird/, they could probably have that bird identified in no time. - Offnfopt^(talk) 15:18, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

It looks like a Channel-billed Cuckoo. --ghouston (talk) 00:51, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Category:Las Vegas Strip shooting

A number of images in Category:Las Vegas Strip shooting show the site of the shooting, but were taken well before it. How should they be categorised? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:39, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

I moved them to Las Vegas Strip for now, but they should be moved further to more specific categories. --MB-one (talk) 12:44, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

October 04

License review

Are there any news regarding LicenseReview.js? Does the script work for anyone? --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 00:39, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

@Hedwig in Washington: The script is protected and has not been edited since 3 March 2016. Its former maintainer Rillke has not edited since 24 May 2016. Any Admin facile in JS could take it over, or a regular user facile in JS could copy it.   — Jeff G. ツ 01:29, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

It has its quirks and bugs, but it generally works well for me. Guanaco (talk) 08:44, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Darn, I hoped that someone would have adopted it by now. --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 19:39, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Forbidden cat creation...

Hi!

I wanted to create a cat for a guitarist which has 2 pics but a message says "Category:John Haggerty" is black listed so I tried "Category:John Haggerty (musician)" ([13]) but that's the same. Can someone explain me...

Thanks LW² \m/ ^{(Lie ² me...)} 00:18, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

@Llann Wé²: I've created Category:John Haggerty for you. It's currently blank, but you should be able to fill it out with a proper description and categories. Guanaco (talk) 00:24, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

@Llann Wé²: We had a long term abuser who used the first six characters of that guitarist's name as a signature. I'm sorry you got caught by the title blacklist.   — Jeff G. ツ 00:26, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks a lot @Guanaco: and @Jeff G.: That's the first time I have this case... Hope the only one... LW² \m/ ^{(Lie ² me...)} 00:33, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I've also edited the blacklist so "Haggerty" is an acceptable string. Guanaco (talk) 00:37, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

By the way, Wikipedia has an article on Pegboy. - Jmabel ! talk 00:39, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Reminder: Planned-downtime in 5 minutes

Expected duration: less than 30 mins.

ETA 06:00 UTC (5 mins from now)

See #Read-only Commons in preparation for 3D file support - 11 October above for the details. (Just a brief reminder so that it's easy to find at the bottom). Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 05:54, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

I see new uploads coming, is it done? — regards, Revi 06:21, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Per the task, downtime was only 13 minutes. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 10:22, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 22:11, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Flickr import quality

Hello. I have found that Flickr website sometimes have images of better quality than transferred to commons. Examples: File:German Shepherd Dog with disc.jpg, File:Куче.jpg, File:'Honey' the badger in daylight.jpg. Maybe it would be good to parse Flickr website again and upload better versions on top of existing (where it is possible)? — Vort (talk) 09:30, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

@Vort: The Image reviewers who reviewed those images should have gotten the biggest images from Flickr at the time of review. You could ask them why they didn't, and you can request a bot to do the same at Commons:Bots/Work requests.   — Jeff G. ツ 01:37, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

I've made a bot request for this task here: Commons:Bots/Requests/VortBot. The problem is that I can't make a test run without permissions (this will require significant rewrite of bot's logic). --Vort (talk) 08:10, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Bot is upgraded, test run is done. If edits are considered fine, I will continue the processing. — Vort (talk) 14:52, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

License review

Are there any news regarding LicenseReview.js? Does the script work for anyone? --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 00:39, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

@Hedwig in Washington: The script is protected and has not been edited since 3 March 2016. Its former maintainer Rillke has not edited since 24 May 2016. Any Admin facile in JS could take it over, or a regular user facile in JS could copy it.   — Jeff G. ツ 01:29, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

It has its quirks and bugs, but it generally works well for me. Guanaco (talk) 08:44, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Darn, I hoped that someone would have adopted it by now. --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 19:39, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Forbidden cat creation...

Hi!

I wanted to create a cat for a guitarist which has 2 pics but a message says "Category:John Haggerty" is black listed so I tried "Category:John Haggerty (musician)" ([14]) but that's the same. Can someone explain me...

Thanks LW² \m/ ^{(Lie ² me...)} 00:18, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

@Llann Wé²: I've created Category:John Haggerty for you. It's currently blank, but you should be able to fill it out with a proper description and categories. Guanaco (talk) 00:24, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

@Llann Wé²: We had a long term abuser who used the first six characters of that guitarist's name as a signature. I'm sorry you got caught by the title blacklist.   — Jeff G. ツ 00:26, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks a lot @Guanaco: and @Jeff G.: That's the first time I have this case... Hope the only one... LW² \m/ ^{(Lie ² me...)} 00:33, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I've also edited the blacklist so "Haggerty" is an acceptable string. Guanaco (talk) 00:37, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

By the way, Wikipedia has an article on Pegboy. - Jmabel ! talk 00:39, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

New global ban RfC on user INeverCry

Please share & contribute to: m:Requests for comment/Global ban of INeverCry. --78.53.71.61 11:01, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

It should be noted that threads about INC have now been repeatedly created by different IP addresses in multiple forums. I find this especially disturbing as it appears to be an anonymous drama creation/flamebait campaign by what may well be the same individual appearing to be many, and attempting to game the system. The IP contributor that has created the above request has canvassed 9 different projects on this today, and made several unrelated edits on Commons before doing so. Refer to https://tools.wmflabs.org/guc/?user=78.53.71.61

It may be sensible to automatically reject proposals or RfC's which are not put forward by long term named accounts with a persistent history that can be easily examined. --Fæ (talk) 11:23, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughts, Fæ. Could you provide some difflinks so we can compare if those IPs you name have any similarity to me? --78.53.71.61 13:00, 5 October 2017 (UTC) P.S. And unfortunately the guidelines m:Global ban#Obtaining consensus for a global ban prescribe to "Inform the community on all wikis where the user has edited". I now see this is a trap.

 Comment You said, in Meta, "I do not use my account here because I would like to continue to live & edit in peace". So your using an IP and have a main account. What is this? Tm (talk) 13:44, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

it reflects the widespread mistrust of admins, which might be indicated, since we now have the case of a sock admin. no telling what revenge INC might mete out whenever he returns. but yeah, feel free to deprecate the nomination, that is the consensus. and what is the admin corps going to do to restore confidence here? any lessons learned, anyone would care to admit? Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 17:18, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

I need pics to make small 2d games

Is there category for this kind of pics?--Ineedpicslol (talk) 19:12, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

• In theory, you could use anything. Can you give examples (via URL) of what you have in mind? - Jmabel ! talk 22:37, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

October 07

overwritten file

Hi, I uploaded 2 different files with the same name File:Marquèze - 05.jpg (without any warning from Upload Wizard!). Is it possible to dissociate these two files with specific names?--PA (talk) 06:42, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

@PA: Yes, you can upload the second file with a new name, and revert to the first upload.   — Jeff G. ツ 06:54, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

See also bug T85098 Insufficient protection against overwriting files. Created Dec 21 2014, Aklapper lowered the priority of this task from Normal to Low. Of course without any solution, as most of Phabricator bug reports. --ŠJů (talk) 17:26, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Updated numbers for links between Commons and Wikidata

Here are some updated numbers for links between Commons categories and galleries and Wikidata.

For comparison, previous figures were posted here in February; also available are some historical numbers going back to September 2014, and also the SPARQL queries used to create the table.

	Commons categories (6,036,464)		Commons galleries (114,055)		total linked
Wikidata articles (~ 31,671,059)	1,396,494		101,289		1,426,784
	sitelinks: 539,071	P373: 1,300,596	sitelinks: 97,724	P935: 92,182	sitelinks: 636,795	props: 1,325,041
Wikidata categories (4,043,980)	422,049		921		422,088
	sitelinks: 412,231	P373: 366,353	sitelinks: 4	P935: 919	sitelinks: 412,235	props: 366,370
total linked	1,615,192		101,353		1,848,872 items / 1,716,545 pages
	sitelinks: 951,302	P373: 1,467,588	sitelinks: 97,728	P935: 92,247	sitelinks: 1,049,030	props: 1,691,441 items / 1,559,835 pages

Compared to February the overall number of Commons categories is up by about half a million. There are now just under 25,000 more sitelinks from category-items on Wikidata to categories here; and just over 100,000 more sitelinks from article-like items.

Article pages on most Wikipedias now look to see whether there is a P373 ("Commons category") statement on Wikidata, and if so add a Commonscat link to the "in other projects" section of the page sidebar.

In the other direction the template {{Interwiki from Wikidata}} has recently been rolled out to a large number of categories here. This checks whether there is a sitelink to a category-type item on Wikidata, and if that item in turn has a P301 statement ("main subject of category"), pointing to a corresponding article-type item, then it can present links to (all) the Wikipedia articles as sidebar links here.

There is currently discussion at Template talk:Interwiki from Wikidata as to what should be shown if a target Wikipedia has both an article and a category corresponding to a category here.
(eg: the sidebar link to fr-wiki created by the template for Category:Trafalgar Square will point to the article fr:Trafalgar Square, as there is no corresponding category on fr-wiki. But should the en-wiki sidebar link more preferably point to en:Trafalgar Square or en:Category:Trafalgar Square, given that there is a choice?)
As originally written the template linked to the category if possible; but it has recently been changed to prefer the article. This is probably a question the community needs to discuss more widely and come to a view on.

At any rate, now that the issue of what links are shown can now be dealt with by the template, can I suggest that the following policy on what sitelinks should exist might now be appropriate?

• Commons categories should be site-linked to an appropriate category-type item at Wikidata, if one exists. This in turn can be linked to a corresponding article-item using property P301.
• Commons categories may be site-linked to an article-type item at Wikidata, but only if no appropriate Wikidata category-type item exists.

This issue has been creating the cause of a certain background level of controversy ever since Commons was linked to Wikidata. Would the above appear a suitable resolution to the question? Jheald (talk) 15:39, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

• This proposed rule will probably work well much of the time. Still, the very example given shows why it is going to be a problem: if I'm on Commons Category:Trafalgar Square I'd almost certainly like to go to the corresponding article on Wikipedia, not the corresponding category. If, on the other hand, I were on a meta-category like Category:Buildings in the United States by state it only makes sense to go to a category. The tricky thing is Commons categories that fall somewhere between: for example, if I'm on Commons Category:Alumni of the University of Washington I probably want to go to en:Category:University of Washington alumni, not (if it existed; in this case it doesn't) some corresponding list article.
• Possibly, the place I'd really like to draw the line is probably not supported by data currently in Wikidata. Thoughts? - Jmabel ! talk 16:16, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Just to clarify, there are two separate issues here: first, what should be shown in the sidebar; second, is the rule suggested above okay for how the underlying connections should be wired up. To some extent the existence of the template lets us separate the two questions.

For myself, I think the original design of the template has something to be said for it, because (i) the "main article" is often very prominently indicated on a wikipedia category; and (ii) going to the category shows the other articles that wikipedia associates with the topic, which can be compared to subcategories here. Going to the category does also avoid the 'list article' issue you raised -- but at the expense of an extra click when it's the article that one wants to get to. Jheald (talk) 16:33, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

• «Commons categories may» this and that but «Commons categories should» something or other. Alright, nothing new to see here folks: Wikidata still has no idea what Commons is, only that it is an«other project». I will go on ignoring Wikidata, then, for as long as this sad state of affairs goes on essentially unchanged. Wikidata has nothing I need to curate a repository of free media: its interface is clumsy, its human interaction tools are apalling (Ps and Qs, anyone?), and its lavish funding comes back as an insult every time I try to load my watchlist. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 21:40, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
• I'd change the 2nd statement to: Commons categories should be site-linked to an article-type item at Wikidata, but only if no appropriate Wikidata category-type item exists. I think linking would always be preferred, even if just to get the interlanguage links on Commons. --ghouston (talk) 22:55, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
• The data shown above clearly indicate that Commons galleries don't matter as Commons categories. Categories are up-to-date, and more practical when searching for images. The paradox is that they should be linked both to the Wikidata category item and the article item (because the articles in the other projects use the link to the Commons category). --Ruthven (msg) 13:17, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
• The best would be a link to the article by default + a link to the category when the category exist, exemple: Trafalgar Square ^(category)

Another thing could be to show in the the sidebar link, here on Commons, two different sections, one sections for the articles (when they exist) and one for the categories (when they exist). Exemple:

In Wikipedia

Article

English

Français

....

....

Category

English

....

Christian Ferrer ^(talk) 11:00, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

• As well as the sidebar links in the Wikipedias could include both a link to a category and to a gallery, example for Hydnum repandum:

In other projects

Wikimedia Commons

Category

Gallery

Christian Ferrer ^(talk) 11:11, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

@Jheald: on the issue of setting up the connections: Your suggested policy with the second statement changed to should as it was argued by User:Ghouston would work in my opinion. In combination with a template such as {{Interwiki from Wikidata}} it should be possible to get interwikis of the desired type displayed on the Commons category pages. It is for sure an improvement but nevertheless still not good enough to be accepted as a practicable final solution.

My concern is that this way of setting up the connections between Commons and the wikipedia projects is not clearly presented enough and thus unnecessary confusing for editors. To set up a proper connection two Wikidata properties, a Wikidata sitelink and / or a template on three (!) different pages (Wikidata article item, Wikidata category item and Commons page) located in two different projects have to be used. Such a solution is hard to overlook and exceeds the technical knowledge of many editors. The original interwiki concept to connect wikipedia articles was and still is very simple - the current solution for Commons is not.

Although linking to and from Commons requires more options it should still be possible to develop a clearer solution. I am aware that the data model and the Mediawiki software both have certain limitations, regardless we won't be able to find a good solution without some adaptations and software development.--Zaccarias (talk) 21:24, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

@Zaccarias: Setting up a sitelink is easy, since there's a button in the sidebar for it. A bot on Wikidata will the add the P373 property. One mistake you could make would be to link to an article item when a category item exists, but that's not a big deal and could also be fixed by a bot (I don't know if any bot actually does that). Having to add {{Interwiki from Wikidata}} is tedious, and it would be better if the software created the right sidebar links by default. Another problem is that sometimes you can't make a link from a category because there's no category item in Wikidata and the article is already linked to a gallery: I'd argue in this case that the gallery should be unlinked, since categories on Commons are more important. --ghouston (talk) 01:02, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

I can see two conceptual errors which caused these problems.

• the original idea was that one Wikidata item should represent one real item. To follow this principle, the Wikidata item page should link both, article pages as well as category pages for articles and categories of the item. P373 (main category) and P910 (main article) are only patches which try to compensate for this fault. Regrettably, reciprocial properties don't really work as reciprocial in Wikidata, which made this problem more complicated.
• Commons galleries are NOT equivalents of Wikipedia articles. The only similarity is that both galleries and articles have no prefix. However, while articles and categories should be unique representatives of their items, gallery page needs not to be unique. We can have more galleries of identical item. Gallery page is rather an equivalant of an image, they are something like image-collages.

Commons gallery pages should be linked only through P935 from Wikidata item pages. To link gallery pages through interwiki links is an unsystematic mistake.

Prospectively and systematically, en:Trafalgar Square or en:Category:Trafalgar Square should be linked to unique Wikidata item "Trafalgar Square" which should link both, article pages as well as category pages of that item. However, not every page of sister projects needs to display both sets of interwiki links. As Wikidata developers led Wikidata to a dead blind alley and appear to be not able to extricate Wikidata from there, we cannot wait for Wikidata correction. But the user interface should at least simulate the wanted ideal function.

As I proposed in the related discussion, we can use e.g. two small clickable icons (C for a category, A for an article, with tooltips) past or before the language name to link both interwikis together, to articles and to categories of the item. Now we can use P373 and P910 to gain the links provisionally, prospectively they was merged in unique Wikidata item. Example:

Wikipedia

C A English

– A Français

Commons

C G International

Wikivoyage

A English

(The abbreviation letters C, A, G need tooltips.) --ŠJů (talk) 18:34, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

@Jheald: Thank you for the statistics. I want moreover another statistic:

• number of Commons categories which have no links to Wikipedia articles and categories (and are not linked from Wikidata items)
• number of Commons categories which have (direct or indirect or reverse) links to both, at least one Wikipedia article and at least one Wikipedia category
• number of Commons categories which have (direct or indirect or reverse) links only to Wikipedia articles
• number of Commons categories which have (direct or indirect or reverse) links only to Wikipedia categories --ŠJů (talk) 18:34, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

@ŠJů: Yes, we can derive all those from the numbers above:

(a) = 6,036,464 - 1,615,192 = 4,421,272 (no links 73.2 %)

(b) = 1,396,414 + 422,049 - 1,615,192 = 203,271 (article&category colision 3.4 %)

(c) = 1,396,414 - 203,271 = 1,193,143 (article only 19.8 %)

(d) = 422,049 - 203,271 = 218,778 (category only 3.6 %)

Comparison statistics for historical data could be calculated similarly

It's worth noting that category-items on Wikidata are in general pretty un-worked-on and under-developed -- there are probably a fair number more category-item <-> article-item connections that could be found there, but I don't think people have so far put that much work into it. As a result there are probably quite a lot more Commonscat <-> Wikidata category connections that could be found, for Commonscats that already have connections to article-type Wikidata items, but I'm not sure anyone's ever made it their priority to find them.

There are also, I am sure, a lot more Commonscat <-> Wikidata article-item connections that could be found -- these are something that we really do need, if we're to leverage on the organised information available at Wikidata. Finally, I am sure we may also have a lot of Commons categories for things that don't currently have Wikidata items, but probably should have them created -- eg in Commons categories for places we often have subcategories for particular buildings and structures that we have a lot of images of. If a building or structure is interesting enough to have enough images to make its own Commons category worthwhile, it is also interesting enough to have its own Wikidata item to describe it. For heritage buildings, some of these items have been indeed been created on Wikidata, typically through mass-data imports for Wiki Loves Monuments. But eg if something is identifiable enough to have its own coordinate location template here, then it's also identifiable enough that it ought to have its own item at Wikidata. Similarly for people and things. Jheald (talk) 20:15, 7 October 2017 (UTC) Percentages added by ŠJů --ŠJů (talk) 20:22, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

September 19

Commons:Categories for discussion/2017/03/Category:New York

It seems about time Commons:Categories for discussion/2017/03/Category:New York was closed and actioned.

There seems strong and policy-based consensus to move, but I confess I'm involved, and unsure of what to do next. Andrewa (talk) 08:43, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

I think the process is described in Commons:Categories for discussion#Closing a discussion and Commons:Rename a category#Rename process. In summary:

1. Close the discussion
2. Move the category page
3. Move everything from the old category to the new one

Note it's important to move the category page before anyone gets it into their head to create the new category from scratch. I'm still dealing with the fallout of getting that wrong myself. --bjh21 (talk) 12:44, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Plus do the same for all the subcategories and adjust various templates. It could be quite a big job. --ghouston (talk) 22:09, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

VisualFileChange broken

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T174164
RESOLVED

The more common problem

Less common

Each time I attempt to use VisualFileChange, I get one of two errors. Most commonly, the script hangs on "Determining target", but occasionally it provides an error message. This is a new problem for me, so it may be related to the "accessible" blue buttons WMF just pushed on us. I'm using Firefox 55.0.2 (64-bit) on Linux. Guanaco (talk) 03:04, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

The error message would be helpful --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 03:35, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

It's in the second screenshot: Error: An error occurred setting up the selection dialog. ##### TypeError: vfc.$ctrs.editSummary.byt is not a function

I just now tried blanking my common.js and ended up with this error: Error: While trying to prepare to invoke the list-query, an error occurred. ##### TypeError: o[fn] is undefined

Guanaco (talk) 03:50, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Root cause:

Error: Unknown dependency: jquery.mwExtension
Stack trace:
sortDependencies@https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/load.php?debug=true&lang=en&modules=jquery%2Cmediawiki%7Cmediawiki.legacy.wikibits&only=scripts&skin=vector&version=0ynbgde:11459:12
sortDependencies@https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/load.php?debug=true&lang=en&modules=jquery%2Cmediawiki%7Cmediawiki.legacy.wikibits&only=scripts&skin=vector&version=0ynbgde:11504:7
resolve@https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/load.php?debug=true&lang=en&modules=jquery%2Cmediawiki%7Cmediawiki.legacy.wikibits&only=scripts&skin=vector&version=0ynbgde:11521:6
using@https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/load.php?debug=true&lang=en&modules=jquery%2Cmediawiki%7Cmediawiki.legacy.wikibits&only=scripts&skin=vector&version=0ynbgde:12370:22
@debugger eval code:1:5

--Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 04:44, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

I guess I'll leave the calls to jquery.mwExtension for @Krinkle: --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 04:50, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Is it possible this is related to {{Duplicate}} not working? Nothing in the "Process duplicates" pop-up window seem to be functioning. — Huntster (t @ c) 04:24, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Most likely yes. What script handles that? --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 12:55, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure how it works...nothing in the code stands out at me, but when I hover over "Process duplicates" on the file page, "javascript:AjaxQuickDelete.processDupes();" shows up. I think this refers to MediaWiki:Gadget-AjaxQuickDelete.js, but I'm not sure. Frankly, I wish there was a more streamlined way of handling dupes rather than having to manually add {{Duplicate}} to the file pages. — Huntster (t @ c) 13:20, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Bot for cat' renaming..;

Hi

Does someone have an idea for a bot wich can rename several cats ? 17 of the 18 subcats of Category:Fest Karlsruhe 2017 are written in caps letters and I think it's very aggressive and useless and I don't want to spend time if a bot can rename them for me.

Thanks a lot LW² \m/ ^{(Lie ² me...)} 23:16, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

You can put requests at User_talk:CommonsDelinker/commands. --ghouston (talk) 00:50, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks a lot @Ghouston: . LW² \m/ ^{(Lie ² me...)} 21:51, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 22:46, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Secure connection failed

Uploading to Commons was fine until a little while ago, when I started getting error messages from my browser (Firefox). Firefox troubleshooting info says that the Secure Connection Failed "because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified". Further reading tells me this is because Commons is not a trusted site, or their certificate expired, or Commons is just bad. So, no help from Firefox figuring this out.

I tried looking at Recent Changes to see if others are currently uploading files, but the new filters don't seem to have an option to target uploads (or I can't find it), so no help there either. I can't tell whether files are currently being uploaded.

It's not a file size problem, because the files are under 200kb.

Has anything happened at Commons or MW in the last 20 minutes that might affect uploads? Are others finding everything functions normally when they upload? --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:17, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Update: Problem solved by re-editing the image. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:42, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 22:46, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Help of a German speaker needed

Just out of curiosity, could someone explain to me what ob Rauchenödt means in Category:Filialkirche hl. Michael ob Rauchenödt? Has it something to do with the fact, that the church is located in Oberrauchenödt? --jdx ^Re: 12:31, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

@Jdx: Why not ask author @Herzi Pinki?   — Jeff G. ツ 12:42, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

ob is an old German preposition for über, oberhalb von ([15]), in English above, upper, over, also near to. It is not used anymore, except in proper names like hl. Michael ob Rauchenödt. Oberösterreich (Upper Austria) originally was called Österreich ob der Enns (over / accross the river Enns), another example. So it is likely that the name Ob Rauchenödt was transformed to the village name Oberrauchenödt, but the name of the church was not changed. As you can see on OSM, the church is located away from the village. see also Sankt Stefan ob Leoben, Sankt Stefan ob Stainz, where ob is used to differ between homonyms. best --Herzi Pinki (talk) 13:13, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Great explanation. Perhaps also well-known is Rothenburg ob der Tauber, the Tauber is a small river. Jdx, are you satisfied? — Speravir – 00:28, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Sure! I've already thanked Herzi Pinki using "thank" link (aka Special:Thanks). --jdx ^Re: 02:12, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

October 08

Categories with date?

Good day! I have some basic questions about categories, like this. Are these categories allowed, is there a consens and is allowed to use, create and move the articles there?

• Category:Austria photographs taken on 2017-10-02
• Category:Germany photographs taken on 2017-01-05
• Category:Russia photographs taken on 2017-01-05
• Category:Photographs taken on 2017-01-05
• Category:January 2017 Sweden photographs
• Category:Photographs of Mexico by date
• Category:2017 photographs of Sweden
• Category:January 2017 photographs
• Category:Photographs by date by country
• Category:Photographs by country
• Category:Photographs by date

--GT1976 (talk) 02:44, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

There was a proposal to get rid of some of these categories a while ago, in Commons:Village_pump/Proposals/Archive/2017/02, but it was unsuccessful. If you like such categories, you can use them. --ghouston (talk) 05:59, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

I was blocked, becouse, i used this categories, they said, it was a spam. --GT1976 (talk) 06:08, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

It seems like a silly situation. I think most of the files in categories like Category:Photographs taken on 2017-01-05 are put there by a template, so they can't easily be moved to a by-country subcategory. --ghouston (talk) 06:31, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Handling basic metadata fields like dates really should be fully automated: people editing millions of files by hand into adhoc categories just seems completely pointless. --ghouston (talk) 06:36, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

See the following active discussions for more insight:

• Commons:Categories for discussion/2017/08/Category:June 2014 France photographs
• Commons:Categories for discussion/2017/08/Category:March 2011 France photographs,

--Auntof6 (talk) 06:40, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Should the issue not be treated centrally? I was barred because allegedly there was no consensus, i did not invent these categories, i have only the existing system continued. Hundreds of other users create thousands of categories. How should someone know if there is a consensus or not? --GT1976 (talk) 07:16, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Who can prescribe the use of Cat-a-lot, of a bot or manually?

What is Cat-a-lot used for? Are these uses allowed, or does this need to be done with a bot? Who can prescribe?

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7

--GT1976 (talk) 02:44, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

As long as the edits would be fine if done manually one at a time, I don't think doing them all at once with Cat-a-lot is any different. --ghouston (talk) 06:02, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Useful edits are useful edits, no matter by which means they are done. --MB-one (talk) 13:50, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

I think so too. I was blocked, you can read it here. --GT1976 (talk) 15:36, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

As the discussion makes clear, the issue was not about Cat-a-lot, it was about the substance of the edits. I don't have a strong opinion either way about that substantive matter, but please don't muddy the waters. - Jmabel ! talk 19:48, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Have article additions to the public or the look of individual observation lists priority

Can users prescribe that such changes are not made because they appear on observation lists? I think that changes or edits of articles for all useres over the general public have priority, against personal viewing lists of individual users. In addition, it may also be that users want to see all changes and these changes. How should a user know what changes the users want to see, or not? --GT1976 (talk) 02:44, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about. Can you be more specific? - Jmabel ! talk 15:07, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

I was blocked because my correct changes wanted someone not to have on his watch list, you can read it here. --GT1976 (talk) 15:39, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-41

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• The number of active users listed by {{NUMBEROFACTIVEUSERS}} and on Special:Statistics will now only include Wikidata edits as activity on Wikidata and not on other wikis too. [16]
• Previously you could create wiki links starting with two colons. Now you need to use one colon. [[::File:X.jpg]] now has to be [[:File:X.jpg]]. There is now a new Linter category. You can see a list on Special:Linterrors/multi-colon-escape. The Linter extension helps you find technical errors in articles. You can read more about using Linter. [17]

Problems

• You will not be able to edit or upload files to Commons for around 30 minutes on 11 October. This will start at 06:00 UTC. This is because of work to let Commons show 3D models. [18]

Changes later this week

• The font in the edit window is monospace by default. Today you can change preferences to another font family or use "the browser default" instead of monospace. Switching to the browser default has only changed the font on Macs. The option to use browser default will be removed this week. [19]
• If you want to print a page or make a PDF of a page you can do so in the side menu. The way the pages look when you do this will change. You can read more on mediawiki.org.
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 October. It will be on all wikis from 12 October (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 10 October at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 11 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

14:21, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Gordon Zammit template link

The link in {{GordonZammit}}, in the text "This permission only extends to photos taken by Gordon Zammit at this link" and the target http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?photographersearch=Gordon%20Zammit now redirects to http://www.airliners.net/search

This misleadingly implies permission for far more images than are meant.

How should the template be modified? Perhaps to http://www.airliners.net/search?user=10854&sortBy=dateAccepted&sortOrder=desc&perPage=36&display=detail ? Maybe the OTRS ticket should be checked?

Perhaps this serves as a warning regarding the use of such links/ text in other templates... Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:20, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

October 10

Problems with moving a file

I tried to move the File:Šindelová krytina..jpg to a new name without the double dot in the end. When filling the request for the move, I chose rationale no. 3 "To correct obvious errors...". Then I received a strange message "Be honest: you are not the uploader". That is true, I am not the uploader, but as far as I know moves with that rationale do not have to be done only by uploaders. I checked the rationale and tried again with the same result. Then I changed the rationale for no. 6 "Non-controversial maintenance and bug fixes", but received the same message again.

May I ask for help?

Thank you. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 19:23, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Don't know how that arose, but I've been able to move the file for you. Rodhullandemu (talk) 19:34, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: script fixed -- User: Perhelion 20:43, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

MetaBrainz Foundation (MusicBrainz) and COM:EDUSE

We at the MetaBrainz Foundation would love to be able to tell our users to add their freely licensed images of all kinds of music artists to Commons in order to illustrate MusicBrainz entries, even if they do not have a Wikipedia entry themselves because they do not comply with WP:NMUSIC. Is this something that would fall under COM:EDUSE? That is: is use on linked open knowledge data outside the Wikimedia world itself considered educational enough for Commons? I got a couple of positive answers on IRC, but was also told it would make sense to ask in here --Reosarevok (talk) 19:42, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

• Probably. Our notability threshold for music is definitely lower that Wikipedia's, but it's above zero. Can you give some examples?
• Also, if the photos have been previously published (e.g. on your site) and the free license in question isn't indicated there, we will need them to go through the COM:OTRS process. - Jmabel ! talk 20:45, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

No photos will have been published on our site before, because we don't have our own artist image storage (that's exactly why we are looking into using Commons more than we already do). Of course, that doesn't mean they're not already uploaded elsewhere, like the photographer's own page --Reosarevok (talk) 12:45, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Jmabel most music groups which might not be notable for Wikipedia would be just fine here, as we rarely delete images for not being notable. We do not want Commons to become sharing site for family photos, random blurred objects or nude selfies, as they are (mostly) not useful for educational purposes, but almost anything else goes, if we are confident about the copyright situation. So I think it is a great idea for MetaBrainz Foundation to steer their users to upload images to Commons so they can be used at MusicBrainz entries. However MetaBrainz should stress the importance of only uploading images taken by yourself. Also if images was published somewhere else on the web than we usually ask the photographers to send an email to OTRS (see COM:OTRS). Images should be uploaded at the full camera resolution, otherwise if they are small (and missing most EXIF data) than they are likely to be copied from other websites and are often checked with Google Image search. If the image was previously published elsewhere than it is deleted. Similarly, publicity photographs provided by artists would usually require a permission sent to OTRS from the photographer, or some proof from the artist that the photographer transferred those rights to them. MetaBrainz Foundation should be aware ahead of time that some of fraction of uploaded images will be deleted due to copyright issues and their website should be able to work with that. MetaBrainz might want to enter into some sort of Partnership, which is mostly a form of discussing many details of the working together ahead of time, so When the images begin to flow than both sides are on the same page with expectations. --Jarekt (talk) 12:11, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

It's not uncommon for people to upload selfies and describe themselves as a rapper, DJ, music producer etc. If you Google their name, you may find a Youtube channel with a video or two with 5 views. I don't believe these are in scope for Commons, because they have approximately zero notability as musicians. If they are in scope for MusicBrainz, there could be a problem. Files in use on Wikimedia projects are automatically in scope for Commons, but I don't think that applies to other sites. --ghouston (talk) 21:55, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

A low barrier-to-entry that would nonetheless prevent such selfies would be that the artist concerned have an identifier in a reputable third-party site which is not self-edited; so (for example) probably Songkick, VIAF or ISNI, but not MusicBrainz, nor Soundcloud. If they have the former type, then they should also be on Wikidata. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:54, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Anyone who makes music is in our scope, so yeah, that would include people with two YouTube videos and three views, as long as it is their own music and not just reuploads of other people's. On the other hand, if we require ISNI or VIAF or Songkick, that kind of defeats the point of being able to have freely licensed images for all artists.--Reosarevok (talk) 12:45, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

We need to be careful that OTRS aren't swamped, if MusicBrainz advertises this. A simple checkbox on MB, saying "this image is released under licence X" might help (but then how many artist would try to release an image to which they don't own the rights?). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:54, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

surely you are joking: OTRS will always be swamped, because of control issues. but yes, getting others to clarify licensing would help. [[User:::Slowking4| Slowking4]] § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 17:34, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

We could definitely have some sort of "I release this under this license" button, but I guess it is likely that artists will use it without understanding they need the permission of the photographer or whatnot (even if we write it down, because by default, people don't read). It'd be easier for our long-term editors who we could ask to just upload pictures taken at concerts or whatnot, I guess --Reosarevok (talk) 12:45, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that latter would work very well (concert photos by people who have some longer-term involvement). & you might start some sort of self-organized group so that circle could be expanded, with some understanding of the rules. - Jmabel ! talk 15:53, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Another thing about OTRS is that we do have ~50 day backlog (hard to find volunteers for that task) and many images get deleted before they are processed. It might be less frustrating to your long-term editors if they do not take that path. The files that would guarantee the most smooth upload would be:

• uploaded by the photographers
• uploaded with full resolution and with camera-generated EXIF data
• not uploaded before to other websites

If you have an upload button it should say "I and the photographer who took this photograph and I release this under this license". --Jarekt (talk) 20:21, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

you just added a bunch of preconditions that are not policy. but "guarantee", what makes you think a button with boilerplate will give comfort to the cynics who disbelieve all licenses? no- not going to volunteer for the OTRS snakepit; if you believe in this broken process, then you fix it. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 12:33, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

October 02

Unklare "Rechtslage" - für mich unakzeptable Löschgründe

Deutsch: Wenn man Dateien hochläd, muss man bestimmte Regel einhalten, z.B. das Urheberrecht. Es wird aber zunächst nicht abgefragt, ob es zu diesem Bild bereits ähnliche oder identische Bilder gibt. Sogenannte Dubletten werden aber, wenn diese aus der gleichen Quelle stammen, auf ein Bildmotiv reduziert. Wenn es aber zu einem Gemälde, Druckgrafik, Landkarte, Faksimile, ect. mehrere zeitlich auseinanderliegende Versionen als gedruckte Abbildungen oder Fotos auf Commons gibt, muss dann zwingend bis auf ein Motiv (nach dem Prinzip einer für alle) gelöscht werden? Welches Motiv muss gelöscht werden? Im konkreten Fall geht es um: ŻÓŁKIEWSKI(1835) p008 Hetman Żółkiewski.jpg, aber ich hatte schon vor einem Monat einen gleich gelagerten Fall, wo ein Foto (um 1870) gelöscht wurde, weil es davon ebenso wieder eine farbige Variante gab. Das Bild ist urheberechtlich o.k, soll aber, weil jetzt ein vergleichbares Motiv farbig aufgetaucht ist, gelöscht werden, was ich unzulässig halte. Das zu löschende Bild wurde einst mit einer Drucktechnik hergestellt, die heute technisch überholt ist, auch das kann kein Löschgrund sein. Wozu gibt es in der Datei-Beschreibung des Motives den Unterpunkt "Other Version/Andere Version"?

--Metilsteiner (talk) 17:28, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

• Unless they are exact duplicates or one is a scaled-down version of the other, then typically there is no reason to delete. The only other valid reason I can think of along these lines would be to delete a low-quality version where we have a high-quality one. - Jmabel ! talk 19:42, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
• But it looks like you've already addressed this at Commons:Deletion requests/File:ŻÓŁKIEWSKI(1835) p008 Hetman Żółkiewski.jpg. Not every nomination for deletion will result in deletion, and not every nomination for deletion that won't result in deletion requires a broad community discussion. Is there some issue here that calls for broad discussion here on the Village pump? - Jmabel ! talk 19:46, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

• • it's all good, let all the disillusioned deletionists come to VP to complain. then we know who is always right. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 12:23, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

October 09

Category:Cut-off Channel

I created this category, and then found there was a Category:Cut-Off Channel, but am unsure how to delete my duplicate category. Any suggestions? Bob1960evens (talk) 08:45, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

I usually just add {{Speedydelete|duplicate, see [[:Category:other category]]}} to the category page and some admin will delete it pretty soon. Alternatively you can create a {{Category redirect}} to the correct category. --MB-one (talk) 13:19, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Read-only Commons in preparation for 3D file support - 11 October

The Multimedia team at the foundation is getting closer to enabling support for uploading and displaying 3D models on Commons. We have to do some work on the database to get ready for 3D file support. This means we'll need to put Commons in read-only mode for about 30 minutes on Wednesday October, 11th at 6:00 UTC. [20]

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

• You will not be able to edit or upload media for approximately 30 minutes on Wednesday, 11 October, starting at 6:00 UTC (07:00 BST, 08:00 CEST, 02:00 EDT, 23:00 PDT).
• If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Why?

The team needs to modify the database primary master so it understands this new file type. This will then allow for the future ability to upload and display 3D models on Commons (and embed in other Wikimedia projects). Want a sneak-peek? Take a look at this programmatically created crystal on Test Wikipedia. It is important to note that the ability to upload 3D files will not be available immediately after the maintenance ends (but at a later date), this only involves the contributor-impacting database work.

How can folks monitor?

You can keep track of the changes by joining #wikimedia-tech (connect)

Where do I go with issues?

If you have issues after the database work is completed, please report a ticket on the Wikimedia Bug tracker http://phabricator.wikimedia.org

Please help share this with your community.

Yours, CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 20:52, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Will support for .m4a and .mp4 be added as well? Before I was blocked, I was trying to upload a .mp4/.m4a audio file for a welcome message on Wikipedia to make it more accessible. Plus, people with broken displays will be able to still use Wikipedia. I know screen readers can already read the text, but on Edge, Narrator has trouble reading the text. Ups and Downs (↕) 05:34, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

No - We already have "support" for that, so no downtime would be needed for them to be enabled. However those formats are disabled for political reasons. See Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video for background. Bawolff (talk) 18:41, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Double doors and bridging floor sections

and File:Düsseldorf H-Bahn 2017 3.jpg. We dont seem to have a category for double doors (vehicle and platform). There is Category:Platform screen doors. By the H-Bahn it is even more complicated as there is bridging floor wich drops down to cover the gap between the platform and the vehicle. As the suspended vehicle has some freedom of movement, it pushes against the vehicle to have a tight fit. How are these things called?Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:13, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

I think the usual English phrase for the bridging floor is "gap filler". --bjh21 (talk) 21:57, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Tangentially, American rail operators have not adopted the British "MIND THE GAP" terminology.   — Jeff G. ツ 13:39, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Userboxes about place of origin

Hi there! I was trying to add userboxes in my userpage and it seems the "Users from Israel" is broken, only works the ""user live in Israel" and I dont live there. Its here the rigth place? Sorry and thanks of advance. ゴスロリ (talk) 17:47, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

• The issue is in Template:User Israel. Its wording is not parallel to (for example) Template:User United States or Template:User Egypt. It looks like this has been true since the creation of the template 7 years ago, so I hesitate to edit and fix it, given that it's part of a set of templates I've never worked on. @Geagea: you created this, do you see any reason it shouldn't parallel these other templates? - Jmabel ! talk 19:57, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
  • If this template is to be changed, I suggest a new Template:User in Israel template for the existing use.   — Jeff G. ツ 13:35, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Loading map data on other websites

Is it possible to dynamically load map data from Commons on other websites? I can’t figure out how to get past the CORS restrictions – as far as I understand, this (using jQuery and ES6 syntax) should work, but doesn’t:

$.getJSON(
  'https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php',
  {
    title: 'Data:Copenhagen_Districts.map',
    action: 'raw',
    origin: '*' // anonymous request
  },
  data => console.log( data )
);

Firefox just says “CORS header ‘Access-Control-Allow-Origin’ missing”. --Lucas Werkmeister (talk) 11:26, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Apparently index.php doesn’t support CORS at all, only api.php does… this is ugly, but works:

$.getJSON(
  'https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php',
  {
    format: 'json',
    action: 'query',
    titles: 'Data:Copenhagen_Districts.map',
    prop: 'revisions',
    rvprop: 'content',
    origin: '*'
  }
).then( function( response ) {
  var pageId, content;
  for ( pageId in response.query.pages ) {                                                                                                                                    
    content = response.query.pages[ pageId ].revisions[ 0 ][ '*' ];
    return JSON.parse( content ).data;                                                                                                                                      
  }
} ).done( data => console.log( data ) );

--Lucas Werkmeister (talk) 15:22, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Feature request at phab:T177966. --Lucas Werkmeister (talk) 17:35, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Please correct the copyright statement. The map is not CC-zero, it is CC BY-SA per your source. As such, derived works from it, such as data subsets, should not be exported to Wikidata or any other website without respecting the license. --Fæ (talk) 18:26, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Fæ all Data: namespace is CC-zero, it rolled out only allowing CC-zero contributions. Where are you seeing a CC BY-SA notice? - Offnfopt^(talk) 19:16, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

I attempted to raise this up for a deletion request but I'm getting errors just doing that.

DR nomination: Data media must be verifiably CC0. The data source for this map is under ODbL, see https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright, which requires attribution and so is not reusable in a CC0 derived work.

If I get time, I'll try again later or raise a Phab ticket.

... Phab:T178051 Unwriteable error when creating DR in Commons:Data now raised, as this is likely to be a generic issue. --Fæ (talk) 09:29, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Fæ Where did you see the notice of OSM data use in the first place in regards to Data:Copenhagen_Districts.map? The source never stated OSM. It does have a invalid source listed that needs to be corrected, but it never stated OSM data as a source. - Offnfopt^(talk) 15:44, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

The indication was that the displayed image page states "Map data (c) OpenStreetMap", which if untrue should be removed because any passing user would read that as "map data" in the actual data file, and the CC0 statement must be qualified to explain that the image displayed is not CC0, it's confusing for casual re-users who may snapshot the image thinking that attribution is not needed. As for the rest, that's a discussion for the DR. It's not convincing that someone made up political boundary lines one day, they must have based the data on a official published map or derived data source. --Fæ (talk) 15:53, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

@Fæ: Sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about. What copyright statement do you mean, and what’s “my source” supposed to be? I just picked Data:Copenhagen Districts.map as an example to demonstrate my problem, I didn’t upload it and don’t have anything to do with it. --Lucas Werkmeister (talk) 10:36, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the comments relate to the uploaded file, rather than your use of it. --Fæ (talk) 11:10, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for the clarification :) --Lucas Werkmeister (talk) 12:05, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Anyone interested in the issue of CC0 of Data namespace and the use of OSM data may find Commons:Deletion requests/Data talk:Kuala Lumpur Districts.map worth visiting. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 11:10, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

October 11

Visual Editor everywhere

Hi folks, seems that the simple source editor does not exist anymore. Now i see the VE but with source code inside. What has happend. Several tiny tools do not work anymore now. --Arnd (talk) 12:45, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

@Aschroet: You may have different results on different wikis. Exactly where are you seeing this issue?   — Jeff G. ツ 13:31, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Jeff G., i had VE (resp. all beta features) enabled. Both edit links led to VE. Then i turned off the VE in my preferences. Now i have only one "Edit" link. But still, i end up in VE showing me the source code (like now when typing this comment). I do no experience that on dewiki. --Arnd (talk) 14:00, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

@Aschroet: It sounds like you've got the visual editor's source mode beta feature enabled, yes. Go here, and ensure that both "New wikitext mode" and "Automatically enable all new beta features" are unchecked to disable it. I'm sure the team would love your feedback if you have any thoughts about it. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 15:50, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Jdforrester, you were right. Thank you, --Arnd (talk) 07:00, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

I really hope the VE will not replace the "native" edit-mode!? Otherwise this solution will only be at times!? -- User: Perhelion 09:04, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

October 12

Wrong message

Hello.This message:"Someone (probably you) recently logged in to your account from a new device. If this was you, then you can disregard this message. If it wasn't you, then it's recommended that you change your password, and check your account activity." They sent to me a lot when I use a certain device (Not a new device) to log into Commons.Please correct this.Thank you ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 14:17, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2: Please see Commons:Village pump/Archive/2017/10#Login "from a computer you have not recently used". —LX (talk, contribs) 14:33, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

 Done@LX: I did as Kaldari said.Thanks ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 15:30, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 23:09, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Requesting rotation for a video?

File:Uhr-bahnhof-stadelhofen-zuerich-2016.webm needs a rotation of 90 degrees counter-clockwise to display correctly. Apparently, Rotatebot rotates only images, not videos. Is there an established way to request rotation for a video file? Gestumblindi (talk) 20:53, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Ask in Video and sound workshop. (Der mit Abstand aktivste Nutzer dort – Pristurus – ist zufällig deutschsprachig.)

… or read the second part (after “done” and “thank you”) of Commons:Graphic Lab/Video and sound workshop/Archive/2017#Rotating videos — Speravir – 23:24, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Gestumblindi asked in the labs, so this is resolved here.

This section was archived on a request by: --Speravir 23:11, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Extended read-only of Commons

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T178094

Since 6:30 UK time to now, that's 4 hours, I have (mostly) been unable to upload files to Commons using the API. Is there a known operational outage or a Phab ticket? In the meantime I raised Phab:T178051 based on trying to create a DR, which may have the same root cause or be coincidence.

FYI the API error returned is:
readonly: The wiki is currently in read-only mode. [readonlyreason:The database has been automatically locked while the replica database servers catch up to the master.; help:See https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php for API usage. Subscribe to the mediawiki-api-announce mailing list at <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-api-announce> for notice of API deprecations and breaking changes.]

I have no idea why the error was inconsistent, but most attempted uploads were being rejected. I've stopped attempting uploads for the time being as mostly skipping uploads is actually worse for my projects to repair afterwards than no uploads. --Fæ (talk) 10:08, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

@Fæ: I've seen database locked, read-only, try again later messages while just trying to post to discussion pages or do the occasional CropTool crop upload during that time (about 3% of attempted edits), so it's not just you or just the API.   — Jeff G. ツ 10:25, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

The difference may be that for one of my projects where I've seen 100% errors, the upload image are around 20MB to 200MB. This means the uploads take 10 minutes plus each. That 10min+ window of connecting to the API is presumably long enough to always see a read-only outage. I treat that as effective down-time for Commons, and should be reported by operations. If there's a serious "brown-out" issue on the project for several hours, it would be nice to read an analysis about it, and recommendations on how it can be avoided. I don't really want to build in yet more error traps that see very large files endlessly reattempted on an upload loop when I'm already using chunked uploading.

Just to clarify, this was not happening yesterday or in the past week for files from the same collection. So it's not "normal". --Fæ (talk) 10:32, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

+1, i asked on #wikimedia-operations duing the outage but got no reply. --Steinsplitter (talk) 10:37, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

That bug is unrelated. The error message is caused by the db servers detecting they are overloaded (there is an automatic cut off to go into read only mode during an overload (Im simplifying slave lag too high to mean overload). Currently all the wikidata recentchanges rows are being deleted (to fix watchlists - phab:T177772), naively i might guess that the deletion script was a little too aggressive, but thats just a guess (Edit: this guess was incorrect. See bug). (Re Fae's error trap question - api has a maxlag url parameter for this purpose) Bawolff (talk) 14:27, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Damn, I'm going to have to build a bigger boat. Looking back through my historic OS map uploads, I see that the missing files are probably not missing from the source, but were skipped after failed upload attempts. For example the Cornwall jigsaw has lots of missing pieces. Doubling down on this error for large files is the fact that when I run an existence check there is an unmeasurable potential period of waiting for indexing (minutes, longer?) between having successfully uploaded a file and it being visible through the API by doing an "existence" check; in effect that's why I do not rely on that method. It's a nasty hole to patch.

If you know of something that does these sorts of API based or Pywikibot based checks, I'd appreciate a link. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 16:15, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

For the delay in existence check - I assume we're referring to asyncrounous chunked upload where the chunks are recombined in a background job? Getting the success of that is kind of hard. If you don't specify the async option then the file is recombined immediately (synchrounous mode), and there is no arbitrary delay - although that makes uploads much more likely to fail. In async mode, I think you can use the ?action=upload&filekey=YOUR_STATUSKEY&checkstatus=true in order to check the status of the upload, so you can distinguish between upload is pending but not yet on commons from upload has failed and you should try again.. Bawolff (talk) 17:39, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

@Fæ: 20MB in 10+ minutes translates to average upload throughput of 267 or less kilobits per second (kbps). That's about 9x as fast as my 28.8 kbps modem could have done over dialup 20 years ago, but it's only about 1/18 as fast as the cablemodem here can do today over WiFi (capped at 5 Mbps up because the local cable monopoly can get away with that). Never mind the bigger boat, you could use a bigger pipe.   — Jeff G. ツ 04:54, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Fae: To clarify a misconception, in regards to "That 10min+ window of connecting to the API is presumably long enough to always see a read-only outage" - I believe thats wrong. AFAICT, the lag is only checked once the upload is finished, and processing of the file is handed off to php, so its a relatively short window during which the read only mode is checked. However, the api has stricter lag checks than the main site (Main site will go into read only mode if slave lag exceeds 6 seconds. The API will go into read only mode if slave lag exceeds 3 seconds (unless maxlag parameter is set to something stricter). The idea being, if something is being overloaded, we should try to stop the bots first before stopping real users). In any case, this issue seems to have stopped at about 10:30 UTC. I did file a bug though phab:T178094. Bawolff (talk) 17:39, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

---

So to summarize what appears to have happened. At October 12 07:18 UTC a script was started to delete all the linter warnings about misnested html tags on all wikis (phab:T178040). It appears to have finished with commons at about 10:25 UTC. This script contained code to check to make sure it wasn't overloading servers - every 500 deleted entries it would check slave lag. However that was not often enough, so what would happen is it would briefly overload the db, wait for the db to fix itself, and then overload the db again. This caused the intermittent read-only error ([https://grafana.wikimedia.org/dashboard/db/mysql-replication-lag?panelId=4&fullscreen&orgId=1&from=1507789800000&to=1507806000000&var-dc=eqiad%20prometheus%2Fops pretty graph. Any time the value of all the servers (other than dbstore) is > 6 a read only error happened. Any time more than half the servers are > 3 the api went read only). From what I've been told, this went unnoticed because it didn't trigger any alerts - the alerts only get triggered if the lag stays for a while. Since the lag bounced up and down very quickly, it was never persistent long enough to trigger an alert. My impression from the bug is that ops is looking into adjusting how the alerts work to make sure that such things are alerted for in the future. Bawolff (talk) 01:37, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Genuine thanks for the analysis, it's been an interesting thread on phabricator. It's something I'll fiddle with in a statemachine way in my Pywikibot workarounds to see if I can avoid the hammer of looping batch uploads. --Fæ (talk) 12:30, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Technical error with Wikimedia audio player

I noticed a technical error with the default player embedded within Wikimedia projects, as I was playing the audio File:De-Australien.ogg on the page wikt:Australien. Description of the error is that the file does not play till its end. I tried to listen to it on a different browser and open the page of the file itself, but the issue persists. However, when I used the native player of both browsers, it played till the end. If this is not the right place for this complaint, then feel free to move it anywhere, because I couldn't find it. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 01:43, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Phabricator would be the right place for technical problems. Other files in the same category seem to play correctly to the end. --ghouston (talk) 11:11, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

CatScan not working?

Category:Meta categories has a CatScan link on it that I often use, but today it has been failing. It gives the messages "502 Bad Gateway" and "nginx/1.11.13". Usually when I get that message, it works again after a minute or so, but not today. Can anyone shed light on what the problem is? --Auntof6 (talk) 06:27, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Never mind: it's working again. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:50, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Focus group for Structured Commons - please consider joining!

Hello all! For the upcoming development of Structured Data on Commons, I notice that it would be very helpful for me (and the entire Structured Commons team) to be able to work with a group of dedicated community members whom we can approach for input regularly. Consider it a group of people who are OK to be pinged every now and then with (smaller) requests for feedback (not for larger decision-making, which should take place with the Commons community at large). So I would like to experiment with a focus group (see more info here). We can figure out how we can work best as we go along! I'd very much appreciate it if people who are very interested in Structured Commons would consider signing up. Many thanks! SandraF (WMF) (talk) 11:41, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

This is the future of Commons and other projects, and the future is thrilling. Not only will this offer powerful complements to our existing descriptions and categories, but it will allow for automated processing that I cannot even dream of yet. Thank you very much for your work, I hope that we will be able to contribute to it! Rama (talk) 12:00, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I can't wait to type up all the climate data. Structured data is awesome! I love the concept (so far) Sign me up! --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 23:09, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

October 14

Looking for the name of this man

Who is it ?

Hello, from french Wikipédia, I ask here, spécialy to the danish people. The man on this picture have the Order of the Dannebrog (necklace with "W"). And the french Légion d'honneur. Picture made by Nadar around 1880/1900 I think. - I have looking in the danish Category [21] no sucessfully. I think some people can have an idea or contact a place in danish Wikipedia because I have not found their Bistro (Village Pump). You can see also here, a french research zone on that problem : [22] Thanks at all. - Siren-Com (talk) 13:09, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

w:Ferdinand Julian Egeberg ?? w:Félix de Muelenaere ?? a little late for w:Rolf Andvord ?? Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 15:27, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

here is a query [23] Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 16:11, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Great thanks... I will use this item regulary ! - Siren-Com (talk) 09:01, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

The Village Pump of Danish Wikipedia is situated at da:Wikipedia:Landsbybrønden. I have made a question there for you. --Dannebrog Spy (talk) 15:06, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

What about da:Carl Meldahl wikidata = Q12305316 as sugested by Brams on da:Wikipedia:Landsbybrønden. --Villy Fink Isaksen (talk) 19:29, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

October 13

Category:Modern movement architecture

Isn't it better to call this category "Modernist architecture"? --Stolbovsky (talk) 19:15, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

I think so, see Commons:Categories for discussion/2014/01/Category:Modern movement in the United States. --ghouston (talk) 23:54, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

looking for a two photographers

I am looking for a two photographers who can take quality pictures of paintings in Flensburg and Helsinki. Do you know any photografers in these towns or near them? Can you help?

best wishes Villy Fink Isaksen / User:Villy_Fink_Isaksen

Hi, you might want to take a look at Category:Users in Finland since they may not read this page, and contact directly those who are nearest. Cheers. Rodhullandemu (talk) 13:21, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Have a look here Gruss --Nightflyer (talk) 13:27, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

(Found this thread by accident) You can ask from Finnish users at Commons:Kahvihuone here on Commons, or in Finnish Wikipedia's village pump at w:fi:Wikipedia:Kahvihuone_(sekalaista). Stryn (talk) 16:10, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. --Villy Fink Isaksen (talk) 23:47, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Library of Congress - PD vs "no known copyright restrictions"

Hey all, {{PD-Gottlieb}} correctly notes that "the photographs in this collection entered into the public domain on February 16, 2010"—but the line above it gives the usual LOC "no known copyright restrictions" line, even though those words don't appear in the linked LOC page. Is there a way to modify the template to hide that sentence in this instance? Thanks! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 02:23, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't think the template is misleading as it currently stands. When the LoC says "No known restrictions" they are essentially saying "we think this item is PD, but it may a derivative work of a work still protected by copyright, or protected by other rights (privacy, publicity, etc.)." Depending on how or which database you retrieve these items from at LoC, some of the items in the collection might show just the shorter "No known restrictions" phrasing (for example, https://www.loc.gov/item/2010634561/ ). —RP88 (talk) 03:06, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

"derisive" => "derivative" - Jmabel ! talk 03:21, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it was an autocorrect error that I've now fixed. Thanks for the nudge. —RP88 (talk) 04:08, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

feel free to discuss on template talk. i do not see the conflict. and there is the caveat: "but rights of privacy and publicity may apply" you are not going to get an iron clad "PD hold harmless" from any institution. either / or thinking is naive. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 02:23, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

That's true for all images uploaded here, public domain or not... Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 01:06, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

yes, but could incorporate in the license template since it applies to this collection. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 11:37, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

@The ed17: I modified it in English for you in this edit, perhaps we need a new internationalized template.   — Jeff G. ツ 05:03, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Jeff G. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 01:06, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

File:Het Nationaal Monument in wording.ogv

Anybody here I can address myself to in Dutch if need be? The thing is, trying to fix a typo in that file: "verzetstrijders" --> "verzetsstrijders" the letter "s" appears somewhere else in the text. Also, in trying to make some interwikilinks, the text gets all weird. Is there any explanation for that or is it me being stupid? Thank you for your time. Lotje (talk) 22:51, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

@Lotje: Better? --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 23:16, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

@Hedwig in Washington: , how come you were able to fix it and I could not? Things have changed recently with editing modus on commons and I cannot figure out how to deal with it. BTW, I did not receive your pinged message. Hence I ping you to see if it works. Thank you for your time.Lotje (talk) 10:59, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

October 16

Tech News: 2017-42

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• When you edit a template with the visual editor it follows the template's format configuration on how to save it. You can now change the format in more powerful ways if your wiki wants it. [24][25]
• The TwoColConflict extension is a new way to solve edit conflicts. It makes it easier to copy and paste the relevant text to the text field. It has been a beta feature for the last five months. You can now try out the new interface on a page where you will actually get simulated edit conflicts. You can give feedback to the developers.

Problems

• There is a problem with recent changes pages and your watchlist that show a large number of pages. Until it is fixed, Wikidata edits will not be shown on recent changes or in your watchlist on Commons or Russian Wikipedia. If necessary, Wikidata edits will be removed from all wikis. [26]
• Notifications are not working for some actions. For example some users don't get a notification when they are mentioned. The developers are working on fixing this. [27]
• Users on some wikis could not change their preferences. This has now been fixed. [28]

Changes later this week

• Editors and readers who still use Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP will not be able to use Wikipedia from 17 October. Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP can't connect securely to the wikis. When we allow them to do so it means that we get less security for everyone else. If you use Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP you can install Firefox 52 ESR instead. Around 0.1% of the traffic to the Wikimedia wikis comes from Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP. [29]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 October. It will be on all wikis from 19 October (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 17 October at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 18 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:31, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Looking for small tasks+mentors for new contributors - got something in mind?

Hi everybody! Google Code-in (GCI) will soon take place again - a seven week long contest for 13-17 year old students to contribute to free software projects. Tasks should take an experienced contributed about two-three hours and can be of the categories Code, Documentation/Training, Outreach/Research, Quality Assurance, and User Interface/Design. Do you have an idea for a task and could you imagine mentoring that task? For example, do you have something on mind that needs documentation, research, some gadget or template issues on your "To do" list but you never had the time, and can imagine enjoying mentoring such a task to help a new contributor? If yes, please check out mw:Google Code-in/2017 and become a mentor! Thanks in advance! --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 19:50, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

October 17

Date search

Is it possible to search for pictures of a certain date? Rudolphous (talk) 07:19, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

You can search for something like "18 October 2016", with the quotes. --ghouston (talk) 01:32, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

It will give some false matches though, of text like "automatically reviewed on 18 October 2016 by Panoramio upload bot". --ghouston (talk) 01:35, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Image identification

There is a question on File_talk:Margaret_of_Burgundy.jpg, which I can not answer. Somebody more familiar than me with French history needs to answer it. Ruslik (talk) 20:21, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

October 19

Policies for map geo-data stored in the Data: namespace

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T154071

A recent deletion request pinpoints several open problems in licensing geo-data stored in the Data: namespace. I believe that the following aspects should be clarified:

• Should Data: namespace allow CC-BY-SA licenses? Currently, it only allows the data under CC-0, which parallels Wikidata licensing, because numerical data and simple text statements are trivial by default. Many Wikidata entries are imported from Wikipedia pages, which are licensed under CC-BY-SA. Nevertheless, Wikidata is always CC-0, even if trivial content from Wikipedia is included.
• How to verify the map source? Most of the geo-data are traced from existing maps. Here, one says explicitly none of Renek78's uploads to Wikimedia Commons should be trusted and should be deleted as copyright violations unless fully verified otherwise. What does this "full verification" mean? Should I make screenshots during the tracing? How many of such screenshots are necessary to verify the source?
• What is the originality threshold? If I include parts of a map boundary from an external source, such as OpenStreetMap, what does create a derivative work? Is one single point of a boundary a copyrightable object? If I add a point [X1,Y1] that is similar to the point [X2,Y2] in OpenStreetMap, what difference between these two points renders them distinguishable from license point of view?

A clear answer to these questions crafted into a new policy is vital for using the Data: namespace, for example in Wikivoyage. We are not part of the local community and can not create our own policies here. Therefore, I request a support of an experienced Commons user who can guide this discussion and transform its outcome into an established policy. Thank you! --Alexander (talk) 15:01, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Just to be clear, as the quote is out of context, when I wrote "none of Renek78's uploads to Wikimedia Commons should be trusted", that was because they deliberately lied about importing CC-BY-SA maps by declaring them CC0 and "own work". After a massive waste of volunteer time and energy on Commons and Wikivoyage, they confessed to lying. At the current time Commons is still hosting those files and allowing reuse as CC0. This breaks the terms of Open Street Map which requires attribution and must be fixed with urgency, not left hanging around while extended hypothetical debate attempts to redefine our understanding of what COM:DW means for maps. --Fæ (talk) 22:30, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

I would kindly ask you to avoid discussing that particular deletion request here and focus on the general questions that I raised. The deletion request can be discussed on its relevant page. --Alexander (talk) 23:13, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

That's a ridiculous misrepresentaton of what actually happened. Powers (talk) 14:43, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

•  Comment Correction to the above comments, OSM data is licensed under the Open Database License, "ODbL" not CC-BY-SA. Prior to September 2012 OSM data was licensed under CC-BY-SA, but that is no more and only applies to that old data set which is available from archives, that doesn't apply to current OSM data. If you were to copy OSM map tiles (not data), those are licensed CC-BY-SA. I just want it to be clear that OSM data currently is licensed Open Database License, "ODbL". - Offnfopt^(talk) 00:22, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, though as this includes "Attribution and Share-Alike" the legal constraint is almost identical. --Fæ (talk) 10:22, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

• Offnfopt, thank you. Two questions in this respect: i) do I read it correctly that Commons also allows the ODbL license? ii) if map data are under one license, and map tiles are under a different license, what is the relation? --Alexander (talk) 10:37, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Alexander map data is just the raw information, the tiles are pieces of a map generated by OSM with the map data. Commons allows ODbL, though just not in the data namespace as you've seen. See T154071. We have two templates for ODbl {{ODbL}} and {{ODbL OpenStreetMap}} -- Offnfopt^(talk) 21:46, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

With regards to "Should Data namespace allow CC-BY-SA licenses?", I think it is helpful to separate policy from current technical limitations. I may be wrong, but I don't think, as a matter of principle, that the Commons community is opposed to the Data namespace making use of other licenses that comply with the Commons licensing policy. It is my understanding that the limitation to the use of only the CC0 license was done by the developers because they have not yet implemented support for tracking and propogating the license metadata needed to comply with licenses that have attribution requirements, license link requirements, etc. Furthermore, adding proper support for databases/maps built from data from multiple sources not only requires a method of properly attributing the sources and linking to their licenses but also determining when a database/map is a collection or an adaptation and thus having to confront the issue of license compatibility. Commons has long had to deal with this issue with regards to collages. Adoption of multi-licensing was used to ease some of these license compatibly issues. It is not terribly surprising that the developers chose to start by just supporting the CC0 license, as CC0 databases can be freely intermixed without any concern for attribution or license issues. I'd actually be interested in hearing if anyone is actually opposed to the support of additional licenses in Data namespaces solely on a principle that is unrelated to any current or future technical restrictions. —RP88 (talk) 10:11, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

I definitely support going to the CC-BY license, and, if there is consensus in this discussion, we can just open a phabricator ticket.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:23, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

RP88, thank you for the insight. A priori I am not sure who is supportive of what here. Moreover, technical development is unlikely to happen on its own. The community should demonstrate its interest and demand. --Alexander (talk) 10:37, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Personally I would be happy to see support added to the Data namespace for any Commons-compatable license, so long as the support includes the features necessary to comply with the terms of the license. —RP88 (talk) 11:25, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

With regards to "What is the originality threshold?", I think it might be helpful to distinguish between what Commons is legally obliged to consider (i.e. US law by virtue of WMF hosting) and what we consider by virtue of Commons licensing policy (currently both US and country of origin). Before we can even decide where the threshold lies for a database/map, we need to decide which country's threshold we are going to apply. This seems like a particularly thorny issue for databases/maps that are built from data from multiple sources. Should we evaluate content imported from OpenStreetMap under UK law (which has a very low threshold of originality) due to the OpenStreetMap Foundation being a UK organization, or should we examine the country of origin of the OSM contributor(s) (if that is even determinable) of the data actually imported? Commons occasionally has adopted exceptions to its general policy of requiring content be free in both the US and country of origin (e.g. US only for faithful reproductions of PD works and country of origin only for freedom of panorama). Absent a change in policy, given the very low threshold of originality in the UK, I think we're obliged under current Commons policy to consider an extraction of even just a few points from OSM to be above the threshold of originality. —RP88 (talk) 11:25, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Though it may seem extreme, even two geo-coordinates from OSM means that in practice one is dealing with 4 digits, each with seven decimal accuracy. It is not possible to later claim that there was no creativity in picking these locations to describe an object, even if just a short straight line as part of a boundary, unless these physical locations were impossible to place nearby apart from the exact same seven decimal level of precision. Cartography has always been a key part of copyright law and history, there is no doubt that the courts consider maps creative works, and even tiny extracts may be subject to legal protection.

However I am unaware of anyone ever claiming that a single pair of coordinates describing one physical point is copyright-able. Neither has anyone published a file on Commons that consisted of such a thing, probably as it would be out of scope to publish files of that type.

With regard to changing how licensing of the Data namespace should work, that would be better as a firm Proposal with a vote, rather than an open free-range discussion like this. There are good reasons why pure JSON datasets should be CC0, and these should be brought out in a proposal, for example future-proofing compatibility with Wikidata and the high likelihood that Commons JSON datasets will be harvested by commercial reusers without mechanisms for correct attribution. --Fæ (talk) 12:05, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

That isn't "seven decimal accuracy". That's seven digits of false precision. The least significant digits are random and spurious, they convey neither "skill", "imagination" nor useful data. Adding a few digits of random gibberish doesn't magically make uncopyrightable facts copyrightable. K7L (talk) 12:02, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

The law disagrees with you, based on the history of court judgements, plus the fact is that contributors to OpenStreetMap who use the visual tools to add points and connectors are acting with human skill and judgement, not randomly or as automata. --Fæ (talk) 12:13, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

What cases? I do not believe that a location is copyrightable, no matter what the accuracy. Where something is, is a physical fact. Maps are complex, legally, and most of the case law on maps is before Feist and pre-digital. The more pure a representation of a factual matter is, the harder it is to protect as part of a map. The borders of a state or its counties is going to be uncopyrightable, and I'm not convinced that the attempt to faithfully represent them is going to ever be copyrightable, any more than the photograph of a painting is copyrightable. Leaving complex borders aside, seven decimal accuracy is irrelevant.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:45, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Mason v. Montgomery Data, Inc was actually after Feist and plainly demonstrates that a map of a border is copyrightable, we are just used to versions being free to use as Governments openly publish them. Feist is even used as part of the copyright argument - The level of creativity required to make a work of authorship original "is extremely low; even a slight amount will suffice." (Feist 1991)

Though GPS measurements might be argued to be factual measurements, maps are not pure facts and are rarely based purely on GPS data without human judgement. The law has always treated maps as drawings. OSM is mainly hand drawn nodes, in fact it is virtually impossible to identically replicate a human placed nodes by measurement rather than copying the map, as no device will be able to precisely repeat the geocoordinate to the seven decimal places that OSM uses. As was said in the related DR, nobody has tried to argue that a single geocoordinate is copyrightable, as none of the imports from OSM are just one geocoordinate, they are entire features from OSM. --Fæ (talk) 07:33, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

I have kicked off a proposal for Commons to allow non-CC0 licenses in the Data namespace, which would solve all of the issues that have arisen. I suggest that discussion about whether geocoordinates are copyrightable is tangential to the proposal, that would be a discussion to change the fundamental understanding of how COM:L works for digital creations of any kind.

Refer to Commons:Village pump/Proposals#Proposal to include non-CC0 licenses for the Data namespace. --Fæ (talk) 12:13, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Image viewer fails to load most images on Category:Boise_River

Using Google Chrome, I did the following:

Loaded https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Boise_River

From the image viewer dropdown, selected "All images"

Waited for the images to load. But the vast majority never load.

Does anyone else have this problem?

Looking in the developer console, I see a bunch of HTTP 429 "too many requests" errors. It seems that the image viewer is being more aggressive than your servers allow in attempting to load the images. When the image viewer code gets the 429 errors it seems to give up. A more typical approach might be to use exponential backoff to space requests increasingly far apart until they stop being denied. Also, it would probably make more sense to only do a limited number of image requests at a time, whereas right now it seems to try to load them all at once.

The image viewer tool (not sure if that's what it's really called) is one of my favorite features of Wikimedia Commons. Hoping this issue can be resolved soon!

• I use Google Chrome for Mac. It took two seconds to display all the images in that category. When I clicked on "More" it took longer, about 10 seconds. Wikimandia (talk) 04:15, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

It works fine for me. Ruslik (talk) 19:04, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

This happens when you view an obscure category that has never been looked at before (Or if you add ?gallerymode=packed-hover to the category page url). Basically, there are limits to the number of images you can request in a given period of time if they've never been requested before (either 70 or 700 per 30 second period depending on the size in question). However once a specific person has viewed them, then they are cached (basically forever) and you no longer get the error. Bawolff (talk) 16:19, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

p.s. You should probably file this suggestion in phabricator. It will make it much more likely that someone with the power to do it actually sees it. Bawolff (talk) 16:20, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

The problem is using FastCCI. I don't use it much, but when I do it's often flaky, probably because it uses larger thumbnails and they need to be generated. --ghouston (talk) 23:38, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

October 15

Modern additions on old buildings?

Do we have a category for buildings like the Category:Clarendon Hotel, where a modern tower has been built onto an existing building? Or if not, is there a term that describes such a building? I know I've seen other buildings like that, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. It's currently in Category:New and old buildings, but I've suggested that category should be eliminated as it's poorly defined and unclear. Thanks for your help. - Themightyquill (talk) 07:05, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Category:Facadism, which matches en:Facadism in Wikipedia. --ghouston (talk) 07:41, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Perfect. Thanks! - Themightyquill (talk) 08:50, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: --Themightyquill (talk) 08:50, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Well, this is frustrating

File:Binondo,Manilajf0200 20.JPG is the best photo we have of Chinese New Year in the Philippines but it's just part of a mass upload of someone's personal vacation photos. The pic is noticeably off actual horizontal. I spent the morning finding an online rotation service and getting the photo fixed, then cropped correctly. I uploaded the corrected version, the change is logged, the file size changed, and the pic looks exactly the same. Same wrong borders, same wrong alignment.

I tried purging. No change.

I tried rechecking that the file was actually changed. Wikicommons claims it was and has the new file size listed.

I tried uploading the corrected pic again and the uploader claimed that my version of the photo is the current one. It even displayed the correct version in the thumbnail. Then I click back to the image and, nope, it's still exactly the same as before.

There's no reason to keep the badly-taken form of the photo and have the correct version in a different place. Do I seriously need to move it, delete the redirect, and upload the corrected photo in its place? or does it now take several hours for uploaded photos to display correctly? or what? — Mr Spear (talk) 04:08, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Update: Well, I tried using the photo on the Simple Wikipedia and it looks fine on the page. It just still doesn't display correctly here. Weird, but at least the main problem (what people see on the other sites) is fixed. — Mr Spear (talk) 04:17, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

It looks fine to me. It's presumably a caching issue, either in your browser cache or some other cache between you and the server. --ghouston (talk) 04:22, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Mr Spear I'm also seeing the new version, I'm guessing your browser is caching the old image. It varies depending on the browser you use but try Ctrl+F5 or ⇧ Shift+F5 and see if that changes it (see Bypass your cache for other possible key combinations). I also wanted to note that Commons has a Graphic Lab, you can make these type of rotation requests in the Photography workshop section. - Offnfopt^(talk) 04:51, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Mr Spear, for this cases we have the User:SteinsplitterBot/Rotatebot and a gadget for using it. Clicking on the help" box on the linked page everything is explained. Regards, --Emha (talk) 08:15, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

• @Emha: Isn't Rotatebot limited to multiples of 90 degrees? - Jmabel ! talk 15:02, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

• @Jmabel: Sure, I just read "rotating" in the text of Mr Spear without looking at the file. --Emha (talk) 07:22, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

• @Mr Spear: Instead of dealing with an online rotation service, I think it's a lot easier to put GIMP on your machine, download the full-res image, rotate it and/or make any other changes you want, and re-upload - Jmabel ! talk 15:02, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

cacheing is a perennial issue. some one should change upload new version to include hard purge and hourglass, because it is bad UX design to confuse editors with old versions. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 16:57, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it all looks fine now so sorry for the bother and thank you all for your time and suggestions. Good luck with avoiding similar problems going forward =). — Mr Spear (talk) 23:03, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: --Emha (talk) 07:22, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Input requested on 3D object file upload process

Commons,

As discussed previously, there are a few legal concerns regarding enabling 3D uploads. Particularly around uploading patented objects or objects that are weapons. The legal team at the foundation has given input and the designers have created a prototype of how the upload process could consider this language.

We'd like to get some community feedback on this before going forward. Please take a look at the interactive prototype and let us know of any concerns or unaddressed issues. This prototype shows messaging regarding both 3D patented files and 3D files that are of a weapon.

https://wikimedia.invisionapp.com/share/7VDBAJVSN#/screens/251552642_0

Yours (again), CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 22:17, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Looks okay, let's get on with it. If someone uploads a 3D printable gun, I guarantee a volunteer will happily delete it within literally seconds, rapidly followed by an account block. I'm looking forward to lots of 3D models of notable antiquities. --Fæ (talk) 10:04, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

@CKoerner (WMF): I +1 Fæ. :) --Steinsplitter (talk) 13:32, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

CKoerner, I would submit that, typically, whoever uploads a 3D file and declares that the "use of this file and any 3D objects depicted in the file will not infringe any patents" and grants a "patent license" declaring that "any 3D objects depicted in the file are [their] own work" is, with respect, a complete nut job. One of the many nice aspects of copyrights is that while there are many, many ways to infringe them, it is also really easy to not infringe them. As the painter of an oil painting, I can easily give you the assurance that my painting doesn't infringe anyone's copyright (nowhere in the world), and I can easily assure you that - from a copyright perspective - you are free to use it. On the other hand, if I design a plastic cup, I have absolutely no clue whether it may somehow incorporate an invention that is patented by someone, somewhere. Could it be a disposable beverage cup having a planar base, a substantially frusto-conical sidewall extending and widening from said base, terminating in an opening having a rim, and being centred on a longitudinal axis for said cup, wherein said sidewall has corrugations throughout the entirety of said sidewall, from said base to said opening, and wherein said corrugations are formed from a plurality of projections and depressions and extend circumferentially around the entirety of said sidewall except where corrugations terminate at said base and said opening, and wherein the entire outermost edge of each of the projections of the corrugations lie in a corresponding and different one of a plurality of straight, parallel, and non-intersecting planes that are tilted relative to said longitudinal axis, provided that the tilt is less than 90° (US 9,351,596)? Or is it a reinforced cup protected by US 8,622,208? Or a reinforced plastic foam cup protected by US 7,814,647? How about Japanese patents? Where do I even find Japanese patents? The proposed wording creates a massive liability risk for uploaders. What if I upload my cup design and a Japanese producer decides to put it into mass production? If that cup violates some Japanese patent and the producer gets sued, they'll sure be happy to trot out my "patent license" and try to pass along the bill. And, and that's the difference to the copyright case, I can basically do nothing to eliminate such a risk. Even non-tech companies spend vast amounts of money trying to identify conflicting patents. (I used to intern at a patent law firm: At the earlier stages of development, companies would routinely limit the research to a very small set of key markets to keep the costs in check.) Then how is your run-of-the-mill free knowledge enthusiast supposed to do that? I believe what you propose is unnecessary with respect to the Wikimedia Foundation's own liability risk, and your "Wikilegal" document seems to agree. At the same time, because the idea that an uploader has conducted a patent due diligence for the objects depicted in their 3D files is absurd, their declaration to that effect is practically worthless for any user; however, should anything go wrong, it is an invitation for any patent infringer to raise claims against the clueless uploader. It sure seems desirable to ban uploads of 3D files depicting knowingly patent-infringing (including soon-to-be patent-infringing) material so as to prevent uploaders from essentially setting up "IP infringement honeypots." But having the uploader give the additional assurance that arbitrary users throughout the world will not infringe any patent if they print the object doesn't appear to me to be a particularly fair approach. — Pajz (talk) 16:10, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

+1, and very well put. - Jmabel ! talk 20:01, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I think all these words boil down to adding "knowingly" to the statement and then making that visible for reusers, along with a visible process for take-down if patent trolls claimants want to try it. --Fæ (talk) 20:11, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

"IP infringement honeypots." = i love the appeal to fear, and the patent purity. you realize there is a free-wheeling 3D printing community out there, which you are choosing not to collaborate with, because they will not check off some free software ideological box? Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 12:42, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Of course 3D and 2D are substantially different, which is why for instance we have PD-Art, Commons:BEIC probably can have enough copyright on 2D photos of 3D objects, etc. However I'm quite confident that Commons will be fast and efficient enough at deleting questionable uploads. I think this kind of feature is most likely to be used on some niche Wikipedia articles or some Wikibooks books about chemistry and similar, where this technology can give Wikibooks an advantage on some competing OER websites. Nemo 06:45, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks all for the thoughtful comments. I've passed them along to the product team and legal for consideration. I'm still listening. :) CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 16:25, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, all. I've taken a look at the suggestion from WMF legal, and what we'd like to do is use phrase "knowingly or recklessly" in the license to address the case of somebody accidentally uploading something without realizing that a patent exists out in the world. The reason that "recklessly" helps there is that both "knowingly" and "recklessly" are legal jargon, and "knowingly" doesn't quite cover all the cases we'd want. In particular, an editor who grabbed a bunch of stuff they don't own and uploaded it all might be acting "recklessly" while causing everyone patent removal headaches, but since they haven't actually checked a patent database, that probably wouldn't be "knowing." What we'd like is for people to see the screen and stop and think to themselves for a second as to whether somebody might own an invention being depicted in the file. It's okay if a mistake happens, but making sure that the confirmation includes "knowingly or recklessly" would cover the abuse cases. I want to post that here to get some thoughts on it and see if there are any concerns with that language. -Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 19:48, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Jrogers (WMF), sounds reasonable. I would suggest you remove the term "Patent License" accordingly. (By the way, while my comment focussed on appeared to me to be the most pressing issue, I don't really get the second section of that box anyway. It says "Patent License" in the heading and below it says "Any 3D objects depicted in the file are my own work". How is that a license?) Best, — Pajz (talk) 07:57, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

@CKoerner (WMF): I think the "Patent rights" dialog box is inconsistent with the look and feel of the "Release rights" step, and could be incorporated under "This file is not my own work" on that step. The checkbox could be eliminated by replacing "Next" with "I agree".   — Jeff G. ツ 02:57, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

October 05

"White Americans"

Category:White Americans seems very problematic to me. I had never noticed it until today when someone added it to a couple of photos I'd uploaded.

The main reason it seems problematic is that unlike, say, Serbian ancestry or sub-Saharan African ancestry, "whiteness" is a very contentious concept. The contentiousness can easily be seen by the fact that subcats include Category:Arab Americans‎, Category:Central Asian diaspora in the United States‎, Category:European Americans‎, Category:Genetic studies on European American‎ (shouldn't that just be a subcat of Category:European Americans‎?), Category:Middle Eastern diaspora in the United States‎, Category:North African diaspora in the United States‎. With the possible exception of European Americans‎, considerable numbers of members of these groups would neither consider themselves white nor be considered so by others.

But also: what purpose does this category serve, and are we really ready to face the consequences of using it consistently? Are we really going to put this on every photo or category of a phenotypically "white" American for whom we don't know a more specific ancsetry? - Jmabel ! talk 19:33, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

I would delete that category. Indeed problematic and I don't see it as useful. Gestumblindi (talk) 22:07, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

It's apparently a topic with a long an complicated history in the US. There's a White Americans Wikipedia article, and apparently the United States Census Bureau still uses the term. --ghouston (talk) 02:01, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

The U.S. Census requires overt identification, typically by the individual but at least by a member of the household. Identifying (for example) all Arab Americans as "white" is a very different matter; so is looking at a photo and deciding the person is "white". - Jmabel ! talk 02:36, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

I would delete it, too. In the past, under Jim Crow laws in the South (Southern Continental US), only "White Americans" were allowed to vote or own property, in continuation from the enslavement of African Americans for some 400 years. The term is used to fuel white supremacist bigotry, and it has no place in our categorization system.   — Jeff G. ツ 03:09, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Actually, legally-sanctioned slavery existed in British North America / the United States for about 225 years, not 400... AnonMoos (talk) 16:18, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

If we are going to eliminate the category completely, there is quite a bit of work to do. Also, because removal of a category is hard to reverse, I'd want to make sure there was a pretty solid consensus for that. That would also presumably mean removing Category:White Americans in California‎, Category:White Americans in Maryland‎, Category:White Americans in Washington, D.C.‎, and Category:White Americans in West Virginia‎, right? - Jmabel ! talk 15:30, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

• English Wikipedia has an article about "white Americans"[30], which seems to be just as much an "ethnic group" as Category:African Americans (a group which has very heterogeneous origins as well). Maybe it should be redirected to Category:European Americans, though the two are not entirely synonymous. FunkMonk (talk) 20:21, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
  • @FunkMonk: so are you OK with this being put on arbitrary photos of people based on phenotype, and including (for example) the entire Arab & North African diaspora in the U.S.? Or are you somewhere in between? - Jmabel ! talk 20:47, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

I proposed redirecting the category to another existing one which is not contested, so I'm not sure what you're referring to. But for the sake of the argument, how would that differ from the situation with Category:African Americans? How do you determine an image should belong in that category? FunkMonk (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

In general, I've used Category:African Americans only when either (1) it has already been used by an archive describing that image (E.g. I upload a lot of images from the Seattle Municipal Archives, and they've been known to use it in the description or tags), (2) I know that the individual in question has that self-identification (e.g. in some self-description or official bio/CV), or (3) I have it at the level of citability I'd need for WP (e.g. newspaper articles, etc. referring to them that way). Pretty much the same standard I'd use for any other ethnicity (e.g. Irish American, Serbian American). I agree that "African American" is also a bit problematic, but (I think) less so.

Again, what brought me here was having someone slap the category on a photo presumably based on nothing but appearance + the fact that the photo was in the U.S.

And, for the record, I'd have no problem with redirecting to Category:European Americans, which would also then presumably mean simply removing it from (for example) Category:Arab Americans. - Jmabel ! talk 23:19, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

The above content has been copied to the CfD at Commons:Categories_for_discussion/2017/10/Category:White_Americans, let's continue there rather that here. - Jmabel ! talk 23:28, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Proposal: completely eliminate "White Americans" categories

Proposal: completely eliminate Category:White Americans, Category:White Americans in California‎, Category:White Americans in Maryland‎, Category:White Americans in Washington, D.C.‎, and Category:White Americans in West Virginia‎. Rationale is explained above. In some cases, one or more of the parent categories may need to be used as a substitute. - Jmabel ! talk 15:30, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

•  Support, as discussed above. - Jmabel ! talk 15:30, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
•  Support, undefinable. BTW I'm European, but I'm not "white", that's a Trump-style assumption to make. --Fæ (talk) 15:41, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
•  Support as per above. Gestumblindi (talk) 20:00, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
•  Support per above.   — Jeff G. ツ 20:56, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
• 'Comment wrong place for this. If no one objects, I will create a Cfd for this and move these votes there.--KTo288 (talk) 22:31, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

The above content has been copied to the CfD at Commons:Categories_for_discussion/2017/10/Category:White_Americans, let's continue there rather that here. - Jmabel ! talk 23:28, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Cfd

A cfd has been started at Commons:Categories for discussion/2017/10/Category:White Americans

peopleByName

Has anyone else noticed that the template {{PeopleByName}} displays the Wikidata link twice? Look at Category:Pancho_Barnes. Is there anyway that it can be displayed just once? The first time displayed is in the upper box when you rollover of the wikidata image with the cursor. The second time is in the box below it. Can we just combine them, or eliminate the second lower box all together. If it isn't obvious that the link is to wikidata is the wikidata emblem, then lets spell it out like in the bottom box but combined into the first box.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk • contribs) 23:20, 19 October 2017‎ (UTC)

I do not see an issue here. The second box is added by {{On Wikidata}}, and this could be removed from the template, but I find this explicite mention better then the hidden one in the first box, added by {{Authority control}}. — Speravir – 22:56, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Why not make the one in the first box visible, instead of the jarring effect of two boxes of different design fused together.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk • contribs) 01:09, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

• Signing your posts on talk pages is required and it is a Commons guideline to sign your posts on deletion requests, undeletion requests, and noticeboards. To do so, simply add four tildes (~~~~) at the end of your comments. Your user name or IP address (if you are not logged in) and a timestamp will then automatically be added when you save your comment. Signing your comments helps people to find out who said something and provides them with a link to your user/talk page (for further discussion). Thank you.   — Jeff G. ツ 01:58, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

October 20

Chimney extentions

Do we have a category for chimney extentions or pipes?Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:11, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Think these days they would be termed as w:Flue extensions. No cat that I can find but if you can find three examples or more, then a new cat is probably in order. I don't like creating cats just for the sake of it but toss the idea around to see if it catches on. After all, we may pass many every day without releasing what they are. P.S. I thought that all the chimneys in Holland had storks nesting upon them or is this a another delusion shattered? P.g.champion (talk) 15:06, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

@P.g.champion: description says these chimneys are located in Paris ;) --HyperGaruda (talk) 18:38, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Just curiousity

I'm locating many pictures (many hundreds to few thousands) and I wonder how many of all Commons files are located (either camera location or item location). Any idea of where to find statistics on that? Thanks. B25es (talk) 07:40, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

• Category:Media with locations (for files); Category:Galleries with coordinates (for galleries), Category:Categories with coordinates (for categories). Rodhullandemu (talk) 14:22, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

October 22

Turning off categories

How does one turn off categories on a page, such as Help:Flickr review templates? It is displaying all of the templates for Flickr reviews, but it should not be placed into those templates respective categories. --Elisfkc (talk) 14:12, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Hello @Elisfkc and Jarekt: , every of this templates should have a category parameter. You can see the usage for example here: COM:T -- User: Perhelion 14:16, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

@Perhelion: I am not sure what you mean. I am trying to eliminate the page, Help:Flickr review templates, from being categorized, while the templates continue to categorize elsewhere. --Elisfkc (talk) 14:22, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

I do not think there is a category parameter with those templates, but I will fix it. --Jarekt (talk) 14:25, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

@Jarekt: Every single one of those categories images normally (the page is in 15 categories at the moment, when it shouldn't be in any of them). --Elisfkc (talk) 14:29, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

I will restrict those categories to files only. --Jarekt (talk) 14:30, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, use Template:iffile, e.q. for Template:Flickr-unfree-but. -- User: Perhelion 14:46, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Fixed Wow those were some old templates that needed fixing. I guess nobody looked at them before, by creating page like Help:Flickr review templates. --Jarekt (talk) 15:00, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

-- User: Perhelion 16:41, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 16:04, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Error on preview in Commons

@Perhelion and Zhuyifei1999, or whoever is able to investigate this.

Since yesterday no preview is working for me in Commons. It surely worked on thursday and (in Europe) early friday, i’m not sure, whether it still worked friday evening (remember: Europe), but surely not in the night. Since it is only in Commons and noone other than Nightflyer complained about this (cf. Special:Diff/264740431/264744665, this was noon/early afternoon) and I did not change anything on my side I assume there is a change of a local Commons script that I load or a MediaWiki change interferes with at least one script. Note, on clicking preview I get this error in the browser console:

TypeError: content.getElementsByTagName is not a function[Weitere Informationen]  load.php:279:253
	addLabels https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/load.php:279:253
	mergeConfig/< https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/load.php:278:176
	fire https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/load.php:46:599
	fireWith https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/load.php:47:824
	fire https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/load.php:176:681
	doLivePreview/< https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/load.php:321:540
	fire https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/load.php:46:599
	fireWith https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/load.php:47:824
	Deferred/</deferred[tuple[0]] https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/load.php:51:312
	ajax/xhr< https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/load.php:236:401
	fire https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/load.php:46:599
	fireWith https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/load.php:47:824
	done https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/load.php:126:165
	send/callback/< https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/load.php:129:568

— Speravir – 18:57, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Fixed@Speravir: , sorry, this was the markAdmin script. -- User: Perhelion 19:57, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

So, so , Du Schlawiner . Aber danke, Perhelion. (Nightflyer, Bug ist gefixt.) — Speravir – 20:09, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Danke! Gruss --Nightflyer (talk) 20:16, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: -- User: Perhelion 19:57, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Object location data being hijacked away to Wikidata

I noticed these two edits today in my watchlist, and that means that there’s hundreds of these going on. I don’t like this one bit and will revert on sight. Geolocation is important curatorial data that should not be stored elsewhere and whose curation should not be outsorced. (I have no qualms of pairing our geolocation with Wikidata’s; differing values have been found in the past and their reconciliation has been both useful for both projects and instructive to all.) Any opinions?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Tuvalkin (talk • contribs) 12:55 5 oct 2017‎ (UTC)

Coordinates are fetched from Wikidata item now. Why do you consider this to be a problem? After all this allows to reduce duplication of coordinates in different images of same object and possibility to correct them in one place. Of course, vandalism is not excluded, but vandalism is not something new in WMF projects. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:02, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

These changes need to be reverted. @Jarekt: please stop your bot changes immediately and re-introduce the coordinates, or I shall be forced to request a block on the account. You do not have a community consensus to remove the text-searchable geo-coordinates from Wikimedia Commons. Wikidata is a support tool for this project, it does not mean that all our searchable metadata is fair game for being erased.

... Jesus, I've now checked the history. All the geo-coordinates have already been speedily erased by Jarektbot using AWB. Can someone reassure me that there was a Wikimedia Commons community consensus to do this in advance? --Fæ (talk) 15:01, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

This should not be happening if we are losing useful information such as Scale:, Region: and I think it should stop until this at least is resolved. Rodhullandemu (talk) 15:06, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, we don't get a say. Based on the evidence, Jarekt has made the decision on behalf of the rest of us, though maybe there was a discussion on Wikidata somewhere and we didn't get invited. So now, if we are "power users" we have to be active on Wikidata and use all the special cryptic SPARQL "Q-based" tools there, rather than doing our thing on Commons. I'm waiting for someone to provide a link to prove that my assumptions are bad faith rubbish... --Fæ (talk) 15:12, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Coordinates of places are stored on Wikidata and are being used by us and other Wikipedia projects. It is nice if locations we have correspond to locations used on Wikipedias. If they are than our local copy is redundant and rather unnecessary and it would be preferable if future changes are made to the master copy instead of the local one. The removal of redundant copy does not change the look of the pages or the machine-readable data. I am more interested in cases where our coordinates do not match coordinates used by others, as with pages in Category:Pages with local coordinates and mismatching wikidata coordinates. In such cases we should correct either our data or data on Wikidata. --Jarekt (talk) 15:24, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Jarekt, revert the blanking of geocoordinates immediately. You introduced location "Q" numbers (which by the way, are meaningless to us Commons power users) and then as a second set of mass changes decided to remove the geo-coordinates from Commons altogether. If you want to remove Commons geodata, making all our pages entirely dependent on Wikidata and Wikidata based tools to run the most basic geo-based searches and analysis, you must get a Wikimedia Commons consensus first. The changes are controversial, as evidenced by the fact that I am here making a huge fuss about it. If you want to make a case and explain to me and others why the metadata on Commons is "redundant", you can do that in a proposal on this project.

If you refuse to do this I shall ask for a block against your bot account and mass revert your changes myself. I'd much rather not waste more of my time and see you comply with standard norms of collegiate behaviour on Commons. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 15:29, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

"Redundant AND unnecessary"? Where has this been discussed on Commons ("nice" doesn't override consensus in my view), and are parameters such as Scale: supported on Wikidata? "Rodhullandemu (talk) 15:30, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

@Jarekt: This was deletion without consensus or adequate contemporaneous explanation on a massive scale. Kindly revert those changes immediately.   — Jeff G. ツ 15:59, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) The rendered page is exactly the same, only loads a bit faster because the template does not have to reconcile multiple versions of the coordinates. Two locations to store the same data, serves no purpose, and is just confusing. Others are removing those coordinates, like in Category:Abbaye de la Victoire for example, so I though I would help with non-controversial locations which are the same here and on Wikidata. That way it is easier to concentrate on the real issue of the locations that do not match and should be reconciled. --Jarekt (talk) 16:02, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

@Jarekt: Last chance. Please revert your changes and make a proposal to the Commons community. Any reply from here on without taking these steps I'll have to read as a refusal to work collegiately and I will be requesting at AN that your bot is blocked, the flag removed by a 'crat due to misuse, and I'll create a script to revert the changes (probably tomorrow as I have better things to do today). --Fæ (talk) 16:09, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

 Comment While I agree consensus is important, I don't see a problem with the changes made. Having the same information in multiple locations is not what we should strive for. It makes maintenance a pain since the same information has to be updated in more than one location and in the cases were a editor isn't familiar that the information is in more than one location you then end up with mismatching data which requires more maintenance of the data to figure out which is more correct. Commons will eventually be all structured data and all the information we can move to wikidata we should to help with the transition. - Offnfopt^(talk) 15:57, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

It is precisely because of comments like "Commons will eventually be all structured data" that we must require proposals for any mass changes like this. It is not acceptable to be unable to examine Commons wikitext using tools or bots for simple metadata like coordinates that were populated here, and instead be forced to use several steps and additional tools just to examine the same data. Few users are that worked up about geocoordinates, but when we find dates , authors, licenses etc. all crazily encrypted to Q-numbers and only visible in html browser returns and invisible to basic searches on Commons, Commons will rapidly unravel as a working community. --Fæ (talk) 16:02, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

@Offnfopt: We need API access to geocoordinates and any other data that moves to Wikidata, in a manner similar to or better than API access to Commons was before Wikidata came along, with consensus, notice, and testing, otherwise stuff starts breaking. @Fæ: What has already broken (or is about to break) from your POV?   — Jeff G. ツ 16:09, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I cannot really forecast what these changes are breaking, there are many housekeeping talks and older scripts that will be unusable if geocoordinates are suddenly not allowed on Commons or may be subject to automated removal without warning. Most of my past geocoordinate stuff I've half forgotten about, but it would be possible to brush them up without too much effort before these changes, but enough work that I'd never bother if it means I have to plug in Wikidata API calls everywhere. Right now, if I want to discover which place categories have geocoordinates within a given area I now have to both use Commons wikitext searches and write a freaky script to query Wikidata in a way I have never done before (I have no idea how to find the "nearest" Q-coded place number matching an overly high resolution digital geocoordinate that we would find, say, on the Library of Congress records for an image without writing an awful lot of clever code). There's no solution being suggested to these issues you'll note, and Jarekt has not attempted to explain how we can do mass changes, say in VFC or Pywikibot, without each of us spending several days getting up to speed on Wikidata. It feels like we are being forced to work for Wikidata as unpaid test subjects, or resign from the project. --Fæ (talk) 16:26, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

There's potentially a lot of scope for leveraging information in Wikidata to do work on Commons, so let's see if we can come up with some good example queries and code snippets to try to make the path a little less steep. (Perhaps worth a dedicated project page somewhere here). I think the prospect may be there for building some quite interesting power tools that draw on both sources, as well as everyday useful queries, and also (potentially) categorisation assists.

To kick off, here's a query that looks for items with Commons categories that Wikidata currently knows about, located within 1 km of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris: tinyurl.com/y9ozt2aj. As well as being able to run it directly, it's also pretty straightforward to run and consume the results of such queries from code. The query can of course be modified in all sorts of ways, eg to search down the administrative hierarchy if preferred, or to put in specific coordinates to use for the centre, rather than particular co-ordinates.

No, this isn't going to solve the issues with Fae's legacy code, or automatically bring hir enlightenment. But a library of examples and fragments could help us to do some quite useful things, I think. Jheald (talk) 18:18, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Also, the same list, now sorted by distance: tinyurl.com/y77hhn9v Jheald (talk) 18:24, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

The easiest way to make mass changes in Wikidata is the Quick Statements tool: see d:Help:QuickStatements for an (evolving) page about it. Essentially this tool lets you specify up to about 6000 changes in a TSV format file, drop it on the tool webpage, and the tool goes away and does them.

This makes it easy enough for anyone to make such changes, without even having to be a "power user".

Pywikibot, I believe, has full integration with Wikidata and lots of calls are available (though, thanks to QuickStatements, I don't think I've ever had to use it).

Appropriate plugins for VFC would be an exciting thing -- eg perhaps guided/suggested addition of sitelinks / P373 "commons category" statements. More of these links probably are the single class of things currently most needed to improve inter-working drawing on both Commons and Wikidata. Jheald (talk) 18:38, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

@Jheald: I refuse to engage on hypothetical solutions to a problem that does not need to be created. This situation is like pushing someone over in the street in order to get them to buy insurance. This is not going to change, and you know full well that you need long term Commons contributors like me to both understand and support these sweeping changes to the fabric of Wikimedia Commons if you actually want them to roll out.

The first thing that needs to happen here is that Jarekt's mass changes, made with zero community consensus, must be reverted. Only then can we talk about whether this is a good thing or what the ramifications might be. The changes are disruptive and if Jarekt were not an admin here, his accounts would be blocked by now for the disruption caused.

Every hour that passes with this arrogant disregard by Wikidata advocates ignoring the most basic principles of working collegiately with Commons regular contributors is burning up any social capital that used to exist. Once it's gone it will take a hell of a lot more work to get users like me on board with your Wikidata-is-everything proposals, in fact today I have absolutely no interest in digging out my past Wikidata experiments with Pywikibot or investing my unpaid volunteer time researching new methods, whereas yesterday you may have managed to talk me into testing something with little resistance. --Fæ (talk) 19:11, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I was merely trying to highlight some of the opportunities that inter-working with information on Wikidata and information on Commons has the potential to provide.

With regard to the co-ordinate data, I think there are a few things to say: (i) it's very valuable to make sure that the data on Wikidata and the data on Commons agree, otherwise something is likely to be very questionable about one or the other; (ii) in the longer term, it may make sense to systematically de-materialise the co-ordinate data from Commons, draw it almost entirely from Wikidata; (iii) but (at the very least) this only is worth considering if/when what is at Wikidata can match what is at Commons wholescale, to remove any necessity to duplicated searches in both places. As a prerequisite, before we can even approach that, it would be a very useful goal to get to a state where any category with co-ordinate data here has a corresponding substantive item on Wikidata. But we're currently a long way from that. So, for the very strong reasons of (a) not breaking existing tools, and (b) not forcing searches to be duplicated, I think that it makes perfect sense for User:Jarekt's edits to be rolled back.

And perhaps, if/when this is done, I can naively hope that tomorrow (or, after not too many tomorrows, at any rate) you might again feel like having a play at seeing what wonderful new things you might dream up and be able to create. Jheald (talk) 19:38, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Good job Jarek. Keep up the good work. Multichill (talk) 20:24, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata queries are more powerful, than manual parsing of wikitext (which may be ok for such simple task, but leads to many problems when data is even slighlty more complex). Learning of something new is not so scary, the only real problem here is tracking of changes (as far as I know, that feature poorly worked now). — Vort (talk) 05:15, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

By the word, Russian Wikipedia and Wikisource gradually remove data from templates with duplicates Wikidata in cases like personalities, settlements (including coordinates), etc. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:06, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

@Jarekt: Why does the Q-code need to be specified in the template? Can it not pick it up from a site link? --ghouston (talk) 22:57, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Sorry for dropping the subjet here then apparently disappear (even forgot to sign!). All points I could have made are being made by Fæ, anyway. This discussion has revealed how much Wikidata is seen by its peddlers and their backers as a tool to break Commons. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 08:42, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

It'll be good idea if you'll try to comprehend purpose of both projects. By the word, Creator templates rely in big part on Wikidata. How this damaged Commons? --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:50, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Rollback proposal

I propose that the edits by JarektBot (talk · contribs) which removed geolocation data from Wikimedia Commons categories are reverted, keeping in place the Wikidata location or Q-number and the geolocation data in the template, and consequently readable in the wikitext. This is in compliance with the community norms per Commons:Don't be bold. Rollbacks will look like:

From: {{Object location|Wikidata=Q3591667}}
To:   {{Object location|44.4528|3.6167|Wikidata=Q3591667}}

Keeping both the Wikidata number and the geolocation data on Commons will ensure backwards and forwards compatibility. If the data needs later fixing (which seems highly unlikely), then a Wikidata poweruser can easily sync the data, if the Wikidata version is considered to be the most reliable version. At the current time, the Wikidata version is no more reliable than the Commons versions they were created from and there is no community consensus that future category data cannot be added or maintained on Commons rather than requiring all Commons contributors to do this on Wikidata.

As Jarekt (talk · contribs) is an administrator, a proposal and community consensus is necessary to avoid any action against non-administrators that may rollback their edits, should Jarekt continue to refuse to do this themselves or recognize that a Wikimedia Commons community consensus is required for the mass removal of geodata. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 14:01, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

•  Support as proposer. --Fæ (talk) 14:01, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
•  Strong oppose if coordinates are same. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:03, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

  The coordinates are not "the same", as once removed from Commons there will be no way for Commons users to track changes to geodata unless they start adding all related Wikidata records to their global watchlists (which don't exist). --Fæ (talk) 14:05, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

  There are option to show Wikidata changes for stuff in watchlist. Seems to be enabled by default. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:07, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

  Yes, I see I switched it off as it filled my watchlist full of irrelevant crud, like every time a language got added, which affects me in no way at all. I'm very disappointed to see that a Commons Bureaucrat is arguing against establishing a consensus on Commons for sweeping changes on Commons. --Fæ (talk) 14:29, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

  Isn't suggesting to developers to add filter by Wikidata properties for watchlist is better solution then creating conflicts in Commons? By the word, if Commons is single repository for media, why you deny same role for Wikidata for data? --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:37, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

  @Watchlist: I've marked Wikidata edits with gray (in my CSS on WP) .mw-changeslist-src-mw-wikibase { background: #DDD } -- User: Perhelion 14:45, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

  For the record, better filter options are coming -- they're currently being tested on el-wiki -- to only show changes in labels/descriptions/statements that are actually used in the tree of templates on the page, rather than any/all changes in Wikidata items they access. This requires bigger database tables behind the scenes, to link pages to relevant statements rather than relevant items; and there are probably still aspects of watchlist flooding it won't solve; but apparently, initial results on el-wiki already look like a substantial improvement. Jheald (

talk) 17:03, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

• Another quite useful hack is to use the Listeria tool to produce regular wikified snapshots of the results of particular Wikidata queries, used to extract particular subsets of interest. One can then look at the page history to see diffs for eg all changes made in the past month. Jheald (talk) 17:06, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

•  Oppose per my comment above. - Offnfopt^(talk) 14:23, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
•  Oppose that's the sense of Wikidata -- User: Perhelion 14:37, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, it seems that’s true. Which is one more reason to oppose. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 11:06, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

•  Support Perfectly glad to see us draw from Wikidata, but it's looking like we won't be able to watchlist changes there (too much burden on the servers); I want to see it be possible for a bot to tell if values there drift away from those we have, or this is going to be a big gift to vandals. - Jmabel ! talk 15:25, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

  Drifted coordinates can be highlighted by template code. Also files with different coordinates can be added to category. Of course, it is better to make WD changes watching user-friendly, but that looks like a miracle after so many years. — Vort (talk) 15:45, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Template code already tracks different levels of matches between Wikidata and Commons coordinates, see Category:Pages with coordinates from Wikidata. Pages with large mismatch (> 1km) (or wrong precision set on Wikidata) and up here and pages with moderate mismatch (>20m and <1 km) end up here. Changes to Wikidata do show up on watch pages of people watching siteling pages, or if you add them to you watchlist there. One can also probably write queries for items with locations away from parent administrative territorial entity (P131) and maybe combining it with resent edits. That might be better way to track vandalism. --Jarekt (talk) 16:40, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

•  Oppose the final page is exactly the same. The only change it that it does not show up in Category:Pages with local coordinates and matching wikidata coordinates tracking category and it loads a bit faster since the code does not need to compare locations from 2 sources. Only pages with coordinates matching up to 20 meters or in cases of areas (like countries, or large cities) closer than the coordinate "precision" value stored on Wikidata. --Jarekt (talk) 16:40, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

  @Jarekt: One objection above is that if the local page no longer has a local copy of the values in wikitext, then it can no longer be scraped by existing tools that rely on scraping that wikitext to get the coordinates. That seems quite a significant and important objection to me. Jheald (talk) 16:57, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Each page with {{Location}} template has a standard link like https://tools.wmflabs.org/geohack/geohack.php?pagename=File:Hunebed_015.jpg&params=052.951900_N_0006.785500_E_globe:Earth_type:camera_region:NL-DR&language=en , so the standard way to scrape the coordinates is to use Special:LinkSearch and extract coordinates from the URL. Than the coordinates end up in some database used by all the tools. The link remains unchanged, so the scraping should not be affected. --Jarekt (talk) 17:37, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

• could we not have 2 locations. the archived custom commons location, and the wikidata location? this would allow visual inspection for those wikidata-phobic. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 17:13, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
•  Oppose In view of what Jarekt writes above, that it is easy to scrape the pages. Jheald (talk) 17:52, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

  You must be joking. Rather than keeping wikitext compatible with past scripts and including the wikidata links you want, you think it is a good idea to force everyone else to rewrite programs and Bots to do webscraping of our own project? That is painfully bad design. You guys have been flogging wikidata for years, but you still only offer hacked make do solutions to breakages you are forcing on others. This discussion is getting much darker than I would ever have expected. --Fæ (talk) 18:15, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

  @Fæ: I'm open to your expert assessment; and I can see that it might be a good idea to take a time-out to assess what tools might be affected, and whether a simple drop-in fix can be created for them. But if Jarekt is correct, that the links from {{Location}} have always been available in one of the existing SQL tables, and will continue to be so, that sounds a much better way to get the data (particularly at scale, or joined with category information) than scraping pages -- with no need to run multiple approaches on different sites and then combine them. Plus, per the examples I gave above, there will now also be the SPARQL service, which makes the co-ordinate data much more available at scale than it was before, and allows it to be combined with other properties of the item in ways that are more flexible, more precise, and more consistent than category information offers. Jheald (talk) 19:32, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

I am not aware of any tools that do their own scraping of coordinates from wikitext, or keep their own databases of coordinates. As the coordinates can be input in variety of formats (and on multiple planets), it is much easier to scrape from machine-readable output of the template. I also do no believe any tools are doing scraping themselves, as it is easier to rely on existing databases. For items with Wikidata link it is even easier as you can just write a simple SPARQL query and get locations that way. If someone maintains a tool or script that is affected by this change, I would be interested to learn about it. --Jarekt (talk) 20:20, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Had you bothered to get a consensus for your mass changes, you would not be guessing. Revert your deletions and discuss rather than shifting blame. --Fæ (talk) 20:41, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

@Fæ: It's useful to start from where we are now, rather than making Jarekt make reverts and then re-restores before we discuss, which may be turn out to be unnecessary.

For the benefit of the rest of us to know which way to jump on this, it would useful to have some examples of tools that are scraping this data, and why Jarekt's point about the existing variety of input forms is not a strong one. Jheald (talk) 20:57, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

BRD. It's very simple and works everywhere else. If Administrators lobbying for wikidata are not able to respect basic norms, there is no chance of working collegiately. You are polarising us into friends and enemies. Revert or there can be no future discussion as there is no possibility of trust. --Fæ (talk) 21:43, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

@Fæ: The last thing I want to do is to polarise people, or make strong demands on anybody. I just want a calm discussion and to better understand the issues. It seems to me that Jarekt has made a strong point, but you've done so much work in this area, and you don't agree. So I want to understand in more detail why not -- specific case examples would really help, and be very powerful. Jheald (talk) 00:44, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

•  Support per se.--Ineedpicslol (talk) 19:14, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
  •  Possible troll alert -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 08:51, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
•  Oppose wasting time here. Multichill (talk) 20:19, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

  Consultation, diplomacy, and consensus-building is seldom a waste of time. Jheald (talk) 20:39, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

  But feeding the drama lama's is a waste of time. Multichill (talk) 21:02, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

  Speaking of drama lamas, you resigned from Commons in 2015, on this Village Pump. Nice to see you still taking part, though I suggest you ponder the old maxim about glass houses before getting so dismissive of others who are still committed to this project. --Fæ (talk) 21:54, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

  gosh, i wonder why editors would lose commitment to this project? i wonder where our wikidata overlords learned their abrupt, high handed methods? i wonder why creator template happened without fuss? is it because no one cares about creator metadata, but all the amateur coders hate it, when a better solution comes along that is not backward compatible? as we know the location of a photograph is worth edit warring over. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 21:50, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

  Try to keep track of the facts before going off on a sarcastic tangent. There is no edit war here, as there has only ever been one party making edits. There is no single "wikidata overlord" that would claim to have learned how to edit Commons from me. As for creator metadata, this project makes a presumption of CC-BY-SA where not specified otherwise, so any metadata where human creativity such as estimated dates or human judgement about geo-location, especially when applied to a large set of items, should not be automatically exported to Wikidata where it gets re-released as CC0, without discussion. By default community consensus is required before significant mass actions such as this can be legitimately rolled out, as there are clearly several complex issues to talk through, some of which fundamentally redefine how Commons will work in the future and may retrospectively apply to several million past uploads. --Fæ (talk) 12:52, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

  @Fæ: Thank you for highlighting this difference in licensing. I have never licensed my contributions of geocoding info to Commons as CC0, and anyone who misrepresents that I did deserves to be punished.   — Jeff G. ツ 13:58, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

  i guess we know how the licensing migration people felt Commons:License_Migration_Task_Force#How_do_we_handle_people_who_want_to_opt_out.3F - it's as if they did it again, but without the feedback. thank you for not edit warring. i think we all underestimate our contribution to the toxic culture, and this action is yet another symptom. your "data" is on a US server, do you want to apply European data copyright rules to it? would you seek that punishment in a US court? or do you propose a ban ex post facto? Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 15:14, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

 Support per proposer.   — Jeff G. ツ 21:25, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

•  Support for coordinates where additional data (zoom level, region, etc) has been lost; otherwise  Oppose. Once these additional parameter values can be held in or derived from Wikidata, remove them here. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:28, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Zoom, Region, etc. was not removed as they are not redundant. --Jarekt (talk) 03:18, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

 Support per proposer. Keith D (talk) 21:47, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

•  Support per proposer. Blue Elf (talk) 22:12, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
•  Oppose Thibaut120094 (talk) 06:57, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
•  Support: This kind of vandalism would be unacceptable even if Wikidata were stable, reliable, and properly supported by a user community. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 08:42, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

  @Tuvalkin: Why do you think this is "vandalism" ? Something doesn't become so, just because you use the word. What that is useful is it, that you think Commons is losing in Jarekt's edits ? Jheald (talk) 10:46, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

  Yes, I do think that Commons is losing in Jarekt’s edits. It’s a large scale removal of very useful information contributed by the Commons community, to be stored off-site in a concurrent project whose history of dealing with Wikimedia Commons have been one of needless antagonism. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 11:02, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

  Wikidata and Commons are not concurrent projects. Wikidata is doing same for data as Commons for freely licensed media. Data is not removed, it's strored in different place and shared with all WMF projects. Please also read mw:Reading/Multimedia/Structured Data about direction to where Commons is moving. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:55, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

•  Oppose the use of rollback. The edits made by Jarekt's bot are on a very large scale and so now that they have happened (although clearly without strong consensus), a calm and measured approach would be to begin a discussion and allow it to terminate. Then act again. Reverting is a reckless action for this number of edits. It is not difficult to restore the values if that is what is decided upon. As for the issue of maintaining the data stored in wikitext, I can't see any reason listed by users disagreeing above that explains it is worthwhile to keep doing that. Which currently active tools actually scrape category page wikitext for geocoords? There appears to be only benefits from sharing the coordinate data with other wikis. seb26 (talk) 15:11, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
•  Oppose WTF? two wrongs do not make a right. you have to model collaboration, not revert lack of collaboration. otherwise you would have to restore hundreds of thousands of deleted files. we need a wikidata noticeboard / teahouse to ease the transition to structured data on wikidata. and some category; custom template tools are going to break. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 21:56, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
•  Support The bot discarded simply geographical location data if they did not match. Consider, for example, this wikidata entry vs. this removal. The least Jarektbot could do is to keep the differing geographical location at Commons in such cases but this did not happen. The watchlist extension as described above does not help in such cases as the entries differed before. As long as the first random location that has been copied to wikidata trumpets over all others without attempting to resolve this, we will have to deal with a potential loss of quality. (It is not a big difference in the example I cited but the original Commons position pointed nicely into the centre of the object.) In general, there is a lot to be said in regard to transfers of data to Wikidata with manifold pros and contras. This needs a more in-depth community discussion which should not be skipped as it happened here. Even if we move this kind of data to wikidata, we need to decide before how exactly we want to do it to avoid any loss of data which has been curated here over years. This is much unlike the Creator templates. This is not about a year of birth etc which are either correct or not but about somewhat fuzzy data which can be improved as the technical means to determine a precise geographic position have been improved over time. Conflicts arise naturally here and should not be resolved by selecting a random variant. --AFBorchert (talk) 16:52, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
  • This seems to me to be the heart of the matter. Also possibly at issue, it is possible to have more than one geographic location legitimately associated with the same object, and disagreement is not always an indication that either location is wrong. For example, an archeological specimen might appropriately be associated both with where it was originally found and where it currently resides (e.g. in a museum), as well as, imaginably, where it was manufactured. - Jmabel ! talk 19:34, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
•  Info The last days I have done some merges on Wikidata mainly for object created twice (once from wikipedia and another time from the sv and ceb bot created articles in geographical context). For the sv and ceb bot generated coordinates the process goes like this:
  1. coordinates are taken from geonames which in the meantime is user generated and maintained content. The quality of these data could be better. In many cases the precision is only minutes, not seconds. Some values are wrong. As geonames is user generated content, general rule applies: it is not reliable enough for Wikipedia
  2. Wikidata imports coordinates from the swedish WP (i.e. geonames) to Wikidata, stating the Swedish WP as the source
  3. Somebody (e.g. commons) uses this coordinates from Wikidata
  4. Even worse, somebody from outside the wikiverse uses these coordinates from Wikidata (at least that is the next big thing we hope to intrude)
  5. If now, in case of differing coordinates on commons, these will be removed in favor to the coordinates found on Wikidata, we get a self-consistent set of identical but probable wrong coordinates.

I'm in favor of keeping single data in single places and not having them redundantly duplicated all over the wikiverse creating conflicts over and over again. But the precondition is that values are quality assured and correct to level still to specify (or are there some Q metrics for every property stating what the guaranteed maximum of wrong data in Wikidata is and are they enforced? - weird idea). If only identical multiple coordinates are removed, should be ok for me. But it is a no-go to remove contradicting values by stripping all but one arbitrary value. best --Herzi Pinki (talk) 13:32, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Whatever you think about these discussions, they must be had before changes, so that no individual is given the power to force their opinion that metadata that happens to have been (haphazardly) uploaded to Wikidata must be permanently removed from Wikimedia Commons. It is supreme arrogance for Jarekt to force their ideas on this project and then refuse to revert the changes. In exactly the same way, it is tiresomely political to do mass changes without consensus, and then to argue that "we are where we are" as if the changes cannot be easily reverted. BRD (and simple civility) seems to apply, and be enforced, everywhere but to Wikidata evangelists.

I used to be a general supporter of better use of Wikidata, such as Wiki Loves Paintings, but seeing the defensive circling of wagons and reverse logic plus outright refusal to comply with basic norms of working collegiately, my reserve of good will has been burnt to zero. It'll take a hell of a lot of convincingly good work, demonstrating that Wikimedia Commons is not going to be damaged or made irrelevant, for me to want to lift a finger to support any future Wikidata project. --Fæ (talk) 13:40, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Fæ, you have repeated several times now that Jarekt and others supporting the transfer of some data to Wikidata are not "working collegiately". However, you don't appear to have responded to the queries above when it was asked which wikitext scraping tools would be affected if any, nor made any suggestions about how the data currently stored in wikitext could potentially assist other Wikimedia projects, which it can't currently do if stored exclusively on Commons. Furthermore, I don't think it is positive or collegiate at all to continuously characterise other community members using terms like "evangelists" and "lobbyists" when we are supposed to be considered one team with the same interest in mind. It was not a good idea to move ahead with this bot task without discussing it but there is also no need for some kind of mass emergency reversion before more discussion is had. It is difficult to continue in this current discussion when all participants are not permitted the same level of respect. seb26 (talk) 15:01, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Complying with BRD is basic. Actively refusing to do is disrespectful. Twisting Jarekt's actions into being my personal problem to solve makes no sense. --Fæ (talk) 15:13, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

As always in arguments, Fæ's concern for accurately reporting other's statements/beliefs/positions/actions takes second place to making some outrageous point. Fae's statement implies the same individual did "mass changes without consensus" and then argued "we are where we are". As far as I know Jarekt and I are not the same people. It is not "tiresomely political" to argue "we are where we are" -- that is a fundamental of dispassionate consideration of any problem. Fae is solely concerned with how we got here -- not seeking consensus for what he considers a controversial change -- and it does not help his argument at all to listen to the many people who claim that such moves are not only beneficial but the future of Commons. We will eventually not be responsible for recording locations, dates of birth, professions, the listed status of buildings, etc, etc. That belongs to another project. This whole proposal is designed to allow Fae to punish Jarekt and justify the above angry bullying. What everyone is saying, but Fae doesn't want to hear, is that these things need calm rational discussion, with an open mind, and, frankly, the total rejection of views like Tuvalkin's, who seems unable to accept any change to their little world. -- Colin (talk) 20:30, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

If coordinates are wrong in Wikidata/Commons/Wikipedia, isn't Wikidata is best place to fix a problem and remove wrong copies from other projects? --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:46, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

my point (if you refer to my statement above) is that data are wrong in geonames. So to fix this you have to go to geonames and fix coordinates there, reimport it from there and quality assure them on wikidata. (loop here). As I said above, single place is better than multiple places with non-consistent data, but wrong data imported from some external platform is worse. Folding to one wrong value, is creating an alternative fact. So sad! (as a rule of thumb, geocoordinates (at least in developed countries and at least for small objects) should not be disputed in most cases, but could be considered to be correct or incorrect / utterly inaccurate or unknown (= no coordinates in wikidata). There is a mismatch between the force of a bot not caring for special cases and the toil of the community fixing such things one by one. --Herzi Pinki (talk) 16:18, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

•  strong oppose Communication before making a big change does seem like a good thing to do. So I think Jarekt should have considered that making such a change might have caused concern among those less enlightened than himself. However we are where we are. This is now effectively a proposal to copy data out of wikidata and pointlessly duplicate it on Commons simply.... well it seems simply to rub Jarekt's face in it and that really just amounts to bullying. I know people hate change, and those who are familiar and comfortable with the old ways hate it the most. But Commons is a media repository, not a general data repository. The location of the subjects of our images, for example, is not Commons' concern. We need reasonable rational discussion about the migration of data to where it belongs, not the sort of pitchforks and fire and bullying we see above from several individuals. -- Colin (talk) 16:28, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Colin you are right I should have remembered last time I was helping someone with cleaning up unused attributes parameters from {{Location}} templates, and many of my changes met with a lot of opposition. The fact that the parameters were not used and were causing issues for people parsing them was not important. It seems like {{Location}} templates are much more controversial than other templates. For example, in 2012 I added 60k {{Authority control}} templates to commons categories and last year replaced most of them with a single Wikidata identifier. In the process we have found a LOT of pages with conflicting identifiers and in the most cases Wikidata were the correct ones. I was announcing my plans for changes ahead of time but rarely heard anything back. But {{Location}} templates are different I guess. I just hope that this new interest in location templates translates into more clean up of maintenance categories like Category:Pages with local coordinates and mismatching wikidata coordinates. --Jarekt (talk) 01:58, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

•  Oppose except for hurt feelings (that I can relate to, there should have been a discussion before ; but was is done is done, get over it) I don't see any problem with what I thik is an improvement. Cdlt, VIGNERON (talk) 08:27, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
•  Oppose Reverting steps towards using Wikidata as central hub for certain information like coordinates of objects makes no sense. As a user that is doing a lot of cleanup tasks i see the lack of people willing to work on metadata of categories and files, repairing templates, cleaning maintenance categories etc. on Commons. Only WD will allow us to be able to manage these challenges by uniting the different communities. So instead of reverting discussions about good steps already taken we should talk about what next should be done to move redundant information to WD. --Arnd (talk) 13:37, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
•  Oppose Per VIGNERON: I understand that Jarekt thought these edits were uncontroversial, and it turns out more discussion would have been necessary for this to go more smoothly. I’m sure Jarekt will keep that in mind next time around. That said, I also see this as an improvement, and don’t see the need for reverting. Jean-Fred (talk) 08:17, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
•  Oppose Per Slowking4's pointing out that two wrongs don't make a right. This discussion started 10 days ago now. There are apparently no examples of any problems this has actually caused, so I don't see the need for a massive rollback. I agree with Fae that this SHOULD have been discussed in advance, but unfortunately it wasn't, however, I also believe Jarekt did not think it would be controversial. There should be a larger discussion somewhere about this topic when it comes to erasing data from any Wiki sites to centralize it on Wikidata. Wikimandia (talk) 04:41, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
•  Oppose. While it would have been courteous to give a heads-up in advance, I strongly support the move of such data to a centralised database for all Wikis, just as Commons is Wikimedia's centralised image repository. As long as the Wikidatafied coordinates on Commons agree with those already present in Wikidata, I see no reason to mass revert. Fæ has yet to come up with actual examples of broken scripts, although I think such scripts are mostly based on the output text rather than the wiki source code. The output text at least has a consistent notation, regardless of the source code that can be written in either decimal or dms notation. --HyperGaruda (talk) 18:18, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
•  Oppose 1. I support the need for a prior discussion In Commons (not in Wikidata) for such mass edits. I don't like the comment made by Multichill; such attitude must be stopped. I hope that user remember how I protested when they edit warred on file pages of Archaeodontosaurus. That matter resolved when the user changed the attitude and moved for a healthy discussion. Anyway we've a discussion for this matter now. 2. {{Object location|44.4528|3.6167|Wikidata=Q3591667}} is not a solution as both the coordinates here and in Wikidata can be different when somebody altered the coordinates here (later) which leads to inconsistencies. There is little chances that somebody remove the wikidata property when altering the coordinates here. So this redundant data will end up as misinformation too. Jee 13:21, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

October 06

List of links

Recently there was a change that replaces in some the full list of links (headed «In Wikipedia») with just a few of them ending with a button that reads "nn more". I need to know how this can be disabled in my preferences. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 20:29, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

See Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering. Ruslik (talk) 20:50, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, so much! (Hiding away language diversity as a nuisance, while on the other hand pumping up typeface size, now that’s ne more nail on the coffin of Wikimedia projects as we loved them, by the way.) -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 05:23, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Why was this change considered desirable? It's not like there is any lack of screen real estate at the bottom of the left column. - Jmabel ! talk 15:52, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

@Jmabel: I guess some people didn't want to see links to languages they can't read. Analogs of this page are on 222 Wikipedias.   — Jeff G. ツ 16:07, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

October 21

Werkwoorden

Hi, any Dutch speaking admin hanging around? My question: this kind of errors I would like to remove... Would there by oppose? Thank you for your time.:) Lotje (talk) 01:08, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

@Lotje: while it should be spelled "treedt", the passage seems to be a quotation and we normally do not edit quotations even if they are wrong. If possible, check the reference accompanying the quotation to see if it was really written incorrectly or if it was just an error on the uploader's side. --HyperGaruda (talk) 06:16, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

According to the article's online scan, the spelling mistake was already in the original. In other words, leave the quotation as it is, or place [''sic''] (displayed as [sic]) after the error if it is really necessary. --HyperGaruda (talk) 06:47, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you HyperGaruda, especially for for retracing the scanned link on docplayer.nl, showing the spelling mistake was already in the original. :) Lotje (talk) 11:35, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

October 23

Higher resolution upload

Hello. I have started to upload higher resolution copies of files, which are hosted at Flickr. In accordance to creativecommons.org website, hi-res versions have the same licenses as lo-res ones [31] [32] (previous discussion). But Denniss states that it is wrong. What community can say on this topic? — Vort (talk) 12:55, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

@Vort: Creative Commons follows copyright law (at least in the US per Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.) on this, and we should too. The work is copyrighted, not the digital representation of it. Under cc-by-sa-2.0, as currently used by File:IvanStewartProtruck.jpg and the Flickr source, this is not an issue. Note that FlickreviewR 2 and FlickreviewR did similar uploads of higher-resolution images from Flickr for years without such concerns. It seems that Denniss's request goes beyond copyright law, may be disregarded, and should be retracted.   — Jeff G. ツ 13:21, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

@Vort: I also do not understand Denniss'es concerns and agree with User:Jeff G. statement above. I also do not understand how did we got low-resolution image in the first place as most tools would upload full resolution image. --Jarekt (talk) 15:32, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

@Jeff G. and Jarekt: The copyright applies to the work, but are you saying it is not possible to grant a license on a low-res version of a work without granting a license on the highest resolution that exists? - Jmabel ! talk 15:35, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

My understanding is that you can not have different licenses for different resolution works when using CC-BY or CC-BY-SA licenses (I am not sure about other licenses), because what is licenses is the work not it's representation. Also In case of Flickr images, and Commons images you have a single page with a license for for it and many links to download it using different resolution. You are not able to set it up to have different license for different resolution. Finally if we were allowed to have different license for different resolutions lets say I freely license image at one resolution and release it under a license incompatible with Commons for a different resolution, than it is unclear what would be the copyright status of images derivative of freely licensed image which were resized to the size of the other one. if someone made low-res to have more restrictive license we might not be able to tell the difference between two copies with two different licenses. --Jarekt (talk) 15:47, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

At some point Commons:Bundesarchiv after Bundesarchiv uploaded low-res versions of 80k files there was discussion about copyright status of higher resolution of the same photographs. As I recall some early Bundesarchiv templates indicated that CC license only extend to low-res images, but it seems like that language is no longer in Bundesarchiv templates. --Jarekt (talk) 15:58, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

This has been discussed previously, several times I think. See what Commons:Licensing currently says about it: "Sometimes, authors wish to release a lower quality or lower resolution version of an image or video under a free license, while applying stricter terms to higher quality versions. It is unclear whether such a distinction is legally enforceable, but Commons's policy is to respect the copyright holder's intentions by hosting only the lower quality version." --ghouston (talk) 23:07, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

That last makes sense to me.

@Jarekt: So would you also say that the license I issued for File:Georgetown Rainier malt house interior 01 - blurred.jpg inherently covers the original photo without the Gaussian blur? Or do you feel there is a difference between reduced resolution for the whole work & a Gaussian blur over part of it? Or what? (Mostly just wondering.) Because at some point it seems to me this would have to reach a point of absurdity. If I produced a 4x4 color field, based on the color distribution in a photo I took, surely I could license the 4x4 color field without that providing a license on a legible version of the photo. - Jmabel ! talk 02:27, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

It's sad that Commons allows people to use it as advertisement platform. But since this point is specified in rules, I will check licenses. Maybe I will make a report about bot failures (including dissimilar licenses) later. — Vort (talk) 05:40, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Jeff/Vort, I think Denniss is being reasonably cautious. Remember that uploading anything to Commons is done at your own risk, and if a creator has tagged an image as "(c) All rights reserved" on Flickr, with no-longer any CC licence and you upload it here, then I think you are being legally foolish. This is just a hobby, nobody pays you, nobody employs you, and nobody has your back if you get into trouble. The only sensible thing is to upload images that are clearly free, and since we are a repository of free images, the only sensible and responsible thing to do wrt anyone re-using the works we host, is to only offer works that are clearly free. I think in this case, that is not clearly so, as the creator has clearly signalled their intentions to not offer the high-resolution work for free. Note: you may think the files are identical other than in resolution, but may have in fact undergone further post-processing that may or may not be sufficient to make it a new work-of-copyright.

Wrt licensing, of course it is possible to licence only a digital copy of a work -- publishers do that every time you buy music or a film -- it doesn't give you any rights to the master copy and if you buy a DVD you have no rights to get the Blu-Ray for free. Creative Commons consider the "scope" of their licence to be the "work of copyright" rather than a particularly copy/instance. Most of the world doesn't appreciate that distinction, and this was historically made worse by WMF/CC misleading creators in older literature on the topic. It is also a problem that Flickr does not warn users the consequences of choosing CC nor the consequences of changing the licence tag.

Jmabel, I think the answer to your question is whether your edits have produced a new/separate derivative "work of copyright". This seems to vary by country and ultimately up to a judge to decide. As noted, the MediaWiki software is capable of producing images of varied size, varied crop and even a little sharpening, all automatically and all not generating new works of copyright. The answer to a lot of copyright questions seems to be "nobody knows" because the question is specific to each case, not many such cases have reached the courts, and even if they did, a court ruling in the US may not help someone in the UK come to a decision. -- Colin (talk) 08:33, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

I have found an interesting service: imagestamper.com, which can help to solve similar problem in the future. Also, upload bot can make a copy of page from image hosting, which contains copyright information, with one of internet archives. — Vort (talk) 10:17, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

"creator has clearly signalled their intentions to not offer the high-resolution work for free" — it is possible that hi-res version was available also at the time when it was uploaded to Commons. — Vort (talk) 11:21, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

"you may think the files are identical other than in resolution, but may have in fact undergone further post-processing that may or may not be sufficient to make it a new work-of-copyright" — if my algorithm not seeing any difference, then human eye all the more. — Vort (talk) 11:23, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

"if a creator has tagged an image as "(c) All rights reserved" on Flickr": Commons should have a strong protection against such actions. Allowing to fool yourself is a bad thing. — Vort (talk) 11:30, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Flickr images uploaded by bots and other tools always had the highest available resolution uploaded. Our review process verified the license at time of upload, eiher automatic by bot or a little later by human reviewer. --Denniss (talk) 12:19, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

"had the highest available resolution": It looks unbelievable that ~5% of Flickr users reuploaded hi-res versions. — Vort (talk) 12:22, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Here is the proof: File:Upper Provo River Utah.jpg have this link at Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/11513086@N00/395263622 . 395263622 is photo id, which can be pasted to API request: ht​tps://api.flickr.com/services/rest/?method=flickr.photos.getInfo&api_key=my_key&photo_id=395263622, which will give result:

Request result

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<rsp stat="ok">
  <photo id="395263622" secret="39fd4ca55b" server="176" farm="1" dateuploaded="1171887754" isfavorite="0" license="4" safety_level="0" rotation="0" originalsecret="39fd4ca55b" originalformat="jpg" views="79" media="photo">
    <owner nsid="11513086@N00" username="outkast9821" realname="" location="" iconserver="249" iconfarm="1" path_alias="" />
    <title>Upper Provo River</title>
    <description />
    <visibility ispublic="1" isfriend="0" isfamily="0" />
    <dates posted="1171887754" taken="2007-02-19 04:22:34" takengranularity="0" takenunknown="0" lastupdate="1176350976" />
    <editability cancomment="0" canaddmeta="0" />
    <publiceditability cancomment="1" canaddmeta="0" />
    <usage candownload="1" canblog="0" canprint="0" canshare="1" />
    <comments>0</comments>
    <notes />
    <people haspeople="0" />
    <tags />
    <urls>
      <url type="photopage">https://www.flickr.com/photos/11513086@N00/395263622/</url>
    </urls>
  </photo>
</rsp>

1171887754 is 2007-02-19, 1176350976 is 2007-04-12. File is uploaded to Commons 2009-01-24, it was not touched since 2007 at Flickr. But uploaded resolution was 1024 × 768 instead of original 1600 × 1200. — Vort (talk) 12:37, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Vort, I don't know what you mean by "Commons should have a strong protection against such actions. Allowing to fool yourself is a bad thing." Protection for what purpose? Protection so we can steal photos that the creator explicitly chooses not to be free? Protection so we can take advantage of some random amateur photographer who doesn't understand a complex licence issue that only a lawyer could grasp and that even WMF/CC didn't understand? What sort of Commons is that? You are getting photos for free, for no effort. If you can't respect the image creator, then bluntly I don't think we need folk like you on Commons, and your actions are not per policy. Perhaps I misunderstand your position, but you don't seem to be listening. Wrt the other matters.. It could be older Flickr upload software did not always capture the highest resolution version, though I can't figure out why it wouldn't. Note that "ImageStamper" has been in "early beta" since it was created in 2008. I wouldn't advise trusting it. -- Colin (talk) 13:16, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

"Protection for what purpose?" — so the user can trust "CC-BY" mark and know that irrevocability is not an empty word. "so we can take advantage of some random amateur" — otherwise "amateur" will have an ability to hunt down regular users (example). That is more dangerous than loss of some rights because of inattention. "If you can't respect the image creator" — changing of irrevocable license is more disrespecting than reluctance to fix someone's mistakes. — Vort (talk) 13:57, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Sorry bis this comment indicates lack or disrespect auf authors and their authority to issue or deny free licenses for certain works + the Precautionary principle we are oblieged to at Commons. I suggest @Krd: immediately blocks your Bot until the issue is solved. --Denniss (talk) 14:21, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

I'd suggest Vort stops the bot job until issues have been discussed. Sometimes it appears that objections arise after the bot request was closed, and it's always a good idea to start slowly when there is no need to hurry. As alternative one could suggest to modify the code to at first process files only that are available in the higher resolution under the same license. --Krd 14:54, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Krd: Since morning the bot is reuploading only CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, CC0 and PD images. — Vort (talk) 15:18, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Vort, the perpetual offer by the creator was for the image they uploaded to Flicker when they applied the tag. I agree that is perpetual and why we have flickr review to record in case they change their mind. People are always entitled to withdraw the offer of licensing an image, so changing the tag on Flickr is not a wrong thing to do. If the user later uploads a larger image version but associates no free licence, then no you have no Community consensus to upload that, nor do you have any legal advice from WMF/CC saying you can do that either. They did not offer legal advice last time and nor would they in future. It is a legally grey area, and it is ethically unjustifiable. This has been discussed at length, several times, and policy is clear. -- Colin (talk) 15:05, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

 Comment A higher resolution file is in my opinion not the same image as a lower resolution file due to losses during the compression. If a photographer has made a lower resolution file available for CC-BY but not the higher resolution image, then that should be honoured. For me it is similar to a photographer publishing two versions of the same image but edited (photoshopped etc.) in a different way. - Takeaway (talk) 14:51, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

 Comment Let me propose to separate the discussion on two different scenarios: in both cases we uploaded in the past low-res image from flickr using CC-BY or CC-BY-SA license and at the present moment find that there is a larger image available. If the license DID NOT change than new upload of high-res image should not be controversial. If the license DID change (which should be rare) than lets look at those cases individually. Maybe Vort's bot should check if the current license on Flickr match License on Commons and skip the file if it is not, while saving it's name so we can look at it latter. I think the above discussion focused on some hypothetical rare case, and it is hard to judge it without seeing some examples. --Jarekt (talk) 12:28, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Jarekt: Here is the list of hires files, skipped by the bot for now: User:Vort/FlickrReuploadReport. — Vort (talk) 16:23, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Vort, I looked at them and it seems to me that the photographer changed the license on flickr. I believe you have right to reupload file again to get it at the full size; however since the photographer changed their mind about the license, I would not be doing any more downloads of it. We value flickr community of photographers and the last thing we want to do is to antagonize them. Hopefully that is a small percentage of the files that can be improved. I would add {{Flickr-change-of-license}} to those files and leave them alone. I can add that template if you want once you are all done. By the way, I think this task is very valuable and I am glad someone is doing it. Thanks. --Jarekt (talk) 19:55, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

@Jarekt: Main part of bot's work is finished. I have updated the report. But I'm not sure if it can be used in automatic way: for example, this list contains "No Known Copyright Restrictions" files, and looks like such files are legal on Commons (did not replaced them because I was not not sure about their status). — Vort (talk) 14:52, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

The more important part of the report, I think, is images, which failed pixel-by pixel check. Maybe they are better (less cropped version), or maybe not. Top of the list are 100% different, bottom — most likely suitable for reupload, but it is better to check. — Vort (talk) 14:52, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Also, I can share database of my bot, if someone is interested in it. — Vort (talk) 14:52, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

I am looking through your your report where there was license mismatch: there seems like there are 2 cases there:

• files which originally had CC-BY-2.0 or CC-BY-SA-2.0 but the license was changed on Flickr. I added {{Flickr-change-of-license}} to them and I would not touch them further.
• Files that are mow under some PD or "No Known Copyright Restrictions" license on Commons, see the list at User:Jarekt/a. Those I think are a fair game to reupload.

All files that I looked at that failed pixel-by pixel check were cases of cropping or color correction on Commons. Those would have to be handled manually, as I can not think of what a bot could do there. One semi-automatic approach would be to download Commons and Flickr images to the computer and compare them visually one by one. Than pick some for reupload, some for crop and reupload. --Jarekt (talk) 13:44, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

@Jarekt: I have reuploaded /a-files. — Vort (talk) 15:01, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

There also one more cause for pixel mismatch: incorrect EXIF orientation. Initially, they was just failing pixel test, later I have moved them to specific category. I can share it if needed. — Vort (talk) 15:01, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

I have all mismatched files downloaded. Can share them with someone, but don't know how. Also, filenames are ids, so id-to-name mapping is needed. — Vort (talk) 15:01, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Flickr members?

Hey all--I was trying to leave a note for a Flickr member, but I can't log in via Yahoo. The image I was going to ask them to change or upload to Commons is this, https://www.flickr.com/photos/27485954@N07/4941423968/in/photolist-7ryBXo-8wE6hm-8wE6mw-8wE6bY-8wE62s-59wiYM . I'm sure lots of you all are active there--can someone please ask this user? (They have another image of the same machine). We really need this at the en-wiki article Portastudio: the 144 is the mother of them all. Thanks! Drmies (talk) 15:32, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-43

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• You can use ccnorm_contains_any when you create an abuse filter. This can be used to look for multiple words or phrases within a string. It will find words where some characters have been replaced. You can read more in the documentation. [33]

Changes later this week

• When you search in some languages the search function could use specific other languages if the first language didn't work. This is called a fallback language. This didn't work properly and created bad searches. The search index is being fixed to work better. [34]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 October. It will be on all wikis from 26 October (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 24 October at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 25 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• There is a Structured Commons community focus group for Commons and Wikidata contributors who want to give input on structured data on Wikimedia Commons. You can sign up to join it. [35]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:18, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

User:ErikPetersenSweden

Hi all

Can someone review the contributions of User:ErikPetersenSweden please? Lots of Islamophobic vandalism and junk deletion requests.

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 07:24, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

@John Cummings: better to report this kind of thing at COM:AN, but at any rate this is an INC sock and already blocked. Similar vandalism/trolling is being continued by 185.17.132.66 (talk • contribs • WHOIS • RBL • abusefilter • tools • guc • stalktoy • block user • block log).—Odysseus1479 (talk) 07:35, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Both are blocked. Everything's rolled back, and the nasty stuff is revdeled. --Guanaco (talk) 08:03, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Adding 500px.com to Commons:Upload by URL

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T178961

Hi. For those of you who are not familiar with the website, 500px is the new cool place for photographers to show off their work. They have support for CC license (on the desktop site and in the API), so they are pretty much on par with Flickr on that. You can check out how a CC-BY-SA image looks here. Getting the image URL is simple: just right-click on the "Download photo" button and select "Copy link" from the menu. This is not possible for non-free images.

Since many of the photographers I follow have moved from Flickr to 500px, I tried to upload some pictures from there and found that none of the tools we currently use have support 500px. As a first step, I logged phab:T178961 to have it enabled on Commons:Upload by URL for trusted users to use. If you know of any images or series of images you'd like to upload from 500px.com, please comment in the bug to gauge how useful that feature would be for other users. Thanks--Strainu (talk) 10:24, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Do you have any thoughts about related DRs as per search or Category:500px.com related deletion requests. It may be worth populating the latter category with missed DRs. --Fæ (talk) 10:41, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

I prefer to look at the beautiful pictures already uploaded from 500px. :) People will upload copyvios as long as Commons will exist and the number of DRs is insignificant compared to the equivalent number for Flickr. Also, Upload by URL is only available to trusted users (Image reviewers, Admins, GWToolset users) so copyvios will very likely not be an issue if enabled.--Strainu (talk) 11:08, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

With a bit of thought, it should be possible for someone to work out the ratio of bad/good unique Flickr accounts and compare that with the same ratio from 500px. Perhaps there's a verifiable reason to expect 500px to be better than Flickr? I have no strong view, but if it is statistically worse for license laundering, then I'd be against making mass upload easier. --Fæ (talk) 11:15, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Category help

If someone could move most of the files in Category:Population pyramids of Poland to a subcategory "regions of" or something similar that would be helpful. Ideally they would be moved into a category for each province, but that would be very time consuming. Right now there are 3,418 files in the category, making it almost impossible to find any specific file. For now just move everything that starts with "Piramida wieku". Delphi234 (talk) 22:43, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

October 26

Does batch uploading still happen?

I don't mind standing in a queue if it is getting serviced, but I don't want to just line up with no hope of anything ever changing. Can anyone confirm that the batch upload requests at Commons:Flickr batch uploading and Commons:Batch uploading do get served eventually?

Is there anything that people like me can do to help (more than manually download thousands of images then manually upload and document them)? Only two of the seven participants in the Flickr upload page have more than 2 edits in the last six months, and they aren't from bulk uploads. The general page does a bit better, but only 4-6 out of 9 scripters (including one in both lists).

Thank you to the people who do that work and who manage the Commons in support of many Wikipedia and other projects. --Scott (talk) 06:12, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Hi, I was asking myself the same question. We clearly need more people with bot/scripting abilities. Regards, Yann (talk) 10:19, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

yeah, the trust issues with batch uploading, and failure to train a team to curate batch uploading, means that activity will slow to a crawl, when interested parties leave. people have moved on to commons:pattypan and Flickr-to-Commons. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 20:50, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I had another go with Flickr2Commons, and most of the files I wanted came across and have been approved by FlickreviewR 2 bot. --Scott (talk) 02:04, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Federal Government Says an Image is Creative Commons

If a federal government website says that they are using an image that is under a Creative Commons license, do we need any further verification that the license by the photographer is valid? I ask because of this image.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:50, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

• Normally we presume them to be correct, but as your link shows we've had incidents where they've been wrong. No one is such an authority as to be immune from a preponderance of evidence that they are wrong in a particular case. - Jmabel ! talk 06:51, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
  • That link shows that “the word ‘Pence’ appears only twice in ticket:2017050810015705. Both entries are internal, by an OTRS agent....” Thus, that ticket said nothing whatsoever to contradict (or confirm) the federal website’s statement that the image has a Creative Commons license. Right? So, putting aside the OTRS ticket, why is the statement by the federal website insufficient?Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:40, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
• A related discussion is taking place at Commons:Undeletion_requests/Current_requests#File:Donald_Trump_president-elect_portrait.jpg. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 17:20, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
  • And as User:MrX states there, the federal government can't issue a license on what it doesn't own. The federal government is capable of being mistaken, or of outright lying. While we give them a high level of credence, it is finite. - Jmabel ! talk 19:11, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
    • How is a high level of credence about the Pence photo overcome by an OTRS message that does not mention Pence?Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:23, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
      • The two photos are from the same photoshoot. The OTRS ticket discusses how the photos taken at that photoshoot were licensed (or not). ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:00, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
        • decision tends to undermine credibility of OTRS and commons. yet another dictation of boilerplate to photographers. they do not care and will not change, to ease the perpetual doubt. it's all good, photographers can claim "open government" and will be openly reused everywhere but commons, which is the object of the exercise. next they will put PD mark on it = lol. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 22:59, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Alboraia

Alboraia will be Wiki Taken on November 12th. More information can be obtained here and here.

Come and enjoy the real Horta!

B25es (talk) 17:29, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Suggesting a community RFC for the WMF to refuse funding for organisations with a history of copyright misuse

I do not believe the Wikimedia Foundation has a resolution that as a consequence stops WMF funding going to organizations that appear to choose to claim copyright over public domain materials, or may routinely use first publication rights, or sweat of the brow, to claim commercial rights over old works that would otherwise be presumed public domain. It's central to the Wikimedia Commons project to ensure that projects that produce any type of media, such as scans of old photographs, should produce results which can be released to support all Wikimedia projects that wish to use them. In the current set up, it's often taken as a given for smaller WMF grants, but this is not necessarily implemented under the way that larger funding works, such secondary grants via Chapter funding. I would be interested in putting together a RFC or requesting a resolution along these lines, unless something similar already exists.

Any thoughts on having a community RFC to make this a tangible implementation of WMF declared values? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 15:44, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

What specific organizations do you mean? Ruslik (talk) 20:15, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

I support the sentiment, but is it a problem? Does WMF or it's chapters have a history of funding for organisations with a history of copyright misuse? --Jarekt (talk) 20:37, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

So does this mean we would not work with a museum that happily gives out pretty good scans of their collection, but keeps even higher-res scans internally? - Jmabel ! talk 23:00, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

@Jarekt: The RFC would be a principle, so it's less helpful to be taken on a tangent about past projects. It is a real problem if proposals to fund paid positions such as Wikimedians in Residence are never asked the question. Funding may well be judged suitable against this principle if the point of having something like a WIR project is to stop copyright misuse within an organization by at the same time adopting better policies.

@Jmabel: Yes, when copyright is falsely misused. Commons does routinely host usable lower-resolution files for the public benefit when the high-resolution versions are not available for free, which is acceptable, though this remains justifiably controversial when the source is misusing copyright by claiming they own creative rights over public domain material. That is entirely different from using WMF charitable donations and funding projects within an organization that at the same time as taking funding, chooses to make profit from selling public domain photographs under demonstrably false copyright claims. Hopefully the WMF, and any chapter, would never consider funding a project within an organization which has this track record, or be seen to partner with them, unless the project is about changing their policies. The intention of the RFC is to ensure this becomes a hard and measurable requirement on funding proposals, which then will flow down via affiliate funding, rather than something we vaguely think is the case and hope will remain the case. --Fæ (talk) 09:59, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

• I think it is important that the work produced as a result of WMF funding is properly free. WMF should get value for money so if they are funding the production of images then I'd expect to get high-resolution images with proper free licences suitable for photographic works. If they only get low-resolution images, for example, or if the licence used is not really a free one, then that's not a good use of funding imo. In the past, I have seen WM Austria funding photo production (workshops/equipment) that resulted in images with "GFDL 2.0 Only" licences. This is really not in the spirit of our free movement, as the photographer deliberately chooses that licence option to make the photo legally unusable outside of Wikipedia. Another photographer got a grant (I think from Swiss WM IIRC) for camera equipment and again used the GFDL licence and uploaded only low-resolution images so they could sell the high resolution images to stock photo sites.
• But in terms of blacklisting whole organisations because of past or current sins, I don't think that is a workable or helpful approach. Who says what scope the definition of "organisation" is? The bad copyright behaviour could be the consequence of one or two individuals, of one department's policy, or of policy in one country, and also could be the result of ignorance that may be resolved by working with WMF. I repeat the other requests for examples of where this has occurred. If it hasn't occurred then it is really hard to get overly concerned about it. -- Colin (talk) 10:31, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

• I certainly agree that we should be concerned what is done with images etc. that result from our grant, but I'm less sure that we should boycott organizations because of what they've done otherwise. - Jmabel ! talk 14:56, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

• an RFC to give guidance to grants, when you do not have specifics? you realize how little funding comes from WMF for content, as opposed to chapters? what makes you think not playing with the copy-fraudsters, would change their behavior? would they even notice? Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 03:33, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

October 25

Project Grant proposal for Lingua Libre

Lingua Libre's logo

One pronounciation file in the Atikamekw language recorded with Lingua Libre, see Category:Sounds of Lingua Libre for more examples.

Hi!

Lingua Libre is an open source platform created to ease mass recording of word pronounciations into clean, well cut and well normalized audio files. Given a clean words list, a contributor can reach a high productivity level without requiring any technical skills.

It's currently supported by a team of (mostly French) volunteers. Even if the core recording tool is fully functional and very efficient, it currently suffers from a very poor integration with the Wikimedia projects, and first of all Commons. We want to setup an OAuth process, allowing contributors to easily upload (with good-looking descriptions and the appropriate categories) the pronunciation files with their own account.

To accelerate the development of this tool and overcome this problem (and many others), we have submitted a Project Grant proposal. If you're interested by this project, take a look at the proposal, on meta: ⇒ meta:Grants:Project/0x010C/LinguaLibre.

Ping @~riley and CoolCanuck: who are part of the WikiProject Pronunciation.

Thanks for your comments — 0x010C ^~talk~ 20:18, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

I support this project. I already uploaded some files I recorded through Lingua Libre there Category:Atikamekw pronunciation and my first comment was "There is no tool to upload the files to Commons from the Lingua Libre interface?" It is very time consuming the way it is right now, but Lingua Libre is very well done for the recording part. The improvements proposed by User:0x010C will be most welcomed. Thank you, Amqui (talk) 21:37, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

• This is a very good thing, a ray of sunshine from the usually glomy side of grant applications. Thank you! -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 15:10, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Image donation (2140 photos)

A new image donation has been uploaded recently: Commons:Wilhelm_Walther_image_donation/en. While the motifs are mostly locations across Germany during the 30s, there are some photos of a ship trip to a landscape that might be Norway (?). Moreover, there is a lot of everyday motifs from early and mid-1930 Germany that might be of interest for you. Your help with categorizing and annotation would be appreciated – have fun! --Elya (talk) 09:13, 27 October 2017 (UTC) PS: and maybe a native speaker would be so kind and improve my english translation of the project page, thx!

Thank you. This is marvellous! I've had a quick run through the English project page cleaning up the translation and learning a few new German words along the way. --bjh21 (talk) 10:33, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much, I love this community! (most of the time ;-). --Elya (talk) 10:54, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Agreed on all accounts! (Hurrying to check whether there’s tram photos in this set…) -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 14:59, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Categories about surroundings

Hi, I was about to move Category:Omgeving nieuwe station Breda to an English title, when I realised that many images are only in that category because they happen to be a stone's throw away from Breda station, yet have no other relation to it. I was wondering if 1) such "surroundings" categories are desirable in the first place and 2) what files should or shouldn't be included. --HyperGaruda (talk) 17:34, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

• We do have plenty of categories for neighborhoods of large cities, but this does seem like a clumsy name for a neighborhood. - Jmabel ! talk 21:09, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
• IF Breda station is in a suburb of Breda, I'd put them there. Otherwise, "Environs" would be the usual term, I think. Rodhullandemu (talk) 22:46, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

• The usual thing is to create categories for individual streets. --ghouston (talk) 23:48, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
• Although in this case, OpenStreetMap has this: [36]. It could be Breda Station (district) or something. "Stationsbuurt" is also listed at nl:Wijken en buurten in Breda. --ghouston (talk) 23:52, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Good call. Then I think I'll go for Category:Stationsbuurt, Breda. At least that neighbourhood has clearly defined boundaries and I can place it in Category:Neighborhoods in Breda. Thanks :) --HyperGaruda (talk) 07:17, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Languages

Hi all, I was wondering if someone could take a look at this file. I would like separate the English from the Dutch text but the way I do it, somehow, it doesn't work out the way I wish. Thank you for your time. Lotje (talk) 06:01, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Is this what you meant? --HyperGaruda (talk) 06:52, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Need Someone to make a campaign streamer

So I need someone to make a campaign streamer for the Medal for Humane Action. It is seen in this document at the top of page 4: https://www.supplyroom.com/uploads/catalogs/Streamer%20Sets_AF.pdf, and I am looking for a file that is similar to . I have no artistic ability or talent, so any help I could get would be greatly appreciated. Even if you don't have time or the knowledge please direct me to someone who may have this ability. Garuda28 (talk) 00:43, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Do you mean "Berlin Airlift 1948-1949"? Ruslik (talk) 19:21, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

@Ruslik: In essence yes. The streamer is the color, and the letters indicate the campaign. So the streamer is the Medal for Humane Action, but the campaign (indicated by the letters) is for the Berlin Airlift. It's like how some of the other streamers have multiple campaigns. The reason for omitting the Berlin airlift would be since the streamer is specifically for the Medal for Humane action , even though the pictures example is embroidered with the Berlin Airlift campaign. Garuda28 (talk) 04:30, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Garuda28 -- I didn't look at the PDF file, but User:Sarang has done similar abstractly geometric stuff in the past. not sure if he'd be interested now, but you could ask on his user talk page. There's also Commons:Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop... -- AnonMoos (talk) 06:08, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Deletion of my uploaded pictures from wikipedia commons

Good day everyone I am Ebenezer with the username EbenCoded (talk · contribs), I am a contestant for the Wiki Loves Africa contest that started on 1st of October, 2017 and is ending 30th of November 2017.

My pictures were suggested for deletion because they were not taken from the same device, that is true because I used different devices to capture different activities of African people at work, I made use of my camera, I made use of my phone too. i started first with my camera but it was a little difficult to take the pictures because people were feeling insecure with is understandable, i switched to using my phone so as to take the pictures of different people without their consent when at work which worked out pretty well because I took the pictures while holding my phone in my hand like I was using it for something else.

As a result of this switching of devices, while uploading i uploaded the ones taken by my phone and and by my camera which I transferred to my phone's memory card and where i edited most of my pictures. This is an explanation and a proof that the pictures i uploaded are mine and mine alone.

I therefore request that my pictures are not deleted from Wikipedia commons. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 197.242.99.132 (talk) 12:22, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

@EbenCoded: Hi,

Could you please upload the original images with EXIF (unmodified), at least when the EXIF data are missing? Thanks, Yann (talk) 12:40, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Taking photos of "people without their consent" may pose problems, particularly if it is not in a public place. Jonathunder (talk) 12:46, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Just a suggestion: The typical haze in your phone photos are probably caused by a dirty lens. Therefore please clean the lens of your phone. Regards, Wouter (talk) 19:58, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-44

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• You can now block users from emailing you through the Wikimedia wikis. [37]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 November. It will be on all wikis from 2 November (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 31 October at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 1 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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00:20, 31 October 2017 (UTC)