Commons:Village pump/Archive/2020/04

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Rotatebot fail?

Forgive my not perfect English; yesterday I requested the rotation of an image that I uploaded, File:Chiesa di San Zeno, zona absidale (Cerea) 01.jpg, but noting that it was still to be rotated I checked if there was any problem in the bot, and in fact it seemed stuck. Can anyone who has the ability check what happened and get it back on track? Thanks for your attention :-) --Threecharlie (talk) 08:26, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

The template looks fine. Rotatebot (aka SteinsplitterBot) also seems to work fine. You can either a) give it some time and it will more than likely work itself out or b) can can rotate it yourself and upload a new version using the "Upload a new version of this file" link in the "File history" section --D-Kuru (talk) 15:24, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Ok, thanks, I'll wait a little bit more, i wouldn't want the bot to get irritated and change himself in a new Skynet :-/ --Threecharlie (talk) 16:06, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Special:Diff/408536838/408804575: SteinsplitterBot uploaded a new version of File:Chiesa di San Zeno, zona absidale (Cerea) 01.jpg. — Speravir – 00:45, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: --Speravir 00:45, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Files of plants with bad file names

While adding categories to images in the category "Media needing categories as of ...." I have seen several images with the category "Files of plants with bad file names". From the file history I could not see how this has been added. See for example File:2016.11.06 11.28.57 DSC06803 - Flickr - andrey zharkikh.jpg where I have not yet removed that category. Why is that file put in the category of "Files of plants with bad file names" as the image has nothing to do with plants? Wouter (talk) 09:02, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

  • This image does have plants which should be identified if that is possible, but I tend to agree, that this is not the main feature of the photograph, and that particular category should be simply removed. Renaming that file to show what those plants are would be silly at best and disruptive at worst. ℺ Gone Postal ( ) 09:04, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

How do I revert images?

I have tried to revert a couple of images I modified and I get this message "The edit appears to have already been undone." but it hasn't. Also when I read the explanation of how to do it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Reverting#Reverting_images) I am unable to relate to it. When I go to "File History" I do not see a thumbnail of each graphic. Jim Evans (talk) 20:51, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

@Jim Evans: If you think you have reverted a file to an earlier version but nothing seems to have changed, force your browser to refresh (shift key and F5 for many browsers). Your browser cache has stored an old copy of the file and will try to load that first, even though Commons has the correct version available. Forcing a refresh makes your browser download the latest copy of the file. If you are still having trouble after a refresh, post a link to the file so other editors can take a look at the source of the problem. From Hill To Shore (talk) 21:00, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Just to be sure, I went to the page in a different browser. All clicking Undo does as best I can tell only changes the descriptive data. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Madison_revenue_$1000_1899_issue_R181.jpg And this is not the only one. It appears you have to do something different than Undo, but I don't know what. Jim Evans (talk) 21:37, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jim Evans: I presume you're referring to File:Madison revenue $1000 1899 issue R181.jpg, since the image you link to doesn't exist. You need to use the "Revert" link in the "File history" section of File:Madison revenue $1000 1899 issue R181.jpg, and not the "Undo" link in the page history. As you've noticed, the latter affects the description but not the file itself. --bjh21 (talk) 22:19, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. I had never noticed that revert link was there. Jim Evans (talk) 22:30, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 02:39, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

OFL template

Hello, the parameter of Template:OFL doesn't work. All modified values are still the default of the template. Ex: {{OFL|1=John Doe|2=2015|3=1.0}}

Copyright © 2015 John Doe.
This Font Software is licensed under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.0. The license text is available here. FAQ can be found here.


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Diki Ananta (talk) 11:44, 2 April 2020 (UTC) @Tomchen1989: - Jmabel ! talk 15:41, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

From glancing at the source, you need to use named parameters:
Copyright © 2015 John Doe.
This Font Software is licensed under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.0. The license text is available here. FAQ can be found here.


Bahasa Indonesia  English  français  italiano  Jawa  Nederlands  português  sicilianu  Türkçe  македонски  русский  हिन्दी  日本語  中文  中文(简体)‎  中文(繁體)‎  العربية  فارسی  +/−

. Either the documentation needs to be corrected to make this clear, or support needs to be added for numbered parameters; not sure which would be better. – BMacZero (🗩) 16:38, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

I tried to have a look at it and this is what I found:
{{OFL}} itself uses {{Autotranslate}} which itself actually only requires a base parameter (which is the graphical layout without any text)
Looking at the english version at Template:OFL/en it looks like every variable is used and should work. If use the template as "{{OFL/en|1=John Doe|2=666|3=42.0}}" it will work.
Looking at Template:OFL/layout it does not use any variables. So I would guess this is the guilty guy in the prison (or the corona infected one in the crowd).
I will say that I hate template Autotranslate since it adds useless complexity to a very simple template like this one, but I will try to take a look at this.
--D-Kuru (talk) 16:47, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, had the feeling that the code looks incorrect. Even the base text does not auto-translate. Thank you {{Autotranslate}} for wasting my time here!! --D-Kuru (talk) 16:50, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
In short: I fixed it.
Long story: The bad tweet in trumps twitter account was done by @Tomchen1989: when he changed the template to use Autotranslate. He used the parameter "author" instead of "1". Thats actually all there was to it. Yet, it took about 30 minutes to find this crap - oh hail to you Autotranslate as you are so incredibly necessary for small templates!
Since I have no idea how many files use this template with "1" and how many use it with "author" I made the change so that either one will work. So you can use {{OFL|1=|2=|3=}} and {{OFL|author=|year=|version=}}.
--D-Kuru (talk) 17:30, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
FOr future reference: The problem was not Template:OFL/layout, but Template:OFL --D-Kuru (talk) 17:32, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Categorization question

How would you categorize File:Taufurkunde 2013 11 22.jpg? “Taufurkunde” literally means “baptismal certificate”, but if you look on the image you will read “Sternenurkunde” (“star certificate”). It’s a certificate for a “Sterntaufe” or “Sternentaufe”, literally “star baptism”. There is a page in German Wikipedia (Sterntaufe), but apparently for no other language, so not for English, too. Searching the web it seems in English the term star register is more common. In fact, the paper on the image is from https://www.die-sterntaufe.de/ which mentions on a sub page (https://www.die-sterntaufe.de/sternregister.php) the registration and the number is printed on the paper. — Speravir – 21:12, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Note, the star register I think of here is not a scientific star catalogue, but for private purposes. — Speravir – 21:16, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure Commons doesn't yet have a relevant category. - Jmabel ! talk 01:55, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Speravir, the nearest thing Commons has that relates to said image is Category:International Star Registry, which is about a U.S. company that sells similar fake star registrations. There are no applicable parent categories that your image might properly fit in, at least that I can find. Huntster (t @ c) 13:00, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, Jmabel and Huntster. So a category Commercial star registry or similar should probably be created, but where to categorize this? — Speravir – 21:50, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Maybe? I honestly don't know *what* you would put such a category in. Huntster (t @ c) 03:09, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
Category:Registries? Looks like that category needs a cleanup: right now it's a weird mix of actual registry books, etc. and buildings that are in some sense registries. - Jmabel ! talk 05:17, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks again, Jmabel. I think this is beyond my ability not being a natural English speaker, especially when I also see the referred cat Registers. I just created the cat for star registry (I hope the singular is not wrong) and added the file and the cat Hunster pointed to in it. — Speravir – 01:28, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
@Speravir: I've separated out Category:Registry buildings as a subcategory, which deals with the messed up category. Any particular reason you didn't make that plural? Normally, category names that are not proper nouns are plural. - Jmabel ! talk 04:06, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Jmabel, I told you I am not a native speaker mm. Well, if speaking about this kind of system/“service” is in English right in the plural form I am totally fine with this. I would change this, but need someone to confirm this.
De728631, da Du beide Sprachen sprichst: Solch ein System einer Dienstleistung (hier im Falle der Sternenregistrierung/-taufe eher sogenannte D.) wird im deutschen eigentlich immer im Singular bezeichnet. Wie würdest Du es im Englischen benennen – Ein- oder Mehrzahl? — Speravir – 22:36, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Theoretisch geht hier beides, je nach Kontext. "Registry", so wie du es gemacht hast (Singular) ist dann aber kein Register/Verzeichnis, sondern der Akt des Registrierens, oder eine Art Katasteramt/Registratur als Verwaltung. Korrekt wäre hier tatsächlich der Plural: Commercial star registries, also "Gewerbliche Sternenkataloge". De728631 (talk) 02:30, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Moved to Category:Commercial star registries. As I said, Commons policy is that normally category names that are not proper nouns are plural. In English (though of course not in German) you can pretty much say that a "common" (vs. "proper") noun is one that would not normally be capitalized. - Jmabel ! talk 03:56, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
OK. Thank you (once again), Jmabel and De728631. De72…, Ich meinte genau diesen Akt, aber is’ schon alles in Ordnung so. — Speravir – 21:14, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: --Speravir 21:14, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Random file (from category)

Hello folks, I was wondering if there was a way of getting a random file from within a specified category? It would be really helpful for introducing folks to editing Commons - I'm thinking especially of using it to get them to add categories, better descriptions and structured data for the files our museum uploaded (as a virtual activity and way they can participate whilst we're all at home at the moment!). I've searched and asked some other Wiki-people I know but was unable to find anything. Any help would be much appreciated! Zeromonk (talk) 08:43, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

If you just want a random page (and not from any subcategories) from a category simply use Special:RandomInCategory. If you wish to receive a file from a category (or subcategories with specified depth, use https://tools.wmflabs.org/magnustools/random_image_commons_subcat.php --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 09:04, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
@Josve05a: Thank you SO MUCH Jonatan Svensson Glad, that's enormously helpful! :) Zeromonk (talk) 09:16, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 00:58, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

How do I search for a Wikidata Q number

I can see that I added depicts:Q5342857 to a new entry here in Commons, but how would I search for something I may have added a year or two ago where I may have formatted it as [[Wikidata:Q5342857|Edward Young]] and would not appear as a standard text search? I did not add a category and cannot find it. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:27, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

You can use the insource search feature, e.g. insource:Q5342857Sam Wilson ( TalkContribs ) … 21:49, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Commons:Depicts#Searching depicts statements You have to search with haswbstatement:P180=Q5342857 --GPSLeo (talk) 21:52, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 00:57, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Identification of an automobile

What is the brand and type of the car in this picture? I cannot recall seeing one like this before, it looks funny to me. Eissink (talk) 17:55, 9 April 2020 (UTC).

It's a Fiat 600 Multipla. It looks funny because it has a rear engine. De728631 (talk) 19:28, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you! Eissink (talk) 19:43, 9 April 2020 (UTC).
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 00:57, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

In use in Wikidata

Commons:Scope says that a file must be "in use" by a Wiki project to avoid deletion. For Wikidata does that mean displayed at Wikidata, or does a Commons "depicts" statement that links back to Wikidata, constitute a file as "in use"? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 07:19, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

A depicts statement does not mean that Wikidata uses the file. It's actually vice versa. It means that Commons uses the item that is depicted. Sebari – aka Srittau (talk) 07:35, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Having a depicts statement on a file in no way affects whether it can be deleted. - Jmabel ! talk 15:39, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I know you know this, but just to be clear, A file does not need to be "in use" by a Wiki project to avoid deletion. It must only "be realistically useful for an educational purpose". Being in use on a Wiki is one way of quickly determining that the file is useful in this way. – BMacZero (🗩) 16:45, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • One parameter is 100% subjective, and the other is 100% objective. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) ({ {int:Talkpagelinktext}}) 04:00, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
    • Sort of. It's not as if there were some absolutely objective basis for deciding which picture to place in a Wikipedia article. But, yes, use in a Wikipedia is an absolutely objective criterion that exempts some photos from deletion for anything other than copyright issues and other non-negotiable criteria. Inclusion in a Wikipedia article generally implies something like consensus on the usefulness of a photo (although this can be tricky when it is in a little-viewed article) and also one of the main reasons Commmons exists is to serve our sister projects in this manner. Putting a "depicts" statement on an image does nothing of the sort. For example, we can all agree that a particular picture depicts "sky" and "trees", or the back of a person walking down the street, or an "undecipherable blur", without that making it useful for an educational purpose. - Jmabel ! talk 15:55, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
    • Further thought: I suppose having a "depicts" statement is absolutely objective, but so what? So is being taken on a known date, being taken by an identifiable person, having EXIF data from a camera. The fact that we know something objectively about a file or its metadate is not sufficient to say it is in scope. - Jmabel ! talk 15:58, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Disputed diagram banner

I seek advice on what to do when somebody places an unreasonable "Disputed diagram" banner across a map and then refuses to enter into dialogue when there is opposition to his banner. In particular User:DeFacto placed a "Disputed diagram" banner on the page File:Metric system adoption map.svg. While the the basis of his dispute has some merit, he has over-exagerated his case and the solution he proposes is not practical because the data required does not, as far as I am aware, exist. When I added a short response to his text on the banner explaning why his proposed solution was not practical, but he merely deleted it. Moreover the existing description that accompanies the diagram is 100% accurate. Martinvl (talk) 14:25, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Unreasonable banner? Refuses to enter into dialogue? Over-exagerated his case? Let readers judge for themselves by looking at the discussion at File talk:Metric system adoption map.svg#Extent of metrication in the United Kingdom. The purpose of the template is to highlight that there is a discussion on the talkpage, and not the place for that discussion itself. -- DeFacto (talk). 16:23, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
@DeFacto:
  • Unreasonable banner - once it was made clear to you that your propsoed solution was not practicable, the continued display of the banner was unreasonable.
  • Refused to enter into dialogue - You have not budged from your position eveb though it has been shown that until and unless you can produce world-wide data to show relative degrees of metrication, your posiiton is unreasonable.
  • Over-exagerated - The officialposition using the criteria that Vera used in his thesis is that metric units are the default units and imperial units are only used for specified exceptinal cases.
Martinvl (talk) 21:23, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
@Martinvl: it's indefensible (in my opinion) to knowingly put up a misleading diagram simply because you cannot find the correct data. What you write makes it sound like you'd rather have this misleading diagram than a correct one. Whereas, I'd rather have no diagram than a misleading one - and I stand by that principle in the discussion. -- DeFacto (talk). 14:51, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
@DeFacto: Vera's work is a PhD thesis. Why don't you read that and see how he arrived at his conclusion rather than just saying that his data is misleading. You might even learn something. Martinvl (talk) 15:52, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
@Martinvl: I see several problems (related to inconsistencies, factual inaccuracies and lack of sourcing) with that source, but I don't think that this is the appropriate place to expand and discuss those. We can discuss them elsewhere if you still believe it supports the current diagram content. -- DeFacto (talk). 08:46, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
@DeFacto: In that case, please find a better source. Until them, please heed Mrs Thatcher's words "put up or shut up". Martinvl (talk) 17:01, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

@DeFacto: This is Commons, not Wikipedia. Unless the diagram actively misrepresents its own cited sources, we would not normally consider it disputed. You are perfectly entitled to create an alternative diagram of your own, and to try to convince any or all of the Wikipedias to use your diagram rather than this one. - Jmabel ! talk 01:34, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi Jmabel, I'm not very familiar with Commons policies and guidelines. Is there anything on Commons similar to WP:DUE or WP:NPOV do you know? Or is it the case that propaganda and misinformation is welcome on Commons, and the onus is on users of Commons material to check its integrity and apply their own local policies and guidelines to control its use? -- DeFacto (talk). 14:45, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Not really. There are some rules like that about how images are described (not misrepresenting what a photo shows, not using highly biased language). Retouching other than color-balancing, cropping, etc. should be explicitly indicated. Etc. But characterizing the other side of an honest dispute as "propaganda and misinformation" is just plain inappropriate here. Some things are facts not subject to dispute: obviously, if someone said the U.S. had adopted the metric system, or Germany hadn't, that should be tagged (and probably deleted). But the degree to which the UK can be said to use the metric system? Commons does not attempt to resolve subtleties like that. As I said: you are welcome to upload your own version and to fight it out on the various Wikipedias as to which diagram to use (and it would certainly be appropriate to cross-link the files so that anyone looking at one version would be made aware of the other), but Commons is not the place to fight out controversial issues like that. Take a look at Category:Maps of Kurdish-inhabited regions to see how complicated this can get. - Jmabel ! talk 15:37, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel: but the map does say that the US has adopted the metric system - the key for the red colour says: "... or have officially adopted the metric system, but use is voluntary (USA, Myanmar, ..." (my underlining). The main sticking point for me is the assertion in the key for the green colour saying: "have officially adopted", which definitely needs qualifying a lot more if it is to be unambiguously true in the case of the UK. -- DeFacto (talk). 08:34, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
@DeFacto: That's your case? You have just made it impossible for me to believe you are acting in good faith. The key for red says "Countries which either have not officially adopted the metric system or have officially adopted the metric system, but use is voluntary." You have just made a deliberately misleading quotation that could confuse anyone who does not go check the facts for themselves. Obviously from your writing you are either a native or near-native English-speaker, so you presumably understand the word "or". I'm done making any effort to argue the facts with you.
Because I've been engaged in this, I'm not taking any action, but I believe some other administrator should consider removing the tag DeFacto imposed and semi-protecting the file on the basis that the tag was apparently not placed in good faith. And, DeFacto, you are still free to create an alternate version of your own. They can be cross-linked with neutral wording which I think under the circumstances somoene other than DeFacto should devise.
Let me be clear: I started into this discussion absolutely neutral as to whether there was a problem with the original map. The nature of DeFacto's effort to convince me that there is a problem is exactly what has convinced me that there almost certainly is not. - Jmabel ! talk 15:40, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel: perhaps is my lack of understanding of English grammar, or I just can't read, but I read the examples in parentheses as only applying to the clause on the right of the "or", which is why I raised it - clearly realising that anyone reading this could easily check the meaning. But no, that's not my case. My case is that I think it's misleading to represent the UK as one of the "Countries which have officially adopted the metric system", in the same colour as France, when the UK has only adopted it for some uses, and still uses their imperial system officially for many others. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:43, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
You're looking for COM:NPOV. (Maybe COM:OVERWRITE is relevant too.) It is very different from Wikipedia's policy because on Commons it is no problem to have multiple versions of a file showing the full variety of views on any given topic. Tokfo (talk) 17:51, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
@Tokfo: thanks for your constructive advice. I'll read the recommended COM pages and see if they can help with this. -- DeFacto (talk). 08:21, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Because of the impasse, and as a gesture of good faith, I have removed the template from the file for now. I propose we try and achieve a common understanding of the facts about this, on the file's talkpage. -- DeFacto (talk). 20:30, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

GPS data for old photos

How do I add in GPS data for an old photo? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:54, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

The full set of tools is described at Commons:Geocoding. Most of the time, I'll use OpenStreetMap to get the rough coordinates for something, then use http://tools.freeside.sk/geolocator/geolocator.html to get a more accurate location. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 20:58, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! {{Location|40.9840598|-73.6946565}} --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 22:18, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) and AntiCompositeNumber: You can enable the Locator-tool as a gadget in your preferences. After activation you will find it on File pages in the sidebar. Works quite good. — Speravir – 00:35, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Done! Thanks. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 01:03, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
  • @Richard Arthur Norton: (examples:)
    • {{object location|12.34|-56.78}}
    • {{camera location|12.34|-56.78|heading=NW_alt=910}}
    • {{location}}{{camera location}}
-- Tuválkin 16:05, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
  • @Richard Arthur Norton: May I also draw to attention the template "Location ronded" if you wish to approximate a location (for privacy or other reasons) - see for example this image where the location was rounded to the nearest kilometre. As a rule of thumb, rounding to the nearest degree rounds a value to about 100 km and rounding to the nearest 0.01° rounds the value to the nearest kilometre. Martinvl (talk) 17:43, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

incorrect official documentation on a photo

The file File:Habersham House, Reynolds Square.jpeg has documentation that it is the Habersham house. However, it turns out that it is a 20th-century copy of the Habersham house. See en:The Olde Pink House - there is a section on it. Can the name and description of this file be changed? Bubba73 (talk) 04:22, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

@Bubba73: Yeah, that's not a problem. Files can be renamed to correct for errors in file names, including "misidentified objects". I've renamed it File:102 East Gaston Street, Savannah, Georgia.jpg. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 06:20, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. Bubba73 (talk) 06:22, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
I'll try (it is the US Library of Congress). Today I went by the location of the copy and took a photo of it. Bubba73 (talk) 23:19, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
I believe we have a practice of retaining also the official description, marking it as incorrect. This avoids somebody finding the original and "correcting" our copy, and helps tracing misinformation. I made a try on this file and the .tif version (with a completely different format of description – shouldn't they be harmonized?). --LPfi (talk) 10:02, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes. I run into this a lot with University of Washington Libraries. I send them the correction, they may or may not make it; if they don't, in {{Photograph}} I retain their wrong description as the "original caption". - Jmabel ! talk 16:59, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Whether and how we can independently manage the so-called "our device" in Wikimedia Commons sessions?

In the Preferences tab> Notify me about events> there is an item titled Logging in from an unknown device. Okay, e.g. in Google Chrome we can define our devices but this should only apply to your Google account. As in our case, we can independently manage "our device" in Wikimedia Commons sessions ?. Sorry if this topic has been discussed in the past, in this case, please indicate the address for information. ( Google translator-sorry ) Alians PL (talk) 18:31, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

"your device" is defined based on cookies and most recently used ip address. Bawolff (talk) 17:51, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
There is some form of control, thank you kindly. Alians PL (talk) 13:16, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Chen Houei-kuen photographs

I am a relative of Chen Houei-kuen. I have noticed that there are no photographs of him on wikipedia. I happen to have two portraits that I would love to share. One is of him and the other a marriage photo of him with his first wife. It was taken in the 1930's so, no they are not my own photographs; and the photographer is unknown and unless he's lived to be at least 110 yrs. old, he is deceased. I am not sure what the rules are on sharing old family portraits of the deceased (both the photographer and the subject). It seems I should be allowed to share these, but I am not seeing how? I would love to contribute these beautiful photographs that capture an important historical figure! Kristin Ting — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kristin Ting (talk • contribs) 01:44, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

  • Issues will be entirely around the photographer, not the subject.
  • You don't mention what country; a lot of countries give "life + 70 years" copyrights, so the photographer just being deceased is typically not enough. - Jmabel ! talk 01:57, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
  • If a family member took the photos, then they can be released under {{Cc-by-sa-4.0-heirs}}; if they are commercial photo studio images, then we need to research the death date of the photographer. Look to see if there is a name on the front, back, or the frame from a commercial photographer. Let us know what country they were taken in, for instance Sweden only copyrighted art photography before 1 January 1970, each country was different. Determining the US copyright status depends on the status of the image in the home country and when that country established copyright relations with the United States. You can load the image to Familypedia under a fair-use license for now, and add the link here, so we can all see what clues we can find for you. You should also create an entry in Familysearch, Wikitree, Geni, and Findagrave. All of them accept fair-use images and link to Wikidata. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 05:11, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
    • @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): May I assume "Sweden only copyrighted art photography before 1 January 1970" means "Sweden copyrighted only art photography before 1 January 1970," not the way it first read for me as being equivalent to "Sweden copyrighted art photography only before 1 January 1970"? - Jmabel ! talk 17:02, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, sorry for the confusion and my negligent wording, only art photography was eligible for copyright before 1 January 1970, after that date all images were automatically copyrighted. Anyway it is just an example of how different countries handle public domain, and does not apply to the images under discussion. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:06, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Does using the creator template add in a category for the creator?

Please look at File:Joseph Lowe (1903-1979) in May 1929 in Rye, New York.png and look at the categories at the bottom. The creator template appears to create a category for the creator. I have not seen that before. Usually we create a new category "Photographs by ..." because Google assumes the photos are of the person in the category and Google Image searches has been returning images of subjects as images of the photographer in the past. Is this new, or have I just not noticed it before? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:19, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

That's because you added the category to the creator (template) page. See my edit here which fixes this. (I added the category to the Wikidata item instead.) If you want to add categories manually it needs to be within <noinclude></noinclude>. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 19:23, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Ah! Thanks. Now I see. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:56, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): Here you go! --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 20:03, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Old timey finger pointing symbol

Do we have the old timey finger pointing symbol, seen in this article, stored here somewhere as an svg? Is is part of any unicode or ASCII set, and I just don't see it? It has come up in several transcriptions, but has to be left out. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 04:05, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Category:Hand symbols has a few of those hands, but File:Pointing-right.svg seems to be the only svg version that comes close to it. --HyperGaruda (talk) 09:21, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
☛ You're looking for en:Index (typography) and Category:Manicules. Unicode has a few of them in the Misc Symbols block, whether they look old-timey, modern or Emoji-/Simpson-yellow of course depends on the font you use. --El Grafo (talk) 09:35, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
For use in a transcription, you'll probably want to use either U+261E ☞ WHITE RIGHT POINTING INDEX or U+261B ☛ BLACK RIGHT POINTING INDEX. Considering screenreaders and other devices for visually impaired users are a thing, that's probably the most barrier-free (machine-readable) solution and much than any SVG or other image file ever could be.--El Grafo (talk) 09:43, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Note: you can use variant selector 15 and 16 to force non emoiji and emoiji rendering respectively of symbols. Bawolff (talk) 17:55, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Nice! --El Grafo (talk) 14:11, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Crop Tool

Crop tool is not working. Just showing a bunch of computer script stuff and taking forever. Editorofthewiki (talk) 20:02, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

@Editorofthewiki: I inquired about this on IRC and was pointed to this phabricator ticket. People with more technical knowledge than I are apparently working on it... — Rhododendrites talk02:31, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Reportedly fixed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:58, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Suicide notes

In June 2019, a reasonably notable Youtuber walked through the streets of New York, filming his suicide note. He then uploaded it to his channel — and, like the rest of his material, released it under Creative Commons — then jumped off a bridge. Youtube took the note down, but his fans had already archived it, and it subsequently was uploaded to Commons.

Until this afternoon, it was being used in his article.

I'm not entirely comfortable with having suicide notes — even properly licensed ones left by notable individuals — on Commons. It feels like it's asking for trouble.

Do we need a policy on this? DS (talk) 23:25, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

  • While I am comfortable with photographs of suicide notes, I am not comfortable with hosting videos of suicide notes or last word-like videos. I think it is inappropriate that four wikis are directly featuring this video in their articles; if wikis want to feature someone's last words, I think they should upload it locally. To answer your question, I think yes - we need to establish consensus on the community's opinion on hosting this content and creating a policy. ~riley (talk) 23:30, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Hosting such a note might well glamourise suicide and as such, I believe that it is socially irresponsible to host an image of such a note. Furthermore, in some jurisdictions aiding or encouraging suicide is a crime and hosting such notes without a warning might well put ceertain readers at risk. Martinvl (talk) 12:46, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Here you get to the really rough and hard edges of Commons:Project scope. It's plain and simple: If Wikipedia's want to use it, we host it on Commons as long as it's available under a free license. It's not up to us to editorialize. The video is at the moment still in use on his article on multiple Wikipedia's. If all the Wikipedia's decided they don't want to use this video (and not just one user removing it from all the language articles after I posted this) than it can probably be put up for deletion at some point. Multichill (talk) 20:07, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
(Not having looked at the file or the articles at all) I want to point out that Commons is not censored base don the subject of the file, but the educational usefulness of it. Regarding if it would be illegal in some jurisdiction, that's a simial situation such as {{Nazi symbol}}. I am of the belief that we should definitely host this here, since both the life and death of a notable person is important to accurately portray a person. Might be insensitive right now, but in the future (100-200 years from now), we want as much information and material recorded about a person as possible. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 19:02, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
(Now after having looked into the file and person) I still believe we should host this file, since the actal video is notable since it is mentioned in e.g. the English Wikipedia

Amofah left a suicide note in the description of the video.[33] YouTube removed the video for violating its Community Guidelines, though Amofah's fans reposted the video to other outlets.

 --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 19:10, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Martinvl though that we could have some legal problems because some jurisdictions treat the encouragement of suicide as a crime. We should put up some warning for such files, just like {{Nazi symbol}}. pandakekok9 03:34, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
I didn't notice any encouragement in the video for anyone (else) to commit suicide. I support keeping it. --ghouston (talk) 04:35, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
It's not in the video, but hosting it could make some misinterpret that we are encouraging suicide. Idk, better safe than sorry I guess. pandakekok9 05:02, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
"Some jurisdictions" is no problem, unless the one of the servers is included. We might have an ethical problem, but I agree that such a video from a notable person would be valuable in the future. And it is not up to us to censor wikipedias on ethical grounds. We could try to take measures to avoid it popping up unnecessarily (such as putting it in suitable subcategories, or whatever). At the moment, I suppose people looking for it or for information in general about the person, will find it in other places, so there is no need to hide it well, at least not at the moment. --LPfi (talk) 10:22, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
It occurs to me that since Youtube, etc, has a policy of taking such notes down, someone might try to host their own note here. (People have done weirder things.) DS (talk) 14:55, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Neutral on whether to keep but I reject the "hosting it could make some misinterpret that we are encouraging…" argument. Hosting anything could leave some people misinterpreting that as an endorsement: Nazi symbols, depictions of various sexual practices, kittens (I'm allergic). This argument runs directly counter to "Commons is not censored." Again, there may be a good reason to get rid of this content, but fear of being seen as endorsing everything we host is not a valid reason. - Jmabel ! talk 16:56, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Hosting graphs of the spread of Covid-19 doesn't imply support for pandemics. I assume that this discussion also applies to the other notes in Category:Suicide notes, mostly hand-written, but essentially the same thing? --ghouston (talk) 04:05, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Loosduinen

I split up the category as the same name is used for a 'wijk' and 'stadsdeel'. A 'wijk' is a subdivision of a 'stadsdeel'. Other 'Wijk(en)' of stadsdeel Loosduinen are Category:Kijkduin and Category:Waldeck, The Hague I hope I put most files in the correct (sub)categories. Can someone delete the erronous 'Category:Kijkduin en Ockenburgh (stadsdeel'?Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:09, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

There is special duplicate call in File:Haagse wijk-Houtwijk.PNG. This duplicatie has an erronous name: 'Houtwijk' is a subdivision (buurt) of Loosduinen (Wijk).Smiley.toerist (talk) 13:30, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Deletion of the duplicate. I use the duplicate template, but this is a special case (wrong name). Maybe I should have used the delete template, without mentioning the duplicate. I want to leave behind the reason for the delete for later reference, if needed. Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:33, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
@Smiley.toerist: I still don't understand what you mean by "a special duplicate call". File:Haagse wijk-Houtwijk.PNG has now been redirected, if that's all you meant, fine. - Jmabel ! talk 16:01, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Ok, thanks, as long as there no two identical files. Discussion can be closed. The check of the split is done correctly can best be with Dutch locals with local knowledge.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:44, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Photo challenge February results

Motorsports: EntriesVotesScores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Соревнования по
мотокроссу (файл)
Motorcycle jump during a motocross
race in Barbechat, France
Freestyle show during a motocross
at Barbechat, France
Author Андрей Малков PCouton PCouton
Score 27 17 14
Public parks: EntriesVotesScores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Дворцовый парк (Гатчина) Ленинградской
области. Карпин мост. Россия.
Two people walking through the autumn
leaves in Linn Park, Glasgow, UK.
Swing in Bernal Heights Park, San
Francisco (2-frame panorama)
Author Kora27 Compo Rhododendrites
Score 13 11 10

Congratulations to Kora27, Compo, Rhododendrites, Андрей Малков and PCouton. -- Jarekt (talk) 12:09, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Once again these over-wide templates are causing horizontal scrolling on this page. I've disabled them until that is fixed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:00, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't see any problems on my tiny laptop screen. Please don't break the links in these kind of announcements like you did earlier. Multichill (talk) 18:40, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm very pleased for you. I'm not using your laptop. The issue persists. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:56, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Stop vandalizing the message or you'll find yourself blocked. Multichill (talk) 20:00, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
@Multichill: FYI, I'm having the same issues that Andy has brought up (i.e. horizontal scrolling). --Ìch heiss Nat ùn ìch redd e wenig Elsässisch!Talk to me in EN, FR, PL, GSW-FR(ALS). 22:52, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
As an administrator, you know better than to falsely accuse fellow contributors of vandalism; and you know better than to threaten blocks when you are already involved. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:24, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
I made the templates more narrow. --Jarekt (talk) 23:21, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
But I also can not reproduce the issue. Even is I make my firefox 1/3 of my laptop width the page looks fine. You do need to scroll to see all the photos but the rest of the text looks good. Bad browser? --Jarekt (talk) 23:24, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, but I think it might be better in future to use standard <gallery> markup rather than an unreliable template. Like you, I am using firefox. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:24, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
I had the same issue as Nat and Andy (Firefox, too; and 4:3 screen; desktop; Monobook) and, although I see nothing wrong with horizontal scrolling per se, I agree that the current layout is much better, and I want to thank Andy for insisting on the matter. I also want to support Andy’s appeal to Multichill (and to any other admin) to avoid the casual use of threats and insults. -- Tuválkin 14:10, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
I have no real issues with it either. But I would advise everyone to attempt to de-escalate, and to step back a bit before it becomes a wider issue no one can step back from. --Ìch heiss Nat ùn ìch redd e wenig Elsässisch!Talk to me in EN, FR, PL, GSW-FR(ALS). 17:11, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Evryone? There is only one person - an admin, at that - here who is repeating false acusations of vandalism. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:43, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Replacing a working template with a broken link to Template:Photo challenge/2020 - February - Motorsports/Winners after being asked not to do that is vandalism (Q6160), plain and simple. Any user who does that would generally first get a warning and might get blocked if the behavior persists. Multichill (talk) 16:07, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

People may already know this, but you can get very good results out of <gallery> with "packed" and an explicit height. - Jmabel ! talk 16:46, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Safety gates

This picture show a closed gate for an underground railway tunnel underneath the sea. This is during a visit day during construction. The gate is closed because they obviously dont want people walking beyond this point. Is there a category for this?Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:53, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

It should be somewhere in Category:Doors, but other than the location (Rotterdam) I don't see any specific category this would fit into without knowing the general purpose of this door. I could imagine though that it's some kind of shutter to prevent the spreading of fire or water. De728631 (talk) 19:28, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm not certain the door in this image needs to be categorized at all, not any more so than Category:Men with glasses. --Animalparty (talk) 20:00, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Similar topics are Category:Hermetic gates in Moscow Metro (probably this is only existent in metros in ex-Soviet countries), and also Category:Safety gates (water transport) + Category:Lock gates, both for water transport objects only. I guess there should be a joint overcat for all, but I'm not English native and not sure if its correct name would be "Safety gates", "Hermetic gates" or else. --A.Savin 21:22, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Is there a "cliff notes" version of COM:Licensing?

When explaining copyright to new users, I often want to link to a page they can visit to get more information about how copyright works and address some common confusions (e.g. property ownership vs. copyright ownership). However, COM:Licensing is an extremely thorough document that I think is probably too intimidating for a lot of people. Is there an existing document that distills the info down more than COM:Licensing, but is a little more thorough than the graphic on that page? – BMacZero (🗩) 19:06, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Uploader restricted CC licences

In short: Can you restrict the used CC-licences when you upload images to Wikimedia Commons under a CC licence?
The CC-BY-SA-4.0 licencetext says you have to use the same "or a BY-SA Compatible License" when you work with the image and republish it (For now that is the Free Art license 1.3 and the GNU General Public License version 3). The licencetext of CC-BY-SA-3.0 says you can reuse a work also under "a later version of this License with the same License Elements as this License" (and under "a Creative Commons Compatible License" which is the same as 4.0). So in theory if you licenced some work(s) under CC-BY-SA-3.0 your work could may end up somewhere licenced under FAL-1.3 or GFDL-1.3 even you never willingly agreed to this.
In my opinion you are allowed restrict the licence on reuse in a way that you say that someone is only allowed to use it under this (eg. CC-BY-SA-3.0 or 4.0 or whatever) licence. Maybe you shouldn't use the {{Cc-by-sa-4.0}} template for this, but a different one. I think it is perfectly fine to do so since the media file is still freely licenced and does not restrict it's reuse or demands other things that would hinder it's reuse (eg. include the licencetext with the media file)
What is your opinion on that issue? --D-Kuru (talk) 15:09, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

  • Custom licenses are a pain to deal with (especially for bots) and we really discourage them. Certainly you cannot offer a standard license and then claw back some of what it grants. You can create your own "free enough" license (allowing commercial use and derivative works), but recognize that you are definitely throwing a spanner in the works if you do so. We certainly deal with these when they come from (for example) governments or large institutions, but if every user were to create their own licensing terms, it would be very difficult for our reusers.
  • Could you possibly explain why you would have a problem with someone reusing your work under a different license that (in the case of CC-BY-SA-4.0) also preserves attribution and sharealike? What do you actually lose by that? - Jmabel ! talk 15:48, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Short answer to the short question: No, you can not. That would be applying additional restrictions to the license, which is prohibited by the license terms. You can not refer to such a license using the words "Creative Commons" either (see CC FAQ). If you uploaded a work under such a license, it could not be combined with any CC-BY-SA works to create a derivative work. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 00:05, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel: , @AntiCompositeNumber: Sorry, it took some time to deal with this. Bare with me it will get a bit longer.
I had a feeling that it wouldn't work and if it was OK to add restrictions it would sorta break the licence and would be neglected on reuse since it is not the standard licence. People neglect free licences anyway and think that files with a free licence are free to use like a PD image is.
I do not really have a problem here. When you look at the images I uploaded over time you will see I already published a few hundred images under CC-BY-SA 2.0, 3.0 and recently switched to 4.0. I ask for EMD from who I expect will upload some really good quality images in a topic field where commons misses out a bit. That's why I setup a few pages and would also patrol the uploaded images and take care for them. However the crucial part was the "BY-SA Compatible License" that is mentioned in the legalcode that does not really fit EMD's requirements since the pool of licences could be expanded at any time. This is also exactly what the webiste of CC says: "Other licenses may be added to this list at any time"
EMD (and I have to agree here) dislikes the idea of a licence that has an option to relicence the image under a different licence. Not speaking about the fact that the pool of compatible licenses is not closed and could be extended at any moment. The legalcode of BY-SA-3.0 says that anyone can "distribute [the file] [...] under the terms of: [...] (ii) a later version of this License with the same License Elements as this License". So CC-BY-SA-3.0 images could be used under CC-BY-SA-4.0 without that the author has ever agreed to the licence (4.0) in the first place. The legal code of 3.0 also says you can use a "a Creative Commons Compatible License", but no licence was declared compatible for 3.0 (see also the list of compatible licences) The legalcode of CC-BY-SA-4.0 says licence of the adapted file "must be a Creative Commons license with the same License Elements, this version or later, or a BY-SA Compatible License" CC-BY-SA-4.0 compatible licences are: The FAL 1.3 and the GPLv3. FAL 1.3 seems to not have an any later version clause, but it also accepts relicencing the file under "any compatible license". Long story short: A file licenced under CC-BY-SA-3.0 and be relicended under the GPLv3 even the author did not willingly agree that the file can be used under this licence at any point in time.
But this will never happen - Well it already did. Many years ago Wikipedia used the GFDL v1.2 or any later version. In November of 2008 version 1.3 came along that included a small section called "RELICENSING". This section allowed the "Massive Multiauthor Collaboration Site" (in short the Wikimedia Foundation with all it's projects and sites alike) to relicence every copyrightable content under CC-BY-SA-3.0. I did and still consider this as massive copyright infringement by the Free Software Foundation. The cherry on top of the cake was that you had to opt-out of the relicence process if you didn't want to have your files relicenced. So what happened is that files once licenced by an author under GFDL-1.2 at the time can now be used under CC-BY-SA-3.0 or any later version, the FAL 1.3 or the GPLv3. All this without the author ever beeing asked. As far as I know they didn't even ask people or send them a note on their talk page with qustion if they want to opt-out. The funny thing here is that the GFDL is declared as beeing incompatible with the GPL on Wikipedia itself. Yet you can easily switch from the GFDL to the GPL via a quick relicence under CC-BY-SA. Yes, Wikipedia was build to be reused. Yes, some people abused the GFDL and it's requirement to include the full licence text to basically make the reuse of their files something from harder to next to impossible. Yet, you can't just switch a licence willy-nilly because good ol' uncle Stally gave you a free magic ticket to do so. This also applies to the case when the licence gets in the way of the project and it's purpose.
Because there is this longer backstory and such a case already happend I also dislike the idea of an existing option for the file beeing relicenced that is not closed (eg. in form of a finsihed list). After all the licence condition says "ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original". I know there is a link, but if the text is printed there is no link. It is bought as seen and the fine print is nice, but if it says something else than the big front page, it does not apply.
--D-Kuru (talk) 22:19, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I didn't like the relicense from GFDL, either; I reluctantly went along with the change.
  • But that doesn't change my answer here. If the user insists on their own license it will probably be a pain to deal with (especially for bots); they should probably expect to repeatedly have things tagged as a problem when they are not and having to respond if they don't want their work deleted; so unless their contributions are going to be extremely high quality, they might consider that everyone including themselves might be better off if they entirely skipped trying to work with Commons on images where they really have any concerns beyond attribution and sharealike (and the usual moral rights that exist regardless of any decisions we make here), because it is probably going to be a hassle to them beyond any value to us. - Jmabel ! talk 01:29, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Well, you asked why it was considered if a changing the licenceconditions is possible. This is the story behind it. I did never expect to change any answer since it makes a good ammount of sence that the licence can not be changed.
The problem is not that the images should not be resued. The problem is neither attribution nor share-alike. The problem is that it's not a fixed licence. If you release it under CC-BY-SA-2.0 or any later version you can actually use any of the licences I have been talking about. They also again accept the reuse under a "compatible licence". EMD wants to sign up for one licence and the image will stay licenced only under this licence unless EMD changes it.
Maybe I have found a possible solution that would make everybody happy: CC-BY-SA-1.0 is only compatible with itself and there is no or any later version option in there. I have to discuss this with EMD, but this could work, right?
--D-Kuru (talk) 21:09, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this has been brought up yet, but only adaptations can be released under later or compatible licenses. The original, unmodified work can only be reused under the specified license. It can't be relicensed without the permission of the licensor. See section 4(a) for 2.0 and 3.0, and section 3 (especially 3(a)(1)(C) and 3(b)(1)) for 4.0. Using 1.0 is also an option, but keep in mind there may be other significant differences to be aware of compared to later versions. clpo13(talk) 21:24, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
It is rather trivial to adapt or edit an image. Also there is no clear explanation what "Adaptation" is. It is defined under 1.(a), but descriptions like ""Adaptation" means a work based upon the Work, [...] such as a [...] adaptation" don't help. An Adaptation seems to be an adaptation - well, good to know (text of 3.0). The point here is that a small crop of 1px or changing the colour of one pixel in a large area or maybe even just changing the EXIF information could be considered an adaption. It is not the same image even it looks the same. Even such a minor edit will look identical to the human eye, something like a hash function can tell though that the file is different. And since using a piece of (CC-)music in a film is considered an adaptation, small changes in images should fall under the same rule as well.
Add 1.0: I did never really look into 1.0 since I never used it. EMD has to take a look at it and see if this licence fits. Maybe some advancements would be sacrificed if it is a closed licence (so no "any later version" or "compatible licence" clause).
--00:24, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
The changes have to be enough to generate their own copyright (in other words, above the threshold of originality in the reuser's jurisdiction. See [1] and [2]. Compared to 3.0, the 4.0 license makes this clear by specifying that adapted material must be "subject to Copyright and Similar Rights". I don't really understand the objection to compatible licenses (which, per [3], "must have the same purpose, meaning, and effect as the corresponding CC license"; [4] is also worth a read), but if they insist, then CC BY-SA 1.0 is likely the only option compatible with Commons. FWIW, I think the Commons CC BY-SA templates should mention the compatibility mechanism for the complete avoidance of doubt. clpo13(talk) 02:16, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

New article from Wikimedia Legal about works depicting private property

Hi everyone - I just wanted to flag that the Wikimedia Foundation's Legal team just published an article with some research on the issue of works depicting private property. It's come up a few times that works depicting private property might be limited by trespass laws (especially in German law), so the team has put together the article to get their perspective on the topic to the community. I should point out that this is not a policy, nor should it be considered legal advice. The article is available on Meta-Wiki: "Works depicting private property limited by privacy and trespass rights don’t meet the requirements of free cultural works". Thanks! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 18:06, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Request for comment: Deletion/undeletion of uploads by banned/blocked users

RESOLVED:

I count 20 support and 83 oppose votes. This may be a little bit off in either direction as a few votes are not clear, anyway the result is clear.

Result: Block/ban evasion/sockpuppetry on its own is not a valid reason to delete media or reject a request for undeletion. --Krd 09:53, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


  • Is block/ban evasion/sockpuppetry on its own a valid reason to delete media or reject a request for undeletion?
German/Deutsch
  • Ist die Umgehung von Sperren/Verbannungen bzw. die Nutzung von Sockenpuppen allein schon ein gültiger Grund, Medien zu löschen oder einen Antrag auf Wiederherstellung abzulehnen?
French/français
  • Le contournement de blocage ou l'utilisation de faux-nez sont-ils à eux seuls des raisons valides pour supprimer des fichiers ou refuser des demandes de restauration ?
Dutch/Nederlands
  • Is blok/ban-ontduiking/sokpopperij op zichzelf een geldige reden om bestanden te verwijderen of een verzoek tot terugplaatsen af te wijzen?
Portuguese/Português
  • Bloqueio/evasão de bloqueio/uso de fantoches é, por si só, motivo válido para apagar mídia ou rejeitar um pedido de restauração?
Spanish/Español
  • Estar bloqueado/evadir bloqueo/crear títeres. ¿son en sí mismas razones válidas para borrar los archivos subidos o para rechazar una solicitud de restauración de un archivo?
Persian/فارسی
  • آیا فرار از قطع دسترسی/تحریم و زاپاس‌بازی در پی آن به خودی خود دلیل کافی برای حذف پرونده‌ها یا رد کردن درخواست‌های احیا هست؟

Context:

Following discussion at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems/Archive_83#Jameslwoodward, one thing seems abundantly clear: opinions are sharply divided on the matter of how to treat contributions by users who are evading a block or ban. To attempt to summarize arguments discussed:

  1. Commons should not have such a policy, and such content should normally be retained so long as it is properly licensed and within COM:SCOPE.
  2. Such deletions are already covered in principle by Commons:Blocking policy, and are therefore within the discretion of individual administrators.
  3. Commons should have a such a policy, as retaining the contributions of blocked/banned users effectively encourages further sock puppetry.

As far as I can tell, while these views are strongly held on all sides, there does not currently appear to be any broad community consensus to rely on in such cases. GMGtalk 13:50, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Survey

  •  Oppose If you think about it, if someone got banned from something, all they uploaded would be deleted. What if its upload were for a very popular portion of the Wikipedia/Wikimedia site? Someone else will need to upload it if it's deleted... if it was popular, it's gone and nobody saved it... it's gone. Do you really want that? LCMCdotEXErules2 (talk) 21:56, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support -- F. Riedelio (talk) 16:27, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Deletion of content when the only reason is that the user has been banned (unless the ban is for mass copyright violations).
  •  Support Undeletion of such content that has already been deleted. ℺ Gone Postal ( ) 14:50, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Weak support of deleting uploads by banned or blocked users. G5 policy would help protect admins since this would always be contentious. Abzeronow (talk) 14:56, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Making a policy so that anyone with sysop tools could "teach a sockpuppeteer" a lesson would be courting disaster. Free in-scope content is always valid, regardless of who pressed a button to upload it. With such a policy in place, to disrupt the project any half-witted troll could set up a throwaway account, do nothing but upload valuable public domain archives for a month, then go on the admin noticeboard and confess they are a sockpuppet and dare administrators to delete the content. A scorched earth policy may fit the needs of the English Wikipedia, but it makes no sense when we are talking about perfectly valid media files. If anyone feels it's worth it, the uploads could always be automatically anonymised, or even post hoc marked as uploaded by a trusted user (or an Official Dummy Account); but that again feels like creating work for good faith volunteer just to make a point. -- (talk) 15:05, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support I welcome free content, but am not willing to pay such a high price for it. --A.Savin 15:38, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose It really really does depend on what the "content" is. Vandalism, attack images, utter garbage etc goes. Other images might well be kept if they are validly licensed of of genuine potential use. --Herby talk thyme 16:00, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Same as above. When there are copyvio problems, vandalism, etc.. sure. But deletion just because the uploader was banned is ultimately counterproductive. Also note that despite claims, there is no proof that keeping files that are properly licensed and in scope would encourage those banned users. Given how long some LTAs continue to disrupt, we clearly have no idea what the source of their gratification exactly is. For all we know, it's the deletion that gets them off. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 16:17, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose though it's certainly a strike against, and on anything where there is doubt about copyright, scope, etc. it's a strike against the file. Agree with Fæ that anonymization would be acceptable if someone is willing to take it on. - Jmabel ! talk 16:58, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support - Sock edits at EN are always reverted instantly and IMHO we should follow that practice here, Allowing socks images just encourages them to keep returning which we don't want, We must remember socks were banned for a reason ..... If they've been wrecking havoc on other projects for quite some time then why we should we allow them here and most certainly allow their images here?,
In short for me allowing the images just confirms socks are welcome here and that no matter what problems they've caused elsewhere they're basically welcome here regardless.
Also just to clarify the original 'sock's accounts images should remain but anything after that IMHO should be deleted. –Davey2010Talk 17:21, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose, except where there are consistent problems with the actual images, eg copyvio. Johnbod (talk) 17:23, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support - The Commons community is much more reluctant to block/ban than on Wikipedia. Only when there are very serious or very long-term problems do I see it happen. The case is therefore even stronger here than on Wikipedia for discouraging socking by those who have managed to get banned/blocked. Keeping the files means continued motivation for socking. That said, I also  Support something like a waiting period whereby another user in good standing can take "ownership" of the uploads if they are indeed of use to Commons. — Rhododendrites talk17:32, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support En.wiki G5 grew out of the blocking policy and documented existing practices from its conception...not the other way around. A blocked user is a blocked user and their edits and creations may be removed. Further, their failure to abide by community policies is a breach of the Terms of Use which also allots for the removal of their contributions. It disincentivizes those who would evade their block and sockpuppet. Again, this should be at the admin's discretion and they do not have to always delete but they should have the ability to do so when the need arises.
    ⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 17:50, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support. Blocks are not, or at least, cannot be symbolic. Allowing a blocked user to continue collaborating with the project take away the seriousness of our rules and procedures. If someone wants to review their block, they must use the available mechanisms. Until then, all contributions must be removed. Érico (talk) 20:50, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose per Johnbod and others. Let's not make the same mistake like folks on enwiki, where even a quality, referenced article can be deleted just because it was created years ago by a now-banned user.-Darwinek (talk) 21:34, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  • That is mis-characterizing because only articles/files that were added after they were blocked are eligible for G5. It is not applied retroactively to delete someone's creations prior to the block.
    ⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 22:07, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  • (Edit conflict) That's not how it works on enwiki. If a then-banned user created an article in violation of that block/ban and nobody else has made nontrivial edits to the article, then yes, it would be deleted. When someone gets banned, their old work from when they weren't banned is unaffected. If someone's behavior is egregious enough to get banned, they can't just pick up where they left off with a new account. — Rhododendrites talk22:08, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose: An upload by a sock that has to be deleted and another day the same upload by a non-sock that has to be kept is patent nonsense. --Achim (talk) 22:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Edit: To come to the point: I'm the 1st volunteer for re-uploading images. Hey socks, leave me a note. :)) --Achim (talk) 22:57, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose per above. We should only delete files if there is a problem with the content itself. Just deleting because the user was banned even if the files are still useful seems very unnecessary. 0x9fff00 (talk) 23:05, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose - Gone Postal has expressed it well, there should be no deletion of "content when the only reason is that the user has been banned (unless the ban is for mass copyright violations)". Commons is about freely licensed content, the individual users uploading it are not in focus - actually, we import lots of content from flickr and similar sources; that is, content made by people who aren't even part of the Commons community. Just look at the content. If the content and its licensing is fine, I really don't care who uploaded it. However, I  Support blanket deletion of content by users who are blocked/banned because of massive copyright violations, as the licensing then can't be trusted. That's then a matter of efficiency and cost-benefit ratio: If we must assume that a large part of a blocked/banned user's uploads will be problematic, we don't have to check them all individually. If, however, the reasons for banning/blocking hadn't to do anything with copyright/licensing, there are no grounds for blanket deletion. Gestumblindi (talk) 00:07, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose deletion of potential valid media just because the uploader is dubious. — Speravir – 00:50, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  If really his/her own work, and  oppose if uploaded from external links, and not his/her own work. Flickr/YouTube, it's really difficult to re-upload a video if once deleted.//Eatcha (talk · contribs) 03:49, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support If you wanna get rid of trolls, you have to block them and delete their content. Everything else never worked and never will. --Mirer (talk) 03:59, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
    Keep in mind that there is no evidence that this works as a deterrent. The testamony from many long term disruptive sockpuppeteers is the reverse, and most of those spending siginficant time playing whack-a-mole say that bigger hammers that bang harder is not the social solution we need to help reform and educate. The truth is that if an anonymous account is happy to get on with categorization or uploading of content and stay unnoticed, it's actually bizarre that we should invest time trying to trip people up. -- (talk) 11:25, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
    Well, maybe no evidence, but years and years of experience (ever since the usenet). What testomonies trolls give, doesn't get my attention. I'm only interested in their actions and which actions (from us or any moderator/admin on any system) stop certain behavior. --Mirer (talk) 17:17, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose unless there is a specific reason to suspect that the uploads themselves may be problematic. We are here to archive all useful (educational, informative, historically interesting) media that is freely licensed, not to engage in this kind of personal pettiness. Tokfo (talk) 06:40, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Es ist völlig unwichtig, von wem eine Datei ist. Bei den meisten ist die wahre Identität doch sowieso unklar, sollen wir deren Fotos nun auch alle löschen? Wir haben hier auch Fotos von einem Nazi und Kriegsgewinnler, von anderen suspekten Personen. Es gibt keinen Grund, Bilder gesperrter Benutzer zu löschen. --Ralf Roletschek 09:21, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose The question is unclear: is this deletion of content added after the ban? (there is some justification) or all their content? The latter is ridiculous, and yet we've seen it done (especially on WP this has been a problem).
Furthermore, we don't need this as a policy: if content is of no use to us per COM:SCOPE, we can delete it already. We don't need anything more. This is just making a policy which will be waved around as 'blocked content must be deleted', as an excuse for the self-aggrandisement of a handful who like deleting stuff, because they've created nothing of their own. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:26, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Following Achim and others. Pro the argument 1 of context above. --Wilhelm Zimmerling PAR (talk) 12:00, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Any content should be treated equally regardless the contributor. Commons is for reusers in the first place. We can't deal with banned users at the expense of our content. ~Cybularny Speak? 18:07, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose. If the content is OK, it should be kept and used regardless of the uploader. Deleting content solely because it's been added by banned users (especially because the exact same content can be re-uploaded later by another user and then it would be fine just because it would have been another person doing it) may inadvertently instill the idea that the files belong to the users, which is far from true. I understand and respect the concern about possible (and undesired) encouragements for blocked users, but it's really not the case. Victor Lopes (talk) 18:15, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I was going to oppose, however, after reading and thinking about the above arguments, I'm leaning  Weak support. If the policies would be to nuke a banned/blocked user's contribution or a wholesale deletion of such, I would be fully opposed. I believe the question is whether their contributions post-ban (i.e. uploaded after they were banned) would be welcomed. I would not welcome such contributions. As Berean Hunter has stated, and correctly so, "their failure to abide by community policies is a breach of the Terms of Use which also allots for the removal of their contributions. It disincentivizes those who would evade their block and sockpuppet. Again, this should be at the admin's discretion and they do not have to always delete but they should have the ability to do so when the need arises." --Ìch heiss Nat ùn ìch redd e wenig Elsässisch!Talk to me in EN, FR, PL, GSW-FR(ALS). 21:04, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose, by arguments like those of Gone Postal and others. Don't fight symptoms, try to get a better system to track sockpuppets. Eissink (talk) 22:18, 3 March 2020 (UTC).
  •  Oppose, When content is ok, the photographer and/or uploader does not matter. What if I get blocked because of a 'heavy PA' (or something). I've never been blocked here and I think it won't happen, but I made hunderds of photo's of monuments and sculptures, also a few hundred photo's that could be missed and hundreds of photo's of places nobody ever uploaded a photo from, etc. Totally (also under old usernames) 1200+ files. So, if I take myself as example, 450 images used in lemmas will disappear. This is not real, I'm not blocked, but if this happens to someone else, the work should be kept. Something else is if someone is blocked for uploading copyvio, for more than 60% (p.a.). To make it short: just keep the files. - Richardkiwi (talk) (talk) 23:01, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose If we are to be a credible source of free media, it makes complete sense that we should provide the best we can make available. Deleting good content on the basis that it is "from a poisoned well" is a self-defeating argument and makes us look petty, spiteful, and more concerned about punishment and revenge than actually fulfilling our mission. Pointless. Rodhullandemu (talk) 23:09, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose if the uploads are not copyright violations, out of scope and vandalism. I do however see the point some have when it comes to serial sockpuppets but deleting valid and in-scope files isn't going to stop the sockpuppets from returning. Bidgee (talk) 05:18, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose If the uploaded content itself is clean, I see no reason to delete it. --Uoaei1 (talk) 09:35, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose, if a user is a blocked/banned for uploading copyright violations and then socks to upload free educational images we shouldn't punish literally everyone who could benefit from these images because of past mistakes. Users are rarely unblocked and we need to reform the unblocking/unbanning system, not double down on the bad policies that are anti-content. While I would understand why deletion requests by evaders might be unwelcome, restoring copyright violations out of spite can actually put the entire website at risk. We should not import bad Wikipedia policies. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 22:08, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support. contributions of blocked/banned users effectively encourages further sock puppetry. This is the point in blocked/banned. We do not want their contribution her. They already crossed the line. Their copyright statement cannot be trusted. Our deletion policy already covers the issue. -- Geagea (talk) 23:14, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose. If all other requirements for retaining a file have been met, we should not be deleting usable content simply because of a user's status. We are not like a Wikipedia where sock puppetry can be used to insert strange points of view into article prose. Either the file is freely licensed (and meets the scope) or it isn't. It is for individual projects to decide whether they will use files that have been stored here, which acts as a filter for any fringe content. From Hill To Shore (talk) 23:18, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Strongly support: This loophole in the system has allowed long-term trolls to game the system for well over a decade. Once a user is banned, their so-called "contributions" should be deleted on sight to prevent further disruption. We ran into precisely this problem just a few weeks ago when I nominated files created by a GLOBALLY BANNED user for mass deletion: as usual I was shouted down with the standard refrains of "censorship" and "in use, therefore in scope", with no regard for how much damage the images could do to the community's reputation.
Trolls, socks and meat puppets have no place on Wikimedia Commons. As pointed out above, we should not encourage their continual attacks by tolerating the re-uploading of their "work", especially it has already been previously deleted. As I've been saying from the start, ban the trolls, delete their "contributions," and block anybody who attempts to circumvent the deletion process. That's the only way to deal with this kind of abuse. AshFriday (talk) 04:17, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Sockpuppeting and any form of block evasion is harmful to our projects and normal practice is to remove/delete their content. That being said, flickr transfers are not their work. Sure, they may have initiated the transfer; but deleting transferred flickr uploads is a waste of time for the project and not worth pursuing. I am opposed to deleting content that would have otherwise been transferred, just for the sake of having an uploader with a different username if and when it eventually is re-uploaded.
Those in favour of preventing those evading blocks from keeping their content/contributions on the project come from projects where the majority of those contributions would be in article content. Having a sockpuppet facilitate flickr transfers versus writing original content is an unfair comparison and one that shouldn't be made. It may 5 minutes of work to find a flickr photoset, slap a category or two on it, and transfer it. There's nothing particularly unique or attributable to the user who facilitated the transfer - completely unlike the creation/addition of information in an article.
I do support deleting original content from those who are evading blocks, as not doing so would be condoning the evasion. Jon Kolbert (talk) 05:03, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose: As a general principle, I think that the usefulness of files should mainly be judged based on the files themselves, not by who uploaded them. If images uploaded by a now-blocked user are educationally useful (in scope) and have a valid license, they should not be automatically deleted. If the license of a file is questionable due to the uploader committing frequent copyright violations (or past actions of the uploader suggest other problems with the file), it can always be deleted based on a specific reason such as violating copyright, this doesn't require "uploader has been blocked" to become an automatic reason for deletion. GFJ (talk) 09:35, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose per Gestumblindi. --Rosenzweig τ 12:27, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose: Each case should be evaluated on its merits. In most cases the uploaded files will be OK. Although if just about every file from that user has a problem it may justify deleting most. I would suggest that files in use should be evaluated more carefully before any mass delete. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:37, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Even they are blocked/banned users, some of the files are good in quality and educational value. Unless the files are copyvio/vandalism, they should stay on Commons. --A1Cafel (talk) 10:37, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Decision should be depend on content. If the file has educational value, it should be kept regardless of uploader's problems. – Kwj2772 (talk) 12:21, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose in all circumstances unless the files themselves should be deleted as if they are uploaded by normal users.--GZWDer (talk) 16:30, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose automatically assuming that a blocked/banned user was 100% bad is a poor assumption. Each case should be evaluated on its own merits. It's easy to start a deletion discussion about the banned users' uploads and the files would start with a large strike against them in the discussion. Royalbroil 06:12, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose for the various reasons mentiones above. I would prefer though, that a user could delete pictures he uploaded him or herself. I don't know though, if this topic has already been discussed. Yomomo (talk) 18:46, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose on Gestumblindi's grounds unless the user has been blocked for copyright violations. -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK) 02:20, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose, per Gone Postal, Johnbod, and others. Unless the images in particular are copyvios, they shouldn't be deleted simply because a user is banned. Otherwise we're simply deleting images because we don't like the editor (s). I've had my share of grievances with editors and administrators, but I'm still not going to call for bans on any of their images over those grievances. ----DanTD (talk) 04:01, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose --DALIBRI (talk) 11:29, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Images/Files should be judged by what they are and not by who they were uploaded. Evaluation of images on a case by case bases should be done if needed. If the images is licensed correctly and complies with all other rules, why should it just be blanked deleted without being checked because someone who is blocked/banned uploaded it? If they image/files in question are in violation they should be/have been deleted regardless from if the user is banned/blocked or not... --Redalert2fan (talk) 13:02, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Those files should have a special mark to be reviewed one by one following banning or blocking of the uploader, but not automatically erased.--QTHCCAN (talk) 15:14, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose This is a terrible idea, obviously files on this site should be checked a case-by-case basis. Files don't suddenly become tainted when the user who uploaded them has disciplinary issues. Elspamo4 (talk) 00:53, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Files should be viewed on their own merits and not because they were uploaded by a blocked user. Captain-tucker (talk) 01:18, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support I believe the whole process of the upload should be viewed. An upload carried out by a blocked user should be considered a violation of the guidelines/policies, since one of the main elements of the upload process, i.e. the user, is severely problematic. --Mhhossein talk 13:05, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose per Gestumblindi. Minoraxtalk (formerly 大诺史) 13:29, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose: We’re here to curate media files, not to discipline unruly former co-workers. -- Tuválkin 17:07, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Per above. Images should be judged by themselves. If a image is ok, there's no reason to delete it.--SirEdimon (talk) 20:04, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Not another potencial battleground for petty revenges. Let images be judged by their merits. Tm (talk) 20:22, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose This is foolish: we should take the media and ban the user (assuming the media are in scope, etc.) If someone thinks this is some kind of tacit reward for sockpuppetry, sockpuppets are going to be sockpuppets: it happens. When they actually contribute to our free knowledge ecosystem, that's no reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The sort of person who makes serial sockpuppet accounts will probably keep on making serial sockpuppet accounts because that's the kind of thing he does. —Justin (koavf)TCM 20:27, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support – If a user has been blocked/banned or engages in sock-puppetry, their contributions ought to be rejected/reverted/deleted. Otherwise, what's the point of a block/ban? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:45, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose If the media is appropriate (in scope, properly licensed, for example), I don't see a reason to refuse it. Blocks and bans can be for bad behavior, not just for inappropriate uploads. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:23, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Deleting/undeleting files must be based on copyright only. Раммон (talk) 06:27, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Wouldn't deleting their "productive" contributions actually encourage LTAs to further engage in sockpuppetry? And they could also use those deletions as "proof" that Commons removes useful, educational content. I don't think we want that as our image. It seems either way we lose. So I say we uphold the status quo for the sake of the ultimate goal of being the free media repository of the world and delete their images only if they violate other policies (like copyright). In fact, if they have to create another sock just to upload some productive content, I'd say we win, because they have to waste some time just to do something productive. It's their fault why they can't upload consistently, so give them their deserved punishment. --pandakekok9 10:22, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose for two main reasons. First, the proposal is too vague: proponents have suggested that it applies only to files authored and uploaded by the blocked user, to all files uploaded by them (even if authored by others), or to all files authored by them (even if uploaded by another user). The boundaries of the policy need to be clear. Second, the blocking policy is quite clear that blocking is preventive, not punitive. So the reason we block someone for evading a block is because we expect the behaviour that led to the block to re-occur. On the other hand, once we've blocked the sock-puppet, we can check if it's contributions are actually problematic: there's nothing left to prevent. This doesn't mean the previous block needs to be entirely ignored, mind. If someone was blocked for claiming copyright violations as "own work", it might be reasonable to assume that their later uploads are copyvios. --bjh21 (talk) 11:18, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  • It's effectively this message: "You are not allowed to evade blocks but you are allowed to upload stuff even if you are blocked, and we will let it keep." No way this should be allowed. If you are confused, I am saying blocked editors should not be able to upload stuff, and things should be automatically eligible for CSD if they are found to be evading their block/ban. — regards, Revi 17:18, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose --Derbrauni (talk) 20:25, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Files should be deleted only if the file itself violates policy. Deletion should not be used as a punitive measure. MorganKevinJ(talk) 22:33, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Weak support as long as it isn't applied to creations before the block/ban (something w:G5 already says), that anyone in good standing can ask the pages to be restored (including the uploader when their unlocked), that pages don't have to be deleted just because they were created by a blocked/banned user and also that this should be applied lighter for blocked users than banned users (there aren't many at Commons anyway but there is some listed at Commons:Editing restrictions). Also it shouldn't be limited just to files uploaded but can also include other pages such as categories and also edits to existing pages. Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:18, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose - the criteria for whether or not content should be kept should be based entirely on the validity of the content itself, not who contributed to it. If the content is within our rules and potentially useful to other people then removing it would be a case of cutting your nose off to spite your face. Waggers (talk) 20:53, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Let's keep banned users separate from their useful work DPC (talk) 08:06, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose The idea that contributions of blocked/banned users effectively encourages further sock puppetry doesn't seem to be supported by anything substantial. --bdijkstra (overleg) 09:05, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose - Deletion of the picture seems to be some sort of punishment to the problematic uploader, but if the uploads are otherwise ok, it is just punishment to the community. --Pugilist (talk) 20:20, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose - Deleting media just for the reason, that the uploader was banned, leaves a big backdoor for misuse. Imagine some user decides after 20 years of uploading media to commons, that he doesn't want his media to be on commons or in public domain in general anymore. Someone wanting to achieve that could misuse such a policy by getting himself banned (maybe multiple times with sockpuppet accounts) and therefore resulting in his media being deleted. I understand, that this is not the intention behind such a policy, but imo you always have to look at such extreme cases (which can be in the far future). And as I understand it uploads by sockpuppet accounts from banned users are already covered by Commons:Blocking policy --DavidJRasp (talk) 12:44, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support deletion of sockpuputters' uploads.  Oppose deletion of main accounts' uploads. Otherwise it is just too easy to create multiple accounts to upload when the main account is already blocked. But there is a certain banned user with 700,000 uploads. Obviously nobody wants to delete these. Regards, Yann (talk) 20:49, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
@Yann: Your comment is confusing. Do you mean sockpuppets' uploads? Sockpuppeteer and main account are the same. And OP only wants new uploads to be deleted, not the old ones, so don't worry about the certain banned user getting nuked. ;) pandakekok9 08:56, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose images are collections of pixels, not persons. As long, as they are not breaking any other rules, they should stay. Macuser (talk) 10:27, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support: Trolls, socks and meat puppets have no place on Wikimedia Commons (see above). Creuzbourg (talk) 21:42, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Having such a draconian policy helps no one; "love the art, hate the artist". Even if its their own work, if they decided to release it under the appropriate license, and someone else wants to use it, why stop them? We cannot afford to be moral judges in this manner - you do not know what will pop out of where; good things have come from bad people and vice versa. --Silverqueen34 (talk) 01:35, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose As mentioned if the upload is valid and the sourcing is good, then deleting the images just because the uploader is banned and caught socking is a net loss to the project. Jarkeld's alt account (Talk) 03:03, 19 March 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jarkeld.alt (talk • contribs) 03:04, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support, with an emphasis on the word 'may' in "may be deleted". Banned means banned, which means that your edits are not wanted here anymore. There may be reasons to keep stuff under certain circumstances, but the default should be a tendency to delete. Defaulting to keep is an incentive to keep socking: look, I do good work, my material is kept. You may just as well stop looking for them. --Beetstra (talk) 13:19, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Deletion on the basis of a ban should occur in cases of vandalism or copyvio, but only in these cases. In my experience on EN, puppeteers can often be useful, contributing members before they get into whatever dispute makes them choose to start a sock(s). You may be aware that one of the most prolific editors on EN had a history of problematic behavior (namely, copyvio). People change. Problematic users can become helpful, and helpful users can become problematic. Subjecting years of content to deletion for no reason beyond "their uploader misbehaved" is harmful to the project.UserDude (talk) 17:57, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Per Waggers, who beat me to the expression I was going to use. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 05:40, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose If we think about deleting a file, we should consider the file itself, not the uploader as a person. --Hbf878 (talk) 18:52, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support, Definitely, as most of such uploads/edits would be problematic, I would suggest that, we need to bring such edits under review for sure. And I know most of it would get deleted eventually. For example, uploads by User:Sandesh9822 could be seen as possible case of such kind. Most of their uploads are either with wrong licences or copyvios QueerEcofeminist "cite! even if you fight"!!! [they/them/their] 19:09, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
@QueerEcofeminist: Can you please expand on your point a little? You mention that you believe "most" of these uploads are a problem, which means that you think some of them are valid. Does that mean that you are happy for this current proposal of speedy deletion (without consideration of other factors) to remove some valid content? You also mention a review of such uploads; do you have a preference between speedy deletion (without review criteria beyond the identity of the uploader) and having some form of review process before deletion? From Hill To Shore (talk) 19:23, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, Process could be, 1) Review of uploads/edits. 2) Speedy deletion of obivously problamatic files. 3) Other files can be RDed and reviewed under RD process. 4) Whatever survies we can keep it back. But all uploads by socks and ban evasions should be brought under some sort of deletion processes. thanks QueerEcofeminist "cite! even if you fight"!!! [they/them/their] 19:43, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose - actually there's so much to delete for better reasons, we don't need one mor battlefield for much too less Admins. And I feel a bit warmer around my heart, when bad or toxic users have to go, but their content stays. Btw - who can say, how much content we already uploaded from other sources as Flickr, that was made by banned users? As long the content is OK, it must stay. -- Marcus Cyron (talk) 01:00, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose If you think about it, if someone got banned from something, all they uploaded would be deleted. What if its upload were for a very popular portion of the Wikipedia/Wikimedia site? Someone else will need to upload it if it's deleted... if it was popular, it's gone and nobody saved it... it's gone. Do you really want that?--Hfst (talk) 10:07, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support even if the content is good, accepting it is accepting the evasion of the ban, and therefore the whole concept of bans or blocks unreliable. I see that people who oppose above have not understand the question. The question is about files uploaded AFTER the block or ban. These are what should be deleted, not those before the ban. Keeping them will make blocks and bans unworthy if they are evaded so easily... -Geraki TLG 12:38, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Not a sufficient reason on its own. The danger to waste other peoples time (who may already have used or categorized these images) is too high. Watchduck (quack) 13:32, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose You head tagged me for an opinion so I have commented. I spend my life building up a resource for the whole world to use- and steer well clear of wiki-bickering, and I have seen valuable colleagues blocked because of the silliest grudges- deleting their work too is spiteful and damages our aim to be global. If the wikimmilitia want to do something, they could tag the image and but it [[Category:Sin bin- not currently pc]] ClemRutter (talk) 11:36, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose --Geek3 (talk) 12:55, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose We are here to create something, not to teach a lesson, or moderate behavior. Yes, sockpuppets are a threat, but deleting everything from a blocked user seems a wrong way of dealing with this problem. On the other hand, a user might be blocked for vandalism or copyvio. In that case their content should be reviewed and possibly deleted. It might be random image review, but if several images contain violations, all should be deleted. But this case seems like it is already within the rules of the community. --Helixitta (t.) 21:46, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Each case needs to be assessed on a case by case basis by admin discretion. Blanket approach on either side of the fence is not helpful. ~riley (talk) 05:28, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose. -- 08:12, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
  • *  Oppose --Zenwort (talk) 13:17, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Obviously oppose. This is the most idiotic thing I've seen in a long time. If the work doesn't violate other rules, why would it be deleted? MewMeowth (talk) 04:22, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Each case must be discussed. Some cases can be discussed together (if group of banned users is united group evidently). But there is no place for common rule here. Alex Spade (talk) 11:37, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose “Deleting/undeleting files must be based on copyright only.” --Sebastián Arena... 12:22, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose I think each case should be discussed separately. --Gnosis (talk) 03:57, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose -- Rots61 (talk) 14:09, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose In wikipedia, administration and their minions can wipe out any user's contribution, they shoot first and invent excuses later. I wouldn't like to see this happen to commons too. Retired electrician (talk) 22:05, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
  •  Oppose it basically leaves the arms tied to the administrators, it doesn't make any sense. --Wilfredor (talk) 00:03, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

  • When imported files are deleted, importing them again becomes more difficult as UploadWizard will refuse them and Special:Upload would warn against uploading. The former would stop most genuine users dead in their tracks, the second would make them think "oh, I guess this file copyright problems then" and also stop them. We really, really shouldn't give blocked users the power to "ban" properly licensed in scope files from Commons this way.
And when talking about other (original) content, even Wikipedia's G5 doesn't allow the deletion of educational content unless it is directly related to the block reason. So if a user would be blocked for edit warring, that could never be a reason to delete an article they write about chicken soup with a sock account. Wikipedians are bad at writing clearly worded policies. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 14:20, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  • The goal of Wikimedia Commons is to collect educationally useful media that is in public domain or is released under at least one of the acceptable free licences. It is not about creating a forum for some users or for blocking of a forum for others. As such, unless the person is blocked for mass copyright violations, the user that has uploaded some content is irrelevant in judging if some file should remain here or not. Currently there are people on this project that I do not wish to communicate with, but I would be brain-dead to propose that this is a reason to delete their educationally useful contributions. ℺ Gone Postal ( ) 14:50, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm torn on whether Commons should have a G5-like policy. I don't think Jim was particularly wrong in not undeleting a bunch of files from a sockpuppeter. UDR most of the time doesn't undelete files uploaded by LTAs unless there is a compelling reason to undelete. On the other hand, if there is a educational use for a file and we don't have a freely licensed file of a particular person or if we only have a handful of them, I don't want to shut the door on restoring that either. I'd rather not continue giving a wide amount of discretion as a policy either, because while I don't think Jim did anything wrong with that UDR, resolving a matter like that was always going to be contentious and I'd rather see policy back up the admin. So I'd reluctantly support a policy of not retaining contributions by banned or blocked users unless it would do more harm than good in deleting a file. Abzeronow (talk) 14:53, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
@Abzeronow: G5-like policy would be something else. G5 requires "To qualify, the edit must be a violation of the user's specific block or ban. For example, pages created by a topic-banned user may be deleted if they come under that particular topic, but not if they are legitimately about some other topic." What some people here want is to blindly delete anything without exception if uploaded by a blocked user. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 16:28, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
No Alexis Jazz that sentence only applies to topic-banned editors. The correct clause taken from the same section states quite clearly, "When a blocked or banned person uses an alternate account (sock-puppet) to avoid a restriction, any pages created via the sock account after the block or ban of the primary account qualify for G5 (if not substantially edited by others); this is the most common case for applying G5." Your assertion in the first paragraph above as well as your assertion here is incorrect.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 18:01, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
@Berean Hunter: That makes both G5 a more problematic policy and Wikipedians bad at writing clearly worded policies. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 18:57, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  • @Herbythyme: At least the intention of the original wording ("on its own") was to specifically address files that did not otherwise qualify for deletion. GMGtalk 16:11, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm about as tech savvy as a brick, so I don't really know the this works technically, but anyone who could work out a translation and make this open to non-English speaking users would be greatly appreciated given that it considers site-wide policy. GMGtalk 22:49, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  • @Davey2010: "Also just to clarify the original 'sock's accounts images should remain but anything after that IMHO should be deleted."
Do you mean something like forcing a m:Right to vanish onto the sock accounts? I'd be okay with that, but that's not what the proposal is. The proposal is to delete all the files.
Also note that Commons is special. There is a user, can't remember the name right now, who was banned from Commons. (by the WMF IIRC) But not elsewhere. So this user continued to upload (own work) photographs to dewiki, an depending on import method by whichever random person imports those photos to Commons can appear as the uploader here. Despite exactly that account (no socking here) being banned. Obviously we're not going to delete any of that. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 08:19, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
To this and the comments by @Andy Dingley: , yes, the original discussion and the intent of this one was specifically uploads by sock puppets, where the uploads themselves were violations of their block or ban. GMGtalk 10:59, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  • @Mirer: "you have to block them and delete their content. Everything else never worked and never will."
I've heard this mantra being repeated over and over. Is there any proof or even just a really strong theory as to why this should work? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 08:22, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Don't have (and won't search for) links to studies on this topic. Twenty-plus years of experience in usenet, forums, wikis is just enough for me. Theory behind it, is that people like to see what they do/did. Therefore it isn't enough to delete content and to block them, the ignore part is in much cases just as important, since the mention of their names in discussions is almost enough for some of them to get feeded.
I don't expect the communities to adopt a system like that, since we have always a bunch of guys, who think you can educate and change every person. From my experience that almost never worked with trolls und never will be. It's not their intention to be a "good" contibutor. --Mirer (talk) 17:13, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
@Mirer: If we are going to throw experience around, I have the same as you plus I have been a moderator or asked if I could please be a moderator on several large sites. (but I only have so much time) This discussion isn't about trolls uploading attack images. This discussion is about alternative accounts who upload properly licensed in-scope files.
And this whole "ignore" theory has a lot of ifs, ands, or buts. It's exactly the same advice that is given to people who get bullied: ignore your bully, they'll stop! Let me tell you: no, they won't. Why? Depends on the individual case probably, but actively ignoring someone is a response. By actively hunting socks and deleting their contributions, you're playing their game. If you don't want to encourage them, you have to actually ignore them. Delete contributions if they are problematic, as you would do with problematic contributions regardless of who the uploader is. Ignore the rest. They're not uploading their files to imgur.com, and that may in part be because imgur.com won't even try to hunt them down. Where's the fun in that? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 10:33, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
I don't think that you have to explain me about the topic of the discussion. I have made a different decision than you - deal with it without talking to me like a 6 year old. --Mirer (talk) 14:51, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
I didn't do that, but this response shows beyond doubt you actually do require to be addressed like a 6-year old. Oh, the bitter irony. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 15:27, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
  • re en:WP and only articles/files that were added after they were blocked are eligible for G5.
Maybe G5 is only applicable to content after a block. However that's not how en:WP works: stuff is regularly tagged G5 incorrectly, or it gets listed at AfD, and then some admins (usually the same small handful, one now thankfully defrocked) will delete it anyway. It's also happening on en:WP that creations by a sock wil be G5ed, then someone starts to go through the original account's additions (pre-socking) and get those too. None of this is a constructive outcome and we shouldn't make such things policy here either. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:08, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Would you please list some examples where someone went back and retroactively deleted creations made before they were blocked?
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 11:50, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
I would also find this interesting. In German-language Wikipedia, my "home project", such behaviour is unknown. But then, many things are handled differently in de-WP compared to en-WP (for example, we don't even have a real distinction between "blocking" and "banning", and users who are known socks of blocked/banned users are usually tolerated if they don't continue doing what caused the ban/block). Gestumblindi (talk) 12:03, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  • When a user has been banned/blocked, if they create another account (a sockpuppet) and edit while they are blocked/banned, I would say such edits are not legit. We don't block/ban an account, we block/ban an individual. When an individual is blocked from uploading files (as well as other things), I would say that they must not create a sockpuppet and begin editing/uploading. And if they do, I would say such edits/uploads should generally be deleted, because those individuals are not allowed to upload files at the first place. However, if they request undeletion after the duration of block, I'd say we should undelete the file/page if it isn't problematic for another reason (e.g. copyright violation), because they are now allowed to upload the file or create the page. Also, if other user(s), obviously not sockpuppets, request undeletion of files deleted based on this reason, I'd say such files should be undeleted if there is no other reason against undeletion (e.g. if the files aren't copyright violations).
I do understand the aim of Wikimedia Commons, and I do understand that this might[1] sometimes be counterproductive. However, even blocking sockpuppets can be counterproductive, and it's not directly a part of our aim, as far as I'm aware. But we do it to maintain a non-toxic atmosphere for the community. Ahmadtalk 12:37, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. I used "might", because I don't expect a sockpuppeteer to upload high-quality files that are not copyright violations. If they do, then maybe it's time to review their original block and see if it can be lifted; why should we prevent a helpful user from editing/uploading?
There are many past examples of blocked or even WMF banned sockpuppeteers using accounts for perfectly good uploads. It cannot be presumed that someone that is capable of finding and uploading valid content, is capable of behaving well with others and of itself is not a rationale for an unblock, neither does it invalidate valid content. -- (talk) 12:44, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, but we have partial blocks. Users can now be blocked from some namespaces, but they can still have the ability to upload files. Ahmadtalk 12:53, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
@Rhododendrites: Keep in mind that according to Commons policy nobody actually "owns" the files. We are not a free webhost. ℺ Gone Postal ( ) 12:42, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
@Gone Postal: "Take ownership of" in the sense of "Take responsibility for". The idea is that another experienced editor wants to save them from deletion, that user becomes responsible for those files meeting Commons policies, etc. It should be explicit rather than just defaulting to keeping whatever a sockpuppet uploads. — Rhododendrites talk12:46, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, and that is specifically against the way Commons operates. Everybody is able to edit the file description, modify categories, even suggest renaming of files on this project. It is not a place where one individual is "responsible" for some file and others simply reuse it. ℺ Gone Postal ( ) 12:51, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
No. You're missing the point. That is the same on Wikipedia. Anyone can edit. Taking responsibility for the creation of an article/file doesn't change who can/will edit it. What changes is that if it was a copyvio, the person who took ownership of the upload is held responsible for it, and not the blocked/banned user; if it's out of scope, it's the user who took responsibility who's to blame. If it's a form of harassment, revenge porn, defamation, etc. it's the person who took responsibility for the upload who is, well, responsible for that being on our servers (by saving it from deletion). It's nothing to do with who can/should edit it. It's a question of creation or deletion -- skipping a step so that someone can say "I would reupload that, so don't bother deleting it". — Rhododendrites talk14:00, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
What you are saying makes no sense. If a file that I import fails a licence review, I mark the DR for undeletion at an appropriate date and move on. I would do the same thing if the file that I have "taken responsibility for". Are you suggesting that we disable an account of a user who has "taken responsibility" and then after that the file fails a review? This is completely inappropriate approach. As it looks right now, your approach seems to be to find somebody to punish, even when a person has tried to help out. ℺ Gone Postal ( ) 19:01, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Gone_Postal, wrt 'nobody actually "owns" the files'. You couldn't be more wrong. Except for images in the public domain, all our content is owned by someone, merely licensed freely. That someone might be the uploader, blocked or banned user, or might be someone else. I agree that Rhododendrites has the right idea with someone else taking ownership/responsibility for the upload. The uploading of content (especially copyright content) is a legal act and Commons very much is a place where an uploader is responsible for that file ending up on our servers. If, for example, I upload some Disney frames to Commons, I'm breaking copyright law. The folk who categorise and describe those JPGs aren't responsible for that law-breaking upload and wouldn't be blocked for copyvio - they are just editing a wiki record. I think this is what Rhododendrites is suggesting: that someone else take responsibility for the uploads as though they had done it themselves, with all that entails. -- Colin (talk) 15:41, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Regarding undeletion requests: If this repeats several times by such a user account, especially for files where the deletion reason was obviously valid, one could argument with COM:POINT. — Speravir – 16:48, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
@Speravir: While I think that Rhododendrites is mistaken about our policy, what you are saying here is actually illegal. Rhododendrites suggests that we have some sort of system where a person is punished for a file being a copyright violation beyond what copyright law says, I took "ownership" to meen that in that discussion. You, on the other hand, define ownership as owning the copyright, and then suggest that somebody should take ownership of the files. Although you claim that you were simply quoting Rhododendrites, that is false, they didn't ever imply such an absurd thing. Let's be blunt, you can ban a user, you can disable their account, you can disallow them creating other accounts, you can even go and wipe something that they contributed, but at no point are you allowed to transfer the copyright to another user without the author's permission. And for that permission to be acceptable under the rules of our project here, it needs to go through COM:OTRS. No OTRS permission, No transfer of owership! But this has nothing to do about deleting the files that are not copyright violations simply because a user has been disallowed from contributing further. Please stop muddying the waters. ℺ Gone Postal ( ) 19:22, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Apologies, I have pinged the wrong person, I menat to @Colin: . ℺ Gone Postal ( ) 19:24, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
?? In each instance here, it seems like you're responding to things that have not been said. I think you're getting hung up on these "ownership"/"responsibility" words. How about "vouch"? An example. Let's say User:Example was using Commons to upload revenge porn and gets banned for that and for generally being a jerk to people. User:Example has lost editing and uploading privileges not just for that account but for any account they create. When they create a sockpuppet and upload another pornographic image, they get caught and are blocked. The default at that point should be to delete the file, but if you, as a Commons user in good standing, see the file and think it's both valid and beneficial to Commons, you can step in and say "no, I think that image is useful". You are, at that point, vouching (taking responsibility, or taking ownership -- not necessarily in the legal sense, and certainly not in the transfer of copyright sense, but in the Commons community sense) for that file on Commons. Therefore if it turns out to be a copyright violation, revenge porn, or whatever other inappropriate material, we would hold you responsible for the upload. We don't even really need to bring legality into it. You vouched for the file that shouldn't have been uploaded, and it's on you if it turns out there's a problem with it. — Rhododendrites talk20:18, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Have you ever heard of assuming good faith? A person finds an image that is useful, they "vouch" for it, and then rather than correcting them, you are suggesting somehow to hold them "responsible". Once again, when my uploads (i.e. the files I have actually uploaded) turn out to fail licence review process, I am not punished, I simply mark the deletion request with the appropriate undeletion date and move on. Why would somebody get held "responsible" in any other manner. ℺ Gone Postal ( ) 11:26, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
Further point of clarification. The question is "Is block/ban evasion/sockpuppetry on its own a valid reason to delete media or reject a request for undeletion?" The question is "are our policies currently written to say exactly this". I say yes to the question because of course when we revoke someone's uploading privileges, we've revoked their uploading privileges for that person, not just until they create a bunch more accounts. — Rhododendrites talk20:22, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Agree with Rhododendrites, >Gone_Postal you do appear to be arguing about things nobody said. Can you entertain the possibility that "ownership" has more than one meaning. I wanted to make it clear that files really are often legally owned by someone -- any time someone on Commons makes a foolish claim otherwise needs to be corrected, because that way leads to disrespect for those who have donated their work. But also clearly Rhododendrites was not using the word in the copyright sense but in the "responsible for uploading it to Commons" sense, and that responsibility is a big thing. -- Colin (talk) 08:15, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
@Colin: Did you not utter these words in this discussion: "You couldn't be more wrong. Except for images in the public domain, all our content is owned by someone, merely licensed freely."? ℺ Gone Postal ( ) 11:20, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes. And you uttered the words "Keep in mind that according to Commons policy nobody actually "owns" the files." Commons has no such policy. You are confusing the files with the file description page, which is freely editable, and the file history, which can be freely overwritten with additional versions. The actual "files", unless they are public domain, are owned by someone, and Commons respects that. I've made this clear and Rhododendrites has made it clear what they mean. Arguing about how mistaken someone's position is, when you don't understand their position or even basic policy, is just wasting everyone's time. GP, it is clear you think folk who disagree with your position are, as you put it "brain dead", so I'm not sure you are here to find consensus or understand and respect other people's position. Time to find something else to do, you've made your point. --Colin (talk) 11:37, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
«The actual "files", unless they are public domain, are owned by someone, and Commons respects that.» So you do mean copyright when you were talking about the ownership. In that case your suggestion of somebody else taking ownership of another person's files without their consent is illegal as I have already stated above. ℺ Gone Postal ( ) 12:21, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
As has already been pointed out, everything you've claimed other people are suggesting is in fact your own misinterpretation of what they said. Please stop putting words into other people's mouths in order to disagree with them. You made a factually incorrect claim and I corrected it. Move on. -- Colin (talk) 14:08, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia ist the encyclopedia everyone can edit. But actually few do. In the case of commons this means that many events and motifs that wikipedia could use images of are not covered at all by images. Every day billions of photos are taken but most end up in social media while wikipedia has collected less than 60 million in 19 years. If the 500th photo of the tower bridge is deleted for the reason, that it was uploaded by a blocked user than this will do no damage to the project. But if for the very same reason an image is deleted, that will probably never replaced by another image of the same event/motif than this does do damage to the project. Therefore a rule that does not take into account other arguments than the blockedness of a user does not favor the project. --C.Suthorn (talk) 18:00, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
@Geagea: the survey is not limited to those. Also see my discussion with Mirer above, there is no proof that mass deletion of contributions discourages socking in any way. (it might in some cases, but it's far from a universal truth) - Alexis Jazz ping plz 10:36, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz: I want to clarify. From the point that user is banned or blocked, nothing should be accepted. If it is abour socking, I thik their contribution from the period when sock puppetry is started should be subject to DR. We definitely can't assume good faith. For banned contribution before, it should be checked carefully. Blindly deletion of thousand of file may be harm to the project more then a benefit. -- Geagea (talk) 23:34, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz: , ping again. -- Geagea (talk) 23:35, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
@Geagea: I hear what you're saying, but the survey is not limited to own work. The survey says "if an alternative account of a blocked user imports https://www.flickr.com/photos/sacramentodistrict/31445802114/in/photostream/, we must delete it". In addition to that, I think we should always look at things on a case-by-case basis. There is a user who is banned from Commons and continues to upload own work to dewiki, which other users import here. There is nothing wrong with those works. Would you delete them? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 00:14, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, if the user is already banned all his contribution should be deleted. Otherwise the ban is nonsense and it won't be fair with the good contributors. Banned is banned. There's is no need to encourage them. -- Geagea (talk) 00:35, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
@Geagea: First, there is no proof that deletion of properly licensed in-scope files would discourage socks. Second, deletion of files that were imported by socks means giving power to those socks. The power to make it harder to (re-)upload the files they uploaded. Third, I'm glad I can't remember the username otherwise you'd be deleting thousands high quality photos now. That user is not blocked on dewiki and uploading their own work there locally is 100% valid. And they don't have control over who imports what. You want those files to be forcefully kept local on dewiki and stop file importers because the author has been banned from Commons for reasons not publicly known? So every Wikipedia, Wikibooks, etc has to create local copies of those files because Commons would be acting petty? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 10:59, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
  • @AshFriday: "we should not encourage their continual attacks by tolerating the re-uploading of their 'work', especially it has already been previously deleted." This would seem to be an argument for application of speedy deletion criterion G4 (Recreation of content previously deleted per community consensus). We don't need to introduce a new and broader speedy deletion criterion to cover something that we already have. Also, can you please expand on your point of, "and block anybody who attempts to circumvent the deletion process"? How would this be applied in practice? Do you have some proposal for distinguishing people who are trying to circumvent a deletion from those who are unwittingly restoring previously deleted content? If you are meaning the same user account is circumventing the deletion process then we go back to G4, which says repeated reuploads may lead to a block. From Hill To Shore (talk) 14:52, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
@From Hill To Shore: AshFriday seems confused. What this proposal really says is: "if an alternative account of a blocked user imports https://www.flickr.com/photos/sacramentodistrict/31445802114/in/photostream/, we must delete it" which is imho just dumb and also giving a stupendous amount of power to LTAs. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 15:27, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
  • "Can you please expand on your point of, 'and block anybody who attempts to circumvent the deletion process'? How would this be applied in practice? Do you have some proposal for distinguishing people who are trying to circumvent a deletion from those who are unwittingly restoring previously deleted content?" @From Hill To Shore: Yes, certainly. I have two proposals: one is called Check User, the other is called common sense. When a user is indefinitely blocked, their contributions should be automatically deleted, as they've proven themselves untrustworthy. If someone begins reuploading the banned user's work, they should be subjected to a CU to make sure they aren't a sock/meat puppet. If the sock is using a proxy, then they'll be judged by their behavior, and blocked again. If a new user is disruptively uploading previously deleted files by a banned user, then common sense dictates that they are either a sock or a meat puppet trying to circumvent the deletion process, and should therefore be blocked on sight. Thanks, you're welcome. AshFriday (talk) 10:19, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
  • @AshFriday: If I am understanding you correctly, your concern there is solely over reuploaded works where a blocked user is the author of the file. Is that correct? I am in opposition to the current proposal because it would also delete public domain or other free files created by someone else but just happened to be uploaded by a blocked user's account. Does this RFC need to be expanded to see if there is consensus for deleting new files only where a blocked user is the author? From Hill To Shore (talk) 11:18, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
    • A blocked/banned user is not necessarily untrustworthy. They may just be ill-behaved (insulting, constantly edit-warring, etc.). If someone who is blocked were to (for example) upload content from the Seattle Municipal Archive before I got around to it, that shouldn't taint that content. - Jmabel ! talk 16:39, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
  • @From Hill To Shore: my main concern is with trolls deliberately gaming the system. Case in point: a certain user was globally banned for uploading out of scope cartoons. After his fecal matter "art" was deleted by near-universal consensus, he posted it to flickr and used a small army of sockpuppets to re-upload it to Commons. The images were then immediately inserted into various wikipedia articles to give the false impression that they're somehow "in scope".
This particular scam has been going on for close on a decade, involving mass license laundering, meat puppetry and constant disruption to the project. Meanwhile, the troll in question has been having a good long chuckle at our expense, knowing that he's successfully turned the community into a laughing stock. Sheer common sense alone should dictate that we don't tolerate such obvious gaming of the system: the instatement of G5 criteria would rid the project of this kind of vandalism once and for all. As previously stated; ban the trolls, delete all their contributions and block anyone who tries to circumvent the deletion process. AshFriday (talk) 00:57, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Conversely -- trying to think like a troll here -- let's say I'm a banned user, and this rule is adopted. I start uploading PD images from an important 19th-century work previously missing from Commons. Didn't I just make it much harder for those images ever to be uploaded successfully to Commons? - Jmabel ! talk 20:42, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Irregardless of the circumstances, we should not accept contributions from any banned user. Geagea stated the case quite succinctly here: "...contributions of blocked/banned users effectively encourages further sock puppetry. This is the point in blocked/banned. We do not want their contributions here. They already crossed the line" (my emphasis). AshFriday (talk) 00:27, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
This discussion is not about porn as not all sockpuppets are used to upload porn. This is a general discussion that includes all types of content. Bending this vote around your one interest in being here does not really work. If you want a vote focused on mass deleting nudity and sexuality uploads or punishing porn related sockpuppetry, then make a specific proposal. -- (talk) 17:13, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
This is a rather odd remark, , considering that I haven't mentioned the word "porn" anywhere in this discussion. As stated several times above, I'm concerned about trolls gaming the system to the detriment of the project. Please try to stay on topic in future; the issues involved are complicated enough as they are and going off on irrelevant tangents will only add to the confusion. AshFriday (talk) 23:42, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Really? Your obsessive contributions on DRs have been disruptive on sexuality topics since you created this account. You are a single purpose account, as stated on your user page and as literally anyone can see from your edits.
Anyone doubting the facts can check the report User:Faebot/SandboxF which shows the single purpose behaviour of 197 deletion requests over 100 days. -- (talk) 14:37, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
My posting history is not the subject under discussion here, . As previously stated, please try to stay on topic and consider staying mellow; it tends to promote a more collegial atmosphere. Thanks, you're welcome. AshFriday (talk) 00:33, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
I asked Mirer for the same thing in this discussion. It's all based on nothing but gut feelings. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 14:50, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
That's a plain lie. I spoke about experiences over 20 years not feelings. And of course there a studies/research - I just told you, that I won't search them for you. So please stop "citing" me, it appears you're not able to do it correctly.
What you could do instead, is deleting your personal attack above. It's a shame that (even after a week) neither you nor any admin in here is caring about that. --Mirer (talk) 15:11, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
"I spoke about experiences over 20 years"
So, you feel it works.. in your gut.. but it's certainly not a gut feeling. I have the same experience as you if not more, and my experience is pretty much the opposite of yours. Deletion could discourage some LTAs, but it's everything but a one-size-fits-all.
"And of course there a studies/research - I just told you, that I won't search them for you."
You want to prove something. You provide the evidence. Or just data. Or anything. Can't be bothered to even try? Don't expect people who disagree with you to try and hunt down a black swan that you claim exists.
"What you could do instead, is deleting your personal attack above."
Don't make me laugh, you accused me of talking to you like a 6-year old. I treat everyone with the same respect they treat me with. Go look in a mirror. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 15:35, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Is there a plan for when this RfC is to be closed down? There is a tendency on Commons to leave discussions open for very long periods of time, which just causes discussions to stagnate. No firm conclusions are reached, the proposal can't be reconsidered later because the original discussion is ongoing and no true consensus of the current position can be judged (as you are weighing opinions of current editors alongside those who may have abandoned the project years ago or changed their minds since they left their original comment). If people want to leave this open for now, that is fine, but it would be good to set an end date when we can ask an uninvolved party to weigh the consensus and make a closing comment. From Hill To Shore (talk) 05:58, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Ignore me. I just spotted that it is expected that an RfC should be open for at least 30 days; I must have missed that when I read COM:RFC earlier. If needed, I'll raise this point again next month. From Hill To Shore (talk) 06:05, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Note for closer - Per @Geraki: and others, !votes that are premised in the retroactive deletion of uploads from the original master account should probably be critically considered in judging consensus. That's not what this was intended to propose. Maybe that's ambiguously worded on my part and I should have chose my phrasing more carefully to address that confusion. GMGtalk 13:20, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

⚠️ It seems that the wording of the proposal was not well constructed and almost all !votes are against "deleting everything from a blocked user" and "if someone got banned from something, all they uploaded would be deleted" which was never the case. As I have understood the proposal is for the deletion of files uploaded from sockpuppets. It will be hard for the closer to try to judge the opinions about what they have understood. It will be better to start a new survey with clear wording of the proposal. -Geraki TLG 08:58, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

"almost all" => "less than half" as far as I can see, still leaving a clear majority over the support votes. - Jmabel ! talk 16:08, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Even though I am opposed, I quite disagree with those who say "Deleting/undeleting files must be based on copyright only." That would give more latitude to socks of blocked users than we give to normal users! Obviously, any normal reason for deletion should still apply: out of scope, low quality, {{Nopenis}}, etc. Further, I would expect that in this case borderline cases should be resolved as "delete". I just don't think it should be an automatic speedy, or we create a whole new opportunity for trolls. E.g. "I'll just upload 4700 public domain U.S. Army photos so they will all get deleted." - Jmabel ! talk 16:53, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

I am in two minds about this (as I suspect quite a few others are) and have not supported or opposed. I won’t reiterate what has been written above but one solution might be for the admin, having blocked a sock, to quickly tag their uploads (using VFC for example), have a bot come along later to upload a new version of each file and then the bot deletes the first version in each file. In this way we retain educational materials, remove the socks username from the public logs and avoid the need to go to COM:UDR. If there are files that obviously meet deletion criteria (speedy or otherwise), those can be deleted or nominated as normal. --Green Giant (talk) 23:06, 8 April 2020 (UTC)


The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This section was archived on a request by: Ahmadtalk 16:56, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Users last activity date

Is there a way to tell when a user last logged in? Jim Evans (talk) 00:38, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

No, only the last edit. — Speravir – 01:50, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
How do I find their last edit? Jim Evans (talk) 02:01, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jim Evans: Special:Contributions. ~riley (talk) 02:03, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
. . . . . Thanks, that works Jim Evans (talk) 14:01, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
You can find this also on a user page on the top behind the “More” tab (in default skin). — Speravir – 02:42, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, but I couldn't find a More tab on most user pages -- only a Move tab. On your Talk page there is a More tab but all is contains is Move. I don't know what the default skin is but I not an accomplished enough user to have changed mine. Jim Evans (talk) 14:01, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Hmm, for me this is situated straight left from the search field. But what is in it is dependent from sceen size in some way. — Speravir – 00:21, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
At least the link can be found among the tools in the left margin (when on a user or user talk page). I have never noticed it among the tab links. --LPfi (talk) 09:19, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jim Evans: Yes, there is: https://xtools.wmflabs.org/ec/commons.wikimedia.org/Jim%20Evans („Latest logged action: 2020-04-11 00:04”). --NGC 54 (talk | contribs) 11:35, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

.

Wiki Loves Eierbecher / Wiki Loves Egg Cups

A photo contest Wiki Loves Eierbecher (Wiki Loves Egg Cups) is on. Anyone with a Commons account is welcome to participate. Submissions are invited for files uploaded on or after 5 April 2020, and are to be made by adding the file to the table on the contest's page by 23:59 CEST on Monday 13 April 2020. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 14:55, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello,

I cannot modify two sentences in Commons:Video :

  • "You know what, use Video2commons. Don't go through the trouble above."
  • "(this is probably outdated?)".

They should be more neutral.

Cantons-de-l'Est (talk) 22:19, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

@Cantons-de-l'Est: Agreed that the first line was not good: I changed it. The second one is a legit concern that should be addressed, so I think leaving in that note is sensible. —Justin (koavf)TCM 22:44, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Is there an "in use on sister projects" overlay for viewing categories?

Hi all. I'm working on the backlog Category:Images with borders. I am wondering if there's an easy way to call out the images in that category (and similar maintenance categories) that are used in the mainspace of one or more sister projects. I'm imagining something like a different colored border or an icon in the corner that indicates which files are in use and which are not. That way, I can prioritize files where the change would be immediately useful. Is anyone aware of such a tool? (please ping me if you respond) The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 20:28, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

@The Squirrel Conspiracy: I'm not aware of anything that shows you this directly on the category page, but GLAMorous seems to do what you're looking for. Tokfo (talk) 22:51, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
@The Squirrel Conspiracy: Does Global usage badges work for you? You can enable it in your preferences -> gadgets -> Interface: Files and categories. MKFI (talk) 07:36, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
@Tokfo and MKFI: Thank you both! I've been using GLAMorous today, and I just enabled Global usage badges and it looks like it works perfectly. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 07:53, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Editing structured data to files on Commons with QuickStatements (QS)

On the page of QS I saw that there is a box that says "Commons [batch mode only!]". Does that mean I can use QS to add statements to images on Commons? Example: File:Building at Döblinger Hauptstraße 83 in Döbling, Vienna, Austria PNr°0516.jpg depicts wikidata:Q64692116. Is there a way to quickly add an information like this to the image without a manual edit? I'm not talking about modifying the image description page. I'm just talking about the linking an Item from Wikidata. I already took a look at wikidata:Help:QuickStatements, but didn't find anything in there that would help me along.
--D-Kuru (talk) 22:05, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

@D-Kuru: You can start batches on quickstatements via Petscan which appears to be down at the moment. You can also do batch edits via category using the tools Help:Gadget-ACDC and Magnus's SDC tool. Sadads (talk) 23:25, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
@Sadads: Thanks for the hint. Especially AC/DC looks much easier than using QS! --D-Kuru (talk) 17:23, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
@D-Kuru: I find they serve different purposes: SDC is good for small categories that have Wikidata driven infoboxes, AC/DC is good for complex categories, and Quick Statements is useful when you need to leverage Search or other data points. Sadads (talk) 18:16, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Saved image not matching original

Used on en:Astrobiology

I noticed this image was not the same as the crispy clean NASA original[5]. So I tried to download the original and it was crispy clear... but it is not the same colour..? No matter how many times or where I download this exact image from it saves as a dull smoky version of the image. It's not happening with any other image. Could someone else update it, and has anyone found this happen before? ~ R.T.G 02:10, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

RTG, it was formatted on NASA's end as CMYK color profile (Kodak SWOP Proofer CMYK-Coated.icm, apparently), which causes both the discoloration when you try to load it into an RGB editing program, and the fuzziness when Wikimedia tries to resize it. It's specifically intended for printing rather than web display. I can't get Paintshop Pro 2019 to play nice with it. *shrug* If anyone knows where to obtain color profiles, I'd be very interested. Huntster (t @ c) 07:17, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
@Huntster: got it with the GIMP, thanks o/ ~ R.T.G 08:26, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Saturated categories

Today I worked hard to fill Category:Mayors of current municipalities of Overijssel (to distuingish from Category:Mayors of former municipalities of Overijssel) and now the Category is full: there is just not more municipalities to add. Political changes may and most likely will occur, to alter the size and amount of municipalities in that province, but this may take decades or longer, so this category is at the moment completely saturated. Now I wonder if there is a template for such a 'full category', more or less in line with Template:Empty category. Or is there perhaps a (hidden) category for such full categories? It is not my purpose to lock such categories, but it might be convenient, not in the least for a bit of category-browsing. I hope someone has an answer. Thanks, Eissink (talk) 02:11, 13 April 2020 (UTC).

  • Category is complete as of today (or a given date). But that can change. So I don't see the advantage of such claim. Can be confusing for people that is not completely familiar with the subject and adds little help to those already familiar with it. B25es (talk) 06:26, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree, and I had thought of that also. A short rationale should also be required. I'm still weighing if there is a proper use and utility for such a template, there's no haste involved. Eissink (talk) 17:28, 13 April 2020 (UTC).

"mediainfo" changes on files

Good afternoon,

Recently, I noticed that several files in my watchlist have beeen modified, but the comparison between versions shows that the changes occur in something called "mediainfo".

However, "mediainfo" doesn't appear anywhere on the file page itself.

What is this new thing?

Thank you. KiwiNeko14 (talk) 14:54, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

@KiwiNeko14: These links may (or may not) be useful:
  1. Commons:Structured_data/Development#MediaInfo_extension
  2. Commons:Structured_data/Lua#mw.wikibase.mediainfo
Jmabel ! talk 15:44, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
@KiwiNeko14: In this context, "mediainfo" is the "Structured data" tab on the file page, along with the Captions which for some reason appear on the "File information" tab. --bjh21 (talk) 17:04, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Wrong order of votes on a picture of the year 1919; how can this be fixed?

Hello, dear Commoners:

Here is the history of the votes for Black hole Messier 87.jpg, round 2.

  1. 09:38, 29 March 2020‎ Steinsplitter created the page
  2. 15:15, 5 April 2020‎ Zyephyrus voted first
  3. 16:52, 11 April 2020‎ Saggittarius A
  4. 17:34, 11 April 2020‎ Ludwig V. von Ballonburg und Mohenzollern

The order

  1. Ludwig V. von Ballonburg und Mohenzollern
  2. Saggittarius A
  3. Zyephyrus

is not correct.

Can it be fixed?

Many thanks for your help! --Zyephyrus (talk) 15:45, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Detrimental changes to the mobile app nobody has told us about

It seems as if the mobile app developers not only not consult the Commons community before making changes to the mobile app that seriously hamper established workflows, but also do not deem it necessary to inform us after the fact, unless I have missed an announcement (then I apologize for my expression of indignation). I'm posting it here now for more visibility. According to this thread, the app no longer includes coordinates and camera manufacturer/model in the Exif data per default when uploading images to Commons. These fields can be manually activated in the app settings, but per default, they're turned off now. That will make it so much harder to identify locations for categorizing etc., and also make copyright violations checks harder (as inconsistencies in camera models are often a clue that images may be not own work). The "manage Exif tags" setting mentioned by Aschroet is very much hidden in the app settings and I doubt that many app users will navigate there to activate the coordinates and camera model fields. Gestumblindi (talk) 15:12, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

  • I can see arguments either way on the desirability of that one: so much so that I'd think a good UI would let a user make a choice about that default the first time they upload. - Jmabel ! talk 17:05, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
I understand that one will not want to have coordinates included in the Exif data if they take pictures of some objects in their own home, for example, when the location is not relevant (unlike for photos of a landscape or a monument). The best way would be for the UI to ask for every upload "do you want to include coordinates with this upload?", so the setting doesn't get forgotten either way you want it. But the camera model should be included per default, I see no privacy issue there. Gestumblindi (talk) 17:25, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
The camera model can indeed carry privacy issues. If the model is unusual it can be used to identify an individual using the camera also in some other role. If one uses other information, such as what places the images are from, the model does not even need to be very unusual. --LPfi (talk) 14:46, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
I'd imagine someone uploading photos using the Commons Android mobile app is quite unlikely to have a unique or unusual camera model. And if the concern is that information can be combined to de-anonymize someone, maybe we should remove the timestamp and any links to the author's previous uploads too. (that is a bad idea don't do that) --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 17:08, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Categories on mobile app

While we are on the mobile app: is there some reasonable way to get the categories of a file on the mobile app? I rarely use it (I don't carry a smartphone) but on the occasions I try to show somebody something on their phone, I haven't found it. - Jmabel ! talk 17:05, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

This has been a suggestion for years, the Commons Mobile app is maintained by volunteers and like many of our technical features isn't receiving the support that would make it more user-friendly and consistent and unfortunately the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) never comes to these hard working volunteers' aid (as far as I know), I'm always on mobile but use "https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UploadWizard" as the Google Play application has a plethora of user unfriendly limitations, but I do hope that it will introduce a lot of new photographers to Wikimedia Commons. Another issue I have with it is that it basically says that Wikimedia Commons NEVER accepts works that are not "{{Own}}" (although the last time I checked this was 2018, so they could have fixed the wording by now and say that the app doesn't allow it, rather than the website itself). --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 10:53, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
So is there something about this somewhere on phab? I generally don't get involved in the tech side here on the basis of not doing as a hobby what I do for work. - Jmabel ! talk 16:45, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel: As far as I know (more technically-minded users correct me if I'm wrong), Phabricator is only for issues of the MediaWiki software. The Mobile app is a separate application, and per Eatcha's pointer here, the "official" discussion platform for that is Github at https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons/issues . That's one more of the hurdles for us non-techies: We're accustomed to discussing issues here, on Commons, and rather expect developers to watch the relevant Commons discussion pages and answer there, which is something they rarely do. They on the other hand expect people to come to the tech platforms (Phabricator, Github, and probably more...) which are set up completely different from our talk pages, have different workflows we're not familiar with, and report issues and suggestions there... Gestumblindi (talk) 12:18, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
GitHub Issues • A Quick Look
Creating an issue on GitHub is simple as sending an email. Why not learn it from GitHub? The video is created by GitHub and it's gonna take less than 3 mins. // Eatcha (talk) 13:26, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
  1. As I remarked above, this is about a tool I basically don't use. I can't see much value in my engaging with the developers.
  2. As I also remarked above, I generally don't get involved in the tech side here on the basis of not doing as a hobby what I do for work. - Jmabel ! talk 16:41, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
Hi Jmabel, can you clarify what you mean by showing the categories of an image? If you mean the categories to which an image belongs to, the app already shows that. For example, here are a couple of screenshots to demonstrate that the app shows the categories to which an image belongs to. Note: The image I use for demonstration is in the beta server BTW :)
https://ibb.co/tCrDtGq
https://ibb.co/LY6tJg3
--Kaartic (talk) 19:29, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
@Kaartic: This screenshot doesn't show look like what I see at all on my girlfriend's smartphone (as I say, I don't have one myself). How do I navigate to this? A screenshot gives me no clue.
I notice that none of the categories shown here are topical. Is that because this image (which I cannot find via "Commons app upload test 1729") has lousy categorization, or is that typical?
In short, these screenshots show me nothing other than that something I don't know how to get to apparently shows some useless categories for a picture I can't access. Certainly doesn't tell me whether they are clickable to get to the category in question. Sorry to be so blunt, but if I passed that on to the people maintaining this at GitHub they would laugh at me. - Jmabel ! talk 19:57, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel:

I notice that none of the categories shown here are topical. Is that because this image (which I cannot find via "Commons app upload test 1729") has lousy categorization, or is that typical?

That image is present in the beta instance of Commons which is primarily used by developers for testing purposes. That's why the categorization is crappy. I could've used a better example. Anyways, you could as well just forget about the beta instance. It doesn't matter.

How do I navigate to this? A screenshot gives me no clue.

I didn't expect you to infer how to reach that screen from those screenshots. I was just trying to understand your issue :)
I'll let you know how to get to that screen but before that allow me to better understand your issue. Do the following screen shots resemble what you saw in your girlfriend's smartphone?
https://ibb.co/92NM2LN
https://ibb.co/wCp4JcN
Also, let me know if that smartphone is an iPhone or an Android.
--Kaartic (talk) 18:21, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
@Kaartic: That looks about right, but she's not around at this time for me to be certain. - Jmabel ! talk 02:12, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel: Fine. What you're seeing is the Commons mobile website. It's different from the mobile app. The mobile website doesn't show the categories of the file, indeed. You can track the progress of the related ask at phab:T24660.
If the smartphone is an Android, you can install the Commons mobile app via Play store (or) F-droid. But note that as of now, the app's main focus is uploading images. So, it's not the best option when it comes to browsing the images, yet.
Also, note that while the mobile app is indeed maintained by volunteers, the mobile website is maintained by WMF.
Hope that clarifies your doubts. Feel free to ping me if you have further questions or need more clarification.
--Kaartic (talk) 18:16, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
So 3-1/2 years and the WMF hasn't solved something this basic on an increasingly important platform. Pathetic. - Jmabel ! talk 19:53, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
By the way, I forgot to mention that you can access the mobile website at any time (even from desktop) at the following URL: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
--Kaartic (talk) 19:55, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Should we ban all files that require attribution and only allow public domain files?

You may think “Why on earth should we wanna do that?”. Well because when files require attribution someone may ignore that requirement and then the photographer may demand that the reuser pay for that neglect.

Can this happen and if it does is that really our problem?

Well that is the question in this DR: Commons:Deletion requests/Files found with marco verch.

To be honest I tried to get your attention :-) But now you are here please help decide what we should do.

We have several choices:

  1. Ban all photos that require attribution (we would have to delete millions of photos)
  2. Ban photos from photographer that demand payment if someone does not attribute them correctly (is that the same as supporting that reusers ignore attribution?)
  3. Let the reusers be responsible for following the requirements (which we point out in Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia)
  4. Create a special template to warn reusers if we know photographer demand payment if someone does not attribute them correctly

As you may have guessed I do not think that we should ban photographers that require attribution. They spend a lot of time creating photos and let us and the world use them for free. In return they require to be attributed and it only take 1 minute to do that right.

We have users on Commons that spend hours doing their magic and try to protect their work. I wonder what they think about attribution.

We also have users who are in contact with reusers that are in trouble because they did not attribute correctly. Let’s hear their comments too. Were the reusers sloppy and had it coming or are photographers too aggressive?

If you have any thoughts pro or contra feel free to comment on the DR (Commons:Deletion requests/Files found with marco verch). I hope to see a lot of comments so we can get a clear answer on what to do. --MGA73 (talk) 22:41, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

This seems entirely out of proportion to an issue about one particular stupidly litigious photographer. I literally cannot imagine any court in the world upholding a suit against someone who attributed his work to him but failed to mention the particular free license he offered, since clearly he would have suffered no economic harm: the only effect would be that people who found his work on that third-party site would not know they could also reuse the work without paying money. (Conversely, if they didn't attribute, or if they implied falsely that his work was public domain, he'd have a perfectly reasonable basis to sue.) I'm really not sure why you are leading with what might be the most inappropriate and disproportionate approach we could take, short of solving this with violence. - Jmabel ! talk 01:18, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel: I'm sorry that you see it this way. What I suggest is that we discuss it once and for all and make sure that more than a few users comment. The fact is that someone made a ban of Marco Verch because he go after reusers that do not attribute him correctly. I'm trying to find a solution that can find a broad support. --MGA73 (talk) 08:17, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
The problem here is not that this person punishes people do not reuse material in a license conform way. The problem is that this person only forces this do gain money and not to support free and open content. The person directly punishes the reuses without a singe message with the request to correct the attribution before. If enforcing attribution and copyleft in general is good or bad for the goals of free and open content is an old debate. (See GPL vs. BSD) The Wikimedia project decided to support both. --GPSLeo (talk) 14:17, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
No.
A template that warns reusers about a history of arseholish litigation might be more realistic. -- (talk) 14:36, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Ladies and Gentlemen, Fae, proposer fo the Commons "Month of Kindness", which is supposed to be right now. Let's hear it for them, way to uphold those values! Beeblebrox (talk) 16:39, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Kindly troll somewhere else please, preferably off-wiki where others that enjoy your, history, can appreciate.
@Beeblebrox: By the way, could please explain where you first read about this thread, considering how relatively rarely you contribute to this project? It would be nice to know where you choose to source your news. Thanks so much!
Commons does see the misuse of litigation, it was those long term and well-established cases of moral rights trolling that my reference was to. -- (talk) 16:45, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
None of that explains why you propose a month of kindness and then are repeatedly unkind in your remarks. I just don't enjoy hypocrisy, but thanks for the implied put down about how I'm not a "real" contributor here, that was very kind of you. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:29, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
@MGA73: So what are you actually proposing here? Because if you are saying (for example) that anyone who ever threatens legal action against any entity that uses their work without attribution of any sort should not be welcome here have their work posted on Commons, then please make a deletion request to remove my 50,000+ photos here, because I will openly acknowledge having threatened (and settled) such a suit against the Seattle Weekly after they repeatedly ignored requests to give attribution when they used my work. I promise to stay neutral on the request, because I'm pretty sure it will be closed with a laugh, but I will certainly leave the project if my photographs here are deleted. If you are proposing something less extreme, say what you are proposing. But please don't lay out an extreme position you do not intend to defend as a rhetorical device. - Jmabel ! talk 16:13, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel: I just proposed that anyone who saw this post took a look at the deletion request and commented on what to do. The reason I posted it here is because I think it has a wider scope than just one photographer. There may be other photographers who also enforce their right to be attributed. So if we ban this photographer who is next?
As I said there may be other options. Perhaps someone have a really good idea that everyone likes. --MGA73 (talk) 17:02, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Your title is extremely clickbaity and is probably going to set a lot of people off. I suggest that future responders to this section should not spend many words discussing the obviously impossible suggestion and focus on the ones that might actually happen. – BMacZero (🗩) 21:00, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
@MGA73: So all you are proposing is that people look at the deletion request and comment on it? Is someone there seriously proposing banning all files that require attribution? Because, if not, then that title was really out of line. - Jmabel ! talk 23:53, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
I've read the linked thread now, and I don't see anyone other than you proposing that, and you say here you are not really thinking that is the right solution. Again I ask: am I missing something? - Jmabel ! talk 23:58, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
I took this as a suggestion that there should be a some sort of global fix for this type of issue - with some possible fixes listed in the numbered list in the original post. – BMacZero (🗩) 00:34, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
Maybe. But for 2 and 4, it all comes down to what "correctly" means. Yes, people who get really nitpicky about this are a problem, and I t think we should at least warn about them here, if not refuse to accept their content. But if by "attribute correctly" you mean "attribute in some reasonable manner", then I myself certainly fall into that group. If someone used a photo of mine in a book with no attribution, or inaccurate attribution (e.g. just attributed "Wikidata") I'd feel quite free to threaten an action. It's exactly as much of a copyright violation as if the image had never been free-licensed. Online, I always give them the chance of simply correcting their website, but if they refuse to do that (few have) I feel entirely free to threaten a lawsuit. If Commons contributors are not to be free to do threaten legal action in such circumstances, then this amounts to saying that posting to Commons is equivalent to putting your work in the public domain. - Jmabel ! talk 04:10, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel and BMacZero: Yes guilty! That's why I wrote "To be honest I tried to get your attention :-)" I my original post. But if we start deleting photos and banning users because they enforce their right to attribution then we are one step on the road to only hosting PD files. I hope we can find a good solution that makes sure photographers get the attribution they deserve and also not gets reusers in unneeded trouble. --MGA73 (talk) 08:42, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
@MGA73: Fine. But we'd moved on and were discussing the substance, and now you want to derail back to discussing your headline? You said you wanted a substantive discussion. How about addressing what I raised in my last post? - Jmabel ! talk 16:50, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

The Marco Verch thing has bothered me for years, I know that he is a rent-seeking scammer that leeches of Germany's draconic copyright laws, furthermore by hosting his “trap” images we are endangering the reputation not just of Wikimedia Commons, but Wikimedia websites as a whole. Imagine getting sued because you used free images from a website that promotes the free re-usage of educational content at no cost and then being dragged to court over it threatened with legal action. By hosting his images we have a ticking time-bomb on our hands. That being said, I hate these deletions as well, Marco Verch is an extremely talented photographer that makes high quality educational pictures with a free license of subjects we need illustrations of and the exclusion of his work is detrimental to the mission of Wikimedia websites. This puts us at a conundrum.

Personally I see a number of options, (1), my preferred choice”, we create “{{Copyright troll}}” and explain on the file pages that re-users should know that the source is a “copyright troll” and that by using it it’s their own risk, this basically cleanses our (and the Wikimedia Foundation’s) hands 👐🏻 by choosing to host his work. (2), we keep all of his work deleted and say that the issues he cause outweigh the benefits of his fantastic educational works. This is the status quo and it bothers me because it could essentially be seen as a message by Wikimedia Commons users that we should not treat copyright violations as of our work as copyright violations, maybe I’m reading too much into it, but if Wikimedia Commonists aren’t allowed to rightfully sue copyright violators it means that all of our (own) works are already de facto in the public domain. While I would never sue any copyright violators making my work also de facto in the public domain, I don't want such a mentality to scare away professional photographers who do this for a living and take the rights to their works more serious. (3), this is “the vulture option” and we wait until Marco Verch is incapable of filing legal actions against anyone and then mass-Undelete his files. Personally I’m more inclined towards the 1st (first) option. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 11:16, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

@Jmabel: as I suggesten in the DR I would keep the photos and add a notice/warning that the copyright holder enforces his copyright stricktly. If we block and ban everyone who do not accept that reusers do what they want then photographer looses his right and as you say then posting your photos to Commons is releasing them as PD:
@Donald Trung: I love you comment. I would perhaps not use the template name “copyright troll” but it would be effective. --MGA73 (talk) 17:27, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure I follow that "as I suggesten…" remark. Again, please seem my comment above ('Maybe. But for 2 and 4, it all comes down to what "correctly" means…'). Based on this description of my own conduct, do you feel that this warning would need to be added to my photos? - Jmabel ! talk 19:23, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
@MGA73: I don't like the term "Copyright troll" either, but at "w:en:Copyright troll" you can see that the term has been in use since the mid-2000's and is derived from "w:en:Patent troll" which has been in use since 1993, so it's an already established term. But I would be cautious with using the template, I only know of 2 (two) copyright © trolls on Wikimedia Commons, but both are Germans and both have had their accounts blocked here. Marco Verch was an active user here, but I can't remember his user name, the other I think was blocked but later unblocked because he did nothing wrong on-wiki (I also can't remember his username here). Anyhow, the template should only in used on extreme cases like these two users where we will presume the suing party to be "acting in good faith, until proven to act in malice" as the term "copyright troll" is a loaded word. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 17:35, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
@Donald Trung: Perhaps one of the users is User:Nightshooter. If copyright troll is a well known term then okay with me. --MGA73 (talk) 17:46, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm in clear opposition to this. We host free files under specific licenses. Failing to e.g. attributing is a violation of the licenses. If those violations aren't "corrected" then that waters-down the meaningfulness of the licenses to begin with. (I tag some of my images with User:Josve05a/Pixsy since I pursue corporate re-users who fail to attribute me properly, but that is by personal choice.) We already link to Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia in the description of all images, if that isn't enough, then that's the re-user's fault, not the copyright owner's. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 22:53, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
It isn't always that easy. As I said on the deletion request they (and some others) even sue people who properly license the files, but use a CMS (like we do). There you almost ever have a special page called "full view" where nothing of your attribution is seen (since just the picture is shown). And this still works to make even more money with these pictures, than you could if you really tried to sell them (which a lot of these uploaders even don't). We help them to scam lot's of well meaning people. --Mirer (talk) 02:32, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

A number of images with unclear licensing

Unclear licensing at: Category:COVID-19 guidelines in Denmark

Materialerne må frit downloades, deles, printes og bruges til information om coronavirus/COVID-19.

I.e.:

The material may be freely downloaded, shared, printed and used for information about coronavirus/COVID-19.

Not compatible, as it has restrictions. The question is if the following applies {{PD-DenmarkGov}}. CFCF (talk) 07:29, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

File:Forebyggelse_af_coronavirus_COVID-19_plakat.svg is licenses CC0 so that one is okay. The other files are doubtful but I will write to them and ask if they will release it as CC0 too. --MGA73 (talk) 18:32, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
I just got the answer and Sundhedsstyrelsens can't allow that we use the posters etc under a free license. --MGA73 (talk) 13:02, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Please help kill GFDL on wikis

GFDL is a really bad license for images but it was used on Commons and many language versions of Wikipedia for many years. In 2009 there was a Licensing update and hundreds of thousands (if not more than a million) files was checked.

But it seems to be a never ending project as files keeps showing up in Category:License migration candidates.

Many wikis still have GFDL as an option in MediaWiki:Licenses (Commons too!) :-( I think it would be very helpful if you could help check the wiki of your local language and check if the licenses is up to date.

The best is of course if all free files are uploaded directly to Commons.

If local uploads are needed please help make sure that:

  • The wiki use cc-by-sa-4.0 instead of 3.0 or even older
  • The wiki uses Cc-zero instead of PD-self or other PD-template
  • The wiki makes it possible to choose licenses where GFDL is NOT included
  • The wiki (if it still want to use GFDL) at least list licenses with GFDL included as long down the list as possible (hoping that users will pick licenses from the top)
  • The wiki should never allow GFDL as the only license (Commons no longer allow GFDL alone and that would mean files can never be moved to Commons.)

If someone have uploaded many files or good files with GFDL only then you could ask them if they would please relicense and add cc-by-sa-4.0 too.

Also I think if a local GFDL-only file is unused (check Special:UnusedFiles) and not an important file the you could perhaps delete it locally instead of copying it to Commons.

I know we can not decide on Commons how other wikis should work but I think we can at least raise the suggestion :-) I have raised the suggestion on a few wikis but there are hundreds and in most cases I do not speak the language. --MGA73 (talk) 14:23, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

I suggest we do the same on Commons: MediaWiki_talk:Licenses/ownwork#GFDL_should_not_be_included_in_the_recommended_license. --MGA73 (talk) 19:04, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

the template doesn't seem to be working

I replaced a "citation needed" tag with a tag - cut-and-pasted from the Wiki article about the template - and it seems to process the information, but the information appears in the body of the text (where the information was added), not under References (with a reference number in the body of the text, as usual). The page where this addition was made (there is only one template on the page) is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusty_Warren Please take a look, and help if possible. Seauton (talk) 19:09, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

  • @Seauton: This seems to be a question about the English-language Wikipedia, and would probably better have been asked there rather than on Wikimedia Commons.
  • That said, given that I've stumbled across it: if you replaced en:Template:Citation needed with the "cite book" template, then that template will appear exactly where the "citation needed" template was. If you want it in the references section, you will need to surround the "cite book" template with <ref></ref> tags. - Jmabel ! talk 22:45, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

This response solved the problem. Thanks. (And I agree - I should have posted this on en:Wikipedia, not the Commons.)

Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Seauton (talk) 19:18, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Some wikidata error appearing in many files

These files are all showing messages "Lua error in Module:Wikidata_label at line 52: Tried to write global yesno". The first one I stumbled upon was File:Brisbane welcome Parkinson Beaudesert Rd.jpg. Looking through the wikitext, I cannot see anything wrong. But something's broken somewhere in wikidata ... any ideas? Kerry Raymond (talk) 03:35, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Or they show "Lua error in Module:Wikidata_label at line 140: Tried to write global eLink." like File:Münster, Schulstraße -- 2020 -- 6433.jpg --XRay talk 04:37, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
A more general search for "Lua error in Module:Wikidata" turned up 59,123 files affected. @Pigsonthewing: , do you have any ideas what's causing this? Kerry Raymond (talk) 05:36, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
59,123? Then I gather I should not particularly worry about having encountered this on a file I just edited. - Jmabel ! talk 06:12, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
This appears to show up in something called by Template:Photograph and Template:Artwork, but not Template:Information. - Jmabel ! talk 06:16, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
No, Template:Information is also affected. It has increased to over 78,057 pages now so it is just the lag effect of the error replicating through the system. On the files I have looked at it appears to be tied to a call to Author data from Wikidata. Is it affecting any other Wikidata calls? From Hill To Shore (talk) 06:31, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@Jarekt: You appear to have made two edits today to Module:Wikidata label. Your second edit says you fixed a problem with the first edit. Can you please double check that the error is resolved? If it is fixed, the number of affected pages should decline as the server catches up with the update. If the numbers continue to grow, I'd advise reversion to the last stable version until the source of the error is identified. From Hill To Shore (talk) 06:38, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I am seeing this error also for Information and artwork template files. I tried removing the wikidata item from the template and the error goes away. Jane023 (talk) 06:55, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jane023: Please don't adjust the templates. The problem is with the module. Changing the templates will only mean there is more to fix once the original problem is resolved. From Hill To Shore (talk) 07:44, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
I didn't. You might be confusing me with someone else. Jane023 (talk) 07:51, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jane023: You said in your comment above, "I tried removing the wikidata item from the template and the error goes away." From Hill To Shore (talk) 08:20, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
I said that as an addition to my notice about the files I observed the error on. There is a big difference between an image file and a template file. Jane023 (talk) 08:27, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Seems fixed? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:42, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Sorry about the mess with Module:Wikidata label. I think I was relying too much on unit testing at Module talk:Wikidata label/testcases which did not detect any issues before the roll out. --Jarekt (talk) 13:07, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 23:39, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Problem with Creator template and Wikidata label item

Discovered a problem with Creator:Philippe de Mazerolles. It's writing message: "Lua error in Module:Wikidata_label at line 140: Tried to write global eLink."

Philippe de Mazerolles  (–1479)  wikidata:Q14198216
 
Alternative names
Maître du Froissart de Philippe de Commynes, Master of the Harley Froissart
Description French painter and illuminator
Date of birth/death between 1410 and 1430
date QS:P,+1450-00-00T00:00:00Z/7,P1319,+1410-00-00T00:00:00Z/9,P1326,+1430-00-00T00:00:00Z/9
 Edit this at Wikidata
1479 Edit this at Wikidata
Location of birth/death Bruges Edit this at Wikidata
Work period 1454-1479
Work location
Paris, Brugge
Authority file
creator QS:P170,Q14198216

--Robert.Allen (talk) 07:07, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

See COM:VPT#Lua error it creator templates. --AFBorchert (talk) 07:19, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, obviously the problem has now been very promptly fixed. --Robert.Allen (talk) 09:36, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 23:38, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Is VisualFileChange.js broken?

Is VisualFileChange.js broken? Or is it just me? Tried to fire it off from https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=500&offset=0&ns0=1&ns6=1&ns9=1&ns12=1&ns14=1&ns100=1&ns106=1&search=Soule+Seattle&advancedSearch-current=%7B%7D&searchToken=rqss1robfm3r14vwivcvqno7 because I wanted to globally replace {{en|Soule, John P.}} with {{Creator:John P. Soule}}. The problem came while VisualFileChange was loading files, so I never even got to that command. The error message began in red at left, and ran off the bottom of the window in a manner that made it unreadable, something beginning "ERROR: NO TASK DESCR FOR". Looking with the Firefox web inspector, it looks like it's "-- No TASK DESCR. FOR mdFormattNumber PLEASE ADD IT -- ##### TypeError: pg.revisions[0] is undefined:" - Jmabel ! talk 03:04, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, seems to happen to me as well with Firefox 75.0. I will try using Chromium, and maybe perhaps downgrade Firefox. pandakekok9 03:11, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Seems to happen with Firefox 74.0.1 as well. pandakekok9 03:18, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Also broken in Chromium 81.0.4044.92. This seems to be a VFC issue. pandakekok9 03:39, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel and Pandakekok9: Works the same on Safari on iPhone. Can be worked around by using Special:Search/Soule AND Seattle though.Jonteemil (talk) 16:13, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
It does however take a little bit longer time to render the file list, eventhough it eventually renders. Very strange.Jonteemil (talk) 18:13, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks! Bizarre, but I guess I can do that in the future. - Jmabel ! talk 18:31, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel: Until it gets fixed I would guess so yes. Your welcome :).Jonteemil (talk) 18:37, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Pandakekok9 has in the meantime added a question in MediaWiki talk:Gadget-VisualFileChange.js. Further discussions should take place there. (Pandakekok9, it would have been better, if you’d pointed to this yourself here.) — Speravir – 23:22, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: --Speravir 23:22, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Template:User LibreOffice

Can somebody create Template:User LibreOffice ? For example, we have: {{User OS:Ubuntu}}, {{User Firefox}}, {{User GIMP}}, etc., but {{User LibreOffice}} does not exists. --LibreOffice User (LibreOffice User) 09:55, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

✓ Done LibreOffice users of the world, rise up! {{User LibreOffice}} pandakekok9 10:05, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
@Pandakekok9:  Thank you. --LibreOffice User (LibreOffice User) 10:48, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: pandakekok9 13:59, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Hydraulic earth-moving

Do we have any categories for the hydraulic earth-moving tool or process depicted in the lower panels of File:Denny Hill and 2nd Ave regrading, ca 1907 (SEATTLE 2609).jpg> - Jmabel ! talk 03:36, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps they belong somewhere under Category:Sluices, but certainly they are quite different from anything currently in that category. - Jmabel ! talk 04:15, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

@Jmabel: It looks to me very like the techniques used for mining china clay (e.g. File:Lee Moor claypit 1979 - geograph.org.uk - 65094.jpg), for which we have Category:Hydraulic mining. It's not really mining in your case, since it's not being used for mineral extraction, but there are similar pictures already in that category, e.g. File:Regrade activities on Bell St and 4th Ave, Seattle, Washington, October 1909 (LEE 21).jpeg. --bjh21 (talk) 10:18, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
It sounds like we may need an intermediate category there that is for the technology, but does not presume it is being used for mining. - Jmabel ! talk 16:44, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Notification of DMCA takedown demand - Vera Tammen

In compliance with the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and at the instruction of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, one or more files have been deleted from Commons. Please note that this is an official action of the WMF office which should not be undone. If you have valid grounds for a counter-claim under the DMCA, please contact me. The takedown can be read here.

Affected file(s):

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#Vera Tammen. Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 17:19, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

When to use 'depicts' or 'location' in structured data?

This picture could be in any old Dutch railway station, but this one is taken in Weert. In my view 'Weert' is now more a 'location' than a depiction of the station Weert. In a more classic station picture you can recognize the station.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:46, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

@Smiley.toerist: you're describing the work so location of creation (P1071) is a better choice. On File:De Moulin Rouge in Parijs bij avond, Bestanddeelnr 254-5695.jpg you can see the different location properties.
For Wiki Loves Monuments I made Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments/Structured data. Might be useful for you too. Multichill (talk) 15:52, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
I created a new data item: Tile signs (Q91011988). Location of fabrication for the tiles is split: The tiles are mostly baked at an other location than where they are assembed and mounted. There can be an artist baking the tiles, but often the architect designs the picture for the tiles. In that case the baker only executes then. Where the creative work lies and is licensed is unclear. Certainly the tile work by many old Portugese buildings is artwork.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:43, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Sandbox Giuseppe Pauri

Hello, I would kindly need to know how to connect the Wikimediacommons to Giuseppe Pauri's Sandbox, having to insert a gallery of photos taken by me, such as other painters for example. thank you --La più bella fontana del villaggio (talk) 08:45, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, but posting variations of your question to 12 different pages within a short period of time is a bad idea. Decide which of the 12 is going to be the main conversation and leave messages on the other eleven to link to the main conversation. Until you do that there is no point in trying to answer you. You may already have a valid answer on one of the other 11, so further conversation may be a waste of everyone's time. From Hill To Shore (talk) 09:02, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Adminship on gd:Wictionary

Hi.
I've been editing on gd:Wictionary (aka Uicleir) since 1 February 2015. After a while, my partner and I, the sole editors at the time, both became sysops. At the end of that 6-month term, both of us took a hiatus from editing Uicleir. I returned three years ago to become the sole consistent editor. I have been cleaning up for the past 3 years, somewhat under the wing of Akerbeltz on gd:Wikipedia. I've been translating & correcting misspelled page names, writing, debugging & documenting templates, deleting unnecessary redirects, categorizing and writing definitions, etc.
Today I received a message from Martin Urbanec suggesting that I might reapply for adminship. Since I am currently the only editor on Uicleir, he suggested that I post here to see if anyone was opposed; if not, then reapply.
What say you?
Kibi78704 (talk) 00:29, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi Kibi78704. I think what Martin Urbanec had in mind is that you should place your request on the local village pump of gd:wiktionary (or other visible places on the project, such as administrators' noticeboard). I'm afraid that you can only request for Commons-rights here on Commons. I suggest placing your request on the local village pump and, if there are no opposes after some time (e.g. one or two weeks), inform stewards at m:SRP. Ahmadtalk 05:07, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
Hi Kibi78704. Thank you for keeping gd:Wictionary alive. I think that you could contact Martin Urbanec and explain him what is going on. I cannot recall where, but I am pretty sure that there are ways to follow when you are the only (or almost the only) inhabitant in a wikiproject. B25es (talk) 06:20, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
@Kibi78704: Yes, I should've written "local equivalent of Village pump". In your case, wikt:gd:Wiktionary:Doras na coimhearsnachd seems to be the right page. You just need to write something similar you wrote here - it can be in your local language. After a week or two, write to m:SRP and link the local announcement. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. Best, --Martin Urbanec (talk) 11:54, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
I misunderstood. Thank you. Kibi78704 (talk) 17:22, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 00:29, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Wrong category

These files File:Inicio hospital.png, File:Transporting used plastic caness.jpg are not templates, please remove them from the category. I would do it myself but some stupid filter blocks me... — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 2001:14BA:9C0B:A700:0:0:0:8EA (talk) 11:33, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

✓ Done. pandakekok9 11:36, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: pandakekok9 11:36, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Using references in a category

Hello,

At Category:Inscription of Lugalanatum-AO 4783, पाटलिपुत्र has provided a very valuable expertise with translations and comments on a Gutian inscription (2130 BCE), complete with relevant references. Unfortunately, Commons categories are not quite made with references in mind, and the interaction with {{Wikidata Infobox}} is especially unfortunate, as typographical conventions are concerned: it makes the page cluttered and messy, and using a {{Clear}} template sends the images in the category far down on the page and make them unintuitive to find.

Would anybody know of a typographically elegant solution that would do justice to पाटलिपुत्र's work?

Cheers! Rama (talk) 09:49, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I think I'd put all that in a Wikipedia article, not here in Commons. Categories are not intended to have encyclopedic content. If that's not acceptable, then maybe put it on the talk page. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:02, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
How true, just so, Wikipedia holds the disambiguation pages too, so we should follow it's lead in naming ships , by launch date. Broichmore (talk) 21:44, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
@Broichmore: Is that in some way relevant to what User:Rama asked? If so, would you please spell it out? It certainly escapes me. - Jmabel ! talk 22:40, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
@Rama: It’s been a while since I did old style referencing but does this diff work? --Green Giant (talk) 00:14, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you very much @Green Giant: , this is much nicer indeed!
I see your point @Auntof6: but there are cases where an archaeological item would be simultaneously significant for specialists (warranting a bit of notes here be it only for safe-keeping), and where a Wikipedia article would be a bit much to ask from the contributors — or even something that deletionnists would not allow. Although, when I think of it, a middle term might have been to make a gallery page on Commons for this purpose.
Many thanks to all for your help! Rama (talk) 05:40, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Gallery page is what I was about to suggest until I read this reply. Categories are for just collecting stuff; Galleries are for selecting and arranging individual files, adding context, etc. --El Grafo (talk) 11:08, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Doubt about placing an illustration on Wikimedia Commons

I have a question about copyright in an illustration by naturalist G. B. Sowerby III, placed in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History (ser.8: v.1 = no.1-6); a species classified and published in 1808. Is there a copyright in these shell image? Mário NET (talk) 21:37, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

No, well expired as he died 31 January 1921. Broichmore (talk) 21:47, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Does this mean that in February 2021 this image goes under free copyright? Mário NET (talk) 22:43, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
He was from the UK, right? Life + 70 years means it has been out of copyright for nearly 3 decades. - Jmabel ! talk 22:47, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
This a sign that I can download for article. Would it be better for me to wait more longer for effective confirmation? Mário NET (talk) 22:57, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
@Mário NET: no further confirmation is necessary, unless there is reasonable doubt regarding death date of the artist. {{PD-old-70-expired}} is sufficient rationale for demonstrating Public Domain status in the U.S. and country of origin. --Animalparty (talk) 23:30, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Then I will download the image. Thank you very much. Mário NET (talk) 23:37, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Ok. I finished the article in the language of my country; however I putting a lot of information in an image upload and made a mistake. Just leaving this problem here warned. Mário NET (talk) 05:56, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Is it allowed to close a discussion you did not start?

I think that Categories for discussion/2018/08/Category:Vegetable orchards can be closed. There is a conclusion and there was no comment for a long time. But I did not start this discussion. Can I close it anyway? JopkeB (talk) 04:45, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

@JopkeB: Commons:Categories for discussion#Closing a discussion doesn't restrict closure to the person who opened the discussion, so I think if you want to close it, and you think you're adequately experienced, that's fine. --bjh21 (talk) 18:05, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes! Everyone needs to pitch in on the routine tasks. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:27, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! This question has now been resolved. I closed the discussion about Category:Vegetable orchards. JopkeB (talk) 04:47, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: pandakekok9 04:52, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Šalinamas puslapis

Sveiki, kelis sykius bandžiau talpinti turinį, pilnai atitinkantį visus reikalavimus, tačiau jis buvo pašalinamas su neteisingais argumentais. Kodėl taip yra? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Confidenciali (talk • contribs) 15:45, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

  • Looks like someone asking in a Baltic language (Google says Lithuanian) why there stuff is getting deleted. Can someone who reads and writes Lithuanian please help? Or @Confidenciali: if you can read English, please say so, it will probably be quicker. Ob Sie kann Deutsch lesen, sag es, wäre wahrscheinlich schneller. - Jmabel ! talk 16:07, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Achim seems to have deleted something, at least he left a message on Confidenciali’s talk page. Also ping at some recently active Lithuanian users: @Bearas, Ratkus, Juliux, Hugo.arg, Tomasdd, and Zygimantus. By the way: Apparently, the template {{Off topic}} could need a Lithuanian (and also a Russian) translation. — Speravir – 23:44, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Hi, the initial message translates as: HELLO, I'VE TRIED SEVERAL TIMES TO UPLOAD CONTENT THAT FULLY MEETS ALL OF THE REQUIREMENTS BUT IT WAS REMOVED WITH INCORRECT ARGUMENTS (reasoning). WHY IS THAT?. Unsure what was exactly deleted, but the user believes it got unrightfully deleted. --Bearas (talk) 06:02, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, Bearas. — Speravir – 01:49, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Thank you, yes, I can read in English. Also, now it is impossible to choose "this page does not exist, create "page.i.want.to.create.name", and before there was this possibility... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Confidenciali (talk • contribs) 06:18, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
    • @Confidenciali: According to the usual tools, your account does not appear to have any deleted contributions on Wikimedia Commons, nor any failed uploads. So I'm afraid you are going to have to be more specific. What upload tool were you using (e.g. Special:UploadWizard, something on the Lithuanian Wikipedia, something else)? What exactly happened? What error message did you get? - Jmabel ! talk 16:43, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 Info: I didn't delete anything but left a note because of the article page Laurynas Didžiulis. --Achim (talk) 13:19, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Could someone who knows more than I do about the abuse filters help out here? Thanks. - Jmabel ! talk 15:46, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

BEGIN copy-pasted from my talk page on Meta, with Alexis's permission

It's all quite simple really..

lt:Vikipedija:Forumas#Šalinamas puslapis: Sveiki, Kad ir kaip redaguočiau keliamą informaciją, puslapis visad yra šalinamas ir ištrinamas redaktoriaus, nors atitinka visus reikalavimus.

Translated: Hello, No matter how I edit the information, the page is always removed and deleted by the editor, even though it meets all the requirements.

See lt:Specialus:Sąrašas/Confidenciali, this is about lt:Laurynas Didžiulis. That article was deleted because it didn't meet the notability criteria of ltwiki.

[6] shows Confidenciali attempting to create the page on Commons. The first entry is c:Special:AbuseFilter/120. Confidenciali is a new user (< 3 edits) and namespace 0 is the gallery or main namespace. The new entry did not include "#babel" and the title did not include a slash. (these would be hallmarks of a user simply creating a user page on which a link to YouTube is no problem) It did include a link to YouTube, Tumblr or any of the other listed sites. No wonder, I bet they simply copy-pasted their article about Laurynas Didžiulis to Commons..

The second abuse filter entry is just for trying to create a gallery page without a <gallery> tag, Wikidata list, Wikidata Gallery or Football kit. Obviously, copy-pasted Wikipedia articles contain none of those so that gets blocked.

Laurence Gross (talk · contribs) created the article on ltwiki on 2 April (deleted next day), Confidenciali created the article on 9 April. This may be an alternative account, or they forgot their password and created a new account, or it's a coincidence, or whatever. — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 16:21, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

END copy-pasted from my talk page on Meta, with Alexis's permission Jmabel ! talk 18:23, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Sir Roger Pratt

Any reason why Commons doesn't have a Category for Roger Pratt (architect)? KJP1 (talk) 08:26, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Just that no one has happened to create the category. Feel free to create it. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:12, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Because we only have one image, find another and create it. Broichmore (talk) 21:50, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Since there are multiple images in en:Roger Pratt (architect), there should be plenty with which to populate this category or possible subcategories. - Jmabel ! talk 22:39, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
On the face of it, yes, but all the pictures seem to be of buildings that were substantially altered by others. One, of the gates at Coleshill is an Inigo Jones design. A possible reason no category exists is that it is difficult to discern what portion of any image is by Pratt... Some work needed here... Broichmore (talk) 13:34, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Altered or not, they still belong somewhere under the original architect (except maybe a gate he had nothing to do with), as well as whoever altered them. Typically, there will be a category for a notable building, and that belongs either directly under the architect, or in some sort of a "buildings designed by" category. - Jmabel ! talk 16:38, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

depicts Flores hawk-eagle

When I open some files and go to structured data, there is always written "depicts Flores hawk-eagle". Example: File:Celebrations in Bratislava, 1919.jpg. Why "Flores hawk-eagle", what does it mean? --Jan Kameníček (talk) 08:56, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I suspect this is related to this change on Wikidata, which changed the label of depicts (P180) in English to "depicts Flores hawk-eagle". Why it's showing up for you three days after it was reverted, I don't know, but I suspect it's cached somewhere (and notably, I don't see any hawk-eagles on that page). --bjh21 (talk) 09:38, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for explanation. You are right, it disappeared after I purged the cache. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 10:38, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Where is the icon for the VisualEditor pencil?

Hi all

I want to work on a template on English Wikipedia related to VE but I cannot find the pencil icon anywhere... Its not in Category:VisualEditor icons, any ideas?

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 11:13, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

@John Cummings: I think it may be dynamically created with inline SVG. The similar icon next to "Add links" in the left nav uses CSS ':before' and appears to be 'background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0), rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)), url("data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns=%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22 width=%2212%22 height=%2212%22 viewBox=%220 0 12 12%22%3E %3Cpath fill=%22%230645ad%22 d=%22M10.5 4.7l1.3-1.3c.3-.3.3-.7 0-.9L9.6.2c-.3-.3-.7-.3-.9 0L7.3 1.5l3.2 3.2zM6.6 2.2L0 8.8V12h3.2l6.6-6.6-3.2-3.2z%22/%3E %3C/svg%3E");'
In short, there may not be any underlying image anywhwere, but there is nothing to stop you (or someone) from making one for use elsewhere. - Jmabel ! talk 15:20, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
@John Cummings: I think you are looking for File:OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg. It is in Category:OOUI icons-progressive. De728631 (talk) 17:19, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks very much both, really interesting how the icon is created in VE, I've never heard of this being done before. John Cummings (talk) 17:27, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Big technical problem with Template:Google Art Project

Hi,

@Jarekt, Multichill, and VIGNERON:

Today, I had to remove sizes from a few paintings of the GAP, because they were displayed as "millimeter" sizes, while some should be in centimeters, others in inches... and wrong millimeter sizes were thus imported in wikidata... :(

For now, there are more than 5000 paintings (in wikidata) with a height < 10 centimeters, more than 5400 with width < 10 cm. SOME are miniatures... A lot of them have GAP linked pictures...

Could someone please have a look at what's the problem with sizes in this template ? should we systematically add the values in |commons_dimensions= parameter, or better, give priority to correct dimensions from wikidata, when there is a wikidata link ?

Thanks to whoever is able to clean this up... there a probably a lot of items on wikidata with ridiculously small height and width, due to this problems ... --Hsarrazin (talk) 22:45, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I have noticed it before on this or that artwork from Google Art Project. It looks like User:Dcoetzee, who did a lot of great work on the project before being banned 5 years ago, messed up with his bot run. I think that most sizes were in mm, but not all so his bot did not work right if other units were present. Then if the sizes were moved from commons to wikidata then the errors were copied as well. If we figure out if the issue is really non-mm units than we could just write a query to look for paintings with Google Art Project ID, have size non-mm units with the source "imported from Commons". Those might be the problematic ones. --Jarekt (talk) 00:27, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Mentioning "© Wikimedia commons / wouter hagens" for photos I did not take

Just for information. I received a request about using a photo that I should have taken. The link he/she gave shows a photo with "© Wikimedia commons / wouter hagens" that I did not take. There were several other photos with the same copyright quote. Wouter (talk) 07:39, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

I've had a similar experience with a photo of Mother Theresa, which is wrongly attributed to me[7]. Sometimes re-users take the name of the last user who edited an image or uploaded a revised version as the authorname. Or sometimes some re-user #1 errs in the credit and all subequent users copy it from #1. --Túrelio (talk) 08:50, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
The odd thing is that I do not think we (still?) have the photo. It should have been in Category:Philips Pavilion of Expo 1958. --Jarekt (talk) 14:27, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
Regardless of incorrect author, "© Wikimedia commons" means that the reuser doesn't understand what copyright really means, nor how Commons works (it's a repository, not a creator). "© Wikimedia commons" makes about as much sense as "© the internet". --Animalparty (talk) 17:41, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
  • +1 - Not from the site linked above but I've been credited for images that I haven't even took too, People seem to look at the File history (or last edited) and assume from there, Not much can be done other than asking the site to look more closely but from my perspective that's above my paygrade. –Davey2010Talk 17:48, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Translated SVG, but can't save new file

Hi folks, please apologize my poor command over the English language. I just tried to enrich Commons with a German language version of File:Third imperial Fabergé egg.svg. Unfortunately, the translation tool interpreted "upload" to overwriting the existing file. Hence, I reverted the upload, saved the new file to my disk and tried to upload it to File:Third imperial Fabergé egg-de.svg. This upload from my local disk failed with an error message, blocking the "duplicate" upload. Would, please, someone with the necessary user rights take File:Third imperial Fabergé egg.svg (version of 17:31, 26 April 2020) and copy it to File:Third imperial Fabergé egg-de.svg? I don't care about credits for the translation, but I feel it necessary to leave a license tag with credits to the original uploader. Thank you, --Wunderkammerdiener (talk) 17:54, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

@Wunderkammerdiener: Commons ist mehrsprachig, da muss schlechtes Englisch kein Hindernis sein. Du kannst anstelle des Upload Wizards auch einfach die direkte Uploadfunktion nehmen. Wenn dann mit dem neuen Dateinamen und dem übersetzten Inhalt noch eine Duplikatswarnung kommt, sollte es auch eine Möglichkeit geben, diese Warnung zu ignorieren (trotzdem hochladen). De728631 (talk) 18:08, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
@De728631: Vielen Dank für die Hilfe. Ich habe den Upload eben sofort nach dem Revert auf die alte englische Version gestartet, vermutlich hat das System die revertierte Version noch für aktiv gehalten, und das schon versenkte Duplikat bemängelt. Jetzt klappte es sofort, und hier drüber ist alles blau. Danke, --Wunderkammerdiener (talk) 18:53, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 02:34, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Renaming multiple categories (history of places)?

I am not sure where else to put this discussion - if anybody can suggest a better place, please feel free to do so.

First some background: In the UK there are several administrative units (metropolitan boroughs) called "City of ..." which are composed of and named after a place that was already a city before the administrative reforms and its surroundings, such as the City of Bradford, the City of Leeds, and the City of Wakefield, just to name the three examples found in the county of West Yorkshire. Hence a place name can mean the old city as well as the new metropolitan borough which might cause confusion.

Now we have got many categories for the history of places by year and months following the pattern "<month> <year> in <place>". For some of the places mentioned above there are already categories for both the new administrative unit and the old city which is part of it, such as in the case of Wakefield. For others there aren't, such as for Bradford and Leeds. Since the old cities are but part of the new administrative units which also comprise a considerable number of other populated places, I believe it would be sensible first to rename all "<year> in {Bradford|Leeds}" and "<month> <year> in {Bradford|Leeds}" in "<year> in the City of {Bradford|Leeds}" and "<month> <year> in in the City of {Bradford|Leeds}" (and to do the same in similar cases elsewhere), so that sub-categories for the old cities can be created without causing confusion (and also some for the other populated places in the metropolitan boroughs).

What do you think? If these numerous categories were to be renamed, how would we do this? Putting them all into User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands/Category moves would IMHO be a monumental task. --Schlosser67 (talk) 13:01, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  • @Schlosser67: That is very hard to follow: too many formal placeholders. Could you spell out some clear examples of what categories you want to change, and to what, for a particular city, say Bradford? - Jmabel ! talk 15:13, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
    • We have got e.g. the category "2008 in Bradford", but not "2008 in the City of Bradford". On the other hand, we have "2008 in the City of Wakefield" as well as "2008 in Wakefield, West Yorkshire". The same for other years. I hope it is clearer now. --Schlosser67 (talk) 20:30, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
      • No, it is not clear. Again: Could you spell out some clear examples of what categories you want to change, and to what? A list of some categories we have gives no indication what you want to change, and what you want to change it to. - Jmabel ! talk 02:07, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
        • OK, for those who have trouble with placeholders: I propose to rename e.g. "2008 in Bradford" to "2008 in the City of Bradford", or "June 2012 in Leeds" into "June 2012 in the City of Leeds". The same for all other years and months, and for both cities/Cities. --Schlosser67 (talk) 05:39, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
          • So the intent is that these categories should cover only within the limits of the historical "city"? If so, that seems fine. If not, that seems wrong. - Jmabel ! talk 15:57, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
            • Not sure whether we mean the same. Let me elaborate: IMHO there should be categories for the modern metropolitan borough that is called "City of ..." and for the populated place it is named after (i.e. the historical city), the latter being a subcategory of the former. So, yes, "2009 in Bradford" should only contain files that refer to objects (in the photographic sense) in the historical city, and "2009 in the City of Bradford" should contain this as a subcategory as well as the subcategories "2009 in Keighley", "2009 in Ilkley" and so on. --Schlosser67 (talk) 16:47, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
@Schlosser67: There have been extensive (sometimes heated) discussions on English Wikipedia about this. Before such a rename is carried out, how would you define the limits of the populated place called Bradford as opposed to the wider district of the same name? If you look at the Wikipedia infoboxes of the two linked articles, you will see they have the same population and area. This is because there is still no agreement how to distinguish the two. I don’t think anyone would disagree that the city centre is definitely in the populated place but further out there are areas some people regard as Bradford and others regard as being separate. --Green Giant (talk) 17:14, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
Breaking down the city categories would be a necessary followup activity, I agree, but similar to what people (myself included) have been quietly doing on the next higher level (county vs. metropolitan boroughs). As for the limits of the historical cities, I would propose to use the 1974 ones (just before the local government reform). It seems to be the simplest solution. If we want to follow it back in time, we can certainly do so, but we've got to start somewhere. --Schlosser67 (talk) 18:56, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps I’ve misunderstood but it does not make sense to use defunct administrative areas unless the pages in those categories are from before 1974. What might make sense is to use current administrative structures e.g. Bradford district is divided into 30 wards. One of them is even called "City Ward". Why not use this as the basis of new categories? --Green Giant (talk) 23:42, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

I remain a bit confused. Certainly for London, the "City of London" is strictly the "Square Mile" and nothing else. Are you saying that for all other English cities the situation is opposite to this? - Jmabel ! talk 02:58, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

@Green Giant: : using the wards as subcategories seems a good idea. All the same, there are already subcategories for various populated places within these cities that are not wards per se. I'd sort out the top categories first, giving them the proper names. - @Jmabel: : City status in the UK is a somewhat complicated topic. There is much information on it in the English Wikipedia article I've linked in my original question. At any rate, there are larger administrative units that have sort of inherited the city status and the name from the historic cities, hence the problem with the names. --Schlosser67 (talk) 06:28, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

User scripts category

Category:User scripts is used for both actual user scripts and pictures of them being used. It's a hidden category, which makes it less useful for the latter purpose. Maybe we should move the pictures to a new non-hidden category? I'm not on Commons that much, so I wanted to check here if that's a good idea. Enterprisey (talk) 21:33, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree, pending any unknown unknowns. Kees08 (talk) 23:28, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

The United Nations Treaty Series should have uniform naming of files

We already have File:UNTS 1.pdf, File:United Nations Treaties and international agreements registered - Volume 221 (13 November 1955 - 30 November 1955).pdf, File:UN Treaty Series - vol 935.pdf, etc. with very inconsistent naming. As English and Vietnamese Wikisources use these files, how should we agree on uniform naming? Please see also s:Wikisource:Scriptorium#The United Nations Treaty Series should have uniform naming of files.--Jusjih (talk) 03:17, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Would someone comment on the usual abuse of user:DarwIn that moves categories without any discussion and them threatens to block anyone that is against, so abusing his administrator tools.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Tm (talk • contribs)

@Tm: The block would be well deserved, when after so many years you still continue making copy-paste moves, and blindly reverting without even discussing anything. Anyway, I don't know where you got the idea that floor is the same as plenary chamber. The article on floor that you linked to is very clear that "floor" is a part of the plenary chamber, not the chamber itself. Furthermore, that concept of "floor" seems to be something proper of the anglophone world, and do not exist in Brazil. The "floor of the Brazilian Senate" is its pavement. I also do not understand why you insist in reverting to the native designation of the Brazilian Senate, when it has a very well established translation. That procedure is against the use here in Commons.-- Darwin Ahoy! 21:54, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
Sorry but who "continue making copy-paste moves, and blindly reverting"? It was not me for certain! And who continues to blindly reverting without even discussing anything? Not me for sure. Who treated to block me, even after i showed you why is this term correct? The article on the En in clear in prticular that "Activity on the floor of a council or legislature, such as debate, may be contrasted with meetings and discussion which takes place in committee, for which there are often separate committee rooms.[1] Some actions, such as the overturning of an executive veto, may only be taken on the floor", but the Glossary of the US Senate is pretty clear when it says "floor - Action "on the floor" is that which occurs as part of a formal session of the full Senate. An action "from the floor" is one taken by a Senator during a session of the Senate. A senator who has been recognized to speak by the chair is said to "have the floor.". Instead of blyindly moving, please discuss before and stop with the threats of blocking the users that disagree with you. Tm (talk) 22:03, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
The The Legislative Process on the House Floor: An Introduction of the US Senate is very enlightening of what is a Senate Floor. In that says that "With very few exceptions, the House determines and enforces its own procedures for considering legislation on the floor. Its standing rules include several alternative sets of procedures for acting on individual bills and resolutions. (...) In general, though, all these procedures permit a majority of Members to work their will without excessive delays. The House passes many bills by motions to suspend the rules, with limited debate and no floor amendments, but only with the support of at least two-thirds of the Members voting." Tm (talk) 22:16, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
(Since you don't seem to know what a copy-paste move is: This is a copypaste move, and doing it destroys the history of the category, which is now stuck on the redirect. The diff you linked to is a mere adjust to the redirect, no idea why you linked to it at all.) "Gaining the floor" in the parliament is gaining the right to speak. In most chambers, like the Portuguese and Brazilian, the "floor" is a symbolic, not a real space. It's absurd to think that the plenary chamber is the "floor" itself. Maybe someone else can explain it better, as you seem to be very confuse about those concepts -and destroying the whole categorization in the way.-- Darwin Ahoy! 22:19, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
I´ve showed you several sources of what is an parliamentary floor and that is according to the way this is categorized and yet you continue to move your attempt of definition, first from being where the speeches are made, them to procedures, them is another thing, them another, then another. It is pretty tiring of seying you moving categories without discussions and destroying its history, threaten other users and after all, keep moving your own definitions to suit your purposes. Your last, in my talkpage, is saying that this term does not apply because is an "anglophone concept", when you want to move this category from its proper portuguese name to an translation of your choosing? Pretty contradictory. Tm (talk) 11:28, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

For starters, these category names should be based on "Senate of Brazil" or "Federal Senate of Brazil" per COM:LP, not on "Senado Federal do Brasil". About cut-and-paste moves: I once asked here about them, but I was told that, unlike Wikipedia (w:en:WP:CPMOVE/w:pt:WP:MCC), cut-and-paste moves of categories are not a big deal here, though still think using the [move] button should be the first choice. Lastly, "floor" is ambiguous; will it not attract pictures of the room's physical floor? --HyperGaruda (talk) 07:31, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

As you have showned this senate does not have a established name and, per your own link Commons:LP it says that the details are in Commons:Categories per Commons:Categories#Category_names, "Proper nouns which do not have an established English variant are not translated ad hoc but use the original form.". Or will anyone translate the German Federal Diet (Budestag) or the "German Federal Council" (Bundesrat)? Are we now in a double standard? Tm (talk) 11:28, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Unlike the German Bundestag, the Brazilian Senate refers to itself on its English website using the English translation "Senate". Seems like sufficient proof of an established English name to me. For the sake of consistency with other senates, I'd pick "Senate of Brazil". --HyperGaruda (talk) 15:30, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Senado Federal do Brasil is a proper name. The translation senate is merely an translation of senado and is not an established name. And the German "Senate" is not the Bundestag, but the Bundesrat. And why should some higher House should ne treated by its native name and others have to be translated? Why the double standards, when we have proper names in the two languages? Why the constant shoving of english terms in non-english institutions? Isnt Commons an multilingual project or is the facto an dictatorship of the english language? Tm (talk) 18:52, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
And, being you Dutch or a dutch speaker, why the double standard of the Dutch Senate or Category:Eerste Kamer being in its native name and not being in english, when it refers to itself as Senate?. Why is in Commons northern European countries keep their native names but ever other country has to follow a diferrent standard? Tm (talk)
On Commons we use the most commonly used name in English. This can be a translation or the native name. We fall back to the native name if no clear consistent English name exists. If you look at Federal Senate of Brazil (Q2119413) you'll see most languages translate it. If you look at Dutch House of Representatives (Q233262) you'll see that some languages translate it, some don't and some have half translations ("second chamber"). The name is "Tweede Kamer" (and the "Eerste Kamer") as defined in the Dutch constitution. It is a house of representatives, but it's not really the name. The Dutch word for senate is "senaat", you won't find that in the constitution. That's why we use the native name here.
Please don't shout abuse, have a normal conversation and please don't do controversial category moves. Thank you, Multichill (talk) 19:55, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
The problem is precisely that in that there is "no clear consistent English name" (i.e Brazilian Senate; Brazilian Federal Senate: Senate of Brazil; Federal Senate of Brazil; Federal Senate, and possibly others).
And the situation about the dutch upper house, the name senate is used by the official website, when it says The 75 members of the Senate (Eerste Kamer) of the Dutch Parliament (the States General).
Also when you say that Commons uses the dutch native word for senate because "senaat", you won't find that in the constitution. That's why we use the native name here", then why, if the category house uses the term present in the dutch constitution to the name of the upper house, instead of the english term used in its website, what is different with the "Senado Federal", term used in the Brazilian constitution when mentioning the Senado Federal. Whats the difference between using the native dutch term and the portuguese term? And about the conversation, it was an administrator that started moving this categories and threatened to block other user(s), refusing to open any kind of discussion, not the other way around. Tm (talk) 21:10, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
@Tm: I think you have misunderstood. senaat is a native Dutch word, and would be the Dutch translation for senate (English) or senado (Portuguese). But that Netherlands does not have a body called Senaat as a proper noun. While you can argue that the Netherlands' Eerste Kamer' is "a senate," that is not its name. Just like U.S. or Brazilian or Mexican states / estados are the same sort of thing as Canadian provinces or Spanish comunidiades auto´nomos / "autonomous communities": we use the English "state"/"province"/"autonomous community", but we don't munge these together into one word. If the Netherlands had a Senaat and called it that, we would call it a "Senate" in our category scheme. - Jmabel ! talk 01:43, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
No, i dont misunderstood, as "Eerste Kamer" calls itself Senate in its official webpage in english, as it calls itself "Senate (Eerste Kamer) of the Dutch Parliament (the States General)". So, if we have a translation from dutch to english, we use the dutch native name, even when they calls themselves Senate, but the same is impossible to the Senado Federal do Brasil to use its native name? Why one is Eerste Kamer, instead of Senate of the Netherlands or Second Chamber (and so is the german Bundesrat), but the brazilian upper house has to have an translated name, even when there is not an established translation? Why the double standards, when is clear that Senado Federal do Brasil is the proper name, even more when is categorized and its dozens of subcategories like this for almost a decade? Why the rush to move stable categories? Tm (talk) 01:58, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Also why is there an Category:Staten-Generaal, when in the "Eerste Kamer", is called the States General and we have en:States General of the Netherlands? Or Category:Tweede Kamer and en:House of Representatives (Netherlands). Care to explain why this situation, when the names are translated in the english wikipedia,but Commons keeps the native names of some but translates others? Why this situation, when one country parliament has its native names, but other parliaments has to be translated? Tm (talk) 02:07, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Maybe, just maybe, nobody had noticed so far... --HyperGaruda (talk) 08:02, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Scratch that, I have no explanation for the mess that some countries are apparently more entitled to use their native language in categories than others. --HyperGaruda (talk) 13:54, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

According to the official site of the Brazilian Senate, "all Senate’s meetings, in committees or in the plenary, are broadcast and registered by means of audio, video and written records. Sessions schedule is available at the Senate web site.". This is the official translation. There is nothing not even near "floor" there.-- Darwin Ahoy! 22:09, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Given your threats against me, i reserve the right to ignore you and so will not talk to users (Darwin) that move categories without discussion and, when called to reason, dismiss sources provided by other users and then changes is own definition when is convinient, try to close discussions with threats of blocks and insults, like you did in my talkpage. Tm (talk) 02:00, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
@Tm: Given that "floor" is obviously wrong and indefensible, I don't realized it would even need any discussion to remove it from there. Only you, and you alone, continue defending that weird designation that do not exist in any source related to the Brazilian Senate. The block threat was because of your continual insistence on disrupting the history of the categories by doing copypaste moves, and IMO it would be more than deserved, since you keep doing that despite many, many warnings. Anyway, this is not the place to discuss your behaviour, I'll let that to another opportunity.-- Darwin Ahoy! 16:31, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
@DarwIn: While I agree that "floor" is totally wrong here, "In the plenary" contrasted to "in committees" does not refer to a physical location". This is "plenary" in the sense of "the full body" (also possibly as distinguished from a "committee of the whole," though don't know whether the Brazilian Senate ever does that). - Jmabel ! talk 16:19, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel: Indeed, that's why I used "plenary chamber", which I saw was also the general use here in Commons to refer to the chamber where the plenary is held. The place actually has a proper name: "Salão Azul" (something like "Blue Hall").-- Darwin Ahoy! 16:25, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel:  Comment Saying that Salão Azul is the floor of the Senate (or in your own words "chamber where the plenary is held") just shows one more error and nonsense, made you DarwIn, as again dont do proper research. This error is simple to show, beginning by seeing Category:Salão Azul (Palácio Nereu Ramos) and ending in listening to the audioguide of the Senate that Salão Azul "é nesse espaço que se encontra a entrada principal do plenário do Senado Federal. Também no Salão Azul está localizado gabinete de trabalho do Presidente do Senado" (uou can listen here the english version.
Why dont anyone do a little research to support their feeling, instead of merelly feeling. Besides the US Senate definition, you can see that the term floor is indeed the more correct. A search on the glossary of parliamentary terms of the UK Parliament shows that "Floor of the House refers to the main Chamber in each House. Business that is taken on the floor of the House is dealt with in the Chamber as opposed to being debated in a committee room".. Tm (talk) 17:02, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, the term exists. We do not use that term in the category names Category:Chamber of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom‎ and Category:Chamber of the House of Lords. - Jmabel ! talk 00:30, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, again speaking from mere feelings and no research. Please do a proper research before of saying anything as Floor of the house and Chamber are different things:
The Floor of the House refers to the main Chamber in each House. Business that is taken on the floor of the House is dealt with in the Chamber as opposed to being debated in a committee room.
The Chamber is where the main business of the day takes place in each House. It is where all members meet to hear important announcements and to take decisions as a whole House.. Tm (talk) 11:20, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Which says that (in UK parlimentary use) they are the same thing. Where on earth are you getting that this says the are different? Are you just saying that there are "chambers" that aren't the main chamber? Of course. But "the Chamber" is the "main Chamber". Yes, committee rooms can also be called chambers, but they are the chamber of the committee, not the chamber of the House. - Jmabel ! talk 14:56, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
 Comment When, in a glossary, two words\expressions that are mean the same thing, one of them points to another or one of them does not exist in said glossry. This is the situation that we have with this glossary, and yet again based on mere feelings and zero research your trying to convince that this two words "are the same thing". Where on earth are you getting that this says the are equal?
Glossary of the US Senate "Glossary Term | Floor - Action "on the floor" is that which occurs as part of a formal session of the full Senate. An action "from the floor" is one taken by a Senator during a session of the Senate. A senator who has been recognized to speak by the chair is said to "have the floor.". You can also see this term in the US Senate Floor activity and US House of Representatices House Floor Activities. Tm (talk) 18:36, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

photographs of slaves

If I understand correctly, slavery was outlawed in the US in 1865 and Brazil in 1888: photography goes back further. I've come across pictures in Commons of black women I presume to be slaves (at least at the time of the pictures of them), including topless women. Presumably they didn't consent. Should Commons be hosting such pictures? I'm thinking along the lines of what the subjects would have wanted. What do ya'll think? DMBFFF (talk) 13:36, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

  • I believe that if you go through the archives you will find this discussed several times before, with a consensus (though by no means unanamity) to keep these images. - Jmabel ! talk 16:23, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Ah, I see one of them: Commons:Village pump/Archive/2019/08#Agassiz Zealy slave portraits. doesn't seem to answer my concerns, but I just gave it a cursory read. More to read I suppose; still, thanks for the help. DMBFFF (talk) 18:48, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Slavery was finally outlawed globally in 1981 with Mauritania making it (officially) illegal. So I'm sure that more recent photographs of slaves exist. Also, I don't get why photographs of slaves should be treated as any different than, let's say, photographs of prisoners or military conscripts (who are also performing labour against their will). Of course, legal or not, slavery is still a common occurrence today and photographs of construction sites may include slaves without the photographer knowing. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 16:19, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Is this image copyright? Advertisement in Nottingham Evening Post, 2nd June, 1942, UK -- GreenC (talk) 15:52, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

I would say it is now out of copyright per {{PD-UK-unknown}}, and it is unlikely that it was registered for copyright in the US. What do others think? De728631 (talk) 16:02, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree! And in the US ads need their own copyright notice on the ad, they are not covered by the blanket protection of the magazine issue copyright per {{PD-US-no notice ad}}. In the EU anonymous works expire after 70 years, the average lifespan at the time the law was created. Oddly in the US we chose 120 years, the maximum human lifespan. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:55, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Categories about Dutch (non-English) subjects

As was correctly pointed out by Tm in #Floor vs. plenary chamber in Category:Floor of the Senado Federal do Brasil, the Dutch parliament categories use their native Dutch names (Category:Staten-Generaal, Category:Eerste Kamer, Category:Tweede Kamer), which goes against our policy of using English names where possible. Being a big supporter of consistency, I moved them to their English counterparts as used on the official English websites of said institutions. Multichill reverted these moves, so I am now starting this discussion. In the discussion about the Brazilian Senate, Multichill mentioned that we use the native Dutch name, because that is the only name found in the consitution. Mind you, the English translation of the Dutch constitution (article 51) uses States General, Lower House, and Upper House respectively. True, the Dutch government is not being consistent by using Lower/Upper House in the constitution versus House of Representatives/Senate on their websites, but I'd say that at least the revert from States General back to Staten-Generaal was uncalled for. It is a literal translation and used consistently in all English texts about the Dutch government. I am all for abiding by the rules, but what good are rules if nobody abides by them. --HyperGaruda (talk) 11:43, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

There is no such rule that forces us to use English equivalence of historic names anyway. Dutch is beside many more native languages equal in the use of filenames see Naming Files. - MaxxL - talk 12:06, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
I was referring to the language policy on categories, not files. --HyperGaruda (talk) 12:13, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
That works here analogously. No problem.. - MaxxL - talk 12:23, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Then explain "Category names should generally be in English" to me. --HyperGaruda (talk) 13:19, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
The native Dutch name must be used, to give ('make') the best possible category and I agree with Multichill also. - Richardkiwi (talk) (talk) 12:30, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Why must the native Dutch name be used? --HyperGaruda (talk) 13:18, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Because it is the search string educated and knowledgable people use to find media items. - MaxxL - talk 14:35, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
As long as there is a redirect and/or the text is present on the page, searches will work fine. That is not a reason to choose a title. - Jmabel ! talk 16:22, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
There's one Dutch name, but several possible English translations, of Eerste and Tweede Kamer at least (first chamber, first room, first house, upper chamber, upper room, upper house, ...) --ghouston (talk) 04:57, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Hot Pot wikipedia translations

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/火鍋 Is the Hot Pot page for the Chinese Wikipedia. It links to the Arabic, Wu Chinese, Japanese, Cantonese, Korean, Russian, Ukrainian, French, Polish, and Hebrew versions of the Hot Pot page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_pot Is the Hot Pot page for the English Wikipedia. It links to the Malay, Catalan, German, Spanish, Italian, Hungarian, Simple English, Swedish, Vietnamese, and Czech versions of the Hot Pot page.

Is there any way to connect the two? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ThisIsARandomUsername (talk • contribs) 18:39, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

If it is the same then yes. But one links to Category:Hot pot but the other links to Category:Huoguo. So perhaps one is more specific than the other. --MGA73 (talk) 18:46, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Can you technically make two categories which have the same meaning, with one more specific then the other? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ThisIsARandomUsername (talk • contribs) 18:51, 27 April 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by ThisIsARandomUsername (talk • contribs) 18:51, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
If one category is more specific, then it belongs as a subcategory of the more general one. - Jmabel ! talk 00:32, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
That's how it is done. It's also in line with how it is handled on Wikidata: hot pot (Q15261570) (= zh:火鍋 = Category:Huoguo) is a subclass of (P279) hot pot (Q846849) (= en:Hot pot = Category:Hot pot). Seems like everything is as it is supposed to be in that regard. --El Grafo (talk) 10:05, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Misattributed artworks: how to go about moving to correct location

The category Paul_Albert_Laurens includes two paintings I've seen in various locations attributed to him: File:Laurens_Nymphes_de_la_mer.jpeg and File:Paul_Albert_Laurens_-_Catching_waves.jpg. However, apart from the fact that the former is a poor-quality upscale, I am convinced that these works have been misattributed and are in fact the work of Nicolas_Auguste_Laurens; witness the fact that two book drawings from Catalogues Illustrées du Salons, clearly based on the aforementioned paintings, although given different titles, are identified as by N. A. and not P. A. Laurens. These are File:Nicolas_Auguste_Laurens_Sous_la_vague.jpg and File:Nicolas_Auguste_Laurens_(1829-1908)_-_Les_caresses_de_la_vague_(1891)_(engraving).png respectively.

Given what I believe to be the facts of the situation, I would like to move the two misattributed files to the correct category, changing the filenames accordingly. However, the procedure for moving entries does not appear to cover this eventuality. Advice would be appreciated. Lee M (talk) 02:38, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

  • @Lee M: First, contact the people who've worked on this who you think got it wrong, present your evidence, and ask if they have any better basis for the different attribution. Then, assuming there is consensus, change the description. Only then, change the title as inaccurate.
  • If you can't get consensus, then use {{Fact disputed}}, but please let's not have edit wars over filenaming. - Jmabel ! talk 03:43, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
    • It appears that one of the OPs concerned no longer has an account, so no discussion possible there. I will try to contact the other. Thanks for the advice.Lee M (talk) 18:39, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Do you ever wonder why 'normal' people don't wish to contribute to Wikipedia?

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Excalibur1.JPG I think this kind of imperious dialogue is why I don't contribute to Wikipedia much anymore: post after harmless post is addressed and challenged by a formidable array of fierce bots and high-level editors, demanding answers and actions, for no obvious reason to the layman. Have they nothing better to do with their miserable lives? Quite why a friendly 'selfie' of me on my own homepage should be met with such venom baffles me: and I certainly have better things to do with my life than worry about it.

I used to like Wikipedia in the early days: I don't any more: it appears to have been taken over by a bunch of medieval monastic lunatic-fringe fanatics who place ever more imperious demands on every post I make. 147.147.57.49

Cheers folks, Excalibur (talk) 23:37, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

  • The best strategy for preserving an image of yourself would be to create an entry in Wikidata for yourself, active Wikimedians are eligible for an entry. You can then display the Commons image at Wikidata and it would be "in use", thus ineligible for deletion. You can also display it on your Commons User page and it would be "in use", same for your user page in any/all of Wikimedia projects. I am not sure if there is a hard limit on how many you can display. Remember nothing is actually deleted, just hidden from non administrators. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:26, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Where do you get the idea that active Wikimedians are eligible for an entry on Wikidata? My impression is that such entries are grudgingly tolerated only if the Wikimedian is notable in at least a minor way. --ghouston (talk) 04:10, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
    • Seriously, what Ghouston says. There is no Wikidata entry for Ghouston nor for myself; as Wikimedians go, we're both pretty notable, but not notable enough that I see any reason for a Wikidata entry. Ah, but -- surprise! -- there is Richard Arthur Norton (Q73707267), all filled out with unreferenced statements. Bet you can guess who made the first 12 edits, and 17 of the first 18. - Jmabel ! talk 14:56, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
  • @Excalibur: I'm confused, it looks like the outcome to the above deletion is for the file to be copied properly from Wikipedia, to retain revision history — and not that it's not welcome on Commons. I do agree though that things can be confusing here for newbies ("normal people"). — Sam Wilson ( TalkContribs ) … 05:28, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Reading the deletion discussion, the "revision history" part doesn't seem to appear anywhere. I wish people in charge of file deletions were more clear in the reasons they express for deletions. KiwiNeko14 (talk) 18:30, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
The deletion reasoning seems flawed and potentially sets a damaging precedent. Any active Wikimedians are allowed to have a profile photo of themselves, COM:CSD#F10 even spells out the exception as applying for anyone with "constructive global contributions". The idea of forcing another bothersome fresh transfer from en.wp because of revision history is again not actually a good reason for the DR to result in deletion, that could have been left as a recommendation for the uploader to take action on. -- (talk) 18:52, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I have restored the file as the deletion rationale does not make sense. It suggests that Excalibur should transfer it here himself if he wants it here, which he clearly does as evidenced at the DR. There is no provision in policy to discriminate on the basis of uploader (i.e. an image should be kept if uploaded by User A, but deleted if uploaded by User B) except in exceptional circumstances such as sockpuppets of banned users. -- King of 20:29, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Service for contributors before me: Ping at Sebari. — Speravir – 22:26, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
This was part of the problematic and mostly unwelcome file transfers of Calvinkulit, the DR has to be seen in this context. It was absolutely not clear from Excalibur's comment in the DR that he wanted to necessarily keep the file here on Commons. After all the image was only used and still existed as a local copy on enwiki.
@King of Hearts: It is customary to either go through the proper channels (undeletion requests in this case) or talk to the other admin before reverting the actions of another admin. Especially when you are clearly unaware of the full context of a situation. Sebari – aka Srittau (talk) 08:55, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
You're still maintaining that position even after Excalibur came all the way to complain on this board? This kind of bureaucracy is exactly what he's talking about in his statement - files being deleted for cryptic reasons over navel-gazing minutiae. He is clearly upset, and retaining a good, long-term editor is far more important than whatever you were trying to accomplish. If it keeps him happy, just keep the file here, even if you don't think it's necessary. Think of my action as simply assisting in his request to make a new transfer (as you've allowed for in the DR) but skipping the steps of actually needing to do the transfer. -- King of 12:51, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Maybe it's time we recreate Commons:Ignore all rules. Kaldari (talk) 14:34, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
It is clear that this was a case of someone getting "caught in the crossfire," effectively punished for someone else's bad conduct. While it is possible that User:Excalibur's desire to move this image to Commons was not clear from the deletion discussion (I'd have thought it was clear, but apparently not) it is completely clear now, and what User:King of Hearts did is fine. - Jmabel ! talk 15:20, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Fix the content of an institution template

Hi, Institution:La contemporaine which, if I understood well is based on transcluded Wikidata declarations, has a flaw. In the native name field it states "Collections Leblanc"... which was the name of the institution from 1914 to 1918. Any tips about how to have the latest name of the institution in this field ? Thanks--René La contemporaine (talk) 08:08, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

If that was a predecessor of the 1918 entity, we probably need another Wikidata item for the 1914 to 1918 entity and move relevant information to there. We can then use either succeeded by/succeeds or followed by/follows to link the two items. From Hill To Shore (talk) 09:30, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
The item on Wikidata is inconsistent, d:Q856640, since it lists "Collections Leblanc" as the official name from 1914 to 1918, but has a founding date of 1918. The article en:La contemporaine says it was established in 1914, in the article text, and 1918 in the infobox. Was the change in 1918 a founding of a new institution, or a renaming? fr:La Contemporaine (bibliothèque) even says Fondation 1925 in its infobox. --ghouston (talk) 05:24, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
I gave the current name on Wikidata preferred rank, which may fix the template issue at least. --ghouston (talk) 05:27, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

My images got deleted whilst I was requesting OTRS

Hi,

I have had numerous images uploaded via my account by different owners, all of whom had given me permission to use these images. I am confused to why these have been deleted as there was no copyright issue with these images and I have had the correct permission to release them under the creative commons licence. Is there a way I can appeal this and get them undeleted. TwinTurbo (talk) 14:31, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

  • @TwinTurbo: I'm guessing you didn't use Template:OP to tag the images with {{OTRS pending}}. In any case, assuming you continued the OTRS process, no real harm done: they'll be undeleted once permissions are clear. In the future, use {{subst:OP}} when you upload in cases like this.
  • If you did that and these were deleted anyway, please do say so: that would have been someone doing something wrong. - Jmabel ! talk 15:24, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

It looks like it was a string of minor mistakes that caused the deletion:

Anyway, User:Fitindia could you undelete the files so the normal OTRS processing can occur? --Jarekt (talk) 19:41, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Jarekt I have undeleted the files and sorry for adding the extra work caused by this. - FitIndia Talk 04:14, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
My understanding, please correct me if this is not how we do things these days, I've been away a while, is that it is always permissible to use {{Delete}} over any of the {{Npd}}, {{Nsd}}, etc. templates because it is the deletion process that leaves the most room for discussion and leaves the clearest record. Storkk (talk) 19:52, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Storkk I think you are correct, you can use generic {{Delete}} instead of more specific templates, especially if it is not a clear cut case. However we created specific template {{No permission}} so tools like the ones adding OTRS template can interact with them. The tools do not interact with {{Delete}} template. So as I said string of minor issues caused unnecessary file deletion. --Jarekt (talk) 20:07, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Subcats missing

At Category:Historical maps of Lisbon, the subcat Category:20th-century maps of Lisbon‎ is listed to have 2 subcats of its own but it says «nothing found» when expanded, and at Category:20th-century maps of Lisbon‎ itself no subcats are listed. I fear that this is not an issue of this specific cats but rather an one-off manifestation of a vaster problem. -- Tuválkin 20:16, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

@Tuvalkin and Jmabel: See also #Mysterious category above. Are you good in Phab task writing? — Speravir – 22:31, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
It may be, though, that is not exactly the same issue. — Speravir – 22:36, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
Is it resolved? I can see no problems there. --Io Herodotus (talk) 16:20, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Same issue as described here, which is tracked in T247187. --HyperGaruda (talk) 18:17, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Mysterious category

On those files : Parthenon 1, Parthenon 2, Parthenon 3, category "North-East view of the Parthenon" is mysterious to me. If it is inquired on the file, it appears twice (which does not interfere with the tag which normally prohibits that); if it's not inquired, it still appears and I don't know where this information comes from. --Io Herodotus (talk) 04:36, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

You speak of the doubled category. I do not understand, too, but as info: I purged the file pages and also did null edits. So let’s hope this will be fixed in some hours (recently a similar issue lasted for another day). — Speravir – 23:16, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
The problem is still not resolved. Some people work on it... nearly 1000 views for those files! --Io Herodotus (talk) 03:26, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

They had the category within the description, perhaps that is the reason for that. Erechtheum 2 still has its category within the description (I didn't do any edit on it). --Io Herodotus (talk) 11:49, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I fixed this one, and this does not display anymore the category twice. Strange, it is. — Speravir – 01:43, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
No, it's not properly fixed yet, look closely. --Io Herodotus (talk) 03:56, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Regarding the category issue the edit has fixed this! If you did not see this this is or was a caching issue. — Speravir – 23:55, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Categories are written (usually on the bottom) in the file, they can be modified. This not true for this file. --Io Herodotus (talk) 02:51, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Look at that one : Mausoleo !...--Io Herodotus (talk) 16:20, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

(insert) Oh … my … gosh! — Speravir – 23:55, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
See now also #Subcats missing below. — Speravir – 22:34, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
And also this discussion, which is tracked in T247187. --Io Herodotus (talk) 04:54, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Commons:Wikimedia OTRS release generator only has translations for five languages: Belarusian, Farsi/Persian, French, Dutch, and Ukrainian. Can people add some more translations? Thanks! Kaldari (talk) 18:49, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Kaldari How to help on translations? Where I go? Which page? Regards.--SirEdimon (talk) 01:27, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
@SirEdimon: There are two things that need to be translated: The landing page (you have to add translations directly into the page itself), and the generator interface, which involves creating versions of MediaWiki:Relgen.js/text in different languages, for example, MediaWiki:Relgen.js/i18n/uk and MediaWiki:Relgen.js/i18n/fr. If you don't have permission to create MediaWiki pages, you can create them as subpages of your user page and I can move them to the correct title. Kaldari (talk) 02:16, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Kaldari At least, I got to translate the Commons:Wikimedia OTRS release generator to Portuguese (I think I did it right), but it has an issue. I translated the "Start" button ("Iniciar"), but it still appearing in English. I don't know what I did wrong. Regards.--SirEdimon (talk) 04:07, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
@SirEdimon: I think I've fixed the button. Thanks for your help with the translation! Kaldari (talk) 04:22, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Did it for "de". The javascript is in my Userspace:User:Mirer/Relgen-de.js. Since I never used OTRS and this process has some legal implications, the js-file should be re-read (and proof-read) and tested by someone with more knowledge of OTRS and the laws concerned. --Mirer (talk) 04:08, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Ping @Kaldari. — Speravir – 00:22, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I've moved the page to MediaWiki:Relgen.js/i18n/de so it should start working soon. Kaldari (talk) 02:08, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I performed the first step, and I got the text in German. (Das fehlte noch: Danke @Mirer!) — Speravir – 22:25, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Did anyone test it through? I wasn't quite sure about the last three sentences (last step I would suggest), what happens in the process, so the wording might be misleading or stir confusion. --Mirer (talk) 22:42, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Kaldari there need some minor changes to links (to get the german version of help) and the final statement be done. Can you give me access to the page (can be removed afterwards) or are these advanced rights (where some sort of application is needed)? Then I would put in the work and try to explain it on the discussion page. Editing would be much quicker though. --Mirer (talk) 12:15, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
@Mirer: I've temporarily moved the file back to User:Mirer/Relgen-de.js so you can edit it. Kaldari (talk) 14:23, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
@Kaldari: Good idea, this worked fine ... but no big tool-set for me? ;-) You can move the page back, thanks. I'll test it again (expecting no errors this time), but would still suggest that some lawyer/OTRS-member takes a look at the generated texts (especially the ones for the eMails), if they have all the keywords/phrases that a legal text should have. --Mirer (talk) 17:00, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
And a question (since I can't test it, I just copied from the other files, what I suspect would be right): All eMails go to "permissions-de@wikimedia.org", except the one with attachments. They are directed to:"photosubmission@wikimedia.org"
Are these the supposed addresses? If not, feel free to change them in the first lines. Regards. --Mirer (talk) 17:05, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to that question. You would have to ask a German OTRS volunteer. Kaldari (talk) 17:45, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
@Mirer: If the file has already been uploaded to Commons, the copyright holder just needs to send to a permission statement to permissions-de@wikimedia.org.
If the file has not been uploaded to Commons yet, but only attached to the email, the permission statement should be sent to photosubmission-de@wikimedia.org, so that another volunteer can upload the file. Since OTRS agents do not like to play the role of upload service ("customers" can sometimes become too greedy and send file after file), these emails usually take a little longer to be processed. 4nn1l2 (talk) 18:19, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses. @Kaldari and 4nn1l2: Then please change the 2nd eMail-address in the js-file from "photosubmission@wikimedia.org" to "photosubmission-de@wikimedia.org". --Mirer (talk) 23:32, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Done! Kaldari (talk) 23:39, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Kaldari could you have a look at User:MGA73/da.js?
Also in line 57 in the original MediaWiki:Relgen.js/text should there be a "I" in >>"relgen-res-p1s-c1-v1": ", $1, am",<<? --MGA73 (talk) 15:09, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
The answer to the second question is "no", as there is already an "I" in "relgen-res-b1-v1": I hereby affirm that I$1 the creator. That being said, you can make any changes that are suitable for the Danish language grammatically and lexically. 4nn1l2 (talk) 15:49, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
@4nn1l2: oh great! Thank you!. --MGA73 (talk) 16:27, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
@Kaldari: I made a Vietnamese translation here MediaWiki talk:Relgen.js/i18n/vi, if everything is ok, please put in to the interface page :^) Btw, Vietnamese language don't have (yet) their own photosubmission queue, so I keep the original queue. --minhhuy (talk) 14:50, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
@Trần Nguyễn Minh Huy: Thanks! I've put it into place. Kaldari (talk) 21:36, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
@Kaldari: Hello, I just found out an error of translation, please REPLACE "relgen-s3-o2-v1": "I sẽ đính kèm tập tin vào thư điện tử", (old line) TO "relgen-s3-o2-v1": "Tôi sẽ đính kèm tập tin vào thư điện tử", (new line). Thank you and sorry for the inconvenience --minhhuy (talk) 03:08, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
Done. Kaldari (talk) 03:21, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
Hi Kaldari I've sent you a message related to this matter. Regards.--SirEdimon Dimmi!!! 04:42, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
I volunteer to work on Spanish and Chinese. -- King of ♥ 21:52, 8 May 2020 (UTC) ✓ Done King of ♥ 14:43, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Kaldari I made the Danish translation User:MGA73/da.js some time ago per above. Did you miss that message? Or do you just like the Vietnamese and Indonesian more? Lol. Anyway I poked a few wikis and I'm happy it worked :-) and I see someone else is pulling strings too as more languages are showing up! Yay! I can poke some more wikis later if you give me a ping. --MGA73 (talk) 09:03, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
✓ Done: MediaWiki:Relgen.js/i18n/da. I removed one space in relgen-res-b1-v1. -- King of ♥ 14:43, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Are rubbings of coins creative enough to be copyrighted?

The author of this file (Eduardo Toda y Güell) published this in Shanghai in the year 1882 and later died in the year 1941, because of this this file is now in the public domain.

As far as I can tell copyright © exists to protect works that are creative enough to not be considered derivative works or only simple geometrical shapes.

Coin rubbings are an odd question, at the top image the author of this file (Eduardo Toda y Güell) published it in the treaty port city of Shanghai in the year 1882 and later died in the year 1941, because of this this file is now in the public domain. But there is more to that, first (1st) of all this image is clearly a creative work of a Đinh Dynasty cash coin which had existed in the years 968–980. Second of all even if it were a more recent cash coin (the last ones circulated until the 1940's) the design of these coins are only simple geometric shapes and Traditional Chinese characters, I honestly wonder how creative the original Vietnamese design by itself is. Of course, in Mainland China (the People's Republic of China) Chinese calligraphy can be copyrighted if a letter is written in a creative enough manner, so this is a separate question.

But the main question is, are 2D derivative works of 3D objects (like coins) their own new copyright or not? If someone would draw the design of a copyrighted Euro coin would this be considered a derivative work? And if it is a derivative work, would that mean that if the original design enters the public domain that all derived works would also enter the public domain if they don't sufficiently add any creative differences?

Additional arguments as to why coin rubbings might or might not be copyrighted:

  • A photograph is technically a 2D (Two-D) made of 3D (Three-D) a coin rubbing is essentially "a photograph" of a coin. While I would argue that a rubbing is nothing more than the original design of the coin, an exact sketch of a coin would also be viewed as having a new copyright, right? As it's a drawing of a 3D object.

--Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 20:48, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I would hesitate to declare a general rule before I see more examples, but probably in most cases (as in this one) stamping is not an activity that involves any creative input and hence does not attract new copyright. -- King of 21:16, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
While searching I found multiple methods to make coin rubbings such as this (from Crayola) and this (from eHow). I also saw an article linked by Dr. Helen Wang which I can no longer find how the above example was (likely) made and there seem to be multiple methods. I am asking it here to get consensus and more input. If it's not creative enough "{{PD-coin rubbing}}" could be created, but I'm not convinced either way.
My largest concern as to why I don't think these are automatically free if the original design is in the public domain is because of scans, as scans are 2D photographs of 3D coins they receive new copyright. Are rubbings just a 2D representation of a 2D design that was engraved into a 3D object, or are they a 2D "snapshot" of a 3D object? This differentiation is paramount to determine their legal status. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 08:36, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Actual photographs of 3D objects are copyrightable because of the different angles and lighting you can choose. Even if there aren't different angles (e.g. for a coin), the lighting can still vary. But scans are not copyrightable. Any derivative of a flat 3D work with only one degree of freedom (namely, choosing the obverse or the reverse; even the rotation is typically fixed) is not copyrightable IMO. -- King of 17:11, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
@King of Hearts: As a specific case study, let's look at "http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php?topic=9652.0". These images are from a still copyrighted book, by themselves the shapes are simple and the text is just normal Manchu text, these designs are all centuries old. But the book is of recent publication. So would these images also be copyrighted? --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 11:56, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
No, in my opinion. In fact, they would not be copyrighted even if 1) the shapes were complicated, so long as they were old; or 2) the designs were modern, so long as they were simple. But do note that calligraphy is copyrightable in China, so I wouldn't rely on that. -- King of 12:37, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
@King of Hearts: , well, is an exact reproduction of a thousand year old character copyrightable? Calligraphy has to be original. But then again it's not unheard of for an illustrator to use their own handwriting, but that wouldn't be a rubbing. Is this village pump even the right village pump to discuss these or is this better asked in the copyright © village pump? I posted it here because more people browse this one. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 20:54, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
If you make a modern copy of the Mona Lisa, it is generally copyrightable. In fact, the closer you get to reproducing the original exactly, the less likely your new work will attract copyright. Definitely a VPC question, which is why I was surprised it showed up here. -- King of 21:00, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
A similar discussion from the past: Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2009/05#Copyright_status_of_rubbings?. To summarize, rubbing is purely a mechanical copy that does not yield new copyrights. The 2D/3D distinction only really applies to photography. {{PD-Art}} may be used in this case. --Wcam (talk) 13:06, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
@Wcam: , why I started this discussion was to get enough clarification, so in the case that this isn't new copyright © a new "{{PD-coin rubbing}}" can be created that clearly defines the rules which files do and don't fall under it. Then I'll add it to "Commons:Currency" as a copyright exception. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 05:38, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I made this concept template:

Public domain
This file is a rubbing of a coin of which its design is otherwise not restricted by copyright. The file is not sufficiently different enough from its original design to create new copyright.

Please only use this template if the following conditions are met:

  • The file is a mere rubbing of the coin and not a handmade illustration or a scan.
  • The design of the coin itself is not copyrighted, please see Commons:Currency for its copyright status.
  • The rubbing has not been sufficiently alerted to generate new copyright, such as by colouring it in using intricate graphic designs.

You must also include a United States public domain tag to indicate why this work is in the public domain in the United States.
This file has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.


This template will categorize into Category:PD Coin rubbing.

{{Documentation}}

Coin rubbing


--Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 07:31, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

The language looks good to me. Maybe it could be designed similar to {{PD-Art}} where a PD template specifying the reason for PD for the underlying work can be wrapped inside? --Wcam (talk) 12:28, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
That is really specific and I'd prefer a more general reason like "This is a 2D representation of a 3D object produced using an entirely mechanical method with no creative input." -- King of ♥ 13:00, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Public domain
This file is a rubbing of a coin of which its design is otherwise not restricted by copyright. This is a 2D representation of a 3D object produced using an entirely mechanical method with no creative input.

Please only use this template if the following conditions are met:

  • The file is a mere rubbing of the coin and not a handmade illustration or a scan.
  • The design of the coin itself is not copyrighted, please see Commons:Currency for its copyright status.
  • The rubbing has not been sufficiently alerted to generate new copyright, such as by colouring it in using intricate graphic designs.

You must also include a United States public domain tag to indicate why this work is in the public domain in the United States.
This file has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.


This template will categorize into Category:PD Coin rubbing.

{{Documentation}}

Coin rubbing


@Wcam and King of Hearts: Is this a better version? I think that a warning with examples of what is not a PD-coin rubbing to avoid copyright © violations being accidentally uploaded with the template by explaining clear rules. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 06:25, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

What I meant was, actually, a general template for any kind of mechanical 2D representation of a 3D object, not limited to coin rubbings. -- King of ♥ 06:28, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Ah, that's understandable, but more specific templates can contain vetter rules and guidelines for people inexperienced with the type of content, but I agree that a "{{PD-rubbing}}" template should be created. I will leave the links red for now as I do not prefer to create extra work for anyone, yet.
Additionally, more specific templates also add the images to more specific categories, as people more specialised in certain types of copyright can patrol these categories more easily. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 19:34, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
OK, makes sense, go ahead. I would make the language flow a bit better: "As an entirely mechanical two-dimensional reproduction of a three-dimensional object produced with no creative input, there is no residual copyright in the reproduction." Also, I would make it a wrapper in the {{PD-Art}} family (e.g. {{PD-scan}}) as opposed to a PD template in and of itself, because we still need a rationale on why the coin is public domain. -- King of ♥ 01:20, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Template launched, let's continue the discussion further at "Template talk:PD-coin rubbing", I will upload a few "test cases" later. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 11:51, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Mysterious category

On those files :Parthenon 1, Parthenon 2, Parthenon 3, category "North-East view of the Parthenon" is mysterious to me. If it is inquired on the file, it appears twice (which does not interfere with the tag which normally prohibits that); if it's not inquired, it still appears and I don't know where this information comes from. --Io Herodotus (talk) 04:36, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

You speak of the doubled category. I do not understand, too, but as info: I purged the file pages and also did null edits. So let’s hope this will be fixed in some hours (recently a similar issue lasted for another day). — Speravir – 23:16, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
The problem is still not resolved. Some people work on it... nearly 1000 views for those files! --Io Herodotus (talk) 03:26, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

They had the category within the description, perhaps that is the reason for that. Erechtheum 2 still has its category within the description (I didn't do any edit on it). --Io Herodotus (talk) 11:49, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I fixed this one, and this does not display anymore the category twice. Strange, it is. — Speravir – 01:43, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
No, it's not properly fixed yet, look closely. --Io Herodotus (talk) 03:56, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Regarding the category issue the edit has fixed this! If you did not see this this is or was a caching issue. — Speravir – 23:55, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Categories are written (usually on the bottom) in the file, they can be modified. This not true for this file. --Io Herodotus (talk) 02:51, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Look at that one : Mausoleo !...--Io Herodotus (talk) 16:20, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

(insert) Oh … my … gosh! — Speravir – 23:55, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
See now also #Subcats missing below. — Speravir – 22:34, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
And also this discussion, which is tracked in T247187. --Io Herodotus (talk) 04:54, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Impossible to connect to Phabricator. "You must verify your email address to log in" nothing there. --Io Herodotus (talk) 02:22, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Conclusion: At the creation of a file on commons wikimedia, if the category is inquired within the description, this creates a bug which is yet impossible to fix (hoping someone will resolve the problem). --Io Herodotus (talk) 10:37, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
  • The problem seems to be nearly solved. If the category is inquired within the description, this no longer creates a bug, (I tried tried it). The files I have mentioned may be modified... except that one : Erechtheum 3, impossible to remove "Category:Eastern side of the Erechtheum". --Io Herodotus (talk) 03:31, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Mysterious categories

On those files :Parthenon 1, Parthenon 2, Parthenon 3, category "North-East view of the Parthenon" is mysterious to me. If it is inquired on the file, it appears twice (which does not interfere with the tag which normally prohibits that); if it's not inquired, it still appears and I don't know where this information comes from. --Io Herodotus (talk) 04:36, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

You speak of the doubled category. I do not understand, too, but as info: I purged the file pages and also did null edits. So let’s hope this will be fixed in some hours (recently a similar issue lasted for another day). — Speravir – 23:16, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
The problem is still not resolved. Some people work on it... nearly 1000 views for those files! --Io Herodotus (talk) 03:26, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

They had the category within the description, perhaps that is the reason for that. Erechtheum 2 still has its category within the description (I didn't do any edit on it). --Io Herodotus (talk) 11:49, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I fixed this one, and this does not display anymore the category twice. Strange, it is. — Speravir – 01:43, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
No, it's not properly fixed yet, look closely. --Io Herodotus (talk) 03:56, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Regarding the category issue the edit has fixed this! If you did not see this this is or was a caching issue. — Speravir – 23:55, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Categories are written (usually on the bottom) in the file, they can be modified. This not true for this file. --Io Herodotus (talk) 02:51, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Look at that one : Mausoleo !...--Io Herodotus (talk) 16:20, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

(insert) Oh … my … gosh! — Speravir – 23:55, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
See now also #Subcats missing below. — Speravir – 22:34, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
And also this discussion, which is tracked in T247187. --Io Herodotus (talk) 04:54, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Impossible to connect to Phabricator. "You must verify your email address to log in" nothing there. --Io Herodotus (talk) 02:22, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Conclusion: At the creation of a file on commons wikimedia, if the category is inquired within the description, this creates a bug which is yet impossible to fix (hoping someone will resolve the problem). --Io Herodotus (talk) 10:37, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
  • The problem seems to be nearly solved. If the category is inquired within the description, this no longer creates a bug, (I tried tried it). The files I have mentioned may be modified... except that one : Erechtheum 3, impossible to remove "Category:Eastern side of the Erechtheum". --Io Herodotus (talk) 03:31, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
  • The problem was solved a while ago, but it came back. For instance Mausoleo has no categories within the file, but they are still shown for some unknown reason. --Io Herodotus (talk) 04:01, 16 June 2020 (UTC)