Commons:Village pump/Archive/2018/08

==

This file is accepted in Commons?

It says that the Source is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/. Is that possible? There says that it has been nominated for deletion. Do we keep it? --Jalu (talk) 01:58, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

@Jaluj: I agree with the judgement of @Ronhjones that we don't have evidence of permission from the photographer, and that the file should go away in a week if that continues to be the case. You are welcome to convert the tag to a DR if you disagree.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 02:08, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

We now have OTRS permission clarified. - Jmabel ! talk 05:02, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Jmabel ! talk 05:02, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

@Jmabel: I do not think that closing down VP discussions using the {{section resolved}} template is a real norm, a check of the VP archives shows very rare use over the last 5 years. My understanding was that best practice would be to leave archiving on automatic unless there was a more serious issue than discussion naturally running out. The practical use of this template on Commons, I think, started on personal talk pages and gravitated to action-type noticeboards like bots/work requests, but there has never been a consensus to guide their application apart from discussion around SpBot approval when this programme was imported from de.wp in 2010.

I lean towards avoiding using fast archiving of this type unless there is a issue of a type that would probably mean a thread was collapsed or should have been moved to a different noticeboard anyway. Any thoughts, though if anyone feels strongly it may be worth opening this as a poll for wider opinions? The caveat of being resistant to setting too many rules and bureaucracy applies... --Fæ (talk) 10:25, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• Are you saying that with OTRS permission for this photo, it's still worth discussing someone's intuitive sense that it lacked sufficient permission? Or something else? - Jmabel ! talk 15:52, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Overdiffused categories

Today, a user (I am not seeking sanctions, therefore in the first instance will not name them) recategorized two of my photos, which I made in 2015 in Bukhara, Uzbekistan. Apparently, they have recategorized all the photos of this monument (Chor Minor mosque), and the category now looks like this: Category:Chor Minor. If I want to get to the photograohs, I need two extra clicks. Moreiover, it is now impossible to compare photographs and choose anything for illustrations, since I would need to click over dozens of categories. I have never encountered anything like this before. Is this an established practice? Is this the best practice? The total number of photographs in this category must be several dozens.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:30, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

I hate this practice when it comes to buildings, but it is something you would encounter mostly in famous/well-visited landmarks, e.g. Category:Eiffel Tower by year. Fair enough, I can imagine such monument categories filling up quickly, making a by-year diffusion a quick and dirty solution, but Chor Minor does not seem to attract so much attention as to warrant this diffusion. --HyperGaruda (talk) 20:48, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

If you mean putting things into categories by year, I've seen a lot of that in the last year or two. I'd like to see a lot less of it. It makes sense if there are a reasonable number of files in each category (a hundred? five hundred? a thousand?), but that's not the case here. I'm not sure why people started putting everything into by-time categories: Maybe they don't like stray files in main categories, or maybe it's just for something to do. Maybe the by-date/time categories could be non-diffusing, if we have that here. Another possibility is to create one or more galleries where you could see a lot of images on one page. My preference would be not to routinely categorize by time unless there was a large number of images involved. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:51, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Off-topic, but I hope that this is one of the problems that will get solved with structured data. Sebari – aka Srittau (talk) 20:58, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Since structured data is currently intended to be orthogonal to categories, I don't see how it can solve this. - Jmabel ! talk 21:20, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

It is ridiculous to break things like this down by year when (1) there are only a handful of images from each year and (2) the thing will look essentially the same from year to year. I can see this for when there are 200+ images, and more so for 1000+ images; I can see it for events or for things that radically change their appearance over time; but for this, it's ridiculous. - Jmabel ! talk 21:20, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

There might be some use here in breaking out detail views and/or interior views, but this diffusing breakdown by year is a liability. - Jmabel ! talk 21:22, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

I would support a reversion, but if you want to deal with this in a less confrontational way, you can take the same images and also break them down as :

- Category:Chor Minor (exterior)

- Category:Chor Minor (exterior details)

- Category:Chor Minor (interior)

- Category:Chor Minor (interior details)

If someone starts adding dates as subcats there, that's when you need to confront them.

An example of something we handled exactly this way is Category:Pike Place Market. Images are broken down by decade, but also be what they actually show. - Jmabel ! talk 21:26, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree, by-year is a ridiculous and extremely unhelpful way to categorise. I think this is counter-productive even for topics with lots of files, like the Eiffel Tower, unless a more sensible categorisation scheme is also available. If the images are buried down in by-year categories, how on earth is anyone meant to find the best for their needs? If a sub-topic scheme is available, I have no objection if someone wants to waste their time on by-year cats.-Nilfanion (talk) 21:27, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree, subcategorising buildings (!!!) by year is pretty unhelpful for everyone. By year-category-branches should probably stop at 'city level'. strakhov (talk) 22:20, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree in principal with all that's been said. Further, "Chor Minor mosque" at this time does not have enough images in it to justify any sub-division. There are less than 50 files here!!! The "new user" responsible (new as of 6 July this year) has made over 12000 edits, using HotCat and Cat-a-lot from their first edits, so they're not a newbie. Categorisation is valuable only when its's useful; for example Category:Big Ben at night at 163 images, is useful and though large is still feasible even if it went to 500 images. I agree with strakhov, by year-category-branches should probably stop at 'city level'. Broichmore (talk) 10:36, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Shouldn't they be limited to 200 to keep all files on one page?   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 13:32, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

That depends on the size of the screen you use and the size of the font you use - so I would say "no". Alexpl (talk) 15:31, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

The number 200 is the number of photos on one page, it does not depend on the size of the screen.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:59, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Although I agree that there is no reason to break down Chor Minor by year, I can think of things more specific than a city where breakdowns by year or decade make sense, for example Category:Pike Place Market (alluded to above) where, for example, we have 35 photos from the 1970s, or Category:Seattle Gay Pride where we have 332 photos just from 2012, and several other years exceeding 30 photos. - Jmabel ! talk 17:00, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

I wanna see pictures of mosques in the United States photographed in 2007, and i have not much time to search, Show me how. Flickr have such option, I don't see anything like that on Commons. --N. Wadid (talk) 19:39, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Use Petscan? --HyperGaruda (talk) 20:11, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

As it happens, the U.S. is among the few major countries with no subcat for Category:Mosques photographed in 2007. I have no idea why that category doesn't exist, when so many similar ones do. - Jmabel ! talk 20:13, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

HyperGaruda I meant as normal pageveiewer not a user. Anyway, I clearly said about my style in my talk page to Ymblanter. We see it's totally helpful. --N. Wadid (talk) 04:52, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

N. Wadid, it's not helpful, it's more difficult to view the images. A regular page viewer would not click through categories looking for a specific year, that seems very illogical and is a lot of work to click and go back and click just to see results, and don't forget that Commons users are also viewers in some ways. A user who really wants a specific year would at the very least type that year as a search keyword to narrow the results. We already have the Search function. Also Jmabel you will find that in the particular year 2007 there were indeed no mosques photographed (or yet categorised), but there are respective categories for 2006 and 2008. seb26 (talk) 11:48, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Actually I think that proves the point. There were no categorised photos of Mosques in the US in 2007, and so even an experienced user (like Jmabel) was unable to find any and it was not immediately visible that there were actually 2006 or 2008 photos which could have been used. This level of year-specific categorisation (if used exclusively) doesn't work for small amounts of images and hinders the search experience. seb26 (talk) 11:52, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

"We"? Apart from you, everybody else here thinks it is unhelpful, especially when the subject is static and thus will not change over time. --HyperGaruda (talk) 05:06, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Breaking out files into by year categories can be useful, but only if they are created as additional categories. A far better approach was suggested by Nilfanion (interior / exterior / details; even dome / minaret), a goodish example being Category:Palace of Westminster. What's happened at Chor Minor has made overview of the collection impossible; the files have been hidden. Categorising files in Commons is not an end in itself; if files are not visible and accessible then they are virtually useless. Apart from making files available, the prime reason why categorisation takes place here is to overcome the problem of inappropriate or non-descriptive file naming. I can see no strong case for creating sub categories where there are less than, say 200 files. Depending on the subject 25 / 50 files should be the minimum required for a sub category. Subject to common sense of course, rules only being required for those who don't have it. Broichmore (talk) 11:05, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

‌ I am agree with Broichmore. Anyone who is interested can help and makes more. But nothing wrong for by year categorizing, we just need more subcats, and i focused on years. Currently i work on by-year, maybe tomorrow or next month i will go for details. I only have ten fingers and limited time. --N. Wadid (talk) 14:01, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Mmm, but what I said was can be useful, but only if they are created as additional categories (see Commons:Meta category); and then only if there are sufficient quantities involved to warrant it, and it makes sense to do it. In this case there are not enough files in each of these sub-cats to warrant this extra work. And never will be for Chor Minor. IMO you need to return all of these files to their original cat; I would say that in this (particular) case you would be best served by using PetScan for the (particular) purpose you have in mind, as there is no enthusiasm for catting by year on a micro level such as this. By the way, my fresh reading of the policy is that additional cats are frowned upon, and you should resist in placing the same file in more than one sub-category even though it sometimes on rare occasions makes sense. Have a look at Category:Habo for a bad case of over-categorisation. Broichmore (talk) 16:27, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Now i uploaded some free pics of Char Minar from flickr. And i say again, I am agree with you Broichmore and Auntof6, this "by-year categorizing is additional". Chor Minor is historical landmark supposed to be photographed year by year. I think this discussion is done. --N. Wadid (talk) 05:12, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

You don't understand me. When I said additional I didn't mean sole categories, which is what you have done here. There is only 1 file visible in the cat; everything else is hidden from view. This is a clear cut case of diffusion and is therefore off agreed policy. I do not support your use of categorising by time. Broichmore (talk) 09:46, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

@N. Wadid: , what if instead of mosques photographed in 2007 in the USA, I'm interested in photos of mosques with a Creative Commons Zero license, or photos of mosques photographed in cloudy weather, or black and white photos of mosques, or photos of mosques by a particular photographer, or some combination of all the above? Are you going to create all those category intersections so that they will be ready when somebody needs them? --ghouston (talk) 09:44, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

@Ghouston: Ask this from who first started "<year> in <a country>". This all by-year buildings cats are based on that, you can't put every pic taken on 2018 in main cat. I can call a lot of cats boring me as not "helpful". Commons is a "Free media repository" website and i see nothing wrong for categorizing by year even if there is only one pic under it. I repeat, this is "Updating". --N. Wadid (talk) 03:52, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

@N. Wadid: and this is where you misunderstand the use of categories. I quote from our rules on categories: a category is " a special page which is intended to group related pages and media". Notice the word "group". Categories with only one single image do not form a group. The "<year> in <country>" categorisation scheme is only intended for subjects that have so many images, that they can actually fill up such subcategories with tens or hundreds of pictures. Otherwise, you should stop at higher-level categories such as by decade or by century, if you really want to have a time-based categorisation. --HyperGaruda (talk) 05:35, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

HyperGaruda i am agree with you, and if you keep talking to me more simple English i will appreciate that. See, i know one pic don't make a category, but we can wait and search more to fill them. Actually i am doing this, i said before i only have ten fingers and limited time. --N. Wadid (talk) 09:34, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

I've given this a lot of thought recently. The single most common error on the wiki is date. Example: Images taken from books are often of scenes taken from 1 to 10 years before the book was published. The date of our image could also be taken from a reprint date for the book which could be any number of years after first print. Artists would visit a scene, and churn out paintings years later of it; I know several examples of the gap being as much as 30 years. Before the era of smartphones and cameras linked to the web, dates were manually set in the device, there is no guarantee that imprinted dates are correct in those cases. Dates can be defined or confirmed only by examination, and study; this is impossible with cat-a-lot. Personally I resent spending hours studying and researching an image and putting it in correct cats, for someone else to come along, using cat-a-lot, and with minimal thought, transfer thousands of images (in a sitting) into anonymous hidden cats serving no useful purpose. The human eye and brain has no problem scanning 200 images of the same topic for usability rather than relying on such a narrow sub-cat as date.Broichmore (talk) 14:40, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Category for discussion

FYI, there is an open(!) CfD dating back to 2013 about buildings by year of photographing categories: Commons:Categories for discussion/2013/10/Category:Libraries in the United States photographed in 2012. --HyperGaruda (talk) 04:37, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

• I also remember complaining about categories like Category:September 2012 in Bute Street, Hong Kong, but now I see that that was also in 2013 and the category still exists. Since it's so much easier to create a category than get rid of it, and so many people support creating such categories, it doubt that there's any solution except better software. --ghouston (talk) 09:39, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

  I tend to agree with you. Still, back to topic and Chor Minor. Here we have 40 categories containing around 54 files, LOL. I can say that there are possibly 63 files on the subject, not counting any items that may be not labelled. That's 9 stray images potentially. 40 cats just increase the chance of wrong filing and errors. Common sense has to say, that this is not right? Broichmore (talk) 13:55, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Broichmore but Chor Minor is a landmark. A notable historical place. --N. Wadid (talk) 23:32, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Just use Category:Chor Minor - exterior and ignore the date categories, I suppose. By all means nominate the parent category for discussion and see if a) N. Wadid can be outvoted b) the discussion can reach a conclusion in less than 5 years. --ghouston (talk) 02:27, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

@N. Wadid: We have gone full circle. Yes, it's a major monument which justifies a single category. However its only 54 files. 54, 63 or even 200 files MIGHT be just enough to justify breaking out into two categories, but not more than that. You would need thousands of files covering multiple topics to justify 40 cats. We have major cities that don't have 40 cats!!! Clearly policy needs to state a "minimum quantity of files required" before a third category can be created. As a Wikipedia contributor I don't find over categorising like this helpful for research. It's an end in itself. Again too many cats become impossible to maintain, they hide files from view, they are not useful. Broichmore (talk) 11:00, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Were we to set up such a minimum quantity, it should only pertain when the potential small category does not have a Wikipedia article or Wikidata item. For example, if there were a church with a particular relic, and we had an article on the relic, it would be worth a separate category even if we had only one such photo. - Jmabel ! talk 15:33, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. In the case of your example, what is required, is intelligent, and precise descriptive naming of the of the image so it can be found with a simple search query. I, like you, have made a cat of one where it's sensible, I'm just against making too many, especially when it's pointless (see eye and brain above). I also notice that after 3 days there are still 9 images for Chor Minor hanging around outside the two main cats, and no way of knowing which ones they are (because they are hidden from sight)?Broichmore (talk) 14:52, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

What I mean is that when we have a Wikipedia article (and now a Wikidata item) we usually try to set up a corresponding Commons category for even a handful of photos. For another example, if we have an article on a particular small town, and have 5 photos of the town, we'll usually make a category, rather than (say) lumping them in with the county that town is in. In my view, this commendable and useful. "By year" is not, and the fact that we don't organize Wikipedia or Wikidata that way is an indication of why it is not. - Jmabel ! talk 15:30, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree with you. Broichmore (talk) 15:39, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Undercategorised

@N. Wadid: STOP! Adding time-based categories of dubious usefulness is already frowned upon, but putting an image in only such a category while saying that categories have been checked, is really bad. Two examples from earlier today:

• File:Muscat flickr01.jpg should also have at least a category telling what the subject is, like Category:Roads in Oman.
• File:Muscat-2606086 1920.jpg is also missing a category about what is depicted.

Please either categorise completely, or don't remove the "check categories" template so others can have a better look. --HyperGaruda (talk) 21:11, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

 Done Sorry, I am new and just wanna help. --N. Wadid (talk) 06:28, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

July 23

Wich Nadar fotografer?

M.P. Nadar version

By Felix Nadar

Both pictures seem to be duplicates with differend named fotografers (in the same family). And from wich was used was made to produce the last picture.

Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:37, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

By the way the Felix version does not have the correct source. In the source picture he wears glasses! Another problem is that this picture is classified as 1878 but writings underneath suggest 1894. Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:42, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

1894 was the year when Pasteur signed this copy of his portrait, but it could already have been much older. De728631 (talk) 12:57, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

don't know why you are having difficulty with collective works: nadar is the pseudonym of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon; his son, "Paul Nadar became manager of his father's Paris studio on the Rue d'Anjou in 1874." [1]. just leave the credits as shown: it is clearly multiple prints from the same glass plate. you would need a catalogue raisonée to sort the provenance of each image. [2] Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge

 Comment Since one is signed M. (Monsieur) P. Nadar, I attributed them all to Paul Nadar. Beware that there never was anyone called "Félix Nadar". Regards, Yann (talk) 14:18, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

 Comment do not make an attribution not in the metadata. [3] beware do not make attribution to an individual, when the carte de visite has a studio credit only. there was a person; and here is a website calling him "Félix Nadar" [4] q.e.d. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 11:42, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Category:Ireland

Category:Ireland was moved by me so that the whole island is at Category:Ireland while the republic is at Category:Republic of Ireland. I closed it after this comment in reply to this. However its been pointed out on my talk page that it is problematic that the ROI now doesn't have many categories because the sub categories were put into the island (also by me). Would it be a good idea to use a bot or some automated script to try to split up the categories as there are mainly "Ireland" and "Northern Ireland" categories but often no ROI category. Note that before the move many Northern Ireland categories were in the Ireland categories, which were in turn in the "Ireland" category which was for the ROI. There is some older discussion at Category talk:Ireland. @Themightyquill: @Nilfanion: . Crouch, Swale (talk) 13:52, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

File:Romania Motorway A12.svg

Hello. I'm trying to ask a technical question regarding this svg file. I recently uploaded a new version of the file File:Romania Motorway A12.svg, where I did only one modification to the last version in place, which is that I edited the alignment of the names of the three cities along the route from left to right (in Inkscape). But it happened that the fonts of every word in the file have changed, to a serif style (in Commons' preview mode). Can you please help me find out why they don't show as they did in the previous version, or as they look when the original file is opened in the browser, or as they look for example in this similar file: File:Romania Motorway A3 DE.svg? Thank you. BaboneCar (talk) 20:21, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

‎Commons:Photo challenge June results

Traditional games: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Chess 1	Royal game of Ur, Mesopotamia, 2600-2400 BC	People playing Xiangqi on the street of Beijing
Author	Star61	Ibex73	Vaido Otsar
Score	16	15	13

On the move: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Theresa Schmidberger after a successful run in trickski, Fischlham 2017	Garden snail moving down the Vennbahn in disputed territory	Lucy in the sky
Author	Isiwal	Trougnouf	Sally V
Score	18	16	14

Congratulations to Isiwal, Trougnouf, Sally V, Star61, Ibex73 and Vaido Otsar. -- Colin (talk) 21:11, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

August 02

Category:Travel diary from the Rivonia Trial

editors should be aware that there was a big announcement of a Mandela diaries donation at Wikimania. how you dispose of your copyright concerns will have a high visibility in this case. see also [5] [6] -- Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 17:31, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

We will need an explicit release from heirs of Mandela. Ruslik (talk) 09:35, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

It would look tremendously silly to the outside world if the president of Wikimedia South Africa @Discott: proudly announces a partnership with the Nelson Mandela Foundation to make the inspirational writings of the former South African President’s 1962 diary available to the world on Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource while volunteers of Wikimedia Commons @Josve05a: would delete these 87 files of the Category:Travel diary from the Rivonia Trial from Commons within two weeks. Yet that could happen if nobody acts in an appropriate way. Should somebody tag all files with regular deletion requests (keep!) so there would be more time to save them? Or should someone remove all deletion tags, while simultaneously filing all due paper work (statement from the copyright olders)? Vysotsky (talk) 12:47, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Imho the best way to get attention, is to add one of these files to the Rivonia Trial article. Lotje (talk) 13:40, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, it was a bit of an awkward situation. We are working with the Nelson Mandela Foundation to get the necessary OTRS clearance. We were intending to do the upload after Wikimania with the NMF but someone jumped the gun just before the conference so now we need to get the copyright clearance after uploading instead of before. Would be nice to get the files undeleted now that I am told we have sorted out the copyright clearance. Thanks for being understanding on this. --Discott (talk) 09:13, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Looks like JuTa deleted them all. Good job everyone, we've saved Commons from the scourge of Nelson Mandela's diary. clpo13_(talk) 15:40, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

@JuTa: @Discott: You can really see that Wikipedia is all about cooperation & working together! Vysotsky (talk) 22:21, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

By the same rationale, should not File:Travel diary from the Rivonia Trial (State v. Nelson Mandela and Others).pdf also have been deleted? BethNaught (talk) 22:26, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Please please wait for a few days until the copyright question has been sorted out (people are currently contacting the Mandela Foundation). Can't you just see how foolish and amateurish this all looks? Vysotsky (talk) 09:40, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

I was only pointing out the inconsistency. And yes, I know it looks silly, but it was also amateurish of whoever uploaded the files to jump the gun and do it before the Chapter/NMF process was properly completed. If OTRS had been done properly in the first place this wouldn't have happened. BethNaught (talk) 12:36, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

OTRS permission received, as I see now. Thanks, User:Ijon. Can the other 86 files be restored? Vysotsky (talk) 09:49, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

DRV here Commons:Undeletion_requests/Current_requests#File:Travel_diary_from_the_Rivonia_Trial_(State_v._Nelson_Mandela_and_Others)_01.jpg - User:JuTa; User:Josve05a why don't you take care of your rework. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 10:57, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

July 21

Dating London postcard

This postcard is not posted. The stamp prices are 1/2 d Inland and 1 d Foreign. Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:22, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi Smiley.toerist,

I can't say more than early 20th century. May be someone knowing London well might be able to be more precise. Regards, Yann (talk) 10:59, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

http://www.gbps.org.uk/information/rates/inland/postcards.php

http://www.gbps.org.uk/information/rates/overseas/surface/postcards.php -- Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 11:56, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

According to this website around 1910. --HyperGaruda (talk) 16:04, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Can't help with the date, but I have geo-coded the photo to within 10 metres. Also expanded the description and added an English version. Martinvl (talk) 19:28, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

It's 1910 or 1911. I just uploaded LL 81 and LL 110 which have adverts in them so that you can double check. Broichmore (talk) 16:28, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Does anyone else have this issue?

Every time I reach the English Wikipedia from an image or link 🔗 on Wikimedia Commons the English Wikipedia is displayed like this.

I'm posting this here as Commons:Help desk seems broken and I don't see the revision where I could fix and don't have much time on my hands. But does anyone else have an issue where if they enter the English Wikipedia (this doesn't seem to affect the Vietnamese Wikipedia or other Wiki's) it seems to display as this? I want to know before I am planning of opening a phabticator ticket, I had a second better screenshot of the bottom of the page with more technical data but as I have a Microsoft phablet it got corrupted (Microsoft really neglects this operating system). Is there a fix? This only happens if I enter the English Wikipedia through Wikimedia Commons. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 18:09, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

The CSS are not loading. Try clearing browser cache --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 19:02, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

August 01

'Do not rename' template needed

Twice in recent days I have had to ask for renamed file to be reverted to its original name as it was part of a large collection of of images, donated by a GLAM, and named in series. I use {{Do not crop}} on some of my GLAM-collaboration uploads; do we have a 'Do not rename' template, or similar? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:08, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

There exists a template {{Please-do-not-overwrite-original-files}} for files which should be protected even against minor changes. Maybe, some similar template to avoid renaming can be created, and it's existence should be reflected and reguleted in Commons:File renaming. Naturally, we should consider first whether the default serial names aren't too meaningless and whether the rename is wanted. --ŠJů (talk) 21:31, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

I think Commons:File renaming would allow renaming files that are named after a contributing institution instead of describing the contents of the image. They are not really like "scans from the same book or large images that are divided into smaller portions". However, I also think Commons:File renaming allows far too many renamings, and perhaps we should just retain existing names, even if non-descriptive, unless there's an error that makes the name misleading. --ghouston (talk) 22:26, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

File:EWS26.19 (cropped).jpg, one of those files, is an utterly useless filename. It doesn't tell me about the contents of the image which is the entire point of a filename. Merely having the contents of a museum collection named similarly is not a valid reason to have sets of images with filenames that are not actually descriptive of the files - there are plenty of other ways to keep those images together and sort them as desired. While there are valid sets of images that need common names without renaming - BSicons come to mind - this isn't one of them. Andy, I suggest you find a way for your GLAM collaborations to include useful filenames rather than alphanumeric codes. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 23:13, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

who cares if file name does not include useful information. if the metadata is machine readable, then it is findable regardless. the endless moving of files is more edit preening than useful task. why don't you clean up images without metadata, which is useful? Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 03:41, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Is a photograph in a 2016 book of a piece of art dated 1908 and the artist died 1918 considered pubic domain?

Hi,

I have seen fellow editors on Wikipedia use photos of paintings from art museums websites in their articles. I was wondering if images from an art book where the art itself would be considered public domain (1908-author died 1918), but the photograph of the art used in the book is probably less than 10 years old, be considered public domain also? Or not? What are the guidelines on this type of image? I cannot find anything in the FAQ or archives that help. thx MauraWen (talk) 22:06, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

You might find Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag relevant. —RP88 (talk) 22:21, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Short version: as long as it doesn't contain other elements (like a frame), there's nothing creative about taking a photo of a flat painting, and it doesn't create any new copyright. - Jmabel ! talk 00:19, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

i have uploaded many scans of exhibition catalogs, especially for works in private collections. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 03:36, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! @RP88, Jmabel, and Slowking4: — Preceding unsigned comment added by MauraWen (talk • contribs) 10:21, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

August 03

photographs of the w:G20 commendation and QPS 10 year service medal

Hi, Would it be possible to add the the public domain the photos of w:G20 commendation and QPS 10 year service medal photographs? Goodtiming8871 (talk) 23:53, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Mass uploads vs. project scope

Dear all, is it o.k. and does it actually meet the project scope if a user uploads hundreds or thousends of images without useful descriptions and without any category? Currently I'm referring to the uploads by User:Rodrigo.Argenton who keeps on uploading and uploading - and doesn't anyhow care about descriptions and categories. This isn't really an individual case but happens every couple of days when bots are used for mass uploads. Frequently these uploads get left alone without useful descriptions and categories to become data garbage. Greetings, -- Ies (talk) 07:47, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

The photos do not appear to be "garbage". My understanding was that a mass 500px import was going on to salvage photographs from the site that otherwise might be gone forever in terms of free licensing. Seems a perfectly good ideal under our project scope.

Agreed the categorisation has a lot to be desired, but of itself that would be a poor reason to lose out on potential valuable content. The descriptions do not look blank to me, this search uses the tags provided to list Indian Wildlife photographs and from that list catalot would make it easy to create a sub-category of the parent bucket category. Maybe you can play around with that type of housekeeping before escalating this further? --Fæ (talk) 10:08, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Different people contribute in different way. Some people take lots of photos, some like categorisation, some (like me) do different things depending on the mood. While it would be better to have those images categorised, it is much worse to not have them at all. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ ✍ ⏿) 10:11, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you Fæ and Gone Postal,

Ies, just suggestions:

First you will enter in a photo that I photographed and uploaded File:Independência ou Morte emoldurado.jpg, it's a good exercise, I promise.

Than you enter at the discussion page of the 500px project Commons talk:500px licensing data, you will see me saying "The main work will not be upload this, the categorization, correctly description, and name of the files will demand more work.". And you know why it meets the scope? Because I tried to find a solution to not import all files available at once, to guarantee that the files are in scope, and do not have copyvio issues... Now I'm manually selecting file per file to upload here.

Relax, I know what I'm doing, the idea is simple, upload the files, and them I probably will create activities as hacktons to fix the issues, or use this files at workshops to teach how correctly describe, and categorise. And I will personally fix a lot of them after uploading all of them, actually, if you search, I already did some fixes...

And will be hundreds of thousands, it's open to you help the community. -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton ^m 13:40, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

yeah, it is a wiki, and we already cleaned up hundreds of thousands of files without any machine readable metadata, i.e. m:File metadata cleanup drive. 272000 to go. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 01:48, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Added categories to a bunch of images listed by Fae above - might be useful to ask the photographer for information too - he is on facebook https://www.facebook.com/amishraca Shyamal L. (talk) 02:58, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Licensing for Australian TV title card

This file, from Australian TV channel ABC has been uploaded with a license that claims the uploader owns the copyright to the work. Commons:Threshold of originality#Australia indicates this could still be a copyrighted image despite being relatively simple. Wikipedia even has templates for non-free title cards: en:Template:Non-free title-card and en:Template:Non-free use rationale title-card.

Should this file be on Wikimedia Commons, and if so, is it correct for the user to claim it as their own work and publish it as a free image? -- numbermaniac (talk) 08:03, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Uploader has a questionable history with uploading other people's photographs as "own work", so I doubt they understand the complexities of the Australian Copyright Act. Indeed, under the Australian law, threshold of originality is copyrightable (even though in the US it would be considered too simple). The creator of the program is the holder of the copyright, not the uploader (even if it is a still of a title card) and cannot be uploaded on Commons, since it has to be free in the source (Australia) and host (US) countries.

It can be uploaded onto English Wikipedia, example of a similar problem was dealt is en:File:Country Fire Authority Australia logo.svg. Bidgee (talk) 08:29, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

@Numbermaniac and Bidgee: I tagged the file as a copyvio and warned the uploader.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 11:45, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I've transferred with to the English Wikipedia at en:File:Matter of Fact with Stan Grant.jpg with a note that it may be copyrighted in Australia, per the precedent mentioned by Bidgee. Text with a broken underline is definitely not copyrightable in the US. clpo13_(talk) 16:15, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Jeff and Clpo. For what it's worth, if you look closely at the top of the image you can see some kind of visual effect that looks like white "streaks" or scratches on the background. This is not a defect of the image; it's more obvious on actual TV. I don't know if that counts anything towards the US threshold of originality though. -- numbermaniac (talk) 02:00, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Category:Ma Yüan

This category is about the Song Chinese painter (see w:en:Ma Yuan (painter)). Could it be renamed as "Ma Yuan (painter)" in order to distinguish it from category:Ma Yuan, that is the Han Dynasty general? Indeed it's quite nonsense distinguish the painter from the general using the Wade-Giles romanization, at least in my opinion.--R5b43 (talk) 21:06, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree that it should be renamed. Ruslik (talk) 20:40, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

August 04

File:Raúl Araiza entrevista.jpg

Can anyone decide if this image is free or not please? The youtube source has no license. If it is not free, feel free to file a Deletion Request. Thank You, --Leoboudv (talk) 08:58, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

@Leoboudv: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Raúl Araiza entrevista.jpg. --De728631 (talk) 12:05, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

August 05

Collective works

This 4 June 1927 page holds work by Maurice Levaillant (1883–1961).

There seems to be a lack of a clear Wikimedia position on en:Collective works. These are publications like newspapers, magazines or encyclopedias where the publisher assembles and publishes as a whole the work of several authors. In most jurisdictions the authors retain copyright over their own contributions, which they may publish separately, but the publisher has rights over the work as a whole and may publish fresh editions without needing the consent of all the authors.

Typically the copyright in the collective work expires 70 years after publication, and the work may then be reproduced as a whole without violating copyright. An author's contribution may not be published outside the original context of the collective work without permission of the author. Courts have decided that a publisher may display an accurate reproduction of a magazine on a website, with the original layout, advertisements etc., but may not display the articles in a different format, with a new layout, ads etc. without the permission of the authors

The position of the Bibliotheque nationale de France is typical. They consider a newspaper to be a collective work that enters the public domain on 1 January of the year after the 70th anniversary of publication. In 2005 they launched a massive digitization program focused on the national daily press for works published up to 1944, with the results made publicly available on their Galica website. Authorities in other countries have taken a similar position and provide digitized images of out-of-copyright collective works in which the individual contributions may still protected by copyright.

There may be two reasons why Commons should not accept page images of collective works:

1. The image shows just one page, rather than the work as a whole, so the contributions are not shown in the full context of the original collective work. Typically the sites that present digitized copies of collective works present the work as a whole, including all pages.
2. We prefer to avoid restrictions on use of media, but publishing an image cropped out of a page like the Le Figaro example to the right could violate copyright even if the page image is out of copyright.

The first objection, if valid, could be handled if Commons published images of all the pages in the collective work chained together. The second is perhaps more relevant. Either way, clear position statement would be useful. Wikimedia Commons has many examples of pages from collective works where the authors have not all been dead for 70 years. Should we

A. Delete all page images from collective works that may contain copyrighted content, and publish a guideline clarifying our position? or

B. Tag these pages with a template warning of the restrictions on use of pages from collective works, and publish a guideline clarifying our position?

Aymatth2 (talk) 02:17, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Comments (collective works)

•  Keep and tag if it is unclear. The restriction is similar to stamps (which I upload reasonably often). In many countries stamps can be in public domain, but you are not allowed to crop out a part of the stamp. Take a look at File:Stamp-russia2000-rukavishnikov-nikulin-block.png, if you were to crop out the image of the monument, it would definitely not be in public domain. You must retain the original layout keeping the country, the price, and the year. Yes, the copyright laws are very messy (and intentionally so) and on this issue there seems to be no explicit commons policy yet. But on the issue of stamps the argument seems to be exactly the same and it seems that the community's opinion is to respect such "non-croppable" public domain works. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ ✍ ⏿) 02:32, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Doesn't that technically mean that you are not free to modify the stamp however you want? which would defeat the purpose of being in the "public domain", I honestly have trouble understanding how something as a whole is freely licensed but something in part isn't. I understand laws such as Commons:De minimis, but if every part of an image is unfree except for the image as a whole, then how is it "free"? --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 14:11, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
    • @Donald Trung: A work can be in the public domain, meaning anyone can copy it, but with restrictions on what can be done to it. An author has "moral rights" which include the right to prevent mutilation of their work even if they have ceded the copyright. Cropping, recoloring etc. are forms of mutilation. De minimis/panorama works may include copyrighted material, but cannot be cropped so that material becomes the main subject. In the case of collective works, they can be copied once they are out of copyright, but excerpts of individual contributions are not allowed. The contributions are only in the public domain when presented in the context of the collective work. The question here is whether Wikimedia Commons should publish public domain works that have such restrictions. It would really help to have a WM legal opinion. Aymatth2 (talk) 15:36, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
•  Delete per Commons:Deletion requests/Template:PD-German stamps.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 02:42, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
  • @Jeff G.: I am sorry, I think that you have linked the wrong DR or something, because that one isn't relevant to the discussion... or I am completely missing something. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ ✍ ⏿) 03:04, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

@Gone Postal: These collective works and Russian stamps prohibit cropping just like German stamps, and are therefore not free enough for the same reasons.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 03:17, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

@Jeff G.: Ok, so German stamps discussion had nothing to do with this. I will assume it was just a mistaken reading of something there on your part. As for your argument it definitely goes against such things as COM:DM, COM:Stamps, and probably other long established community opinions. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ ✍ ⏿) 03:28, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

• The intention of Commons:Licensing is that derivative works are permitted, although it also says that PD works are allowed without discussing this situation. Derivative works can also be restricted on images permitted by freedom of panorama, so there's a precedent. Is File:19270604 Le Figaro - Supplément littéraire du dimanche - page 1.jpg actually PD in the USA? --ghouston (talk) 07:11, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Maybe the Figaro page is a poor example. It went out of copyright in France on 1 January 1998. Not sure about the USA. Assume for the sake of argument it is out of copyright in France and the USA as a collective work, but contains images that are still copyrighted as stand-alone works. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:24, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

This went out of copyright in France in 1985. Before 1996, the copyright term was 50 years + war extension (8 years). So it is free of URAA.

Under French law, it is called a collective work if individual authors can't be named. So for all content which the authors are not mentioned, the publication date matters. Otherwise, it is from the author's date of death.

The article "Victor Hugo « avant sa naissance »" is by Maurice Levaillant (1883-1961), so it is not in the public domain in France. Regards, Yann (talk) 15:55, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

are you asserting that byline authors are not "work for hire"? were they not paid for their work? will you now presume that noone was paid, because you are not? Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 16:49, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

• "Work for hire" is not simply a matter of whether you get paid (although that is one requirement). Most freelancers are not doing "work for hire": the publisher effectively licenses the right to use the work (often with very specific limitations), but there is no transfer of copyright. Offhand, the only times I've ever done photography on a "work for hire" basis have been when I was taking photos to accompany a commissioned article I was writing for a magazine, and even then I can come up with examples where they didn't have that stipulation & all they wanted were (for example) a one-year exclusive. - Jmabel ! talk 20:41, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Revista CRÓNICA 13-12-1931 Fermín Galán y A. Garcia Hernández fusilados.jpg. To make it short: Under Spanish law, IMHO if you can individualize authors, it is not a obra colectiva. For example, an old periodical with its contributors named "in bulk" in the first page (or an encyclopedia) is a obra colectiva. A newspaper page with articles (or pictures) signed by "John Frankson" and "Frank Johnson" at each article's footer is not. strakhov (talk) 16:09, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

A few points.

• In most countries a collective work is something like a newspaper, magazine or encyclopedia where the publisher pulls together contributions from a number of authors into the overall work.
• It is usually not relevant whether a contributor to a collective work is named. They still retain the rights to their contribution. But the publisher has rights to the collective work as a whole: it is not jointly owned by all the people who contributed to it.
• There is nothing in any country's law that says a newspaper is not a collective work if it prints bylines. The Economist does not print bylines but The New York Times does. They are both collective works, with copyright owned by their publishers.
• A "work for hire" in the USA refers to a work made by an employee as a routine part of their job, such as an article written by a newspaper reporter. Other jurisdictions often do not have the concept. The reporter or photographer retains rights to their story or picture, but obviously not to the whole newspaper.

Aymatth2 (talk) 17:26, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

•  Comment If we delete these files because you can not crop them as you like, then we probably also have to delete every single file tagged with {{De minimis}}. --El Grafo (talk) 07:35, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

• Question, do the individual authors still retain their copyright © or is it transferred to the institution that publishes it? Unrelated but similar question, who legally owns the copyright © of Mickey Mouse? Walt Disney, the (dead) person or Walt Disney, the company? I know that some creators contractually transfer copyright © to their employers. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 14:06, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

As a rule the individual authors retain the rights to their contributions, and can reproduce their contributions in, for example, an anthology of their work. They do not have rights to the collective work as a whole, which is owned by the publisher. The collective work generally goes out of copyright after 70 years. In the USA a work for hire, created by an employee as part of their job, is owned exclusively by the publisher. If Mickey Mouse is a work for hire, it is owned by The Walt Disney Co.. If not, the artist(s) who created the character own it, but a collaborative work that uses it such as the film Fantasia (1940) is owned by The Walt Disney Co.. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:53, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

• An article from newspaper or periodical is to be treated as a collective work except when it is signed/attributed to an author. This also applies to the pictures in the newspapers. As for the discussions about copyrigthed details in images of collective works, just apply the existing 'minimis' rules for images. By the way: i would very much like to have a separate licence for collective works, instead of using an anonymous license.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:19, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

@Smiley.toerist: Where is that documented? It seems wrong. The article or picture is not a collective work, just part of the collective work. The publisher's decision to print or not print a byline cannot affect the author's rights. If the collective work is out of copyright, the 'de minimis' rule is irrelevant: the work is in the public domain. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:32, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Many newspaper articles are not written by one person, but many collaborate and bear the collective responsibility. If an guestwriter writes an article or an editor writes a personal opinion it is signed and the newspaper has only limited responsability. And any contributor who has not signed away his rigths is attributed. We should ask a journalist to confirm that this is the practice. Anyway there is a practical thing: No information is kept over the contributors (editors, rewriters, typesetters, editors deciding wich heading to use, fact and source checkers, interviewers, research work, etc, etc) writing a specific article printed more than 70 years ago. Get real. Journalist and editors dont have time to keep an precise account of who does what, nor the cost of storing the information for seventy years in the (paper)archives. For what? Newspapers struggle to get the deadlines and work the latest news into the newspaper.Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:40, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Part of the publisher's role is to adjust and arrange the contributions to fit. The US "work for hire" concept is the exception rather than the rule. In many jurisdictions an author or co-authors retain the copyright for their contribution to a collective work whether or not the publisher chooses to print a byline. The collective work typically goes out of copyright after 70 years, so it is in the public domain and may be freely copied, but the individual contributions are still protected and may not be extracted and copied outside the context of the collective work. It seems that Wikimedia has no policy in this area, and needs one. An informed legal opinion would be useful. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:28, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

• What about maps such as Michelin maps older than 70 years? That is typicaly a collective work.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:19, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

A map would be a collaborative work rather than a collective work. With a collective work the authors work independently and then the publisher pulls their work together into a whole, while with a collaborative work the authors work together to create the whole. Audiovisual works are often treated as collaborative works. In many jurisdictions each author in a collaboration has rights over the whole work, subject to an agreement between the authors on division of royalties. Probably the authors signed away their rights to Michelin and forgot about it, but I think that old map could be protected by copyright for a very long time. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:32, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

[moved comment down from introduction section]

• In this example the article 'Victor Hugo avant sa naissance' is written by 'Maurice Levallant' (see signature underneath). If he died before 1947 the article is PD otherwise not.Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:58, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

@Smiley.toerist: As noted in the caption to the Le Figaro example, Maurice Levaillant died in 1961. The article is therefore not in the public domain. The newspaper, published in 1927, is a collective work in the public domain since 1985 under French law, and thus under the URAA in the public domain in the USA. The question, for which informed views from Wikimedia would be useful, is whether Commmons should publish public domain images that contain or may contain content that is still under copyright, including content where the author was not identified by the publisher. If the answer is "no" we are facing a massive clean-up task, since almost any newspaper or magazine page image less than 150 years old may well contain content that is still copyright protected. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:49, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Mmm. The refusal to make a distinction between identified articles and not, imposes an imposible burden of proof on us. If there is any license documentation by the publisher it is not publicaly available and no cooperation is to be expected. Many other public organisations use the 70 year rule for unsigned articles. Why should we be holier than the paus? Is there any legal precedence about unsigned articles? We have a habit of imposing ourselves imposible limits. I dont see much progres in removing retroactively restored licences from PD for old works outside the US. (1996 and all that, supreme court ruling, etc, I forgot the name). Let sleeping dogs lie.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:19, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

If we have a page of a collective work such as a newspaper less than 150 years old with some unsigned content we must assume that it may contain copyrighted content. To repeat the question, should we:

A. Delete all page images from collective works that may contain copyrighted content, and publish a guideline clarifying our position? or

B. Tag these pages with a template warning of the restrictions on use of pages from collective works, and publish a guideline clarifying our position?

Aymatth2 (talk) 19:28, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

More comments (collective works)

• I believe we should keep these, but we should have a template analogous to {{De minimis}} to explain the situation. - Jmabel ! talk 00:53, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

@Jmabel: Maybe something like the following?

Warning: This image may contain elements that are protected by copyright. This is an image of a collective work that is in the public domain in its country of origin and in the USA. However, some of the text or images that it contains may be non-free. As a direct consequence it might be needed to review the copyright status if you crop the picture.

The template should link to a page that discusses collective works and gives the country-by-country rules. But is there some formal review and approval process for something like this? With respect to those who have commented here, implementing a template and write-up would be something of a policy change, and needs more than some gut-feel opinions from a random sample of editors. Aymatth2 (talk) 12:56, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Looks good to me. As for the need for firm consensus: a wiki is always a work in progress. Things like this have been introduced on less basis than this discussion. - Jmabel ! talk 16:20, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I will give it a few days, and if no objections will start on a guidance article, then the template. I see that {{PD-France}} says, as one reason the file may be public domain,

• It is an anonymous or pseudonymous work (the identity of the author has never been disclosed) or a collective work and more than 70 years have passed since its publication (CPI art. L123-3)

So the concept is not exactly new. Aymatth2 (talk) 23:01, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

•  Delete Can someone link to something authoritative that says a magazine from 1923 is PD in France and can be so copied, even if it contains an Agatha Christie short story? As far as I understand, a collective work may leave copyright, but that doesn't affect the rights of its pieces which are independently copyrighted.

  I have a big problem with uploading files that consist of copyrighted works because they're part of a collective work. First place, none of that applies to the US; collective works, like all other works, are copyrighted for 95 years from publication, unless they're from 1978 on and far too young to be PD. (COM:L still says "works must be out of copyright in the US".) Second place, what's the use? We can't break them up and use them on Wikisource. We can hardly use them on Wikipedia, since all you're showing is one page.

  I'd say this is different from a stamp, not that I approve of works (including stamps) that we can't crop on Commons. A stamp is a repurposed, generally low-quality copy of a work. Text works are digital, in a sense; a story in a magazine is letter-wise identical to the original. This means that we are reproducing an exact copy of the original copyrighted work in full.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:32, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Cover of Le Petit Marseillais (1922). The illustrator is not identified

• The question is probably more to do with images than text. It is hard to imagine much financial loss to the heirs of Agatha Christie from people using page images in Commons to read her short stories. See image to the right for an example of a 1922 magazine cover that is definitely in the public domain in both the USA and France, but where the picture would still be protected by copyright if the artist was later identified and was still alive in 1948. There are thousands of examples like this in Commons. It is almost impossible to prove that the author of an anonymous contribution did not later identify themself, perhaps when they published an anthology of their work.
• {{PD-France}} points to CPI art. L123-3, an authoritative source, which says the duration of the exclusive right (i.e. copyright) is seventy years from 1 January of the calendar year following that in which the collective work was published. The Bibliotheque nationale de France, an authority equivalent to the US Library of Congress, says here that the BnF considers a newspaper to be a collective work that enters the public domain on 1 January of the year following the seventieth anniversary of publication. Many countries have similar rules. That does not affect the rights of the contributors, who retain copyright in their works outside the context of the collective work, whether or not they are identified. But a faithful reproduction of the collective work is allowed after it goes out of copyright.
• Non-US collective works are public domain in the USA if they were public domain in the source country as of the URAA date. That would apply to a 1923 French magazine. These images may have value to illustrate articles about the magazine or newspaper (e.g. fr:Le Petit Marseillais (journal)), or perhaps to show front page headlines of stories about the subject of an article. Aymatth2 (talk) 00:03, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

• COM:PRP says arguments like "It is hard to imagine much financial loss" aren't valid for keeping something on Commons. Besides which, you're talking about one of the more valuable properties of 1923. As for anonymous works, that's a separate discussion.

Agreed that "not much financial value" is not a valid argument. Anonymous contributions are relevant, since there are claims in the discussion above that the presence or absence of a byline affects copyright. We cannot assume it does. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:08, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

• I understand the duration of copyright on a collective work is 70 years. And my understanding is, at least in the US, that cessation of that copyright ends any copyright on the unique features of that edition; one may now publish a work with the exact same works in the exact same order, provided that one has acquired any necessary rights on those works. You assert that many countries have similar rules, but don't do anything to establish that.

Time cover from 1963 by Bernard Safran (1924–95)

I am no expert on US copyright law, but think that is incorrect. Before 1976 in the USA the publisher normally acquired full rights to all contributions, which would expire when the work went into the public domain. After that, copyright on a contribution could be divided, with the publisher getting the right to publish it in the collective work and the author retaining the right to publish it elsewhere, as has long been the case in other countries. When copyright on a collective work expires it does not go into some sort of legal limbo, where nobody has the right to copy it. It goes into the public domain and may be copied by anyone. I have given sources above that establish that the whole work goes into the public domain in France. Links to similar laws in the UK, Spain, China etc. can be given in the guidelines for collective works. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:08, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

• The US Copyright Office's Copyright Compendium doesn't specifically talk about this, but it says:

• 509.2 The Scope of the Copyright in a Collective Work
• The “[c]opyright in each separate contribution to a collective work is distinct from copyright in the collective work as a whole.” 17 U.S.C. § 201(c).
• The “[c]opyright in the separate contribution ‘vests initially in the author of the contribution.’”New York Times Co. v. Tasini, 533 U.S. 483, 494 (2001) (quoting 17 U.S.C. § 201(c)). The “[c]opyright in the collective work vests in the collective author” and it “extends only to the creative material contributed by that author, not to ‘the preexisting material employed in the work.’” Id. at 494 (quoting 17 U.S.C. § 103(b)). Specifically, the copyright in the collective work “extend[s] to the elements of compilation and editing that went into [creating] the collective work as a whole.” H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, at 122, reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 5738; S. Rep. No. 94-473, at 106. In addition, it extends to “the contributions that were written for hire by employees of the owner of the collective work, and those copyrighted contributions that have been transferred in writing to the owner by their authors.” H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, at 122. reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 5738; S. Rep. No. 94-473, at 106.

• Nothing in there implies that loss of copyright in the collective work gives any rights to the copyright in the separate contribution. The URAA would leave the collective work in the public domain (provided it was there to start with), but not necessarily the individual works that are still under copyright in the source nation.

Cover of La Plume (1898), including illustration by Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939). The collective work and the illustration are out of copyright, but are all other creative elements in the image in the public domain?

• I basically agree with the above, although standard pre-1976 USA practice was for the publisher to acquire full rights. When I researched the article en:Collective Works, and the child articles for the USA and France, I worked through a lot of material on the subject. Many countries have laws for collective works with the same general principles. They try to reconcile the rights of the publisher of a newspaper, magazine or encyclopedia with the rights of the contributors. If each contributor could block publication of fresh editions of the work as a whole, the newspaper and periodical industry would be destroyed. But the contributors do have rights.
• The common rule is that only the publisher (collective author) has rights to the work as a whole, which typically goes into the public domain after 70 years, while the contributor retains rights to their contribution, which they may publish elsewhere. In the USA the publisher may also have rights to works for hire or works transferred to the publisher by the author, but in other countries the author's right to their contribution is often inalienable.
• Either way, in most countries the collective work can be reproduced as is, with the same contributions in the same sequence, format, pagination, advertisements etc. once it goes into the public domain, but the contributions cannot be pulled out and published in some other context without the author's permission. This applies to text and visual contributions, whether or not the publisher gave a byline or other attribution to the author of the contribution.
• The issue is that Commons has images of tens of thousands of magazine or newspaper pages that clearly are in the public domain, but that contain or may contain components that are still under copyright. I would not want to launch a mass deletion campaign for all images of collective works less than 150 years old when there is no legal requirement to delete these images, which may often be useful.
• A compromise would be to provide a {{Collective work}} template to give a warning about these works ("Do Not Crop"), and start a guideline on collective work that can be fleshed out to give country-specific rules but would not preclude deletion in some cases. The guideline can then be tweaked to develop a consensus on when we would or would not retain an image of a public domain collective work. Some sort of guideline is badly needed. Aymatth2 (talk) 00:03, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

• As for La Plume, 1898, I think you're looking for trouble. There's not clearly any other creative elements in the image, and any claim of copyright on part of that work would be at least moderately unprecedented. It's certainly not a justification to make massive new changes to rules.

• La Plume was chosen deliberately. See this version. Is the creative lettering of the journal's title in the Commons image the work of Mucha or some other artist? Aymatth2 (talk) 15:45, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• It's {{PD-Text}}. If you want to stress about every chunk of lettering without clear author, that's your deal; I'm worried about the works of clearly identified authors.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:44, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• The words "La Plume" could not be copyrighted, but that is very fancy lettering. It is hardly {{PD-Text}}. Aymatth2 (talk) 18:37, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• PD-Text is an American-centric template, and definitely under US rules, that is PD-Text. Fancy lettering of any sort is not copyrightable in the US. Again, I feel using minor elements by unknown authors to push a scheme where well-known literary works under copyright can be kept on Commons is a bit of a bait and switch.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:54, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

• @Prosfilaes: The lettering here, carefully adapted to the illustration, is clearly creative work. If the publisher had refused to pay for it but published it anyway, a judge in a copyright dispute might well have found in favour of the artist. Any collective work, by its nature, will contain content from several sources and it may be difficult to determine if all the individual elements are clear of copyright. The above confused discussion makes it clear that guidelines are needed, general and per-country. The talk pages of those guidelines can be used to refine the principles. Aymatth2 (talk) 04:00, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

• In the US, the lettering would not be eligible for a copyright. It may be difficult to determine if all the individual elements are clear of copyright, but that's a separate problem for known copyrighted elements.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:42, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

• {{PD-Text}} says "...in a general typeface or basic handwriting." Even in the USA there must be be a point where lettering would be considered sufficiently creative to be covered by copyright. In the example of the Mucha poster the question is academic. The collective work was in the public domain in France as of the URAA date, so as far as I can tell it may be reproduced here regardless of the status of the component works.

Whether we would want to reproduce a page dominated by one image where the author is identified, and where that image is protected by copyright, is a different issue. That can be thrashed out in discussion of the collective work guideline. The initial question seems to have been lost in all this discussion, which is whether we should start mass deletion of collective work images that may contain copyrighted material, or just flag them with a warning template. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:52, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

In the US, lettering is copyrightable if there is separable non-alphabetic feature, like if there's ivy growing up a wall or bodies contorted into the shapes of letters. Lettering alone is never copyrightable in the US.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:45, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

• "Standard practice"? That doesn't help much unless we know whether the editors followed (and always followed) standard practice. You're also missing the fact that after 28 years, the author could claw back rights to a work in the US. If there was a living author, a publisher couldn't even file for renewal on a work; only the author could. A publisher could file for copyright renewal on a collective work which would cover the individual works if they weren't renewed separately. But part of the point of this renewal system was so authors could force a renegotiation after 28 years, no matter what contracts they signed.

• So all those Time magazine covers may be copyright violations? Aymatth2 (talk) 15:45, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• It's possible if the photo was separately renewed. It's unlikely but is probably something uploaders should check.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:44, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• Yesterday's newspapers are today's fishwrap. Periodicals and newspapers depend on selling tomorrow's issues; they may sell a few reprints to libraries and what not, but it's not big deal.

• "Not much financial value" is not a valid argument (see above). Aymatth2 (talk) 15:45, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• Again, you say "in most countries", but have only provided a quote from the BnF. We could certainly do the same due diligence with any of these works, just like we do everywhere else, and it wouldn't require deleting everything that's not 150 years old.

• Spain has similar copyright laws to France, and presumably other countries do too. I am not sure what the point is here. If an image of a collective work first published in Ruritania and in the public domain there as of the URAA date may hold contributions that are still individually under copyright, do we have to delete the image? Aymatth2 (talk) 15:45, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• The laws could be identical and courts could interpret them differently. So far, I've only seen one link to BNF to make this claim that this is true in many countries. If there is an image that includes a copyrighted work, then we have to delete it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:44, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• The Spanish code is here. The definition of a collective work is much like the French, where a natural or legal person publishes the collection of contributions, and copyright for the collective work lasts 70 years. BUT if the natural person who created the collective work [e.g. the editor] is identified as an author in the published work, copyright in the collective work lasts until 70 years after their death. That BUT is not in the French code. As noted here, in China where a legal entity or organization directs the creation of a work and bears the responsibility for the work, that entity is considered the author of the work. The Czech Republic, as noted here, defines the typical 70-year term but uses the term "collective work" for something more like what others would call a collaborative work, where the individual contributions involved in the work are not capable of independent use. Every country will have their own rules. We need guidelines that summarize the legal constraints, and perhaps describe situations where we would not normally retain an image even if legally we could. Aymatth2 (talk) 18:37, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• This should have gone to VP/C in the first place, so I'll leave a note there.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:33, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Spain has similar copyright laws to France, and presumably other countries do too.

— Aymatth2

• IMO with regard to Spanish law, a page with articles signed by Andrew A, John K and Tim P... is not a obra colectiva (but a 'collaborative work'/'obra colaborativa') , as already stated and linked here: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Revista CRÓNICA 13-12-1931 Fermín Galán y A. Garcia Hernández fusilados.jpg. strakhov (talk) 18:26, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Most jurisdictions recognize three types of multi-author work:

• A collective work is something like a magazine or encyclopedia where one natural or legal person pulls together the work of a number of authors, each of whom works independently. The publisher has the overall copyright, although the authors may retain rights to their contributions.
• A collaborative work is one where multiple authors work together, and it is not possible to separate each contribution. An academic paper with several co-authors would be an example. All the authors have rights to the work, subject to their joint agreement.
• A derivative work is one where one author builds on the work of another, without the first being involved. A translation is an example. The author of the original has rights to the derivative work, as does the author of the derivation.

These can of course be combined. A translation of a co-authored article could be published in a magazine. Aymatth2 (talk) 18:53, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

You are entitled to your views, but, at least wrt Spanish law, your interpretation of compound work doesn't work. The collective one is open to interpretation too. May I ask what's your source? . strakhov (talk) 19:28, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

My mistake. The Spanish Obra Compuesta is what other jurisdictions call a derivative work. The terminology is not particularly consistent. What the Czechs call a collective work is more like what others call a collaborative work. The point is, we need a guideline for newspaper and magazine page images that explains the laws in the different jurisdictions and the general Wikimedia policy. We also need a warning template similar to the {{De minimis}} template for cases where an image seems acceptable but may still contain copyright-protected material. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:58, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Wikimedia IRC auto-blocking of legitimate Wikimedia volunteers

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T201287

Sadly, I found myself repeatedly banned from #wikimedia-lgbt yesterday, and today I appear banned from irc.freenode.org under my correctly cloaked account, so I am unable to join #wikimedia-commons, all of this even though I have sysop rights on these channels. Has the recent apparent but undocumented operational decision by the WMF of cracking down on IRC misuse, caught out any other legitimate volunteers attempting to use IRC to support our Wikimedia projects? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 07:17, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

@Fæ: first, why do you deem that K:line in Freenode is related to Wikimedia in any way? Freenode is not a subsidiary of Wikimedia. Moreover, Freenode currently is subjected to a fierce attack by a spam gang, and your K:line might be simply a collateral damage, and I can provide you with a proxy if warranted. Second, what does “undocumented operational decision by the WMF of cracking down on IRC misuse” refer to? Isn’t it an oblique reference to myself? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:00, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

@Fæ: try to connect to chat.freenode.net:7000, not irc.freenode.org. If failed, then forward me please exact error message shown by the client program. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:30, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

I have deemed nothing, I have no authority to do so. As for WMF's actions banning my alias, this was stated in #wikimedia-commons yesterday, if that is falsehood, perhaps a WMF employee needs to factually correct this understanding of volunteers as to what has changed. I have no idea why you would think I was making any reference to yourself, but if you can explain these bans and how to stop them so that I can join Wikimedia IRC channels that would be great.

BTW I don't understand why, after all these years on IRC, I would suddenly need to use a proxy to get around unexplained security changes. Wikimedia volunteers are encouraged to use IRC, maybe we have to stop doing that if it's becoming unusable.

ec .. I shall try the alternative a bit later when I'm at a keyboard. --Fæ (talk) 09:35, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Back on IRC and nick of Fae_ as well as Fae seems to now not prompt a ban message. There is no way for me to check if something has changed at the server level or the channel. However it is not obvious to me why a "banned" message needs to come from a kline filter, as only one of the channels I had joined was affected (lgbt) it seems more likely that someone was blacklisting accounts for that channel.

If this happens again, I will again raise a task on Phabricator, it remains the only open shared place to document these issues, even though this task was closed as "IRC channel joining policies are not handled in Phabricator" and "You may contact whoever made that change" when logically, it remains impossible even as a channel operator for me to know who made "that" change or as I cannot interrogate blacklist histories, what the change was.

Similarly, we have absolutely no idea if the blacklists are creating impossible barriers for new Wikimedia volunteers to ask for help on IRC, we do not even have a recommended way for them to raise a complaint or to openly document it for future analysis. --Fæ (talk) 10:54, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Mass deletion tagging

Hi, is anyone able to get a bot or a script to tag every single file mentioned here with a deletion tag? There's no chance I'm tagging 374 images. Copying and pasting all the files names took long enough. Anarchyte (work | talk) 10:39, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

• Oh boy, deletionists are getting more clueless every day. @Anarchyte: Yes there is such a thing, very easy to set up and to install. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 10:52, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Ignore the troll, use COM:VFC. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 11:07, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

I see we have a growing trend of "not encyclopedic", maybe we need a tutorial, before enabling mass deletions on that basis. that category could do with a "personality rights" tag on all of them. 2601:5CB:C000:52AD:1DA0:C97:4347:6F3C 11:44, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Yet you post from an anonymous [sic] IP address, in order to make a point about ignoring others' privacy? Andy Dingley (talk) 13:40, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

i made 2 points - "not encyclopedic" is the new idontlikeit. and personality rights are widely ignored here. privacy rights are different than anonymity, and ip's are dynamic (must be difficult for an ideology of ip blocking). 2601:5CB:C000:52AD:600F:7BEE:B3F9:7A83 20:28, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

 Done @Anarchyte: I added the deletion tag to the images, linking to the DR subpage you created. Guanaco (talk) 13:25, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, Guanaco. Anarchyte (work | talk) 00:17, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-32

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

• Special:NewPages now has the OOUI look. [7]

Problems

• The MediaWiki version that was released two weeks ago was late to some Wikimedia wikis. This was because of bugs. It was on all wikis 30 July. [8][9]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 August. It will be on all wikis from 9 August.

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 7 August 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 8 August 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.

19:39, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

August 08

Category:Top_100_ESO_Images

Please help me to add more categories or rename some files. They all got description. --Sergkarman (talk) 16:22, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

• I'm confused: what is the basis for these being "Top 100"? - Jmabel ! talk 18:57, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
  • ESO chose them, i think: https://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/top100/ --Sergkarman (talk) 19:15, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
    • I'd wager most of these are duplicates of existing images, since they are all fairly high profile images. I'm guessing this was a straight dump and none were checked against what's already here? — Huntster (t @ c) 12:45, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
      • I try to check them but this files are different and uploader dont give warnings during upload. Except 3-4 files that i move to this category without uploading. I search for duplicates now. Give them this category and delete second file. --Sergkarman (talk) 18:12, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
        • Sergkarman, I'll be working on this as well as time permits. Use {{Duplicate}} to tag the image in question. — Huntster (t @ c) 18:28, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

August 09

Commons denies pictures were taken by photographer

We are running a digitization project where a seasoned journalist has decided to donate with her historical pictures she took during apartheid era in South Africa to be used on Wikimedia commons for free but the problem is everytime she tries to upload them the system says the pictures where not taken by her. How do we solve this problem? Her name and Wikipedia username is Gille de Vlieg. Bobbyshabangu (talk) 10:51, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Bobbyshabangu This is probably because the pictures were already published before where a copyright release was not present, in which case we tend to be considerably more careful with donations. You might want to read the "for images" part of Granting us permission to copy material already online if you truly want to release the material freely. However note that we do not accept material to be used ONLY on Wikimedia. If you release material to us, you release for the entire world, to use and to adapt for eternity. Be sure to make this very clear. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:00, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

these uploads here? File:Gille.jpeg, File:Eric Itzkin.jpeg might want to have User:Thuvack send in an com:OTRS confrirming what you said. the assumption of bad faith is typical, Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 11:47, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

August 10

Correction for inaccurate time in EXIF

Do we have any sort of template that allows indication that the EXIF data for a photo is off of local time by a known amount? I know I don't adjust the clock in my phone when I travel, so it's always showing West Coast U.S. time; similarly for Standard vs. Daylight time. If there were an easy way to indicate this, I'd certainly use it on my uploads. Instead, I end up with things like the date on File:Bucharest - Str. Mendeleev, nr. 30 - 01.jpg: "2014-12-19 (EXIF data is West Coast of U.S.)". - Jmabel ! talk 01:49, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

@Jmabel: I don't think so. If set to automatically update, phones should get current local date/time from the nearest cell tower on their network. This works for me, as I am usually more interested in local time than the time in my home time zone.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 02:03, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

There was nothing in my question about a phone, so is an answer to something I didn't ask. - Jmabel ! talk 03:25, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

no, no way to visualfilechange exif. have to edit it before upload in file. some modern cameras incorporate wifi with time reset like phones, but for the old ones, it is still set and forget. you could build a template, but why? time of photo is not material to license. the over reliance on exif is a problem, with no one caring about exif setting except commons admins. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 03:32, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

@Jmabel: There exists {{Invalid Exif date}} as warning label for files with incorrect EXIF date and/or time. There exist some image-edit softwares which are able to shift the EXIF date+time simply. However, when I asked such a correction of uploaded images here, nobody claimed his readiness to do so. Thus, a possibility is to edit EXIF at home by external editor at upload the corrected files as new versions. --ŠJů (talk) 04:31, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I have zero interest in downloading the photos, editing the EXIF and re-uploading. It just seems it would be quite simple to have a template that would be a more effective version of my notice on the date "EXIF data is West Coast of U.S.". - Jmabel ! talk 00:16, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

you could use VFC to add a maintenance category, and even date field. but exif no, sofixit. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 12:30, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

+1 Agreeing with previous comments. Unless there is corruption or deliberately misleading data, like false attribution, it is always going to be better to keep the file digitally untouched and add corrections on the wiki image page as notes. If someone is pulling out coordinates, time, license et al, then they should be using the most recent data on the image page, not pulling out of the EXIF data. That's supposed to be one of the benefits of having a wiki anyone can edit, anyone can add value to the data.

PS I deal with a lot of photos of historic artefacts and artworks where even the photo may be of historical significance and the reproduction of it a much later reprint or scan. In these cases date and place can be complex things to answer with multiple values being correct and of value, including the digital stamps on the file. --Fæ (talk) 13:28, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Library of Congress maps - 100,000 high resolution images

• Category:Maps in the Library of Congress
• Maps batch upload project page

Good news everyone!

Since April we have been gradually uploading the latest high resolution scans of public domain maps from the Library of Congress. As a large proportion of the maps have multiple sheets, a count of files is a bit misleading, the actual number of maps is probably around 30,000 so far. These are mostly America related maps, but there are maps in the collection from all over the world, and from all periods of history. The largest single source of images is the Sanborn insurance maps collection, which are incredibly detailed books of maps of American towns and cities, showing individual properties and their layout in the 19th and early 20th century.

• 
  China in Nan Song Dynasty, print of rubbing 1903, original stone carving 1136
• 
  L'Amérique septentrionale, 1783
• 
  Sanborn insurance map of City Island, 1893, sheet 1 of 5
• 
  Turkey, political map 1927
• 
  Great Smoky Mountains National Park, tourist map 1971
• 
  Deepwater Horizon incident. Forecast oil spill area in Gulf of Mexico 2010

On the project page you can find several example ways of searching the collection for maps you may find of interest. Though date, and where possible location, have been used to add categories, these are basic and rely on the metadata being specific. If you can help out by adding categories or refining the existing ones, that would be great, and you will be added to our GLAM volunteer report. In many cases the TIFF versions are very large, so jpeg versions are added as the more workable file, which also renders more clearly as thumbnails for use on Wikipedia(s). It is the jpeg versions that probably should remain a priority for categorisation.

Thanks to Jheald for the original request. By the way, this volunteer driven independent upload continues, and may do for another couple of months. It's a complex slow and steady process which regularly drops out due to LOC server downtime, WMF server time-outs and home broadband brown-outs. --Fæ (talk) 12:02, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

@Fæ: Thank you. Please consider captioning the galleries like this.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 12:47, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Adding the linked filename in a gallery is not a norm, and this may become an issue when files are renamed or duplicates removed. There is some retrospective housekeeping of LOC galleries to make multiple versions easier to understand at a glance, see example diff, which adds the file format, updates changes to filenames, and swaps old style links to a more standard/generic use of the gallery tag. Where the filenames are identical (by far the most common case for LOC galleries), adding more than this seems superfluous for the viewer or reuser. --Fæ (talk) 09:58, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

@Fæ: Really great to have 100,000 / 30,000 of these now on Commons. Thank you so much. It's a huge achievement, and I hope people will find them a fantastic resource.

One glitch I have seen occasionally, is that a few maps and categories for U.S. places have been added to the old maps categories for their U.K. namesakes (eg Category:Old_maps_of_Cumberland). Not a big thing to fix by hand, the next time anyone is going through the UK tree; but would it be possible to put in sanity checks to avoid this? Understand completely if it would be too much of an additional hassle to code, or if you think there would be too many exceptions still getting through the net. Jheald (talk) 11:25, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the observation. The uploads are mostly done, but this might be something that can be added within LOC housekeeping. The metadata potentially has city, county, state, country, within location and the "Old maps of " + place category is generated from that; so far without any complaints. I can imagine vetting the LOC maps collection by intelligently sniffing through the unique set of actual categories, and testing them as they appear by checking within a sensible set created from the UK tree. As both sets are probably a lot less than 10,000, this could be done with a bit of modestly naive programming.

I'll add this as something to ponder when the heatwave is over and there are more excuses to spend time on the keyboard. --Fæ (talk) 15:40, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

@Jheald: I have been taking a look, and in the first 1,000 files only problem cases I have found is to swap Category:Old maps of Georgia with Category:Old maps of Georgia (U.S. state). So fixing is remaining semi-manual at the moment. Any other examples you've noticed?

Additional I have now added a category mapping table at User:Fæ/LOC_maps#Categorisation specifically for the housekeeping, the table being the array cut&paste from the code. If any are missing, notes about them are welcome on my talk page. --Fæ (talk) 10:26, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

@Fæ: I was going from the other side, looking through Category:Old_maps_of_counties_in_England and Category:Old maps of cities in England and was finding quite a few, particularly in the latter, for example under Category:Old_maps_of_Birmingham, Category:Old maps of Bradford, Category:Old maps of Brighton, Category:Old maps of Bristol, Category:Old maps of Cambridge, ... etc. The LoC maps tend to fairly easily spotted by eye, either being in whole Sanford sub-categories, or alternatively occurring towards the end of the categories (because the UK Old Maps categories are generally pipe-sorted by date, but the LoC maps are not). Jheald (talk) 20:28, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional examples, I've added these as a precautionary set to my table, which can be mapped as they occur. I'm not predesigning the cat map, just inheriting more maps as actual files pop up in the housekeeping task. The vast majority of cats are okay and are much wider than US/UK, e.g. Old maps of Greece, Old maps of Virginia in the American Civil War, Old maps of Belize, Old maps of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

As the LOC metadata location set has no hard rules for its creation or granularity, it would probably be unproductive to import large sets of locations, like U.S. city names, and tease out possible mismatches in advance. However when examining individual cases I have found Locations in the United States with an English name and List of US places named for non-US places helpful in finding out if multiple matches might exist, hence the addition of a regex filter to match other location text not just the one in the cat name. Obviously there are a lot, but hopefully only a small subset will be of practical concern to us. --Fæ (talk) 08:20, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Images in Public Domain?

Hi all, I have a question. I am currently working on the article associated with Eldfell volcanic eruption in 1973 on Iceland and I am searching for images. I just found this webpage where many very nice images are. I would like to copy them to Commons, however, I am not sure if I can. It is written on the page that "Except where noted, all photographs are by the late Svienn Eirikksen, fire marshal of the town of Vestmannaeyjar. Photographs courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey." As USGS is a US federal agency I assume that images are available under the Public Domain. Right? Or did I overlook something? Thanks in advance for help and if they will be in Public Domain, I will upload them to Commons. Regards --Chmee2 (talk) 12:04, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

I read this the following way: Sveinn Eirikksen provided his private photographs to USGS which were then given to the owner of website ("courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey"). So as Eirikksen was not a member of USGS the images are not public domain. The only one that is explicitely attributed to USGS and can be uploaded here is this: "The town of Vestmannaeyjar and the harbor after the eruption. Eldfell and the 1973 lava flows are just beyond the town. Photograph by Robin Holcomb, U.S. Geological Survey." De728631 (talk) 13:47, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi De728631, thank you a lot for your opinion and explanation! So I will upload only one picture. Best regards --Chmee2 (talk) 14:34, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Please go ahead. You may use {{PD-USGov-USGS}} as a licence template. De728631 (talk) 14:55, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Action throttled in renaming categories

Hi,

I've undertaken solving erroneous category names related to the "Orchomenos" toponym (Greece), which is the name carried by two distinct locations in Boeotia and Arcadia. I was renaming the existing "Orchomenos" categories into "Orchomenos (Boeotia)" or "Orchomenos (Arcadia)", or creating new ones, depending on which place they were referring to (based on the pictures they contained).

I in the end got an "Action throttled" warning message: "As an anti-abuse measure, you are limited from performing this action too many times in a short space of time, and you have exceeded this limit. Please try again in a few minutes."

I might not be doing this the best way, but I don't think automation would do it in this case (I'm clearly checking the pictures inside the categories before moving files and categories around). Once I'm done with the clean-up process, I'll upload the pictures of Orchomenos (Boeotia) I've taken to complete the existing Commons iconography.

In the end, my question is: is there a way to get a "clearance" so that my work is not impeded by the "Action throttled" mechanism?

Thanks in advance. --LeZibou (talk) 17:49, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

File:Jo Ann Davidson (City Club of Cleveland).jpg

The youtube license says 'nonprofits & Activism'? What is the license for this image? Is it free...I have no idea. Feel free to review it if you know what the license means at youtube. Best, --Leoboudv (talk) 20:32, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

• You have misread that. It isn't the licence, it is the category of the video. When YouTube does not state the licence it mean it is YouTube Standard Licence, which is not free. As such this image must be deleted as a DW of a non-free work. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ ✍ ⏿) 20:34, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
• Thank You Gene Postal. That was what i was afraid it was. Thank You, --Leoboudv (talk) 03:02, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

August 12

Increased occurence of incomplete digital photographs

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T190988

Recently (last several months) I noticed rapidly increased occurrence of incomplete digital photographs, especially uploaded by inexperienced new users. I didn't succeed in investigation what is the cause, but some cases indicate that this is not any mass infectious disease of various types of cameras, but rather some problem with our upload process. Maybe, premature close of browser window, poor-quality internet connection etc. and insufficient detection and warning system of our upload interface. --ŠJů (talk) 02:13, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

• 
• 
• 

When this was happening to my uploads it was related to WMF operational issues. It may be worth looking for a pattern by plotting instances over time. --Fæ (talk) 06:52, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

@Fæ: These three files were all uploaded with the identical comment "Cross-wiki upload from cs.wikipedia.org", if that helps.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 13:18, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

@Jeff G.: That can have a relation with the fact that I found the files sorting Commons:Media needing categories (Czech description), rather than with the core problem. --ŠJů (talk) 20:49, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

@Fæ and Jeff G.: What I discovered is that all the incomplete photographs have a size 5MB in its file history, independently on the fact what is the size of the undamaged file. --ŠJů (talk) 02:45, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

@ŠJů: I think this calls for a phab task.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 02:52, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

I created a bug report. But as I experienced, most of bugs remain unresolved for years. --ŠJů (talk) 03:31, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

I noticed this recently with several Flickr images needing human review but many were nominated for deletion, in what I think was a drive-by manner, when most, maybe all, could have been fixed by the nominator themselves or asking the uploader to do them again. Direct uploads like the ones above need the original uploader to be contacted. Ww2censor (talk) 11:12, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

@Ww2censor: As the problem is with some technical process which doesn't accept any file bigger than 5MB, such asks for reuploads are a bit nonsensical. At first we need to detect and fix the cause urgently. As long as we don't know the cause, we can't advise how to avoid the damage. The only reliable advice is to lower the quality of all uploaded files under 5MB. For now, the problem seems to be related with cross-wiki uploads. Shouldn't we switch them off urgently? Regrettably, most of Phabricator tasks remain many months or years without any adequate reaction. --ŠJů (talk) 06:30, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

ŠJů: I'm pretty much aware of the issues and the Phabricator time scale. I've mainly noticed this occuring with Flickr images and I have reuploaded some of those. However, I wonder, because these all seem to be crosswiki uploads, whether they can be rescued or restored at the local wiki and then manually uploaded here as currently the number of files is low enough so it would not be a significant burden. Ww2censor (talk) 09:40, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

@Ww2censor: I'm not sure you understood good what means the "cross-wiki upload" tag. I think that are images which were uploaded through a Wikipedia link, but that doesn't mean that Wikipedia stores some "original" of the image. Btw., most of the affected files are from one-time and occasional users. It is not promising to ask them for reupload, especially when we are not able for many month to identify and fix the primary problem. --ŠJů (talk) 10:06, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Re: Three closely related categories to be joined.

These two categories, Category:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1 (book) and Category:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2 (book) should be made to be sub-categories of Category:Siberia and the exile system (1891). I would do it except I never moved categories, only files. Anyone's help would be greatly appreciated and I would learn by looking at the results. — Ineuw talk 22:40, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

• @Ineuw: I've made the relevant edits; please take a look at the histories of the respective category histories to see how to do this, it is super-simple. I have not examined the other attached categories to see if this makes some other existing parent categories redundant. - Jmabel ! talk 04:28, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
  • @Jmabel: My thanks. Your change is exactly what was needed. I realize that there will be redundant categories because at first, I copied categories from the image category page to the (book) categories, I will check tomorrow and will clean up any redundancies. By the way, FYI just swimming in the artificial waves of the Gellert Baths and other artesian bath houses, is worth the trip to Budapest. :-) Spent a lot of time at the Gellert Baths as a kid.— Ineuw talk 06:49, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
    • I'm very fond of the Gellert. - Jmabel ! talk 06:58, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

August 13

Logos

Has anyone noticed the number of commercial Logos that are appearing on Wikimedia? I appreciate that it not as simple as delete then all but most are out of scope and many are copyright violations. Part of the problem is the assumption by uploaders that they need Wikimedia entry to display their logo in Wikipedia. As I understand it, you can use “non Free” logos in Wikipedia provided they are low resolution and in context where they are considered “fair use” . However fair use cannot be applied to Wikimedia.

Furthermore some of them are “cross-wiki uploads” which suggests an option has been selected on upload to Wikipedia to automatically upload to Wikimedia. I suspect this has been done in all innocence by uploaders not realising the difference in rules.

I suspect also that most corporate lawyers would be horrified to find the corporate logo licenced under a CC-BY-SA licence!

Is there any way we can point the perils of putting Logos on Wikimedia - a sort of “are you sure you want to do this type statement. Any thoughts?--Headlock0225 (talk) 12:51, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Keep in mind, that copyright and trademark are quite different. It is quite possible to have one's logo copyrighted under a free licence or even be public domain and yet the trademark protection will be sufficient for those most corporate lawyers. But you are correct, sometimes people think that something they found on the internet is "free" because they didn't have to pay to download it, thus if the logo is unfree it should be deleted here. And finally, not all Wikimedia projects accept fair use, some wikipedias do, others don't. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ ✍ ⏿) 13:24, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

thanks Gone_Postal. Although sone may well be deliberate, I suspect the majority are here by accident or misunderstanding. I have some sympathy for the person trying to create a Wikipedia page for his/her company or brand. It naturally needs a logo. If it stayed on Wikipedia (alright most Wikipedias!)it wouldn’t be a problem but Wikipedia users are encouraged to put images on Wikimedia. I think there should be a warning somewhere for Logos. Perhaps it an issue for Wikipedia village pump (do they have one?) --Headlock0225 (talk) 18:48, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

There are warnings here on Commons, e.g. {{Trademarked}}. And afaik Fair Use is exclusive to en.wiki. --MB-one (talk) 08:18, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

@MB-one: Re "exclusive", please see m:nfc.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 12:39, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

@Headlock0225: English Wikipedia's 14-year-old Village pump is at en:WP:VP.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 12:43, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Overwriting a file to remove a de minimis element

File:Donald Trump alt-right supporter (32452974604).jpg has been modified to remove the Pepe the Frog character. The character was considered de minimis in its first deletion request. However, this seems to remove a huge amount of context from the image. Would I be correct in thinking that this violates COM:OVERWRITE? 93 (talk) 05:44, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

If the character is contextually important enough for a removal to violate COM:OVERWRITE then is it actually de minimis? --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 17:13, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

DM or not, blanking a portion of the image seems like it should warrant a new version instead of presenting it as the original. 93 (talk) 17:32, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

It's a very bad idea to create a new version in this case. We want to keep the history, but can only really present the blurred version, the original is there only as the history and can be reverted a hundred or so years in the future. Overwriting was the correct way to do that. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ ✍ ⏿) 03:25, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

it's de minimis, but by all means keep censoring the protest signs, the problem with your editing or rev-diving, is is makes it hard to keep provenance. and you are imposing your own ego judgement over consensus. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 02:19, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

ديفيد_عادل_وهبة_خليل_2

At Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/User_problems/Archive_70#ديفيد_عادل_وهبة_خليل_2 you can see how fellow user @ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2: feels free to add Category:Child marriage to obviously unrelated photos of little girls and no Administrator feel they need to step in before the subject gets automaticly archived. Maybe the community at large wants to say something, or at least be warned. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 00:08, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Looks like two people disagreeing about the categorisation of the image. When I looked at the image the first thought was 'child marriage' as well, but that is probably because I read this post first. I agree that it can be either a bride or a bridesmaid, and either categorisation was contentious. Perhaps it could be categorised as both to avoid edit war, somewhat like people insist on incorrectly adding Category:Vegetables by common name to Category:Tomatoes and nobody just wants to start fighting with them. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ ✍ ⏿) 03:40, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

• Well, if these were about tomatoes, proper categorization would still be important. However in this case, what’s at stake is more than mere accuracy in categorization (and I do consider accuracy in categorization to be very important in Commons): This is about personality rights, compounded by these being of a minor. Obviously great care should be excercised when classifying media of identifiable minors into something as problematic as Category:Child marriage.

There’s no overstressing of this, and I am appalled at both the repeated emmerging of more users who don’t have a clue about this and the deafening silence of the admin community, usually so swift to asperse admonishings for much lesser matters. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 16:59, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

«Please delete»?

Since the original categories are not acceptable, please delete the images ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 09:05, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

@ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2: , the thing is that the image is either educational or not and either free or not. In some very rare situations, when somebody uploads by mistake files do get deleted if somebody asks right away, but now more than a year has passed (uploaded here on 7 June 2017). Tuvalkin's response was completely disproportionate, you have twice categorised the image that you have spent time transferring to this project and that was labelled as you "insisting" on such categorisation. It is a shame that no admin felt free to step in to stop such anti-social behaviour, even though it occurred on the administrators' noticeboard (so they either ignored or tacitly supported it... at least they didn't join it I guess). But, even though you were in the right before, please consider that this project attempts to collect educational material for all categories, not only the one you were trying to populate, as such you can just leave that image as is and simply move on making other contributions. If you want to help others to categorise their uploads, I am sure they would be thankful. Alternatively, if you feel that this file is of high enough quality, that is essential to keep it in the correct category, you can start a discussion on File talk:Little girl wearing a white wedding dress 3.jpg or Category talk:Child marriage. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ ✍ ⏿) 12:10, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

@Gone Postal: I uploaded it to be in a category that is not accepted by other users so delete them better than keep them and leave them to cause problems (Edit wars annoying and edits for the uploader or an annoying category for others) ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 12:29, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

@ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2: Often the goal of such behaviour is to get some sort of validation from others. By demanding deletion you will only make yourself look bad in this situation. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ ✍ ⏿) 12:43, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

@Gone Postal: I do not upload the pictures for others to check and change their contents but to benefit from them as they are and if they are kept, I will be very bad (from the point of view of others) because of the problems mentioned above and block requests will be repeated ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 13:00, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

@ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2: Image that you have uploaded is licenced under a free licence. All the text that you put on Wikimedia Commons is also placed under the free licence. When you edit any page it says the following: "By saving changes, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 3.0 Licence and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons licence." It takes a long time to explain different licences, but all the free ones allow modification for any purpose. So yes, if you do not wish for the description to ever be changed, you should not place any file or text on this project. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ ✍ ⏿) 13:07, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

@Gone Postal: Yes I know, therefore, these files should be deleted because edits are always unacceptable ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 13:11, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

• When I posted this to AN/U the main matter of User:ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2’s issue was their patent insensitivity to a minor’s personality rights, but the above suggests a deeper and wider lack of understanding by this user. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 16:59, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

File:Heather Brooke May 12.jpg

Both File:Heather Brooke May 12.jpg and the derivative File:Heather Brooke, 2012 (cropped).jpg are tagged by the uploader, the photographer, as {{cc-by-sa-3.0}}. Despite this, both have been recently tagged {{No permission since}}. I removed the latter, with explanatory edits summaries, but have been reverted by User:Ruthven, who also left a charmless standard template on my talk page. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:23, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

What did Ruthven say when you asked about it on their talk page? Or did you come straight here without trying to discuss it first? World's Lamest Critic (talk) 22:34, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

the same thing that the uploader said, when she talked with them on their talk. the summary process by template originates with the admins; it is not a double standard for the not admins. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 01:28, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Like I said, I gave explanatory edit summaries. These were ignored. Do you think these files should be deleted? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:41, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Uploader name matches photographer name, {{Self}} tag, similar high quality uploads, and appropriate metadata. What evidence does Ruthven have to suggest this isn’t the uploader’s own work as claimed? clpo13_(talk) 22:55, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

As far as I can see, there's no reason to delete the images. Maybe Ruthven knows something I don't, but I suspect this is just a misunderstanding. I'm not sure why this needs to be discussed here at all when it probably could have been settled on their talk page simply by asking for clarification. World's Lamest Critic (talk) 03:19, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Ok guys, problem solved! It was simply a scrolling issue, so the uploaded appeared to me to be Pigsonthewing instead of the author. As a side note, I've to say that replying in an edit comment is not the most visible way to comunicate, even just because the lenght of the sentence allowed. --Ruthven (msg) 07:23, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

As anyone can see, my edit summary when I removed the {{No permission since}} tag on the parent image was "clearly marked {{self|cc-by-sa-3.0}} by the photographer)". You reverted me with no regard for that, and no edit summary. The uploader in both cases is clearly not me. Your actions and responses ("a scrolling issue" - really?!?) call into question your competence to be making such edits. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 07:57, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

the larger problem is the over-use of "license needed" tag, without interacting with the uploader about what the license concerns are. it is a sword of damocles; it is not a professional standard of practice; it is pernicious and undermines the credibility of commons. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 12:32, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Can't locate source of image

I am unable to locate the ultimate source of this scanned image by Johannes Itten, and thus do not know if it was created earlier than 1923, or is in the public domain for some other reason. Is there a better search engine than Google for this purpose? Thanks. SharkD  Talk  14:42, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

In the "The copyright has definitely expired in the USA" section of the upload page, which option do I choose? There is an "First published in the United States before 1923" option, but I don't know if it was ever published in the United States. Thanks. SharkD  Talk  15:29, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

So why are you confident that it is in the public domain in the United States? - Jmabel ! talk 15:36, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

The Flickr page actually says 1919-1920, which would put it before 1923. SharkD  Talk  15:47, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Images on the Commons must be free in both the US and their country of origin, if different. Johannes Itten was Swiss and the writing in the image is in German (i.e., no reason to believe it was first published in an English-speaking country, the US). Switzerland is pma +70, so this would not be PD there until 01.01.2038 (1967 + 70). We cannot host the image. Эlcobbola _talk 15:48, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks. SharkD  Talk  16:02, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

According to w:Johannes Itten, he was living and working in Germany at the time the drawings were made. Does that make a difference? SharkD  Talk  16:12, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Copyright laws are roughly the same in Germany. SharkD  Talk  16:16, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) No, Germany is also pma + 70. A possible way forward: unlike the Commons, en.wiki only requires a work be free in the US. You could upload the image locally there with the pre-1923 publication rationale and include the {{Do not move to Commons|reason=USonly}} template. Эlcobbola _talk 16:21, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

That works, thanks. SharkD  Talk  17:04, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-33

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

• CSS in templates can now be stored in a separate page on all wikis. This is called TemplateStyles. This is to make it easier to edit how templates look. [10]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

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 14 August 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 15 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The developers are planning more ways to block users. This could be blocking someone from just a page or a namespace. You can read more. You can leave feedback on the talk page. [11]

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

17:52, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

August 15

Whats the easiest way to find all the files in BOTH two sets of subcategories and add them to a third category

Hi all

I'm running a competition as part of Wiki Loves Earth and need to find all the files which appear in BOTH a subcategory of CATEGORY A and in a subcategory of CATEGORY B, I know that this is probably possible through some kind of search query in CirrusSearch, but can't work out how to do it, any suggestions? Also bonus points is you can suggest a simple way of adding all the files which appear in this search result to a third category (I expect I'll have to do it manually..... If its possible to do this easily by bot here are the searches I want to run and the additional category I want to add:

Show files that appear in a subcategory of Category:Geoparks AND in a subcategory of Category:Wiki Loves Earth 2018. I want to add these images to Category:Images from Wiki Loves Earth Biosphere Reserves and UNESCO Global Geoparks 2018‎

I also want to do the same for Biosphere Reserves as well as Geoparks so:

Show files that appear in a subcategory of Category:Biosphere reserves AND in a subcategory of Category:Wiki Loves Earth 2018. I want to add these images to Category:Images from Wiki Loves Earth Biosphere Reserves and UNESCO Global Geoparks 2018‎

If there's no simple way of adding them automatically I'm happy to spend a few hours doing it manually

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 18:14, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

• We do have Template:Intersect categories. If that won't give you quite what you want, you might try User talk:CategorizationBot and see if they can do precisely what you need. - Jmabel ! talk 00:20, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks very much Jmabel, so I deepcat:"Geoparks" deepcat:"Wiki Loves Earth 2018" which should give me exactly what I need but it gives "Deep category query returned too many categories" :(. I'll try to work out how to use the template today. John Cummings (talk) 09:20, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

• Ah.... it looks like the template won't do enough levels of subcategory and the bot has been shut down because of some technical change :( I'll have to find some alternatives.... I know I managed to find a way to do it last year but can't for the life of me work out what I did (or who did it for me if it was a bot thing). John Cummings (talk) 09:32, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

• @John Cummings: *waves* You're remembering Commons:Bots/Requests/Pi bot. :-) I'll re-run it for these two cases later today. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 10:48, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

• @Mike Peel: , amazing, thanks so much :) Let me know if there's anything I can swap you for. John Cummings (talk) 11:22, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

@Mike Peel: so is there anything that should change about Template:Intersect categories? Because it explicitly mentions User talk:CategorizationBot. - Jmabel ! talk 16:16, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

@Jmabel: Hmm ... This was a specific bit of code that I wrote for WLE/biosphere (it's actually a precurser for the first category walker I used for the infobox deployment), and it currently has to be run manually to generate the list, which is then manually checked passed to another script to add the categories. The bot request above was for the process of adding the new category rather than anything else. That said, if this is something that there is demand for, then I could look into expanding it into something more general. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 17:11, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

• There might be a demand; I guess what I was more driving at is:
  1. I gather from what John said above that User talk:CategorizationBot is no longer running, so at the very least the template probably should not refer to that bot.
  2. If someone now uses Template:Intersect categories, will any bot follow up and take the action, or will it just sit there indefinitely? - Jmabel ! talk 20:05, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

@John Cummings: A combination of Petscan, a gallery page in the user name space and VisualFileChange should do the trick. I'm just not sure about how many category layers we are talking here. Going seven levels deep gave me roughly 3700 files, which fall into either cut set and don't have Images from Wiki Loves Earth Biosphere Reserves and UNESCO Global Geoparks 2018 yet (petscan could deal with more depth in my test). I created a gallery page in my user namespace (User:MB-one/WLE18_maintenance). Now, using VisualFileChange, we can append [[Category:Images from Wiki Loves Earth Biosphere Reserves and UNESCO Global Geoparks 2018]] to each of those files, without too many clicks. Does that help? --MB-one (talk) 18:12, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks so much @MB-one: , I know @Mike Peel: has also been working on this, I'll let you both decide which is the best way forward. Looking at the images they all look reasonable and I looked at around 20 and couldn't find any errors in the selection, my guess is a few more layers of subcategory probably wouldn't hurt. I think the easiest way to do this is if {{Wiki Loves Earth 2018|unesco}} could be added each image, that way it will look nice and also add the category I need to be able to do the judging. If I can swap either of you for a non technical task (e.g writing a piece of documentation) please let me know.

Thanks again

John Cummings (talk) 19:38, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

@MB-one and John Cummings: So, now I'm confused. Going through Category:Wiki Loves Earth 2018 to a depth of 3 (91675 files) then Category:Geoparks to a depth of 10 (121647 files) yields 554 files in common, which are listed at User:Mike Peel/WLE18. That's quite different from 3700 - or does that count include the biosphere reserves? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 22:46, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

@Mike Peel and John Cummings: sorry for the confusion. Yes, the 3.7k files include both Geoparks AND Biosphere Reserves. Also I made a spelling mistake. The "could deal" should have spelled "couldn't deal" in the first place. But I doodled around a bit and found a way to make 11 levels work (4007 files, https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?psid=53815593). With your permission, I can append {{Wiki Loves Earth 2018|unesco}} to each of those files. --MB-one (talk) 08:11, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

@MB-one: , amazing, thanks, yes, please add the template :) John Cummings (talk) 09:35, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm wondering about this simple solution. But it might be much better to have only one template like {{Wiki Loves Earth 2018|de|unesco}}. --XRay ^talk 13:59, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

@MB-one: thanks so much for making this happen, I'll be using it tomorrow :) John Cummings (talk) 18:41, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

@MB-one and John Cummings: Sorry, I'm one of the organizers of WLE Spain 2018. As part of this thread, we've found that some hundreds of images uploaded as part of such contest, now show a misleading template that suggests that the images were uploaded as part of another contest (this WLE UNESCO stuff). As that's wrong, I'm going to remove the template. Let me know whether you want me to manually add Category:Images from Wiki Loves Earth Biosphere Reserves and UNESCO Global Geoparks 2018 (a bot will do it). Thanks for your understanding --Discasto _talk 08:44, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

@Discasto: , can you tell me why you think the template is misleading? Could you suggest a change to the template that would resolve the issue without removing it? This would allow us to save a lot of effort and avoid the problem happening again.

If you do decide to remove the template yes please add the category, the images are eligible for the UNESCO competition and the category means that they can be included. Thanks, John Cummings (talk) 11:26, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

The images were uploaded as part of the Spanish edition of WLE. It's pretty clear. They were not uploaded as part of your contest. In fact, and according to your own rules, they wouldn't be even eligible as they were uploaded in May. If you feel your template is necessary, feel free to include it after the original one. I have no objection to that. --Discasto _talk 12:40, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks @Discasto: , do you know of an easy way to change the order of the templates on these pages so yours appears first? John Cummings (talk) 13:35, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

@John Cummings: I can "bot" it. --Discasto _talk 15:03, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

@Discasto: , great. John Cummings (talk) 15:17, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Done But please, talk to the responsibles of each local contest before muddling their contributions. Best regards --Discasto _talk 22:20, 15 August 2018 (UTC) PS: as an aside, I can tell you that there's possibly more images that could be elegible for the Unesco contest, but it would require a proper definition of the involved categories. WLE in Spain is based on Natura 2000 sites of community importance. Biosphere Reserves and UNESCO Geoparks involve usualy tens of such sites and not all the reserves and geoparks are currently categorizing the corresponding sites of community importance.

August 06

Uploaded photos of Jack Katz and Tony Vella

I recently uploaded two new photos. The first photo is of artist Jack Katz. In the upper-left corner of the photo, part of an artistic work on a white background is visible. From what I can tell, the artistic work is not the subject of the photo and the portion shown (which appears to be part of the lower-right section of the work) is not all that large. The question is whether the inclusion of the portion of the work is de minimis in the case of the uploaded photo.

The second photo is of stuntman Tony Vella. The photo was taken in the outside area of a hotel, not far from an indoor area where a public event was taking place. The hotel is located in the US. In the photo, Mr. Vella is posing against an outdoor pillar. I am assuming that there should not be any issues with copyrighted architecture in the case of this second photo, though my thought is to ask here as well. --Gazebo (talk) 07:07, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Both photographs should be ok. --MB-one (talk) 07:23, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Editing problems

I have created categories and uploaded images for many years without any problems and in the last two weeks I am suddenly having odd problems. When I create a category by putting CategoryːX in the search box I get an option to create the page but it is created as a gallery page and I have to use move to change it to a category. When I put in double square brackets they are autoconverted to "ʽ". ~~~~ is autoconverted to " ̴̴" I can get round the autoconvert problems by inserting symbols using the bar below, but not being able to create categories is an irritating problem. Does anyone have any idea what is going on? Dudley Miles (talk) 20:01, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

• Turn off VisualEditor, maybe? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 17:05, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks but that does not help. It is very strange, as if it is a bug which has changed editing to a different character set, but only in Commons. Typing a colon to indent does not work, but copying a colon in a Commons page does. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:41, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

i had a problem in the edit toolbar. there is a "syntax highlighting" button that toggles on and off. (pencil icon next to advanced menu button) please check that, it changes characters as well. they keep tweaking menus and code, so that the editing code changes, very abrupt and astonishing Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 13:02, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks but that makes no difference. It is a peculiar and very irritating problem. Dudley Miles (talk) 08:28, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

I am not sure whether I have solved the problem by changing the character set to Scandinavian and then back again to Standard. I can now type the double square brackets and four tildes, but the editing screen looks different with most of the text in blue. Dudley Miles (talk) 08:49, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

SVG Translate Community wishlist survey project

Hello all. The Community Tech team in the Wikimedia Foundation is beginning to start their work on the SVG Translate project that was proposed in the 2017 Wishlist survey. If you are interested in being involved in the project, you can watch the project page and join in the discussions on the talk page. If you’d be interested in getting periodic notifications about the project and our team's work, you can also choose to subscribe to our team newsletter. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and learning from your experiences. Thank you. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 22:44, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Request for assistance with public domain Mauthausen photo

Moved from Commons talk:Village pump - Jmabel ! talk 23:05, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
Hi. I'm not quite sure where to post this request for help (and my apologies if this isn't the correct place, but I'm still trying to figure out all of the workings of Commons). I just received a notice that a photo that I'd posted had been removed by Commons editor (but no discussion happened beforehand, and no clear explanation was given at to why this action was taken). The photo itself is in the public domain because it was taken at the Mauthausen concentration camp by a U.S. soldier on behalf of the U.S. Army's Signal Corps on May 8, 1945 (so it fits the definition of public domain photos taken by a member of the U.S. government). Additionally, the photo is part of the public domain collections of the U.S. National Archives (also a U.S. government agency). A day or so after I originally posted the photo, someone tagged it with a notation indicating that it wasn't sourced. (It was. I clearly noted on the source and author fields when posting the image that the photo was produced by the U.S. Army's Signal Corps, is part of the U.S. National Archives' collections, and is in the public domain.) A second Commons editor, a day or so later, then also tagged the photo as being unsourced, which is not correct. (Neither of these users tried to reach out to me beforehand, and neither provided any explanation on the photo's talk page.) A third Commons editor then deleted the photo today - also without contacting me beforehand, and also without providing any explanation on the talk page. The only thing I've been able to find for information are the public logs here. I'd appreciate it if someone can restore the photo (or can explain what the problem is with posting this public domain image). If I need to post this help request elsewhere, I'd appreciate it if someone can provide guidance as to where I can get help. Thank you in advance for your response. Kind regards. 47thPennVols (talk) 18:02, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Pinging @Elisfkc.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 18:42, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

@47thPennVols: Sorry about not getting back to you right away, I have been rather busy the past couple of days. As far as the source goes, I had an issue with it originally because I had thought that there was no way to verify it. I was wrong on this. The file also should not have been deleted until 7 days after the no source template was added (pinging @Jcb for explanation). If you want to open an undeletion request, I would gladly support it. Also, in the future, you can use the {{NARA-image}} template for images from the National Archives, while adding the correct identifier. This way, there is an easy way for anyone to track down the image and proof of its license. Elisfkc (talk) 22:10, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

If a no source tag is removed by the uploader, I tend to delete the file at once. We are not going to babysit a problem tag. It's very disruptive if uploaders remove those tags, because there is a high risk that the file will remain online unnoticed, without the problem being solved. Jcb (talk) 22:15, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

• @Elisfkc: @Jeff G.: Now, I'm really confused. Just as I was starting to post my response to Elisfkc (see paragraph below), @Jcb: jumped in with the response above, which seems to contradict what Elisfkc wrote. For reference, here was my original response to Elisfkc that was pre-empted by an edit conflict when Jcb responded at the same time that I was trying to respond:

"@Elisfkc: Many thanks for your response. I'm glad to know that there was no problem with the original image after all. (I'm usually very careful about sourcing images - especially those in the public domain, and was genunely worried when the image was deleted.) I appreciate your willingness to help get the image restored. I also want to thank you for the info you provided re: the NARA tag. I hadn't realized this was an available tag. So, I'll definitely use that for photos in the future. Again, many thanks for your response. Kind Regards. 47thPennVols (talk) 22:33, 16 August 2018 (UTC)"

Elisfkc has indicated that his deletion of my image was incorrect and done too hastily, and that restoration is appropriate and would be supported, but Jcb seems to be saying that's not going to happen. How do I proceed? (Again, what we're talking about is an image that is clearly in the public domain image; it was produced by a representative of the U.S. government during World War II, and is housed in collections of the U.S. National Archives (NARA). 47thPennVols (talk) 22:33, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

No, Jcb isn't saying "that's not going to happen". He's saying that he did this because your removal of the tag without providing evidence fit a pattern often used by inexperienced users who think they can game the system, so he went straight to an immediate deletion. In this case, it was a false positive, and you weren't trying to game the system.

Bring this to undeletion request, ping Elisfkc there (write {{ping|Elisfkc}} as part of your undeletion request), and it should all get sorted out correctly. If you know (or can find) the NARA ID, that should speed this up considerably. - Jmabel ! talk 22:56, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

August 16

Wich Nadar fotografer? round 2

Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2018/08#Wich_Nadar_fotografer? user:jcb i see that you are admin locking File:Pasteur, Louis (1822-1895) par Paul Nadar.jpg to impose the orignial theory that this image File:Louis Pasteur by M.P. Nadar.jpg pencil notation "proves" that all of these are by Paul Nadar. you realize that by overwriting and conflating multiple prints, you are destroying provenance? what possible excuse is there to impose a metadata conclusion by fiat rather than consensus? Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 15:14, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi, In absence of dates, references or first name, the images should simply be credited to "Nadar", which is also the name of the studio/company. But for this image, I have provided 3 references on its talk page. So this one can be safely credited to Paul Nadar. Category:Photographs of Louis Pasteur by Nadar should probably be renamed, and there seems to be inconsistencies or confusion in the dates (probably between dates of photography and publication dates). Regards, Yann (talk) 15:29, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Yann, you are adding to the confusion. where is the catalog raisone? you realize that Nadar opened his studio before paul nadar was born? who took those photos? why don't you do some basic curation, of reflecting the photo credit as represented by reliable sources? Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 16:00, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and the son joined his father's studio, and finally took over the company. So for pictures made between around 1876 and 1910, we can't know who is the photographer without a reference. Regards, Yann (talk) 16:08, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Slowking4, you were in an edit war and you were also blanking information fields, something you have been warned for before. Use take page to come to a conclusion. Jcb (talk) 15:31, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Slowking4 is evidently on a mild edit war against Smiley.toerist over {{No source since}}, but where does Jcb see any blanking? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 16:05, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Ok, if it's too difficult to click to the history page of the involved file, I will rub it under your nose: here. Jcb (talk) 16:08, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Here, Slowking4 removed information. Regards, Yann (talk) 16:09, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

here is Nadar [12] and here is paul nadar [13]. the Getty is not confused. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 16:16, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it seems you are confused: Pasteur's portrait is clearly credited to the son. Regards, Yann (talk) 16:21, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

no it is clearly credited "Nadar" here is the NYPL image File:Louis Pasteur .jpg, which is a different print from File:Pasteur, Louis (1822-1895) par Paul Nadar.jpg. you need to provide the source where the overwritten file came from. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 16:22, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

here is an possible source for the overwrite [14] which says " Photographed By Nadar In 1889" Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 16:29, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

It seems you don't even read the talk page where I mentioned references, or what I wrote. Unless you do that, it doesn't seem useful to continue a discussion. Again, this picture is by Paul Nadar, the son, not by Nadar, the father. Regards, Yann (talk) 16:32, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

i read what you wrote, and i laughed. when i mention it to some GLAM professionals, you will be a laughing stock, and they will want to interact with you even less. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 01:43, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Looking for a rectified map example

I'm looking for an example of an old map, preferably of my home city, Birmingham, England, that has been rectified using the Wikimaps Warper.

There doesn't seem to be a category for this; can anyone point me at one, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:48, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: Category:Georeferenced maps in Wikimaps Warper, eg File:Birmingham & Bordesley RJD 7.jpg. (No, I didn't know either) -- though I'm not sure how convinced I am by the current georeferencing on that file -- I thought RJD diagrams were more usually fairly undistorted -- so it could maybe benefit from review/correction. Jheald (talk) 20:46, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Category is under-populated. https://warper.wmflabs.org/maps?page=116&show_warped=1 suggest that in all there are 1155 warped maps on the warper. Jheald (talk) 20:58, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

August 17

Natalia Medvedeva

This picture here is taken in 2011 and the (alleged) subject died in 2003. Something is wrong there. Hektor (talk) 07:22, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

• Somebody with the same name? Possibly https://www.e-talenta.eu/members/profile/natalya-medvedeva. --ghouston (talk) 07:28, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
• Is https://zen.yandex.ru/media/etc/evgeniia-vasileva--sestra-svetlany-medvedevoi--5ace17ef5f49678719631a20 relevant? --ghouston (talk) 07:34, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
  • If so, it would be Category:Svetlana Medvedeva. --ghouston (talk) 07:37, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Which the file description says anyway. It's only people on Wikipedia / Wikidata using the wrong image. --ghouston (talk) 07:47, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Structured Data - Depicts statements draft is up

Greetings,

There is a presentation posted on the first draft specifications for using Wikidata depicts statements on Commons. Please visit the Get Involved page for the presentation and to leave feedback. These statements are an early feature of the Structured Data project, you can expect to see them live on the wiki sometime early next year so your input at this early stage is very valuable. Thank you for your time, see you on the talk page. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 19:26, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

• I read it through. It adds to the fascinating case of how a heavily promoted and funded feature still cannot, after half a dozen years, even grasp the coarser aspects of Commons curation. It is, paradoxally, a very wiki thing, though: On one hand, a volonteer community, in an organic and unguided way, develops and keeps improving a mechanism that works, while on the other hand a top-down, hamfisted approach, only nominally guided by collaboration ideals, attains laughingly modest results while trying to tackle the same data for the same curation purposes. Between a Rube Goldberg contraption that works and vaporware that does nothing but fog, I chose the first. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 00:22, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

thanks for the report. Rube Goldberg does not scale, and the volunteer overhead is "soul crushing"; there is more ware than vapor there; i prefer the latter. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 16:47, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks. Yes, it does. And no, it’s not. Is there? Good for you — how do they like your capitalization over there? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 01:59, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

(or lack thereof)   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 13:24, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

August 11

Template:Pano360

{{Pano360}} is a very useful gadget (2600+ transclusions) that should be well-maintained, but sadly isn't. It's not currently useful for most panoramas because the default setting of the underlying Pannellum code assumes 180x360 degree panoramas, while most 360-degree panoramas on Commons are not 180 degrees vertical (full spherical). Its creator, User:Dschwen, seems to be inactive and does not respond to talk page messages. The Labs page doesn't give any indication where the code is kept.

How would we as a community (and specifically me, though I'm not much of a coder) go about fixing this? If Dschwen does not grant access to the tool and codebase, would we have to build it from scratch? We would also need to fix use of the template on those 2,600 images. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 07:58, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

It's possible to take over abandoned tools according to wikitech:Help:Toolforge/Abandoned tool policy, if somebody wants to do it. --ghouston (talk) 08:24, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

i18n/translation templates

I'm not that active, so I'm a bit out of the loop. I noticed a new i18n syntax being used. Could (should?) a template like Template:i18n/inscription be simplified by using {{int:wm-license-artwork-inscriptions}} instead? I.e. replacing the list of (manually updated?) translations on the template page with that simple {{int:... syntax? --Azertus (talk) 10:48, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Which categories?

Hi, I can't find the appropriate categories for

• File:Lampion, Apple Garden restaurant, Leh.jpg
• File:Lampion, Apple Garden restaurant, Leh, 2.jpg

Is "lampion" the correct English word? BTW do you think it is worth a QI nomination? Thanks, Yann (talk) 11:19, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

• There is an English word lampion but that sure doesn't look like one to me. At least as I know the word, a lampion would be a glass candle-lantern that you can walk around with. - Jmabel ! talk 16:02, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

• Lotje added Category:Paper lanterns, but these are in textile (cotton). Regards, Yann (talk) 17:03, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
  • I've added Category:Textile lampshades, hopefully that's more appropriate. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:22, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Double files, different subjects

• 
  Dr. Walter Jacobi (* July 2, 1909 - May 3, 1947) was a German lawyer, an SS officer and a war criminal who had been ranked SS-Obersturmbannführer

Can this bee checked? Thank you for your time. Lotje (talk) 11:57, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

The uploader @Mojmir Churavy: is active and most likely knows this area very well. I've pinged them, but you may wish to ask them directly for assistance in fixing the issue. When there's a resolution, let me know and I'll undertake any technical changes (deletions, moves etc) that are needed. Nick (talk) 13:13, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Comparing with other images I would say that this is rather Jacobi than Morávek. Ankry (talk) 13:31, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Good morning. The file "Vaclav.Moravek.1904-1942.Jako.Gestapak.jpg" is not in use on the Czech Wikipedia. In the text of Václav Morávek in Czech Wiki I made small correction and now I use the file "Walter.Jacobi.(1909 - 1947).after.Second.World.War.gif". Conclusion: It is recomanded to delete the File "Vaclav.Moravek.1904-1942.Jako.Gestapak.jpg" from Commons. I will try to mark the file "Vaclav.Moravek.1904-1942.Jako.Gestapak.jpg" as to "delete" from Commons. Thanks.Mojmir Churavy (talk) 07:03, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

August 18

Linux users: See what files you have uploaded already, in your file browser

I made a tool for Nautilus/Nemo/Caja that adds a small overlay emblem at the lower right of the thumbnail of files you have uploaded to Commons already.

It allows you to easily spot what files you have forgotten to upload.

https://github.com/nicolas-raoul/nautilus_commons_upload_status

Warning: It works well, except it is super slow. It takes about one second per image, so if you have a folder with 1000 images it will look like your file explorer has frozen. Volunteers welcome to solve this problem! :-)

Syced (talk) 07:40, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you creating a useful app like this for Linux. Hopefully a fellow Linux user with Python programming skills, will spot this post, and take up your invitation to help out. --oSeveno (talk) 09:18, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Does changing username affect my files?

If I change my username will my files that I have uploaded on Commons still be able to be claimed by me? I mostly use CC-BY-SA 3.0 and 4.0 on my files. I usually filled in the parameter |author= in the file descriptions with my current username. Can one even change their name on file descriptions and attribution after publishing a file? Sersan Mayor Kururu (talk) 06:11, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

@Sersan Mayor Kururu: The "User" field in the "File history" will change automatically. Your author field's Sersan Mayor Kururu will not change automatically, but will redirect to your new user page when followed. 49 of your uploads can be changed by VFC, AWB, or JWB.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 15:15, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

@Jeff G.: May I change the author field on file descriptions and license template by myself? (Or is it legally not allowed by CC licenses?) Sersan Mayor Kururu (talk) 16:08, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

@Sersan Mayor Kururu: Yes, you are still the same licensor.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 17:00, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

If you have a large amount of files, you may be interested in automatically changing "author=" field using Visual File Change or asking somebody else at Commons:Bots/Work requests to do it for you.--Pere prlpz (talk) 18:04, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Category:Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in art ?

Hi, artists have created artwork on the Bergen-Belsen (and other) concentration camps and I was wondering if it would be suitable to create a separate category for these images. Thank you for your time. Lotje (talk) 06:39, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Category:Concentration camps in art was created in 2010. Looks sufficient. Vysotsky (talk) 10:06, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Oh! fijn, bedankt voor de tip Vysotsky, dat maakt het natuurlijk een stuk eenvoudiger. Lotje (talk) 10:57, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Help merging two categories

Hello! Could anybody help me please move the picture from category:Mount of Saint Catherine to category:Mount Catherine. The new one has a more accurate name. Thanks!--Reem Al-Kashif (talk) 18:03, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

• I was unable to figure out what you mean. Which picture? ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ ✍ ⏿) 18:31, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

•  Done -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 19:38, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

New user contribution

Hi, I was wondering if someone can take a look at the files uploaded by Maryana Fedoryshyn. Is this looking like self-promotion or out of scope? Thank you for your time. Lotje (talk) 05:29, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi, I am not sure about scope, but permission from photographer is missing, so files nominated: Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Maryana Fedoryshyn. Regards, Yann (talk) 05:44, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Cannot figure out why internationalisation isn't working

In File:Гройсман і Луценко висловились у справі «Нової пошти».webm in description there should be first Ukrainian language and then Russian. But I see is that there is first a phrase "Одеська область" that doesn't even appear in the description code, and then Russian, Ukrainian language has disappeared. Can somebody please help me figure it out. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ ✍ ⏿) 05:56, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

The Ukrainian prefix is uk not ua. No idea what {{Ua}} is supposed to be. But it is fixed. --Majora (talk) 06:01, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Cheers, will fix my other uploads now. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ ✍ ⏿) 06:02, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Best procedure for correcting image title?

I uploaded an image yesterday, but noticed today that the title, and thus the URL and wikitext, is incorrect. Specifically, "(Temperature Anomaly CO2)" should have been "(Temperature Anomaly ℃)".

Today I uploaded the image again with the correct title. Was that the best way to resolve my initial error? Thanks!

Image with incorrect title: [[File:Scientific consensus - Earth's climate is warming (Temperature Anomaly CO2).png]]

Image uploaded today, with correct title: [[File:Scientific consensus - Earth's climate is warming (Temperature Anomaly ℃).png]] Markworthen (talk) 22:15, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

See Commons:File renaming. The two files you uploaded aren't duplicates, so do you want the first one renamed or deleted? Links for convenience: File:Scientific consensus - Earth's climate is warming (Temperature Anomaly CO2).png vs File:Scientific consensus - Earth's climate is warming (Temperature Anomaly ℃).png. --ghouston (talk) 03:11, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Awesome! Thank you very much. :0) Markworthen (talk) 17:47, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

@Markworthen: Why convert from jpg to png? Why not convert to svg?   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 03:20, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

I didn’t do any independent converting. I tried SVG before but it was confusing or didn’t work or wasn’t accepted. Too much time needed to develoo image expertise (for me). Markworthen (talk) 17:52, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

August 19

Abuse filter against harassment

I hate to do anything without account, but the pest is stalking my edits (alongside edits of several other users) and vandalizes in the wake of me, e. g. here. Let’s hope the pest doesn’t watch the village pump. Vandalism in images is more severe threat than persistent vandalism in the user space. IMHO the time to use abuse filter against certain actions by very new accs along the lines of this proposed filter, but not for the namespace 2, and with the focus on uploads rather than edits. It can be limited to deterrents against vandalistic uploads, but (for certain targets) booby traps also can be created. Opinions? 213.87.132.76 13:17, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

That is User:Liza Veniza AKA en:User:Тарас Тинус. It is best to report that user on m:srg.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 14:39, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

My opinion is that things like this would be a lot simpler if you took an actual account. - Jmabel ! talk 16:20, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot, that page is semi-protected.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 16:24, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

File:James O. Davidson.jpg

Subject file is wrong. This is James Oakley Davidson (1850-1916), not James Ole Davidson (February 10, 1854 – December 16, 1922) (I do have enough data to show it's wrong, both from the net and OTRS). So the question is - how can I move the file, without the commons bot updating all the various Wikipedia pages? I suppose I could delete it, and wait for the delinker bot to do it's stuff on Wikipedias, then restore a while later - or is there a better way? Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 15:10, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

@Ronhjones: Do you have a James Ole Davidson photo you could overwrite with?   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 15:17, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

When I looked at this, I only saw it in use at seven places. I disambiguated the Wikidata entry and manually edited each of the articles. Guanaco (talk) 15:44, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, I know it was not used in many places - but I was also curious to know what to do in such cases, it's not unreasonable to assume it might happen again with a lot more links. No images of James Ole Davidson, only found other James Oakley Davidson, which are a clear match. Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 15:52, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

@Ronhjones: You can Special:MovePage/File:James O. Davidson.jpg or right click+open new tab "Move & Replace". This should move the file without triggering Delinker/global replace. Of course, the articles will then either show the same image via the redirect or will be redlinked if you suppress the redirect. Then you could create a new redirect target or update/remove the links manually from Special:GlobalUsage.

I don't think any simple solutions exist for this particular task. Pywikibot has solve_disambiguation.py which solves local links to disambiguation pages. One could code an option for this, so the script uses Special:GlobalUsage and operates on all Wikimedia wikis. Guanaco (talk) 22:27, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for all your answers. I didn't know about the right click trick - sometimes the help pages are not that complete! I've only encountered one other similar problem in the last 5 years or so, so thankfully it does not seem to be that common. Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 23:20, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Canadian politicians

These uploads from user Chomiak1 are marked as Own Work but all of them are missing metadata info. These should be marked as missing permission and deleted? // sikander { talk } 18:15, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

The images have surprisingly small sizes. They look like thumbnails from a gallery on some website. Ruslik (talk) 19:33, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

None of them are coming up on Google Images or Tineye in any form. Many of them look like they were cropped from larger images (possibly taken by the uploader) - that may have nuked the metadata. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:38, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

August 20

Tech News: 2018-34

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

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 August. It will be on all wikis from 23 August (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 22 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The 2018 Community Wishlist Survey begins on 29 October. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals from 29 October to 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 16 November to 30 November.
• Legacy JavaScript global variables have been deprecated for seven years. They will soon be removed from all wikis. Gadgets and scripts that use them will stop working. You can test your community's gadgets on "group0" wikis. For example Test Wikipedia or mediawiki.org. The legacy JavaScript global variables are already disabled there. You can read the migration guide to fix old scripts. [15]

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

16:46, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

August 21

Flinfo says 'bad user'

When I try to use Flickr-to-Commons it won't upload files for me instead displaying a beautiful red background and after a great deal of searching I find the note " Flinfo says 'bad user' ". I have logged out and in again and Flickr-to-Commons still greets me by name. I can find nothing wrong with the file name or the licence. What am I doing wrong? Here is one of the small set of files: Dennis Fire Engine (1936) Hampshire Fire Brigade and its a good-looking machine! A solution will be very gratefully received. Eddaido (talk) 09:33, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Flickr nsid 65344061@N06 is on the bad authors list, which generally indicates flickrwashing or other copyright issues with the account; however, it wasn't added to Commons:Questionable Flickr images with an explanation. I don't immediately see any copyright issues with the account. @Ronhjones: You were the one who added the account to the blacklist - do you remember why? Pi.1415926535 (talk) 09:47, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

This photographer is a valued resource, I'll be very sad to lose him. Eddaido (talk) 09:52, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

I cannot see any obvious problem from the Flickrstream, in fact the car collection has high educational value. The nsid should be removed from bad authors unless a clear rationale is given. --Fæ (talk) 10:58, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

1. 22:53, 7 April 2018 Ronhjones (A/P) (talk | contribs | block) deleted page File:"Automatic Hillman" (Australia) Minx (16636305983).jpg (Copyright violation: Obvious Bad Flickr - copyright by Rootes (later owned by Chrysler)) = https://www.flickr.com/photos/andreboeni/16636305983/
2. 22:53, 7 April 2018 Ronhjones (A/P) (talk | contribs | block) deleted page File:"Super Hillman" (Australia) Super Minx (17254746302).jpg (Copyright violation: Obvious Bad Flickr - copyright by Rootes (later owned by Chrysler)) = https://www.flickr.com/photos/andreboeni/17254746302/

Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 13:45, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

en:Hillman Super Minx - "Announced in October 1961", so I make that copyright until 2032. Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 13:53, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Unless those ads are typical of account content... I do not think we should ban a Flickr account that is mostly photos just because it occasionally posts something that is not completely free. By that standard, my own Flickr account would have to be blocked: I do not feel compelled to stand by Commons' extremely rigorous enforcement of lack of freedom of panorama for artwork in the U.S. when I am working outside of the WMF world. Similarly for tons of Flickr accounts from which we routinely upload: we try to weed out the images that don't fully conform to Commons' rules before uploading, and we inevitably catch some afterward. In my view, a Flickr account should only be banned if it is routinely used for flickrwashing, not if its standards are slightly less strict than ours. - Jmabel ! talk 15:50, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

+1. Commons standards are much stricter than anywhere else. It looks like shooting ourselves in the foot to ban Flickr accounts which use "normal" copyright standards. Regards, Yann (talk) 16:26, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Please take this one off the blacklist. The Library of Congress has a Flickrstream, and by this level of harshness even their account would fail. This case makes me wonder if we need more guidelines about blacklisting. --Fæ (talk) 16:49, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

 Done Yann (talk) 16:54, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Many thanks everyone, Eddaido (talk) 12:26, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Verifying the authenticity of a primary source document

So it turns out I've run into someone who is in touch with the Commanding General (CG) of the Washington DC National Guard (see here), and they've uploaded a primary source document not otherwise available in any public archive. I've asked that the current CG send an email to OTRS verifying the authenticity of the document. That just kindof seems common sense. Anybody with a military background can draft a memo in military format to say whatever they want. But on my end, if I fish the email out of the queue, how exactly would be the best way to document the verification?

It's public domain as the work of a federal employee (unlike state Adjutant Generals, the DC AG is a federal employee, because DC isn't a state). So the normal OTRS template isn't really useful, because we don't need to resolve issues with the licensing, just with the authenticity. Advice/suggestions welcome. I suppose this type of thing may require some kind of custom template maybe. GMG^talk 10:56, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

The project ceases to function if there is no room for good faith, there should be no automatic presumption that official documents are hoaxes. In this context uploading and stating it was received by email should be sufficient. {{PD-USGov}} would be okay or perhaps {{PD-USGov-Military-National Guard}} though I may misunderstand the DC related rationale. --Fæ (talk) 17:33, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm not assuming bad faith, at least not for my part. I'm just trying to do due diligence and head off any potential assumption of bad faith by others in the future, considering that this was uploaded specifically for use as a reference on en.wiki.

Now that you mention it {{PD-USGov-Military-National Guard}} is highly problematic. This would only apply to NG soldiers who were on Title 10 orders, meaning that they were being paid (employed) by the federal government. This would apply to deployed soldiers, to soldiers who are part of the w:Active Guard Reserve, to direct employees of the w:National Guard Bureau or other federally activated soldiers, such as those responding out-of-state to a federal emergency. It would not apply to the vast majority of soldiers, including any in a normal training status (which is the vast majority of soldiers), as these would normally be on Title 32 orders, meaning they are a state employee and not federal.

So yeah. That's a huge problem considering this is currently transcluded 23k times.. GMG^talk 18:55, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

GMG So what would be the purpose of the email to OTRS? Just like anybody can write official looking document, anybody can craft an email saying that it is authentic. I guess the only thing we can verify is that it came from official US military or national guard account, but probably even this can be spoofed. So Fæ is kind of correct that we do have to assume good faith. Your contact could send email to OTRS, saying that he/she is the uploader or author of the document, and asking OTRS volunteer to add info to the file stating that volunteer verified that the file come from military sources. Does that sounds reasonable? If such email is send you can ping me and I can expedite the processing. --Jarekt (talk) 20:33, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Jarekt, I can log into my .mil email and verify 100% that it came from the person it is supposed to come from once I pull the email and the address from the OTRS queue. (If it was coming from someone else using that account it would be a major security breach.) The original signatory is deceased. But what is at issue is the rank of the person verifying it. The endorsement of the commanding general makes it an authentic document, because their rank means that they could themselves sign such a document and make it official. That doesn't necessarily mean it's accurate, as any document signed by a general officer is subject to their thoroughness and integrity in using their rank to endorse it, but it would mean it was authentic for historical purposes. But I didn't know if there was a template for such a thing, or if I needed to make one I guess. GMG^talk 21:04, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

One function of OTRS is to store correspondence with copyright holders without revealing their names, email addresses or other personal data to the wider public. Would we be allowed to say something like "The authenticity of this document was verified by Gen. X [full rank and name here], as asserted by correspondence send to OTRS. This correspondence has been reviewed by an OTRS member and stored in our permission archive. The correspondence is available to trusted volunteers as ticket #...", or would we need to skip the name of the verifying person? If we choose to go with the full name of the verifying person than email send to OTRS should request that, as this would not be the default assumption. We do not have template for this but I think a text added by OTRS member would be enough. --Jarekt (talk) 12:16, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Also can you please amend Template:PD-USGov-Military-National Guard to state Note: This only applies to images created by National Guard soldiers who are serving on Title 10 federal orders. It does not apply to soldiers serving on Title 32 state orders. This would normally apply to images created by the National Guard Bureau and deployed members of the National Guard, but would not normally apply to soldiers who are in a training status with their respective states. GMG^talk 21:11, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Amending existing PD/copyright templates like that is a tricky businesses, since the template is being used in already uploaded files, and we do not know if they do or do not meet the new requirements. If you believe the current template is not valid as is, you should discuss it at the templates talk page, so the discussion would be visible to people interested in it. You should also alert Commons:Village pump/Copyright about your post to the template talk page to draw users who work with copyright templates. Quick look at the files in Category:PD_US_National_Guard suggest that most come from sources which explicitly state that files are PD (or CC-BY) so we could also add some {{PD-Author}} + {{LicenseReview}} templates. However in most cases we would not know the tile of their orders. --Jarekt (talk) 12:48, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Well, the requirements aren't new. The template was just wrong when it was created, using apparently information from the National Guard Bureau website. That's okay because the NGB is a federal agency. But the Indiana National Guard or the Oregon National Guard isn't a federal agency, and their soldiers are not federal employees, unless they're activated under Title 10 orders under the authority of the President. So if you find something at nationalguard.mil it may likely be public domain. But if you find something at in.ng.mil or at facebook.com/oregonarmyguard then it probably isn't. I've opened discussions on the template and at VPC. GMG^talk 17:03, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

August 22

African-American historic neighborhoods

Over the past several months, I have been auditing on Wikipedia state and national historic sites primarily in Texas. As I've been doing so, I've also been trying to gather appropriate images and categorizing them so that articles and lists can link directly to those having the same subject matter. However, from time to time, I've encountered some subjects that I can't find an appropriate category tree in which to place them. Particularly, the National Register of Historic Places has many historic districts recognizing African-American neighborhoods that I wish I could put in a category reflecting this background. While it is easy to categorize historically black churches and schools within these neighborhoods, the districts themselves are hard to categorize especially if they are listed on the national registry merely for their historic architecture and residential building styles while never having any newsworthy historic episodes such as civil rights struggles. How should I place these? Fortguy (talk) 08:42, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

@Fortguy: I would suggest creating Category:Historically black neighborhoods in Texas under Category:Historic neighborhoods in Texas.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 13:01, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Regrading landscape

I notice that all images in Category:Regrading are of Seattle. Surely it is not the only place in the world where significant regrading has taken place! If someone has good examples from elsewhere, it would be great to add them to the category. - Jmabel ! talk 05:01, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

• Or is there perhaps some differently named category with which this should be merged? - Jmabel ! talk 05:04, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Mooring system

How do I classify this? I dont see a category for mooring lines and certainly for the piece of wood. How would you call this thing?Smiley.toerist (talk) 14:08, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Category:Mooring rings and something under Category:Knots? --ghouston (talk) 02:46, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Also Category:Hawser ropes? --ghouston (talk) 02:49, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

'Hawser ropes' is a subcategory of a type of rope, not a 'usage' category.Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:07, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

That doesn't matter. If a hawser rope is shown in the picture, it should be in this category. De728631 (talk) 20:44, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

August 23

First-person videos

Hi, What should be the category for this kind of videos? File:Leh to Pangong lake on bike.webm, i.e. taken with a GoPro or similar while riding a bike. This is quite popular, so we should have a dedicated category.

• Category:First-person videos on bike?
• Category:First-person on bike videos?
• Something else? Thanks, Yann (talk) 08:38, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

• • I would suggest the first one. I have some of my uploaded videos that I would categorise in this manner as well. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ ✍ ⏿) 11:58, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
    • bicycle rather than the informal bike. - Jmabel ! talk 15:43, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
      • I mean motorbike. Regards, Yann (talk) 16:14, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
• So I created Category:First-person videos on motorcycle. Thanks for the comments. Regards, Yann (talk) 16:40, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Who is Gustav Georgi?

It is unclear what the mention of 'Verlag von Gustav Georgi in Riva' means. In the related image the same trees are present, but on this one there is house on the shoreline. Is the house built after the other image was taken? Or was the building destroyed when the other picture was taken?Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:25, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

The photo was made in 1909 whereas the color photo - between 1890 and 1900. So, the small house was built after the color photo was shot. Ruslik (talk) 20:32, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

'Verlag von Gustav Georgi in Riva' is German meaning "Gustav Georgi's publishing company in Riva". So this is the publisher of the black/white postcard. De728631 (talk) 20:41, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Different colors?

Cleaned up.

I have downloaded File:Cyprus administrative.jpg from commons and open it with MS Paint. If I use Fill with color, not all the shape change color. But the original shape, before the user uploaded it to commons, had only one color. Xaris333 (talk) 17:53, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

• JPEG format should never be used for an image such as this, but then again MS Paint should never be used. (Seriously, old versions of Photoshop, infinitely better than any MS Paint, are available legally for free.) -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 21:22, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

• Okay, in a more positive light, here’s a cleaned up version, reduced to the 38 colors actually used in wide swaths of the map (excl. antialiasing gradients and JPEG artefacts, but including colors used in boundary lines). Note that no pixel-level corrections were made!

You can edit the palette of this GIF file to change all occurrences of any given of these 38 colors. That can be done with Photoshop, as mentioned, GIMP (a free image editor), and plenty other image editing software applications — just keep away from MS Paint. (This GIF made with Photoshop 7.0, released in 2002.) -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 22:17, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

@Tuvalkin: Thanks! Xaris333 (talk) 02:27, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Creating categories relevant to wikipedia articles

Hi, I have recently created an article on Edinburgh Water Company on Wikipedia, and wanted to link to relevant images. I created an "Edinburgh Water Company" category, and added about 16 images to it. Subsequently, User:Rodhullandemu has removed all but two of the images from that category, leaving the two that are actually used in the article, which makes the "Commons has images..." link pointless. Have I followed an appropriate route, or should I have done something different to achieve the link to appropriate images? Bob1960evens (talk) 15:15, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

I think that you (or somebody else) should add the relevant images back into the category. If the images are related to the subject matter they belong there, it doesn't matter what any Wikipedia article chooses to use. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ ✍ ⏿) 15:33, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

@Rodhullandemu: can you let us know your intent here? - Jmabel ! talk 15:46, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Well, I wasn't notified of this discussion at the time, but it seems to have been sorted out since. If you want to show a page with images a gallery would seem to be the obvious choice to link to rather than a category. Rodhullandemu (talk) 09:25, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

I think this is because you were over-categorising the pictures. For instance, File:Overflow from Loganlea Reservoir, Pentlands - geograph.org.uk - 1597906.jpg is a member of Category:Loganlea Reservoir, which is itself in Category:Edinburgh Water Company. Therefore, putting the picture directly in Category:Edinburgh Water Company is over-categorisation. --bjh21 (talk) 15:57, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Now I understand. Category:Loganlea Reservoir was not in Category:Edinburgh Water Company when I created the category, but was subsequently added to the new category by User:Rodhullandemu. So the images were not over-categorised when I added them, but became so once the Category:Loganlea Reservoir was altered. Bob1960evens (talk) 08:01, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Also, a link to a Commons category isn't pointless in a Wikipedia article just because the article uses all the files in the category. There's always the possibility that more will be added to the Commons category in the future. --Auntof6 (talk) 09:40, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

August 24

SVG Translate project tool mockups

Mockups posted

Hello again. We have posted a few mockups for the new SVG Translate tool on the project page. You can also see them below:

• 
  Link to tool from wiki
• 
  Find image on the tool
• 
  Translation view on the tool
• 
  Translate from
• 
  Translate to
• 
  OAuth login

We're collecting feedback on the proposed solution and the mockups on the project talk page. Your feedback will be helpful. Thanks! -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 23:41, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

August 25

Having trouble with entering author field with wikidata label on image upload

I used the code "|author={{creator:Karl Parsons}}" in the last two images I have uploaded for Karl Parsons, it does not seem to work. I have used this code for other uploaded images and I have not had a problem. Karl Parsons does have an entry in Wikidata. I checked. Please advise. MauraWen (talk) 22:00, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

• There is no Creator page for Parsons, but you are welcome to create one. - Jmabel ! talk 23:14, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't know how to create a creator page. @Jmabel: can you point me in the right direction? Thx MauraWen (talk) 23:24, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

• Have a look at Creator:Dante Gabriel Rossetti as a model. Go inte edit mode to see how it's done. From Category:Karl Parsons we can determine (in the left nav) that the Wikidata item for Parsons is Q6372141. I think everything else is obvious, but feel free to ask further questions if it isn't. - Jmabel ! talk 23:39, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks @Jmabel: . I was able to create the page. But I do get a message "Wikidata item, which is missing the Commons Creator page (P1472) property.", then it asked that I click an icon to add it. I can't seem to make that work. Please advise.

Also, when I entered stained glass artist as Parson's occupation, it appeared in red, so should I be adding a new occupation somewhere called "stained glass artist"? Right now, I am using "artist". Thanks MauraWen (talk) 14:28, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

I have no idea why the Wikidata thing isn't working. It's there on Wikidata. I'll ask there. - Jmabel ! talk 17:33, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Asked at wikidata:Wikidata:Project_chat#Commons_creator_template_for_Karl_Parsons. - Jmabel ! talk 17:42, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

August 26

MP4 Uploads

From User:Dispenser/Wrong Extension: 48 MP4 videos have been uploaded over the last few weeks. —Dispenser (talk) 23:08, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

@Dispenser: Yes, please see Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:MP4 files.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 23:12, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

August 27

Editing of sitewide CSS/JS is only possible for interface administrators from now

(Please help translate to your language)

Hi all,

as announced previously, permission handling for CSS/JS pages has changed: only members of the interface-admin (Interface administrators) group, and a few highly privileged global groups such as stewards, can edit CSS/JS pages that they do not own (that is, any page ending with .css or .js that is either in the MediaWiki: namespace or is another user's user subpage). This is done to improve the security of readers and editors of Wikimedia projects. More information is available at Creation of separate user group for editing sitewide CSS/JS. If you encounter any unexpected problems, please contact me or file a bug.

Thanks!
Tgr (talk) 12:39, 27 August 2018 (UTC) (via global message delivery)

Tech News: 2018-35

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 see moved paragraphs in diffs in the mobile view. It also works on all languages in the desktop view. [16]
• Bureaucrats on all Wikimedia wikis can now remove the interface admin user right. [17]

Problems

• Some diffs show lines in the wrong order. The developers are working on fixing it. [18]

Changes later this week

• The message you see when you thank a user will change. This is to make it easier to understand. [19]
• AWB will stop adding using AWB in the edit summary. Instead it will add a tag that says AWB. [20]
• Some abuse filter variables have changed. They are now easier to understand for non-experts. The old variables will still work but filter editors are encouraged to replace them with the new ones. You can find the list of changed variables on mediawiki.org. They have a note which says Deprecated. Use ... instead. An example is article_text which is now page_title. [21]
• Abuse filters can now use how old a page is. The variable is page_age. [22]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 August. It will be on all wikis from 30 August (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 28 August 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 29 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 12 September and 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour. You can read more about this.

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

16:15, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Create a list of volunteers for specialized tasks?

I've re-uploaded a couple of audio files with reduced noise (mostly for Wiktionary, and once for an audio version of an article). It would be nice to have a place where I can list myself as an audio editor so other editors of Commons can find me and ask for my help if needed. I couldn't find such a list, so I propose to create it or make it more visible if it already exists —⁠andrybak (talk) 13:38, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi, We don't know have list of volunteers (and creating any isn't the right way to do it, as these would be soon obsolete: people come and go, availability changes, etc.), but we have a Commons:Graphics village pump (with several subpages). We could create more of the same for audio and video. The need didn't arise until now, but more and more of these are uploaded mainly thanks to Video2Commons. Regards, Yann (talk) 13:48, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps we could rename Commons:Graphics village pump to Commons:Media village pump, rename Commons:Graphic Lab to Commons:Media Lab, and add audio and video subpages to them.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 14:06, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

 Comment Should this discussion be upgraded into a proposal at Commons:Village pump/Proposals as "Rename Graphics → Media"? —⁠andrybak (talk) 17:05, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

@Andrybak: It could, but I was hoping for some feedback first.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 17:34, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi, BTW we already have Commons:Graphic Lab/Video and sound workshop. Regards, Yann (talk) 12:45, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Yann. It would be nice, if the notice on Commons:Community portal was more clear on the fact that "Graphics lab" also includes a "video/sound" section. Here's how it looks now:

Graphic Lab

A place where you can request wikigraphists to improve, clean up, or color your images.

—⁠andrybak (talk) 18:09, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

 Done Yann (talk) 18:26, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Returning to my original question. There is Category:Audio file editors. I wonder if Category:Wikigraphists, being on the frond page of Graphics Lab is more visible, than the much bigger Category:Bitmap graphics editors? Maybe there needs to be an audio analogue to Category:Wikigraphists? —⁠andrybak (talk) 18:38, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Campaigns no working?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T202760

Hi! For almost a week or so, all the Campaign:whatever stopped working. Everything is okey, until the "Describe" step, where it does not show anything. Example. Cheers! --Mauricio V. Genta (talk) 05:35, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, we noticed the same problem with campaign=wlm-cz. --ŠJů (talk) 19:34, 28 August 2018 (UTC) I reported it as phab:T203022 now. --ŠJů (talk) 19:50, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Thousands of hours of Apollo 11 audio uploaded to Internet Archive

https://archive.org/search.php?query=Apollo+11+MOCR+ACR+Collection&page=3 —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:27, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Oh geez. Ping User:Fæ, in case they can work computer magic. GMG^talk 19:36, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I could upload these, maybe in the big wav format. They may sit in my backlog for a while. --Fæ (talk) 19:46, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

August 29

Minor tech questions...

Hello. Currently trying to set up this page : Commons:Wiki Loves Africa 2017/Call to action. Can someone help me figure out how to use a "bar" template ? Currently, I am planning to use 4 and as you may see... the 0% of one is in the right box whilst the other 0% are not displayed at the right spot.

Also, I am trying to find our how to reduce the height of a paragraph to have only the first couple of lines visible (and the rest of the paragraph rolled up, as we do in long discussions). Do you see what I mean ? Thank you

Anthere (talk)

I am not sure if I understand you correctly. However, I did this edit: special:diff/317471711

This is not fixing my problem. However, I just looked at the page on Chrome and I see no problem on Chrome. My display issue happens on Safari... The percentage on the left appears at the right spot. The three percentages on the left appears... several lines below, covering the following paragraph. Oh well... Safari bug then...

Are you looking for {{Collapse top}} and {{Collapse bottom}}? 4nn1l2 (talk) 11:14, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, perfect. Thank you Anthere (talk)

August 30

Non-CC0 licenses for the Data namespace

Following previous discussions, legal approval and tech work it is now possible to have tabular data in one of the following free licenses:

• CC0-1.0 (as previously)
• CC-BY versions: CC-BY-1.0, CC-BY-2.0, CC-BY-2.5, CC-BY-3.0, CC-BY-4.0, CC-BY-4.0+
• CC-BY-SA versions: CC-BY-SA-1.0, CC-BY-SA-2.0, CC-BY-SA-2.5, CC-BY-SA-3.0, CC-BY-SA-4.0, CC-BY-SA-4.0+
• ODbL-1.0

The default license is empty string (e.g invalid license) and when user tries to save page with invalid license, he/she will get notified of the allowed licenses. (there is a task to make it slightly more clear: phab:T201758).

You can see an example how to declare such license here: Data:Obesity Males.tab (diff).

I already updated the technical documentation[23]. We should also consider to update relevant documentation or policy pages here on Commons.

Whenever you consider to release tabular data with licenses other than CC0 please keep in mind that any templates that pull data from non-CC0 licensed datasets need to comply with the relevant attribution terms, hence it is highly encouraged to prefer CC0 whenever possible.

Thanks, Eran (talk) 06:39, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi everyone,

Unfortunately we've had to revert this code due to some serious bugs and a lack of integration checks, I'm afraid. Hopefully it can be fixed up and re-applied soon.

Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:58, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Google-based free license map

Hi, I am about to upload a derivative work based on a Google-based free license map (CC BY-SA 3.0), this one. Are there any copyright issues that would prevent me from doing so? Thank you Iñaki LL (talk) 10:34, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

@Iñaki LL: Yes, AFAIK Google doesn't license anything CC-BY or CC BY-SA.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 11:18, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

That is a shame! Ok, thanks Jeff Iñaki LL (talk) 13:19, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

@Iñaki LL: You're welcome.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 13:23, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Want to use pictures

Hello everyone!

I'm quiet new to this place and probably mu question is rather simple. I'm writing my thesis now and want to use a couple of pictures. Here they are: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WelshCorgi.jpeg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:European_Dobermann.jpg

I would be grateful if you could advise if this will be acceptable. If so, what should be normally written in the figure caption? I mean how to give an appropriate credit to the author? Should I provide the link to the image? — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrGovorov (talk • contribs) 16:29, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

@DrGovorov: All images on Wikimedia Commons are freely-licensed, so you can use them without asking permission if you agree to the terms of the given license, but attribution requirements do vary depending on the license. See COM:REUSE for more info.

The Corgi picture is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license, meaning that you can freely use it as long as you give proper credit to the author and license any derivatives under a similar license. An appropriate credit line goes something like "Welsh Corgi by Bensbro at Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0", with a link to the image source page and ideally a link to the license, as well. If you've modified the image in any way, you should also note what modifications you've made and agree to release the derivative under a similar license. More info on Creative Commons attribution best practices can be found here. Also this tool can be a big help in generating credit lines for print or online works.

The Dobermann image is public domain, meaning that no attribution is necessary, though it's common courtesy to give credit to the author. An appropriate credit line for that could simply be "European Dobermann by Ilicivan at English Wikipedia, public domain", perhaps with a link to the image source page so anyone reading the thesis knows where you got the image from. clpo13_(talk) 16:45, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Keep in mind that when you use something in your thesis, it's not only copyright you have to worry about it's also about not committing plagiarism (attempting to pass somebody else's work as your own). Therefore, you will need to provide source for the image even though it is under the public domain. You will have to do that in the format acceptable by your institution. For example look at this if your institution accepts Harvard reverencing style. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ ✍ ⏿) 16:48, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

August 31

Seasons

As a season change is upon us, and as many files use season categories to define time of year, does Wikmedia have an accepted preference guideline for a meteorological or astronomical definition? If users can make their own choice (and many do) this three-week discrepancy could be/is confusing and perhaps make season cats rather meaningless. Thanks.

Meteorological seasons (northern hemisphere): Spring (March, April, May); Summer (June, July, August); Autumn (September, October, November); Winter (December, January, February).

Astronomical seasons: Spring (March 20/21 to June 21/22); Summer (June 21/22 to September 22/23); Autumn (September 22/23 to December 21/22); Winter (December 21/22 to March 20/21). Acabashi (talk) 10:30, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Another possibility Natural seasons: Spring (leaves and buds appear on trees, flowers start to bloom), Summer (full bloom, fruits and vegetables mature), Autumn (tree leaves turn yellow and fall), Winter (snow season). This one is much easier to distinguish from photographs, for example. —⁠andrybak (talk) 11:48, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

• (Edit conflict) (Climates other than Temperate/Mediterranean are also “natural”.) -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 12:39, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm certainly not asking if we could double up Season cats as Meteorological seasons and Astronomical seasons, which would be ridiculously over the top. Adding a 'Natural seasons' too would make the whole thing even more complicated. All I am asking is, does Wikimedia define seasons by meteorological or astronomical time, so that we know to which season cat we best add our dated photos? Acabashi (talk) 12:30, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

• In a global perspective, seasons make sense only if defined as time intervals between definite astronomical moments (equinoxes and solstices). Current categorization reflects this. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 12:39, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

If Astronomical is a generally accepted way of doing it on the project (I can find no guidelines), I'm happy to go along with it. Acabashi (talk) 12:46, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

• Generally accepted, not necessarily covered by any guideline. As I said, «current categorization reflects this». Example: parent cats of Category:March in Africa. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 16:13, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

• If no preference has been set yet, I support the traditional notion of astronomical seasons. This is the first time that I am hearing about meteorological seasons indeed. 4nn1l2 (talk) 12:50, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Meteorological seasons are used by media/news organization meteorologists (BBC etc.) who tomorrow will say we are in (Northern Hemisphere) Autumn. Meteorologists will frequently refer to the first day of Spring as March 1st. Wikipedia references this season-ing type here. As long as we agree to be consistent to the Astronomical (and correct inconsistencies), things would be OK. There may be a counter view of course. Acabashi (talk) 13:09, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

• I see seasons as starting at the solstices and equinoxes. However, I think this discussion could be resolved by keeping seasons and months in separate parts of the category tree. Months could go under history, and be defined by specific dates. Seasons could go under nature and not be associated with specific dates. Most of what happens in a given month doesn't really have anything to do with the season it's in -- that's mostly coincidence -- so putting entire months under seasons isn't useful. In fact, it's only meaningful if the seasons are subcategorized by hemisphere, which could be more complicated than we want.

As far as what should be in season categories, I think it's only things that are 1) specific to the season or the season is relevant (for example, Summer Olympics, even those that included events held in astronomical spring or autumn), and 2) would be in the same season, not the same month, no matter which hemisphere they were in. Natural things such as "spring" flowers blooming when winter is on its way out, seasonal births of animals, trees losing their leaves in autumn: yes. Certain human-determined things like Summer and Winter Olympics, festivals for specific seasons: yes. Weather-related things: no, because there are no weather-related things that are really unique to a season (see the closed discussion at Commons:Categories for discussion/2018/05/Category:Snow in Taiwan). Anything that's date-related: no, because any given date is in different seasons in the northern and southern hemispheres. Many other things would have to be evaluated.

Finally, see Commons:Categories for discussion/2018/05/Category:Weather and climate characteristics for a related ongoing discussion. --Auntof6 (talk) 22:57, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

How do I change description of photos I uploaded?

I just noticed an incorrect date in the description of several photos (my own) which I uploaded. How can I correct the description? FYI, the files are those I uploaded today pertaining to the Mammoth Mine disaster in Mount Pleasant PA. The disaster occurred in 1891, not 1897, and I want to make that clear so that historians know exactly which accident and mine the photos pertain to. Thanks. BuzzWeiser196 (talk) 19:00, 31 August 2018 (UTC) BuzzWeiser196

File descriptions are like any other wiki page: you can edit them by clicking the "Edit" link above the title. --bjh21 (talk) 19:13, 31 August 2018 (UTC)