This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
How do I create new categories for images I upload? For example I want to create the categories: Naval Support Activity Danang and Danang during the Vietnam War thanks Mztourist (talk) 08:42, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
This afternoon good old Pattypan does not allow logging in or on - so African photos have to wait - while for instance UploadWizard does. Something gone awry, i do something wrong? Thanks a lot, Hansmuller (talk) 15:56, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
Still a problem from another town. Can someone please repair this? Is it a setting of a user flag for pattypan users, or simply a general outage of pattypan? Thank you, Hansmuller (talk) 18:49, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
Can we have a space on Commons to request queries? Where could it live?
Hi all
Since we now have a Commons query service partially working can we have a page on Commons to request queries like there is on Wikidata? Its really helpful for muggles like me. I'm happy to create a new page but not sure the best place to put it or how to set up page archiving etc.
Good idea. I think The Powers That Be don't always realize that SPARQL is a foreign language not written nor understood by most humans of any language. "Just make a query" is like saying "just learn Dutch" or "just build a car". --Animalparty (talk) 16:33, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
Thanks very much Animalparty, I'll make a start on one and someone can improve it if they'd like. Yes I very much agree on assumed knowledge of technical tools, often it feels to me as if it is as easy as:
Honestly each times I made a request regarding Commons query service at Wikidata:Request a query I always had quick and useful answers by very competent people; The principle to have a page on Commons to request queries is good but I'm afraid the expert audience would be smaller here. On the other hand, I don't have a clear and strong opinion, and even with such a page here, nothing will prevent those who wish to go make a query request in Wikidata. Christian Ferrer(talk)19:59, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
@Ox1997cow: The cat redirect you have already done looks more correct to me than the deletion you are requesting, but if you really want it deleted, just nominate it for deletion like any other page; please don't bring simple deletion requests to the Village pump. - Jmabel ! talk15:02, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --RZuo (talk) 20:59, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Help with the name of a lighthouse in Racine, Wisconsin?
Hello,
Does anyone know the name of this lighthouse? The best I could do was this: Category:Racine North Breakwater but I know it must have a name.
@Pi.1415926535 and DMacks: Thank you both very much. I think I'll just leave it as is and let some lighthouse people in Wisconsin deal with it. Is it within the rules to put those two links you provided on the discussion page of the image category? I've been told in another case it is not, but to me it seems like it would be helpful. Thanks again, Krok6kola (talk) 22:14, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
About two weeks ago, the Call for Feedback: Community Board seats came to an end. For six weeks, the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees engaged in conversations with communities to explore ways to hold the next Board elections.
A wide range of opinions was gathered through 99 rounds of discussion and hundreds of contributions on discussion pages, resulting in the final report. After two weeks of community review, this report has now been delivered to the Board.
And a new phase of the facilitation team's work begins - supporting the Elections Committee in the preparation of elections. One thing is certain: as only about 10 percent of all eligible voters participated in the 2015 and 2017 elections, one goal is to significantly increase voter turnout. More voters are the way to go. And working with the communities in this is a priority - further details will follow soon. DBarthel (WMF) (talk) 21:45, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
Wrong written filenames
There is a disput between two users whether filenames should be renamed.
The uploader of the pictures User:Rosenzweig states that everything is fine and no changing is necessary.
Sarang sees that otherwise, and no consent had been found.
The example highlighting what is talked about is the category Löwenstein. Löwenstein is a German town.
The German language uses the three 'umlaut' vowels ä, ö and ü, and the ligature ß.
Some German names, geographical names and surnames, are written in correct German with these characters,
e.g. Bärnau, Österreich, München, Weiß.
In previuous centuries, in early computing times and in foreign languages 'umlauts' had sometimes been substitutet
by the "main" vowel a, u, o and a following e, accepting that it is in fact a falsification.
When different possibilities exist to write a name, either different things are designated, or one of it is wrong:
- Goethe written otherwise, e.g. with 'ö', may mean something else but is wrong for the poet
- Öhringen written with 'oe' is wrong for the town
- Güglingen written with 'ue' is wrong for the town
- Lœwenstein written with 'oe' or 'ö' is wrong for the castle
- Löwenstein written with 'oe' is wrong for the town
In my opinion it matters whether a name is written as it should be, or in a wrong way
I plea to rename/move bad written file names to the only correct spelling; other users believe that it does not matter. They want to keep the wrong name – which causes regularly a discrepancy between the file name and the name used in the file description.
Because talk between users brought no consent we are asking at this place: what is better, e.g.
The question is: should misspelled file names, whether in German or not, be corrected with file moves? Or should an obviously wrong name, used by the uploader, be kept forever?
A wider discussion by the community might be helpful. Thank you for your participation -- sarang♥사랑06:50, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
The actual question is: Are those file names misspelled? I say they're not, they just use an alternative spelling that can be used in the German language under certain circumstances. One of them being file names, to prevent possible problems when those files are written to file systems using different character encodings (which is probably less relevant these days because of the widespread use of Unicode, but still). Native speakers of German will most likely know about this alternative spelling, speakers of other languages probably not. --Rosenzweigτ07:45, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
PS: Just how many files are we talking about here? Probably a lot, AFAIK it's not just me who has uploaded files with file names like these. Is it really necessary to move all those files and have bots correct all instances of files in use somewhere? --Rosenzweigτ07:50, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
These cases are definitely covered by renaming criterion 3. But this means the files can be renamed but do not have to. As files should become moved as less as possible I would not rename such cases unless they can lead to ambiguous names. --GPSLeo (talk) 08:24, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
IMHO. Information in the description and filename should be coherent (same). Dominant writing (local>foreign) should be dominant. Most of these town files are lowly if ever used in wikipedias, renaming seems ok to me. Yug(talk)16:43, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
OBDA: Goethe signed sometimes as Goethe, sometimes as Göthe (and he should know as the most significant author of german origin) --C.Suthorn (talk) 09:09, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
It might be a good policy to require correct orthography for categories, but there is no requirement that filenames stick to a particular orthography. Also, where a vowel with umlaut exists as a category name, it's a good idea to have at least a soft redirect from the "ae" / "oe" / "ue" spelling so that it can sanely be typed on non-German keyboards. - Jmabel ! talk13:41, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
Using Steganography to hide information that do not meet the scope of this website
I found a similar discussion here but the stenography mentioned there is just a highly inefficient an easily detectable. Hiding information using tools such as steghide is encrypted and almost impossible to detect and doesn't affect the quality or file size of the image. example
Is it against the rules? Are we allowed to do that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by VicFic2006 (talk • contribs) 16:29, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
I don't think we have a rule against encrypted content within an image, as long as the encrypted content doe not violate our rules (copyright violations; personal attacks; etc.) - Jmabel ! talk18:38, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure I entirely understand what is going on here, but on a philosophical level, having content that is not freely and openly displayed seems contrary to Commons core mission. That being said, the example cited seems to have been uploaded just to demonstrate how this works. Are there other images doing this for other reasons? Beeblebrox (talk) 18:59, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
I don't know. But considering the large number of media files hosted here and ease of use of these stenography tools, thousands of images, audio files, etc may already have some information hidden in them. Wikimedia Commons is the best place to upload these types of images because unlike other image uploading websites, Commons keep the original raw file without any compression. This method can be used by hackers giving instructions to botnets, pirates sharing copyrighted content(eg. links to download movies), international terrorists communicating with each other, Authors applying non-visible watermarks etc. And again, since the hidden files are encrypted, there is no way we can tell what is hidden. VicFic2006 (talk) 03:51, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
JudgeFloro ist mit Abstand der produktiveste Hochlader von eigenen Bildern (1,277,000). Nachdem sich einige Bilder DRs wegen FoPP eingefangen haben, hat er eine permanente Wikipause auf seiner Userseite verkündet.
Nun ist JFVelasquez Floro aufgetaucht und macht mit derselben Kamera Bilder vom selben Sujet. Schon über 7.000. Bei der Geschwindigkeit dürfte er den Judge bald überholen.
Beide Serien enthalten aber auch Bilder, die wohl ebenfalls wegen FoP konfligieren, auch wenn sie nicht in Gebäudekats kategorisieren. Und immer wieder gibt es auch Bilder von Kindern, wo ich nicht glaube, dass die Eltern um Zustimmung gefragt wurden. Aber vielleicht ist das in P ja ok.
Thank you again for participating in the UCoC enforcement consultation on Commons and other projects. The results of those consultations will be published next week. Meanwhile, you might have noticed that new conversations on UCoC enforcement have begun.
Please note that this upcoming consultation does not override the robust discussions that we already had in February. The main purpose of this next step is to expand the discussions beyond the communities (like ours) that have already been consulted. However, please feel free to still contribute additional thoughts in this meta consultation as well, if you'd like to.
For those who aren't tracking closely, UCoC = "Universal Code of Conduct". @Wikitanvir (WMF): may I suggest that when posting about WMF matters on wikis other than 'meta' or other such, you spell things out on first mention? - Jmabel ! talk19:03, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
I agree, if we can have a page here, that will be helpful. Once we have it, we can undo my changes. Until then, English wiki redirect seems to be a good intermediate solution. --Sreejith K (talk) 19:09, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
@C.Suthorn: I still can't make head or tail of what you want here. "Trörö" means nothing to me; I have no idea why you are linking these partiuclar deleted files. What do you want done or discussed? Please remember that the "Village pump" is intended to centralize discussions of broad interest. It is not the place to make cryptic remarks. (It's also not really the best place to do something specifically in German ir you are not trying to reach out more broadly, that's why Commons:Forum exists.) - Jmabel ! talk05:20, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
Ich bin bei Commons um eigene Medien bereitzustellen. Andere kümmern sich um anderes, beispielsweise um die Entsorgung von ungewünschtem Material. Das ist nicht meine Sache. Über Hursh bin ich zufällig gestolpert, weil es einen DR gegen einige seiner ersten Uploads gab. Dem habe ich mehrfach DRs gegen weitere seiner Uploads angefügt (was wie gesagt nicht meine Sache bei Commons ist). Und irgendwann habe ich geschrieben, das ich keine weiteren DRs in Bezug auf Hursh stellen werde. M.E. könnten auch alle Uploads von Hursh behalten oder wiederhergestellt werden. Das ganze ist ein massives fail der Vandalismus-Bekämpfung hier. Entweder hätte Hursh von einem Mentor aufgefangen werden müssen (allerdings besser in der en.wp als hier) - was aber wohl gescheitert wäre, weil er auf seiner talk-seite ja auch nicht reagiert, sondern immer nur - mit den identischen Dateinamen - bereits gelöschte oder auch neue Bilder hochlädt. Aber wenn man ihm nicht helfen kann oder will, dann hätten diese Dateinamen längst protected sein müssen (das ist dank user:Billinghurst nun bei einem (*1*!) der Fall) oder der User und seine mir unbekannte Anzahl an Neben-Accounts gesperrt. Aber wie gesagt, dass ist nicht meine Sache hier. Ich erstelle Medien und stelle sie hier zur Verfügung. Und dabei werde ich immer wieder behindert: Durch den kaputten Upload-Wizard, durch User die unsinnige Umkategorisierungen machen, durch übergriffige Admins. Die Werkzeuge, die hier angeboten werden, werden mutwillig gegen die User eingesetzt: Meine tasks zum Upload-Wizard auf phab werden bestenfalls nicht aufgegriffen. Hier könnte ich mir extra-Arbeit machen, indem ich Beweise zusammenstelle, dass verschiedene Accoungs Socken von Hursh sind - aber ich habe die Tools dafür nicht installiert und ich will das auch nicht. Ich erstelle Medien und stelle die hier bereit. Und andere, die hier keine Medien machen, sondern sich um sowas wie Hursh oder einen funktionierenden Uploadwizard kümmern, sollen das bitte machen. Aber zum Beispiel bei Hursch funktioniert es nicht: Weder hat er Unterstützung erhalten, noch wurde er geblockt. Wären seine Uploads nicht immer noch auf meiner Beo, würde er einfach weiter hochladen, bis dann jahre später doch mal jemand aufräumt. Das geht besser. Und Trörö ist der Ausruf von Benjamin Blümchen. --C.Suthorn (talk) 07:08, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
@C.Suthorn: What issues are you having with the upload wizard? I am a bit of a dinosaur, and still can use the old basic upload form with a completed {{Information}} template, see Commons:Upload.
With regard to the problem visitor that you identify, sometimes we win with these users, sometimes we don't; we are volunteers, and we do our best as administrators, though it is a place which is busy, and some of us do edits at multiple places. If a user is truly here to participate they will get their help, and remember that mentoring can be done by any knowledgeable user, not just administrators. — billinghurstsDrewth07:32, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
@Billinghurst: Personally I have no longer an issue with the UW - I no longer use it (but an external tool). OTOH I have an issue with the UW. I do a lot of photographing at demos and events and from time to time people ask me, why I am taking photos. In the past I used this situations to try to convince others to also contribute to Commons. The UW is such a significant problem, that I hesitate to try to convince people to contribute. You can of course upload a single file with the old form (if you know, what you are doing), and uploading a single file with the UW will work most of the time. But the more files you upload, the more the faults of the UW become visible. For four years the UW has very basic errors that are not addressed, while new features are added (i.e. SDC related features). A really big problem is, that the UW in most cases gives an error of "The upload failed" - if at least there was an error-case-id attached, that a tech savvy person could report to developers. but not even that. If you report at phab, you are asked for steps to recreate. But you cannot: Errors happen from time to time but are not replicatable. The only way developers could replicate this errors, was, if developers themselves would upload thousends of files (and probably not on a test system, but on the commons prodution site). The UW is the one most important part of commons: If a newbie tries to upload a file, and fails because of the UW, commons probably looses a file that is unique and would be needed for WM-sites, looses a contributer for only a technical glitch and creates one more critic of wikipedia who will tell all his peers, what an unfriendly place wikipedia is. --C.Suthorn (talk) 10:28, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
All we can do is advocate, and use the wishlist and phabricator. I know that there are projects out there looking to make things work better, things like phab:T267868, beyond that though many would know more about future developments. I just plod along, and I am not a large uploader of personal stuff. — billinghurstsDrewth10:40, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
(Edit conflict). I personally prefer the MediaWiki Upload Wizard, but unfortunately error messages are kept as minimalistic as possible, so there is very little sense in reporting it and when these errors affect other users I often see others also complain. Unfortunately it's a common trend on the internet to just say "Error, magical people (wizards)/monkeys/dinosaurs are working on it" (depending on the company) and less technical information is shared with users. Is there a way how we can tell the developers to include full error messages and / or error reports? This should apply to every technical error on Wikimedia websites by the way. What's worse is that the MediaWiki Upload Wizard has no "Feedback" or "Report an issue" button. Over the years I've wondered why Wikimedia Commons has trouble attracting large scale GLAM donations and contributors that wish to donate their collections of highly educationally valuable things in the public domain. Well, it's partially because of a user-unfriendly GUI and system, Wikimedia Commons is too old to write it off as "new mistakes to be learned from". Last month there were calls for a "General feedback" page but it is clear that the only people this system wants to attract are the people that are already in it. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 10:49, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
If you are calling someone out with a username, please use {{Ping}}, {{Re}} etc., not a username as plain Wikitext. But, really, if you are starting a section by calling someone out with a username, and not providing any context, it's a pretty strong indication that this belongs on their user talk page, not on the Village pump. Remember, it's not like most people reading this page have ever heard of Hursh/Hursch. Or Trörö.- Jmabel ! talk12:54, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
This image has been fully protected, and I have no idea why, or who, decided this was necessary. I asked questions about it, that keep unanswered for the whole day. Can someone at least tell me why I'm blocked from improving this image descriptions? Edoderoo (talk) 16:38, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
@Edoderoo: It is cascade protected because it is slated for German Wikipedia's main page, probably tomorrow. What improvements did you want to make to the image descriptions? — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me16:50, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
I don't understand the *full* protection of an image, only because the Germans want to have it on their main page? If it was semi-protected, ok. Now it is featured, but not to get it improved. It's not important what I wanted to improve on the image, it's silly that only admins are allowed to change it right now, for no more reason then "it's on the main page". Edoderoo (talk) 18:33, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
@Edoderoo: I can change it now. Again, what improvements did you want to make to the image descriptions? As a bit of history, before this cascading protection system was implemented, certain unsavory elements could and did use Commons to change the files that were live on other projects' main pages (or the next day's planned main pages), thereby vandalizing those pages live. Commons provides this cascading protection system to ensure the visual stability of those pages as a courtesy to those projects, their readers, and their reputations. I'm sorry if that inconvenienced you for a couple of days. — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me01:06, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Errors on Video Transcode on Upload
Last couple of videos I've uploaded (e.g. 3 Apr 21 and 6 Apr 21) the transcode system has been reporting errors on quite a few of the "versions". I tend to bookmark the video page and check the process later/next day, spot the errors and reset and they then go through OK (or need a 3rd reset and go through OK). Only some of the versions fail, others complete fine 1st time. I'm uploading VP9 1080P format (.webm file) through the standard "upload file" mechanism (i.e. NOT through video2Commons or anything). I don't know if it's a passing glitch, if the "Error" transcodes restart themselves again automatically or what happens. Also uncertain if having noticed something I should report it to somebody? PsamatheM (talk) 15:50, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
As long as the transcode succeeds in the end there is no error on your side. A timing problem on the server side may cause it, but chances to find out and have it fixed are very small. VP9 is the best choice, FulHD should not be problematic. But video support at MW is poor (and may even be meant to be so, as it is complicated to check videos for copyvios -> the less videos are uploaded, the less may be copyvios...) --C.Suthorn (talk) 17:09, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
Interview with Congressional candidate Adrian Mizher.J. J. Liu
. This seems to show up with zero height when I view it in Firefox (87.0 (64-bit)) and Brave (1.22.71 Chromium: 89.0.4389.114 (Official Build)). I tried on enwn, enwp as well as commons and the issue persists. Is it somehow mediawiki's problem? Acagastya (talk) 05:31, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
@JJLiu112: -- no, this seems to be a problem on various wikis -- other audio files like the one below seems to be displayed correctly.(Part I) Interview between Wikinews reporter J.J. Liu and the office of Congressional candidate Daryl Eddings.J. J. Liu. If the height of the first audio box is 0, one can't make full use of it. Acagastya (talk) 17:10, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
When will the Commons Query Service run live off Commons?
Hi all
Can anyone tell me if the Commons Query Service which runs off a dump (Commons:SPARQL_query_service) will start to take data straight from Commons instead? I would really like to run some events playing around with the data with GLAM staff but it won't really work if its running off a dump.
As most of you are aware, the only way images can be categorized is by human beings. The only way assigned cats can be confirmed as correct is by the human eye. There are still limitations on the accuracy of machine learning in that regard.
In short we need people to categorise images. If we had a problem it was people were inadequately catting items and therefore hiding them away from sight. Example taking an historical image (containing whatever) and assigning it to one cat only; say 1842 in Brooklyn.
However the growing sophistication of the system is railing against involvement by humans. It used to be, that every image displayed the cats assigned to it on its own individual page. So for a modern ship, all the relevant information could be readily seen in one place, without drilling down or up. I got shot down for complaining about important high level cats like, the owner museum or collection name or the Ships by name listing, being made into hidden cats. Then my concerns about cats being deleted, because they were to be found within wikidata was brushed aside.
Now I'm to discover a new way of hiding cats away from the main image. Not sure of how to describe this, but I'll have a go. I came across a modern ship's main cat. A bot had deleted, a cat telling me the ship had been built in Germany. It took a while for me to realize, that information was already attached as a cat to the IMO number cat. Every modern ship has a unique number assigned to it, that is the IMO hull number. There is a cat for this number, however not every IMO number cat has been catted to the shipyard name. Not every ship has had its IMO number added to it. Therefore if a shipyard name is missing on the main cat, you are obliged to look elsewhere (within the IMO cat) to ascertain if it has been assigned or not.
As a result to ascertain if a ship is fully catted, you now have to have at least 3 pages open to compare; 4 if you include Wikipedia.
Obviously Wikidata in future will in time include for the IMO number and or the yard name in future. Currently the Wikidata page's content is fairly skimpy, and not user friendly.
To properly cat a ship now is becoming far too complicated.
Never mind the old style problems that remain with us. Only recently I discovered images containing named ships, previously hidden away in a cat called Oil painting in country X by year only to discover the six files in it had been divided into oil paintings on canvas by year x (3) and oil paintings on board by year x (3). That's a different problem, one of OCD filing, where the question of by assigning this cat am I going to hide this file away from sight or not, and if I am, how am I going to rectify that is never asked.
This IMO system is not very appealing for me either, since it leads to categories just filled with numbers, like Category:Ships built at Sietas Werft. However, it's actually nothing new, and has been done this way in Commons for years. I'd say it's probably impossible to change at this point, since it's the status quo, and so much work has been put into it. --ghouston (talk) 21:14, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
Yes, introducing the IMO category is both a good thing (collecting instances of the same ship under different names) and an absolutely terrible thing. There is little consistency regarding which categories should go in the IMO category and the ship name category. To a degree, the same applies with the various aircraft/serial number/registration/construction code categories. — Huntster (t@c)22:00, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
@Broichmore: I can make no sense of "the growing sophistication of the system is railing against involvement by humans". "Railing" basically means "speaking angrily and at length". I don't see how "sophistication" can "rail". What are you trying to say here? - Jmabel ! talk00:30, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
In fact, I'm having trouble making sense of most of this. Your issue seems to be with a policy decision about how COM:OVERCAT applies to using IMOs, which really has nothing to do with bot vs. human. Am I missing something? - Jmabel ! talk00:34, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
@Jmabel: Yes, wrong word, should have said adversely affecting rather than railing against perhaps. The point I was trying to make, was in summary: can we not go back to the old transparent system, of all the defining cats on one page? Instead of cats or datums being in multiple places? To review a ship (for example) we now need several pages open; the ship cat, the IMO cat, Wikidata, Wikipedia; and perhaps, others, like alternative ship's names for the same hull? Additionally with all of that we need to be aware of hidden cats. Complicated or what! Then of course there is a need for other web pages to be open for sourcing and referencing, something which was always, and always will be the case.
Even with an art picture, we are in competition with wikidata; holding the same info. In the future everything will have a Q number, a cat will have no defining cats, just a Q number. Hardly human friendly.
Still, for wikidata to work it need commons to feed it cats (datums), that's why its important all cats should be left intact and visible (not hidden) in commons on one page. Regarding hidden cats, I reckon against art images (containing historical image data I.E named individual, building or ship), as much as 5 percent are missing the Museum /collection category. Broichmore (talk) 15:15, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
Fundamentally, we should use structured data and no other categories. However, making that transition would be incredibly difficult so we have a mess instead. Elli (talk) 06:38, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
One of the main problems with SDC and Wikidata is that its proponents often stress the “need” to eliminate the category system wholesale as a precondition to that shining future when so-called “structured data” (as if human created categorization was unstructured) will make all our dreams come true. That antagonistic stance was compounded early on with bouts of “bold action” where bots started to run around Commons scraping wikitext to feed Wikidata and then deleting that same wikitext, supposedly to avoid duplication of data (we still have thousands of categories showing wrong geolocation due to that). There have been some more or less successful attempts at stemming the tide (wikitext of old revisions is again accessible, e.g.), but the stated goals, as above, are clear: Commons (and possibly the whole of Wikimedia) «needs to», or «should», be remade as a database report and atomic edits made by humans to that database are to be casual, trivial, and gamified, discouraging “power users” and consistent work, and lionizing an elite of developers as the keyholders of the whole project. And that is of course the antithesis of the whole wiki movement. Adding on top of this the infantile 1970s notion that information retrieval is only a matter of raw search, not of breadcrumbing of indexed info, the even more puerile (1670s?) idea that reality is absolutely classifiable (as opposed to the fuzzy, tentative approach used in Commons categories — the above mentioned “mess”…), and the murky layers of how Wikidata is connected with the shipwrecked from Google’s Knol (before Big Data turned its crosshairs to more profitable endeavours) — and the whole picture is very bleak indeed. I could ask why can’t we all get along: You do SDC, we do cats, some of us do both and kumbaya, but that ship has long sailed away: These insistent calls for the death of manual categorization and wikitext, from both low rank fans and top brass alike, are as unsettling as they are embattling. -- Tuválkin✉✇08:37, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
I sort of get the complaint here but there's enough images with no categories let alone though that undercategorized. Until we have better AI that can identify things like ships, the best bet is human vision to help. Maybe you want to request someone to create a list of images that are solely in a date in location category with nothing else. One of the reasons I think we should try to start some sort of projects thing is to have backlog better organized. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:57, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
As somewhat a response to the long comment Tuválkin wrote above, I largely agree with that sentiment. Personally I am in favour of what is both the most efficient and the most accessible system and the whole drive to eliminate Wikimedia Commons categories isn't the best approach to do that (as far as I can tell). I am personally pro-Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons, but think that its heavy reliance on Wikidata is a major issue if Wikidata itself treats Wikimedia Commons as "the red-haired left-handed step-sister of Wikimedia websites", while it exists for providing structural need for Wikimedia websites, categories on Wikimedia Commons are excluded from this. If an image contains a picture of a Motorokia P-7554 smartphone (fictional example) and some admins on Wikipedia decide to "salt" the article about it or its manufacturer because "it only gets created by spammers" (as is unfortunately common for notable companies due to an overactive fear of paid editors or something) then the Wikimedia Commons image can only have a very unspecific "smartphones" file depict. Now, theoretically Wikidata has its own notability standards independent (and lower) than a Wikipedia's, but finding such data isn't immediately clear to everyone without much experience working with Wikidata and in practice people often take Wikipedia's "spam-hunting" efforts at face value. Combine that with the fact that other people simply don't want to emulate the already functional Wikimedia Commons category system in the Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons software and you get two parallel identification systems that "cannot talk to each other". Personally I would like to see every Wikimedia Commons category on Wikidata and then users can add more information on Wikidata to be displayed on Wikimedia Commons through infoboxes, but in reality rather than utilising years of volunteer work in the new system, it wants to start from a much less developed point shooting itself in the foot. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 12:54, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
Regarding the original post, the solution would be if alternative names for the same subject exists then these could be listed on Wikidata, then a bot could create redirects (this could also be utilised for creating categories in a different language or for synonyms), and a "common name" could be used for the main category. Diffusion is a necessary part to the category system as it's also difficult to find images if they are being "drowned" in "a sea of files". The best solution would probably be to technically tweak the visibility to improve searchability. For example "a show all" function where you can choose to see all files in a category and all of its sub-categories. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 13:02, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
Wikidata is a different and seperate project, running in parallel with commons. I don't see a problem with commons retaining all of its original assigned categories, and the Wikidata infobox.
Both projects can carry the same data concurrently.
In actual fact, they will never be exactly the same, Wikidata is always in a catch up situation with commons.
We should revert all the deleted cats in commons, that is all the cats deleted and duplicated by by wikidata.
I feel Wikidata is of valuable use to search engines, including ours, but at the end of the day it's a scraper, and will never be user friendly to humans, and this will only get worse the more cats it takes from commons. Take (as an example) Category:Robert of Palatinate-Simmern, Duke of Cumberland. Then take a look at [it's wikidata page.]. I would say, that when all the cats are deleted from Rupert, and put solely into the Wikidata page, then that page will be so crowded that it will be unmanageable.
Why the Riupert cats name was changed is beyond me, but that a different topic.
That by the way is the point I'm trying to make here. We need to be in parallel and separate from Wikidata. Not replaced by it. Broichmore (talk) 13:10, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Is there a tool for this: getting categories from a linked article
Hello -- I mainly do work on English Wikipedia but lately I've been slowly uploading some public domain portraits from the Library of Congress. I am using the upload wizard which I like just fine. However, I find adding categories to be cumbersome and I was wondering if there is a tool that can say "Import the categories from the article about this person" in some way, if not upon uploading, then at a later time? Here's an example image. The article has 13 categories. It would be neat if there were a way to view these all and select which ones would also apply to the image (often, most of them). I didn't want to look into doing this if such a tool existed already. Thanks for any help or pointers. Jessamyn (talk) 23:33, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
@Animalparty: Thanks for the pointer. Looks like there is an image I uploaded and then you uploaded a larger higher quality image (hooray). All the ones I've been uploading, save a few, weren't already uploaded afaict. Jessamyn (talk) 14:44, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Is FormWizard installed on Commons?
Hi all
How do I find out if FormWizard is installed on Commons? If it isn't what is the process of requesting it is installed? I'd really love to use it for some documentation I'm working on, its proved really useful when I've used it on Wikidata and English Wikipedia previously.
@John Cummings: We have very few wiki pages as such, so I doubt it. I'd suggest just copying & stripping down an existing page of similar nature (whether on Commons or elsewhere) as a template. - Jmabel ! talk14:46, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
Thanks Jmabel do you know if there is a page where I can which extensions are installed? I've looked at using a template and I don't think it will work for what I want to do. John Cummings (talk) 17:27, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
Thanks very much Rubin16, looks like its not currently installed, do you know what the process is of requesting it is installed? Not sure if this makes a difference but its a WMF maintained extension already installed on several Wikimedia projects. John Cummings (talk) 19:10, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
Google image search used to let us restrict searches to "free" images, and now no longer provides this option.
On the initial search results page google returned for an image search, google allowed users to tune their search by usage rights. For several years the usage rights included restricting searches solely to images we consider "free".
This was a very useful option for those of us who upload free images here. This option seemed to work quite well.
Sometime recently that useful feature has been deprecated, giving users fewer choices - just three choices in fact: "all", "creative commons licenses" and "commercial and other licenses". The option to request only images that were free was removed with zero publicity.
Does anyone know why?
Does anyone use image searches from another search provider that can restrict image searches to "free" images?
That's an awful lot of text for a Commons category. I've at least marked it with {{De}}. Someone with better German may want to edit it down. - Jmabel ! talk22:47, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
I don't read German, but a copyvio detector suggests that this text has been copied from a university thesis. (comparison) (likely source, mostly pages 160–161) The text is a probable copyright violation and it should be replaced with a brief specification of the artist, type of artwork and location. Verbcatcher (talk) 02:52, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Magical filename twins !
Hi folks ! Can you explain how we can have 2 different files under the same filenames !
When I do [CTRL+F] on my browser, the filenames appears to be the same character.
Wiki Gallery displaying files and their filenames
Screenshot of what I see on my Ubuntu 20.10, notice the filenames
File:⿔-kaishu.svg
File:龜-kaishu.svg
There is a trick, yes. But I don't know where it plays out !
Hint: When you edit this section and use the magnifying glass to search or replace, they are 2 distinct characters.
Something is playing with me !
@Yug: File:⿔-kaishu.svg, File:龜-kaishu.svg -- they are different -- but maybe the font you are using shows them same in serif? Acagastya (talk) 17:26, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
@Acagastya: Yes, images are differents. But my computer shows same filenames (glyphs) and... when I search with CTRL+F, they are the same for my Chrome as well. They are unicode duplicata I guess, but there is also a layer on Commons or Chrome which see them as identical codepoint. Weird. Yug(talk)17:56, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
@Ricky81682 and Acagastya: Fascinating ! I am on mobile now and i see clearly different characters indeed. Must be an Ubuntu 20+Chrome 89 issue then. Thank to you two for the hints Yug(talk)20:25, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
@Yug: Either way, it may be worth mentioning as a bug at meta. It's a very very minor issue for us but could be a horrendous annoyance on another site. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:47, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
@Ricky81682: These issues are real for those who can read these characters as the meaning is different (I cannot). A guidance could be given to users on how to solve this (for the relevant language). In case those characters are Chinese characters that are used in Japanese, it is known for some years already. --Anneyh (talk) 21:11, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
There isn't really much we can do about the fact that a particular font uses the same glyph for two different codepoints. - Jmabel ! talk22:43, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
But are the images being swapped? The text could be an issue but if I use one image, does it screw it up on the server side or just as rendered by the computer? I'm guessing the later because that's minor. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:09, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
I added a screenshot of what I see on my computer. It's indeed a font non following proper Unicode glyph. Unicode CJK characters have had several corrections along the years (I submited one), but some fonts predate these correction. The best thing to do is to use recent fonts. Or to fund open fonts projects. @Ricky81682: Also, yes, I think the uploaded may have walked blind, and the images may need to be swaped. I will report to the relevant project (Commons:ACC) to assess that. Yug(talk)12:09, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
⿔ is Radical 213, which is used for dictionary catalog only. 龜 is the real kanji people use in written text.
Also don't delete any categories, just redirect them. Regarding the Ivory Coast, this request was done in 1986 and the common name in English remains th "Ivory Coast". But as Wikimedia Commons is an interlingual website using French if it's something the government wishes might be a better choice. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 00:06, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Hello everyone from Wikimedia Commons. I noticed that this ResaearchGate image has a license of this type: CC BY 4.0. I'm asking here if uploading is possible before doing it (or before someone does it for me, with the respective text below the image). I am here asking for an error not to occur if i uploading an unwanted image here. I know the permissible licenses, but it seems to me almost a miracle that such a text and this photo have such a license in a scientific publication, Thanks. I will return here later. Mário NET (talk) 18:57, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
@Mário NET: Yes you may upload the images here. Please note that ResearchGate is not the source or creator, merely a repository with a copy of a journal article. The original article may have higher quality images, and it verifies that the content may be freely used with attribution under CC BY 4.0. --Animalparty (talk) 20:13, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Thank you, I'll start. It was good to have spoken here because I was not going to upload it straight from the article. Mário NET (talk) 22:22, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
How can I recover the old fashion list of search results WITH descriptions?
Until yesterday I get a long list of search results with small pictures, their names and some other details. Today I only get pictures, without descriptions, after a search. I would like to restore the old fashion mode, I tried to adjust my preferences but I did not succeed. How can I restore my preferences to the old fashion mode with a list AND discriptions? JopkeB (talk) 03:53, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
Blank version of a map of the provinces of Vietnam I can alter with Microsoft Paint
I wanted to make a (better) map for Wikipedia, so I was looking for a "blank" version of a map of Vietnam that I could easily alter with Microsoft Paint. I remember slightly over a decade ago that Wikimedia Commons was filled with these PNG maps which could easily be altered using Microsoft Paint but sometime ago it was decided to switch to the superior SVG format, which is fine and all, but while I can easily use a Microsoft Paint emulator on a mobile telephone, I have yet to come across a good SVG editing tool. So I was looking for essentially this map but blank, but was unable to do so. Perhaps the original was deleted years ago "because SVG exists now" or perhaps it never existed, but is there a blank version of this image? I haven't been able to locate it myself. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 05:31, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
All project except Commons may adopt an EDP and allow non-free content if it meets some requirements.
I have always liked the idea of Commons hostning free files only. But there are cases where it is a "pain in the a..". The 2 things that I find most annoying is
Stuff that is PD in its home country but not PD in the US because of URAA.
So far we have deleted many photos because one of the 2 reasons. And we have to do so as long as the resolution is as it is.
I would like to ask if we should propose a change of of the policy so Commons can allow semi-free photos. And if yes what would we like to host?
Some would perhaps argue that IF we are discussing to host semi-free stuff then what about stuff that is free in the US only?
Personally I think we should reject ALL photos where it is the copyright holder that set restrictions on the photo. So no GFDL and no "NC" and no "ND" and no <whatever will make it impossible to use the photo freely>. And of course NO "fair use".
But I would be willing to accept photos where the restrictions are set by the law. So if a country have FOP but for non-commercial use only then we could perhaps host it. Or if the photo is PD in the US or the home country but not in both.
I'm sure there have been discussions before. I tried to search but did not find any recent - sorry if I missed them. So if someone knows of a recent discussion I would be happy for a link.
The answer is and will be an hard no to that one. The Licencing policy is an decision by the WMF, more specifically the Board of directors of the WMF. It is not up to the community to decide any amendments to it. Like the policy itself says "It may not be circumvented, eroded, or ignored by [...] local policies of any Wikimedia project. " Even wikis with an EDP can not host files that are only free in the US, but not the country of origin. Media that is PD in the country of origin, but not the US would never be allowed, even the board can not do that, since the primary servers are located in the USA, they are required to follow laws in the USA. Requests to bypass this policy in one way or another have been requested before, both here and on meta, enough times that it deserves an entry in Commons:FAQ at this point. I do not see the point of linking to those, as nothing can be changed in any of these discussions to make them work. All of those are a moot point right from the start and this one is no different.--Snaevar (talk) 12:48, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
@Snaevar: Thank you for your comment. I know and that WMF decide the policy and that is why I wrote "I would like to ask if we should propose a change of of the policy".
I once asked on meta (here and here) if we could get some clear answers about what wikis could do but I got no final answer. So if we could add it to a FAQ somewhere it would be great.
If all hosting a copyrighted photo is illegal then what about the deleted files? They are still hosted on the servers. Also I guess that many people upload copyrighted stuff to Facebook and Flickr non-stop and as far as I know it is only deleted if they get a take down notice. If the stuff is PD in the home country then I would guess that the amount of take down notices would be limited. So I guess there are options if board is willing to modify the policy a bit. --MGA73 (talk) 15:05, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
How do you expect the WMF to be able to allow "Stuff that is PD in its home country but not PD in the US because of URAA", or anything that violates copyright in the USA? When they receive a take-down request for something like that, would they refuse it on the grounds that it's against their policy? What if there's a follow-up lawsuit and a court demands it be taken down? --ghouston (talk) 00:01, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
@Ghouston: as I said I doubt there will be many take down notices because of that but IF they get a take down notice they can just delete the file. Just like today if someone upload a photo taken by someone else and claim own work. The point is that the photo is PD so it can be used on websites all over the world (except the US). --MGA73 (talk) 08:33, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
WMF allow fair use so we do have a lot of copyrighted stuff hosted allready. And as I said there are also deleted files stored. They are not visible for all users but only admins etc. But they are hosted and visible for some. I even think some wikis host files that is PD abroad only and just add a "Do not move to Commons" on the files. Those wikis are on the same server? --MGA73 (talk) 08:33, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
Fair use is part of US copyright law, there isn't any legal issue with it if it's used correctly. Perhaps it can't really be used in a general-purpose repository like Commons. The "deleted" files can perhaps also be stored under fair use provisions, if they aren't being made available to the public. If the WMF is still going to be deleting files if they get a take-down notice, then it's exactly the same situation that we already have. --ghouston (talk) 09:51, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
@Ghouston: Thank you for your comments. I really appriciate it. Now we delete files if a user find a file that is PD abroad but not in the US. We do that because we know about URAA and we have users that look for that. If policy changes those files will only be deleted if the copyright holder send a take down notice. In Denmark a simple photo is copyrighted for 50 years per {{PD-Denmark50}} and I bet that if I upload 1.000 photos older than 51 years from 1.000 different photographers the chance that someone will send a take down notice is very small. Because most people do not know about URAA. (And many people do not even know about the danish copyright law.) Many photos are visible on websites on museums and local archives because everyone think/know that the copyrght have expired. So the question is if there are any legal ways to keep photos untill we get a take down notice. I do not know US law good enough to know if it is a problem to keep it untill you get a take down notice. I think that Facebook and Flickr and probably a lot of other websited host copyrighted stuff. As far as I know here are special rules for websites that allow users to upload stuff compared to if the staff upload the stuff.
What about the other part of my suggestion? Host files of FOP for non-commercial purpose? Do you think that would be legal? --MGA73 (talk) 10:19, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
Commons volunteers don't have any obligation to delete anything. There's already a consensus not to delete photos of artworks that are permitted by FoP in some country, even though they wouldn't be permitted in the USA, and it's argued that the legal situation hasn't been established for certain. In theory, Commons volunteers could also decide not to delete files that were free in large part so the world, e.g., life + 70 year countries, but which weren't free in the USA. There would be two problems with that 1) if you start putting "not free in the USA" templates on files, would that damage the WMF's legal position under the DMCA, that it didn't know it was hosting copyright violations uploaded by some user? 2) take-down requests are also supposed to cause some kind of "strike" against a user, and users may end up banned if too many of their uploads were taken down. --ghouston (talk) 10:37, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
I suppose point 1 can be avoided by removing the need for a US copyright statement, so that the template would just say where the file is free, not where it's still copyrighted. That happens already if a file is free in the USA, it's not generally pointed out if it's still copyrighted elsewhere. Point 2 may be risked by some users if such take-downs aren't often received. --ghouston (talk) 10:44, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
Good point about the "Not free in the USA". But what if there is a "This file may not be free in the USA" (depending on if there is any possible way that it could be free in the USA if it was published in the USA without formal copyright notices etc.). If there is a chance that it could be free in some situations then we and WMF could still argue that we do not KNOW that it is a copyvio (we just have not been able to prove that it is not). But I see your point about the users. That would force/motivate some to create sock puppets for uploading files that may not be PD in the US. We can of course block the accounts and just decide not to look for the main account.
As for FOP the problem is that in some countris FOP is allowed but only for non-commercial purposes. So Commons would have to add a template saying "No FOP for Commercial use". Allowing it on Commons would make it possible to host the files and use it on all wikis. But it would ofcourse violate the main purpose about "free for all". --MGA73 (talk) 11:31, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
Khoi
When uploading images of Pelargonium triste, I wanted to add vernacular names is different languages. Where Afrikaans (Kaneeltjie or Rooiwortel) is one of the choices given, Khoi (wit n/eitjie) is not. How do I deal with that? Dwergenpaartje (talk) 10:21, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
From April 15, you can enable line numbering in some wikitext editors - for now in the template namespace, coming to more namespaces soon. This will make it easier to detect line breaks and to refer to a particular line in discussions. These numbers will be shown if you enable the syntax highlighting feature (CodeMirror extension), which is supported in the 2010 and 2017 wikitext editors.
Please, control contributios made by PeterParaguay. All are copyvios, easy to check. I can not do it, because I am a new user and the filters dont allow me to do it. Thanks. --Aama223 (talk) 02:08, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
Spent much of the afternoon trying to upload a video. Uploading a webm file through the standard "Upload file" link (left sidebar). Each time all goes through fine, complete the "Describe" page and "publish" then wait an age and eventually get a "Internal error: Server failed to publish temporary file." with a "Retry" button below/right. Retry, wait an age and same happens, and again. So remove download, upload again (20 mins), go through it all again and get same result, etc.
I've uploaded the .webm file to [https://psamathe.net/Temp%20Images/Apr%202021/06-Common_Blackbird_3-Apr-2021-nX.webm] 615 MB (the .mp4 versions on my own website are lower quality) - don't bother uploading it as I'm prefer it be flagged as my name (for license/attribution/etc.).
I feel I'm pretty committed and keep trying but/and after the video transcode issues (mentioned before) I can see a lot of contributors just giving up and not bothering to contribute to the project.PsamatheM (talk) 16:32, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
Got there in the end after so many retries. Video issues need addressing if people are to be encouraged to release media through Commons.PsamatheM (talk) 16:48, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
Next time you get that issue, follow the instructions at [2]. There are several bugs where users with ADSL connections can't upload to wikimedia commons.--Snaevar (talk) 18:56, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
@Snaevar: the upload went fine (so connectivity OK), entry of description (captions, categories, etc.) fine but the "publish" stage after Description took an age then reported Internal Server Error so connectivity still OK. The linked instructions look more like connectivity issues or am I missing something?PsamatheM (talk) 19:08, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
Sometimes I uploaded a cropped to 20M video, and after it was published uploaded the full video with the version upload function (this version upload also shows the progress of the individual chunks, the assembling of the chunks and the progress of the publishing). --C.Suthorn (talk) 19:25, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
You are perfectly entitled to make a deletion request as an anonymous user, unless you are evading a block. - Jmabel ! talk20:42, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
Idea: explicitly disallow nudity uploading from otherwise non-contributors
COM:NOPENIS is a decent guideline that allows for the deletion of a lot of nudity uploaded, but in my opinion it doesn't go far enough. Many nudes, which may be educational, still have potential consent issues. Therefore, I would suggest a blanket ban on uploading nudity by users who have few other global contributions (and are therefore not a part of the community). This is not an RfC, I'd like to gather some thoughts before formalizing this as a policy. This would allow us to deal with potential consent issues much better, as well as deleting many nudes of iffy educational value much less controversially. (ping Mo Billings as someone potentially interested) Elli (talk) 23:25, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
I do support this, as I don't see a purpose in allowing everyone to give us their nudes. If you've made global contributions, no big deal, but if you're trying to troll the commons? yeah no. stop with that. JackFromReedsburg (talk) 23:29, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose. There are perfectly good contributors where this is all they do. Conversely, there are contributors in other subject matter areas who do nothing but copyvios. - Jmabel ! talk01:20, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Comment I understand the reasoning behind this proposal, but I think it is both too broad and not broad enough. The issue here is really that Commons makes little or no attempt to enforce what COM:PEOPLE says about consent. Uploaders are not informed about consent concerns like they are for copyright concerns. Just as with copyright violations, I would expect to see more uploads from new users that have consent issues, but, just as with copyright violations, having a history of uploads does not mean that users are not going to upload problematic images. I think that a lack of edits on Commons or other Wikimedia projects is one factor in evaluating uploads, but it isn't a sure sign that the uploads have consent issues even if they involve nudity or sexuality. We should be more clear in what we expect from uploaders, especially where it involves images of identifiable people. It would be helpful if more experienced users added Template:Consent to their own uploads so less experienced users got used to seeing it. Mo Billings (talk) 02:54, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose This forum shopping, over and over and over again is so boring. Choosing to use the shortcut "NOPENIS" rather than using the policy name or link of "Nudity" is the most obvious red flag. Trying to start an anti-nudity campaign on the English Wikipedia, then repeatedly trying to do the same on Commons is a waste of time. If you want to help Commons, focus on content issues that make a significant difference to open knowledge.
Fæ Why do you keep trying to make it seem like I am responsible for other editors actions here? I didn't propose this - Elli did. I didn't propose the consent checkbox - Masem did. I don't think either of those proposals are very well thought out and I don't support them. I am concerned about consent issues here on Commons. We can disagree about it, but please stop harassing me like this by making me look like some kind of ringleader. Thanks. Mo Billings (talk) 15:25, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Fæ I have posted this exactly once. I am not intending to forum shop, nor was I intending to start an RfC or a vote, as I explicitly mentioned. I simply wanted to gather the community's thoughts here. It's clear that this is something that would not be popular - which is fine - but your response, here and elsewhere, was been entirely over-the-top and unnecessary. Elli (talk) 16:35, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
It is an inescapable fact that that the Mo Billings account was pinged in the opening paragraph of this thread. That ping makes this thread directly connected to the existing pattern of forum shopping. It is also an inescapable fact that as the opener of this thread, your account is also active on the English Wikipedia discussion, but those 4 posts there were not mentioned here. Highlighting the facts that forum shopping and cross-wiki lobbying exists and these connecting patterns is not "over the top", they are facts. --Fæ (talk) 16:41, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Fæ I pinged Mo Billings because we had discussed this particularly, including him leaving a message on my talk. I'm not here to defend Mo Billings' behavior - I think it was inappropriate - but you are conflating us (and did so again at the recent deletion you opened). Elli (talk) 16:51, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Fair enough. Please stay aware of the obvious pattern that has developed over a matter of days, whether fully intentional or not. No doubt you agree there are now too many related threads created about this in a very short time, which is far more likely to create opposition rather than positive discussion. --Fæ (talk) 16:56, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
For sure, I thought taking this discussion to enwiki, and to the WMF (in a way - certainly not the Commons community) before the community first, was a bad idea. Elli (talk) 17:21, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose I think this is an excellent idea and I would fully support it.
However I can't see any way to implement it. We're unlikely to add AI cock-spotting to the upload wizard. So how would this see new uploads as "acceptable" or "not acceptable"? I would see an ineffective implementation as worse than none. One thing worse than an unwanted dickpic is the same thing, but free-ranging and uncategorised or named. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:25, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose - Solution looking for a problem. Also the consent box thing sort of makes this moot - Of course anyone can tick a box and still upload it anyway but nudity here as far as I know has never been a problem - There's just a few bad apples in the bunch. People photograph all sorts of things and we shouldn't disallow one "genre" of uploaders because of a few problems here and there. –Davey2010Talk11:33, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Davey2010 Here you say "nudity here as far as I know has never been a problem" but elsewhere you just said "apparently there were child porn issues here years ago". How do you reconcile those two statements? Mo Billings (talk) 16:07, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Fair point. I assumed CP was no longer uploaded here (because I was under the impression if it was then one way or another it would appear on some noticeboard somewhere because this is Commons and everything ends up at a noticeboard here.... bit like EN really). It's also dawned on me I !voted delete on a potential revenge porn image so it was indeed wrong of me to say "nudity's never been a problem" when it obviously has. I still don't believe there is a problem atleast not a problem big enough to warrant this sort of action. As I said above there's just a few bad apples out there nothing we cannot handle. –Davey2010Talk16:48, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
This is your account's 326 edit to Commons. Yesterday the same account was canvassing on this topic at en:User talk:Jimbo Wales, and on that project, the account has yet to reach 700 edits. Cross-wiki lobbying, insisting on WMF board level attention, the uploading of a deliberately disruptive self created "Donald Trump watching porn image", and targeting long term contributors for personal argument, is unusual behaviour for a new account created 13 months ago and with a total global edit count of 1,000. I'm sure that others can reach their own conclusions as to whether this strange new account behaviour is of concern. --Fæ (talk) 16:36, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure you're accusing me of something, but what is it exactly? I started a discussion on Mr Wales' talk page about a 2011 WMF board resolution, since he is a member of the board. I was unaware of that resolution until someone here mentioned it in a discussion (I don't remember who). How is that "canvassing"? How is that discussion in any way a problem? Which long term contributors am I "targeting" for personal arguments? You mean Audioboss and their copyright violations? I make no apologies for calling them out on their proven falsehoods. This is a discussion started by another user (not me) to gauge support for something. If you don;t support it, that's fine. I don't either. But why are you cluttering up the discussion with these kinds of baseless accusations? What is your goal? Why all the focus on me? What have I done to upset you so much? Mo Billings (talk) 17:06, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
I see no good reason for this. But there is an other topic: Spam on these file pages. So I would support semi protecting all pages in these field. --GPSLeo (talk) 19:27, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Not sure I've noticed this as an issue. Do you have some examples of spamming of nudity files? --Fæ (talk) 19:32, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Some of the above seems to have no logic at all. How is child porn relevant to a discussion about new users being able to upload nude images? Obviously no one is allowed to upload child porn. - Jmabel ! talk00:49, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
This makes no sense. "This would allow us to deal with potential consent issues much better, as well as deleting many nudes of iffy educational value much less controversially." I would suspect that people who would want to use their nudes for educational purposes on Wikimedia Commons would probably not want their other works linked with their account, I can see a high quality contributor making an undisclosed second account to upload a nude to use at a Wikipedia article or to illustrate something (in an educational sense), this would essentially force users to "out" themselves. Content should never be judged by the uploaded but by the content itself, even a broken clock is wrong twice a day and a good clock can be a minute behind. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 09:04, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
I'm going to upload an image onto Commons. All of the copyright checks out, insofar as it was created and published in 1870, and its author died in 1899, (Source: https://www.loc.gov/item/73693468/) making it undoubtedly in the public domain.
However, as it's a fairly detailed image (a panoramic sketch of an entire town) and the viewer's experience relies on that level of detail, I wanted to know how I should upload it without being completely unreasonable. As an example, the LOC has available a 154.7 MB TIFF, but I'm not sure a file of that size would be acceptable. Any pointers? Maybe convert it into a bitmap or a PNG? I don't want to compromise any of the detail in the image, but I don't imagine people will appreciate having to download a 155 MB file just to view it. TheTechnician27 (talk) 15:11, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, Jmabel! I'll get to work uploading the TIFF. As it turns out, the Library of Congress has almost 200 works by Ruger of the same style, and I see surprisingly little of that work on Commons (none of which ostensibly have the original image quality), so that could be a fantastic (if excruciating) project which could benefit a great many Wikipedia articles. In fact, it seems like he was especially prolific in the Midwest. TheTechnician27 (talk) 15:47, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
@Multichill: I'll see if I can get in touch with someone who's done one of these mass-uploads like Fæ, as I think these could be a fantastic asset to almost 200 articles (or more, given the LOC hosts over 1500 panoramic maps from miscellaneous artists). In the meantime, I'm having trouble just uploading one of these]], unfortunately. For some reason, the Upload Wizard hasn't been working, stating "This file did not pass file verification" and sometimes another message I neglected to write down about the server and expected time. The file as downloaded from the LOC uses the extension .tif, though I also changed it to .tiff just to see if that would somehow solve the problem. Attempting to upload another TIFF from the LOC (this one: https://www.loc.gov/item/73693483/) returns the same error. TheTechnician27 (talk) 21:28, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
@Multichill: I went ahead and installed it. All of the chunks returned "Chunks uploaded", but the last three lines read: "Assembling chunks"; "Still waiting for server to rebuild uploaded file"; "FAILED: stashfailed: This file did not pass file verification". I'm going to give it another shot changing one minor thing, and it's currently uploading, but I think the Upload Wizard may not have been at fault here, since it can also upload in chunks and returned a very similar error message. TheTechnician27 (talk) 22:13, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
Actually, I just noticed that the error is "stashfailed" and that there's an option for "use stash and async", so I'm going to try disabling that and see if this works. Update: "FAILED: stashfailed: Chunked upload is already completed, check status for details." I guess I'll try clearing the upload stash and seeing if that resolves it. Basically just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks at this point. TheTechnician27 (talk) 22:31, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
For large images, JPGs look better than TIFFs on Wikipedia articles, even though they are lossy, which is why it's good to have both versions. See also Commons:File types. The LOC often hosts JPGs at a smaller maximum resolution than TIFF counterparts, so I use free online image converters like Online Convert to convert TIF to JPG (or desktop software for large files). --Animalparty (talk) 20:56, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
@Animalparty: Definitely. I just wanted to make sure there was an original quality version up on Commons as well. However, I'm going to do what Odysseus1479 seemed to do when they ran into a similar issue and, as you noted, just upload the high-quality jpeg from the LOC as that'll work best for Wikipedia. Then I'll worry about the TIFF later. TheTechnician27 (talk) 00:09, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
TheTechnician27 This image is already uploaded as a tiff back in 2018 by Fæ. We now have 3 copies of the file. The tiff and a png and jpg uploaded by yourself. The problem here is uploading files from public museums and not naming, them as the museum would, and not using the most suitable template. The project is continually automatically scraping up on an ad hoc basis PD museum collection images. Before uploading its a good idea to study how the uploading scrapers have named others in the collection and mimic that format. When uploading the image you used the wizard, which did not pick up the exiting file as it was in a different format. If you use the wizard You should change the format template from information to artwork and make sure you note the collection reference number in the right place to stop scrapers from uploading other versions of the same file. An example where this can go wrong is with images from ArtUK; Wikidata is assigning Q numbers to all images it finds in ArtUK. Where the scraper cant find an image on commons, that has that collection number, it will upload competing images automatically. Commons can only warn you that an image is already loaded if the checksum matches. The other thing you need to do, is cross reference other versions of the same image in commons within the template of the file, to warn other users about what you have done.
Last, but not least its an idea to check (first before doing anything) if there are any images still to cat against the author. Category:Albert Ruger was 24 images and one sub cat, there were 419 images awaiting catting to Albert, now done. Broichmore (talk) 18:28, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
Video Upload
Hi everyone, I would like to find out how I can upload a long video with a duration of 1hr or more on wikimedia commons. I struggle to do that, as result of this I have to cut the videos and make it shorter to upload on wikimedia commons. I will be glad if the community show or teach me the best way to upload a long video on wikimedia commons. Thanks. Jwale2 (talk) 22:47, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
There is a hard limit of 4GiB (4,294,967,295 bytes) for all types of files. Apart from that, any upload method will work, or not. With a good and fast internet connection the upload wizard will upload a 4GiB file, with a not so good internet connection all upload methods may fail. You can try external upload tools like Commonist, Vicuna, pywikibot, pattypan, ... If all else fails you can ask for a server upload at phabricator. --C.Suthorn (talk) 05:41, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
Commons UCoC consultation summary is now available
Dear Commoners,
Thank you for your participation in the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) enforcement consultation on Wikimedia Commons. The summary of the consultation is now available on Commons and Meta-Wiki. Thank you for your help and enthusiasm to keep our community safe and joyful for everyone! Wikitanvir (WMF) (talk) 08:22, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
@El Rolo Ueeqee: The concept exists in pretty much every country, however information on the exact boundaries for each country is rather hard to come by -- in many countries, there does not seem to have been court cases which determine them (or at least none that have been reported here). The Colombia law seems to require that works are "creations of the mind", but does not define that term further. It would usually take someone who knows how to search legal cases in a country to see if any guidance exists. If there is none, or nothing is reported here, then the TOO pages might remain basically blank. Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:34, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
No, actually there was a new conseus for limited MP4 uploads. The developers where asked to implement that in phab:T258540. That new conseus is linked in the bug.--Snaevar (talk) 10:07, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
BTW other wikis based on the MW software play MP4 perfectly well (or at least, play in the not great user interface). Once implemented we should encourage campaigns like wiki loves to have users uploading short mp4s. --Fæ (talk) 10:59, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
The thing is, like Donald mentioned from the start, users on commons nowadays do not care about whether the format is free or not. That can be seen in the difference between the votes in the original WMF RFC and the new one listed in the bug. But, since you are interested, the WMF as an non-profit organization will not pay any royalties for MP4, the WMF itself has even confirmed that. As for PDF, it is a free format now.--Snaevar (talk) 19:59, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
Hypothetically, could the International Organisation for Standardisation ever change their mind and ask the Wikimedia Foundation for royalties because Wikimedia Commons hosts MP4 files? Can for-profit re-users of Wikimedia Commons MP4 files be expected to pay royalties to the International Organisation for Standardisation simply for using this format? I'm trying to figure out how unfree MP4 files really are. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 20:18, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
The issue isn't copyrights at all – ffmpeg can read mp4s, and it's available under the GPL. The issue is patents. MP4s can contain H.264 or H.265 video, and those require patent licenses from MPEG LA for the former and a couple different groups for the latter. I don't know much about patent law, but the issue at stake isn't just "a proprietary format or not". PDF is fine because it isn't patented. Vahurzpu (talk) 04:29, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
This image has as description (translated) "Traffic flow measuring device based on FSK". I have seen such an apparatus also in Belgium and could not find an article in Wikipedia. Which category is it best placed in? Wouter (talk) 12:21, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
I created the Category:Dwergsein for this type of railway signal in the Netherlands. Is there a general category for ground level railway signs. The literal translation of 'dwergsein' is 'dwarf signal'.Smiley.toerist (talk) 13:56, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
I came across two images which contain rapid blinking at rates that are considered significant by guidelines around content that may be harmful to those with photosensitive epilepsy. As a warning, the links in this contain rapidly-blinking images so please don't click if you are sensitive to that kind of thing. For disclosure, I am not, I merely find them intensely irritating.
It looks to me as though there is no policy around such images, and there doesn't seem to be any technical infrastructure in place to be able to serve these images in a responsible manner. When the image is included on a Wikipedia page (as an example, this revision of the English Wikipedia article Pulsar planet") the thumbnail also blinks at the same rate, and if the image is clicked on it opens the rapidly-blinking image in a full-window version without any additional warnings.
Are such images in scope of the project? If not, should there be (speedy?) deletion criteria around them? If they are in scope, what kind of technical measures can be put in place to host them in a responsible manner (bearing in mind any relevant accessibility laws) across the various wikis, and if those technical measures do not currently exist, what should be done in the interim? And should there be a policy covering them? Thoughts? NoFlickering (talk) 09:07, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Comment Yes I think they are in scope. If they are annoying then users could just not click them. It must be possible to add a warning on them so users do not click them by a mistake. --MGA73 (talk) 14:53, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
The files will also blink, if only a thumb is included in an article. This could be avoided, if they were converted to webm. --C.Suthorn (talk) 12:33, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
Copyright review requestː image from Smithsonian Institution
As I am writing about a group of Bivalvia mollusks with the same vernacular denomination and I do not have this species to photograph, I would like to know if anyone would know about the possibility of this photograph from above, of Erodona mactroides, have its copyright made possible for Wikimedia Commons. Mário NET (talk) 11:33, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
Notification of DMCA takedown demand - Steve DeAngelo
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.
Therefore, I will do this. First, NoFoP templates are moved to Category:NoFoP templates. And, FoP-NoFoP country categories are moved to NoFoP-NoFoP country categories. (For example, Category:NoFoP-South Korea, Category:NoFoP-France, etc.) Finally, information documentations of NoFoP templates are added to indicate that these templates are for warning purpose and not for disclaimer purposes.
First, These templates are moved to Category:NoFoP templates. Second, Category:FoP-NoFoP country categories are moved to Category:NoFoP-NoFoP category moves. (such as Category:NoFoP-Greece) Finally, information documentations of NoFoP templates(such as Template:NoFoP-Greece/doc) are added to indicate that these templates are for warning purpose and not for disclaimer purposes. The content of the warning text is as follows.
"This template is for warning purposes, not for disclaimer purposes. Use only for files with De minimis applied or for general landscape photos."
Some templates have already done this. Also, {{NoFoP-France}} can only be edited by administrators.
@Ox1997cow: That is not a set of steps people are going to be able to follow, nor tasks they can sign up for. How does this break down? What are reasonable chunks for each person to do? When you say, "These templates are moved to Category:NoFoP templates" to you mean they have been placed in that category? That they are in some other category & need to be moved to that category? In general, where you write "are" do you mean "need to be"? Please: if you expect other people to help you with a voluminous task, you have to spell it out as a series of actions you need people to do. - Jmabel ! talk01:27, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
First, You will move these templates to Category:NoFoP templates. Second, You will move Category:FoP-NoFoP country categories to Category:NoFoP-NoFoP category moves. (such as Category:NoFoP-Greece) Finally, You will write information documentations of NoFoP templates(such as Template:NoFoP-Greece/doc) to indicate that these templates are for warning purpose and not for disclaimer purposes.
The content of the warning text is as follows. "This template is for warning purposes, not for disclaimer purposes. Use only for files with De minimis applied or for general landscape photos." --Ox1997cow (talk) 02:57, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
@Ox1997cow: Hi, and welcome. When we say we want to move a page to a category, we need to specify the category we are moving from. Or did you mean to just add to a category? Please be specific. — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me11:33, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
People need to really learn to add descriptions to category pages. It is very confusing and cryptic to figure out what these things are about. @Ox1997cow: , there is no deadline to fixing these. Do it one by one and use the talk page. If you cannot do (like for France), post a request for admin help on the talk page ([[template:edit request}}). It is too complicated to figure out the new category scheme you came up with plus as I comment at Commons:Categories for discussion/2021/04/Category:NoFoP templates. I understand the goal but I think you are making it way more complicated for very little gain. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:09, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
Suggested Values
From April 29, it will be possible to suggest values for parameters in templates. Suggested values can be added to TemplateData and will then be shown as a drop-down list in VisualEditor. This allows template users to quickly select an appropriate value. This way, it prevents potential errors and reduces the effort needed to fill the template with values. It will still be possible to fill in values other than the suggested ones.
More information, including the supported parameter types and how to create suggested values: [1][2]. Everyone is invited to test the feature, and to give feedback on this talk page.
Currently, if you upload images with UploadWizard and pick the NASA-PD license it will trigger a warning if the uploader detects that the EXIF date data matches the current day and will suggest you to check if this is correct. I don't know why this was put on the first place, but I think it's a pretty outdated measure that no longer serves it's original purpose and therefore I suggest that it needs to be removed.--BugWarp (talk) 00:38, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
One third of admins (~70/210) have 36+ admin actions per months. The ratio “files (72M) to admins” is 1 million files to monitor per active admins.
Commons:Deletion requests' group deletion are stalled (ex).
Commons:Deletion requests' daily deletion are stalled (ex).
Other community forums are sub-performing or with deficient organisation.
Are we in an slump recently ? Are admins overloaded ? Are there some move to improve things ? Or are we frozen by rules ? Other ? Note: I do not want to open an endless forum on how to improve things, but I would like to get a quick sense of where we are in your opinion, so I may act accordingly in coming months and not run blindly into known brick walls. Yug(talk)17:29, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
If 70% of our admins are active, that would be very high. Remember that we don't systematically remove someone's adminship for inactivity, so if someone is focused elsewhere for, say, a year or two, they come back as an admin in good standing. I would guess that some wikis with similar policies are well under 50% active admins.
Not all admin activity is going to be reflected by specific use of admin tools. I'm a pretty active administrator, who makes almost no use of those tools.
I have no idea what the sentence "We have about 1 million files per administrator with more than 36 admin actions per months" even means.
@Jmabel: My hypothesis is that active admins and structuring contributors (not necessarily admins) are overloaded by maintenance of existing and incoming files or pages. These users' attention are divided and diluted across Commons, resulting in stalled DR and suboptimal specialized forums. The 1/3 ratio of active admins is just a part of it. The main point is core and critical pages (DR) are not able to process the provided input properly (with speed and quality). It could be recent and a phase, a wrong impression and misunderstanding of Commons from my part, or a known structural weakness of Commons. If such official process are overloaded (ex: my group deletion been waiting 7 months already) I will have to take it into account, and rather that follow page's guidelines, I will look for workarounds for some of my DRs and others. Like direct DR to admins, increased patience, or repeat my requests until someone picks it up. Yug(talk)08:55, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
There are other maintenance roles than the administrator, like the Rollbackers - 690 users, Patrollers - 617 users and Image reviewers - 288 users. Admittedly, I have not dug into exactly what they do, but the administrators are not alone. Instead of comparing the total number of files to admins it would make more sense to compare the number of new files in a given time frame to these groups. The DR process has a backlog, sure, but repeating requests is just going to make it worse. Experienced users could always review DR cases and lower the backlog that way.--Snaevar (talk) 14:47, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
Reviewing the legitimacy of a DR is not mainly a task for people who have been designated admins. Even closing a DR does not require an admin, although non-admins should do this only in clear-cut, uncontroversial cases. Yes, we need more people who will go through the list of DRs and comment intelligently. No one has to select you to do that: you just need a strong sense of policy. - Jmabel ! talk15:04, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
If we limit the discussion to DR, I agree, more groups can get involved. To share back a bit, the barier for me are : time and not having the tools (call a decision => ask someone admin to delete), not feeling legitimate to handle DR of others (not admin), no fine knowledge of DR rules & avoid votes & conflicts. Participation in DR requires a too high bar in term of experience of DR's rules and free time for me (a common user) to get involved efficiently.
From what i can see, at this level of backlog it's not a phase: the current system & engagement level doesnt works. Commons is a file management wiki, but we are failing (no capable of managing a range of requests) in a systemic way, imo.
Thanks Snaevar for the point on repeated requests, i wont do this then. I personally knows some admins so i will go this way for my personal DR needs.
Jmabel, my limited time-resource and past few years experiences on Commons encourage me to keep focused on my small projects and not get involves into such public and fine process.Yug(talk)15:15, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
I guess what I'm saying is that it's not so much a matter of giving more people admin tools; it's more a matter of people stepping up and doing the work. For example for some reason people have opposed User:Jeff G. becoming an admin, but he does a lot more basically administrative work than the average admin. - Jmabel ! talk16:08, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
We seem to have developed a habit of requiring totally perfect angels as admins rather than those with human qualities, and keep refusing adequately-qualified candidates and those with ten years experience of adminship on various projects, not to mention a deep knowledge of legal issues such as copyright, data protection and privacy. Not good. Rodhullandemu (talk) 16:25, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
Rodhullandemu IMO, admin on Commons is largely the delete function, a broom. Commons is a files management wiki, acquiring this delete tool and admin status should be much easier. We have 70 Millions pages to monitor. As of now, we have about 100 active users with admin tools. Having 500 active users with admin tools would not hurt. It would just make life easiers for everyone.
Admin status also has a symbolic function, encouraging action and increasing confidence, legitimacy of good willed users.
The discussion have deviated on minor focals, but it seems there is a need to reshape the DR system, and possibly to merge sister-projects accross Wikimedia Commons so the project indeed have a decent human-resource mass. Ex: we have 3 specialized Graphic Labs each barely active. As of now everywhere I go it's sparsely populated, processes are suboptimal, and activity is haphazard. Yug(talk)17:04, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
I know I'm not an admin but you keep posting things like "We have 70 Millions pages to monitor" when in reality the vast majority of those pages need no attention from any admin whatsoever. My opinion is that if a DR request takes a bit of time then it's probably because there is no rush and nothing is gained by doing it over quickly. My observation is that you seem to be constructing an issue where in actual fact there is none. Oxyman (talk) 18:22, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
@Oxyman and Jmabel: I double checked Commons:Deletion_requests/2021/02/01, one single day from nearly 3 months ago (1st February 2021). The dozen files I clicked should be deleted but weren't. More anocdetical but still illustrative, my group DR cited above cite ~30 low quality bitmap to delete because they were superseded by better and sourced vector version. Consensus is christal clear. Yet I'm at the 3rd deletion request and 7 months waiting. When we don't acknowledge a problem, we for sure cannot fix it. Yug(talk)20:05, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
@Yug: If there are DRs that have reached a clear consensus and no one has followed them up, again, you are exactly as capable of closing those as an admin. If the conclusion is "keep," then there is literally no part of the process that you cannot do (you can link the discussion from the talk page, just like an admin can). If the conclusion is "delete," then you can't do the actual deletion, but feel more than free to close a bunch of these, make a list, and link that from COM:AN. I'm sure it will be attended to rapidly. In my view the problem isn't lack of admins, it's that other users seem to feel that admins need to do a ton of work that does not require an admin to do it. - Jmabel ! talk21:08, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
It's mainly an involvement/consensus issue, true. It theoretically could perfectly work with current number of admins and more involvement from the community. But we see it does not happen and does not work.
What are the parameter we can play upon ?
1) Create more engagement, so we get more consensus.
2) Create more admins who get more engagements, and two-in-one close & delete. 100 more admin at average 30 actions/months = increase of 3000 actions / month. Not perfect, but could help.
3) Improve processes. (How).
I think 3 is hard to think out for DR, easy for other pages, it depends. For 2, fast tracking users with experience on DR review toward adminship would help. AFAIK, the core Commons community of experience and hyperactive admins is locked into a "rare nobility" dynamic for adminship : only people with 15k edits/year and a truly complete profile stand a change. Applicants requiring the tool for local use ―not global nor massive― do not deserve the tool, etc. We have an implicit « Spartan requirement ». Application are stalled (see Commons:Administrators). So the only avenue is 1 : Create more engagement, call for help. It's best avenue yet not glorious. Asking volunteers to engage more with the chores while not entrusting them with the tools to lead those deletion chores to the end won't be sustainable. When you repeatedly call for people skills and entrust people to create DR consensus, IMO, respect requires to entrust them with the tool to enforce those DR. Yug(talk)07:43, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
Another avenue I may think of is a patronage of Admin application. 2~3 experienced admins or users initiate an Admin application for a DR-active user. So despite not being perfect candidate, the application can still stand a change. Won't be enough. Yug(talk)07:52, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
I withdraw myself from this issue. From this short conversation it seems a notable part >1/3 of users think it's all fine as of now so change is unlikely. Only a proper analysis followed by a gentle, skillful and sustained campaign by lead users can lead to DR & Commons Adminship applications improvements. Thanks to this section's contributors, I understand local dynamics better now. :) Yug(talk)12:31, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
There’s a wide area between thinking it’s all fine and thinking your analysis is 100% accurate and useful. -- Tuválkin✉✇14:23, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
I just uploaded the copyrighted file which I plan on using only once in the infobox of the relevant awards page to help readers identify it. I'm not sure what license to use so the file doesn't get deleted. Alexataylor07 (talk) 15:54, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
I would do an deletion nomination, but not on the grounds of the copyright sign. I did try to use an magic wand with 10% hardness (in an image program) and it did not show anything. However, the file does claim it is of an book in 1962, so an 70 year copyright, even with an author which is not disclosed, per the Berne convention is just not old enough. The book seems to have been published in the Vatican which has those rules also. It would not become free until 2033 (70 years + end of year).--Snaevar (talk) 20:30, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
@Snaevar: Printed that year, perhaps, but what there would have copyright of its own? Looks all PD except for the photograph as such. - Jmabel ! talk23:07, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
@Snaevar: I think @Jmabel: has a point: the text and the image may have been printed for centuries before, as it is a Catholic missal. If there is a copyright in the lower left corner, it may be a copyfraud. Veverve (talk) 13:38, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
@HyperGaruda: Those links work. From what I see, it seems the text and the painting fall under PD, thank you for clearing things up. I am also pretty sure the painting is a painting which they copyfrauded (I am no expert in art at all, but the style looks a bit like w:Flemish Primitives or w:Raphael). Veverve (talk) 17:39, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
Two specific names for the same species on Wikimedia Commons
Hello to all the people here. We have two categories of specific names for the same species on Wikimedia Commons: Phacoides pectinata and Phacoides pectinatus. According to World Register of Marine Species, the correct name is Phacoides pectinatus.[4] Do you think it is important to make such a change to a single image file? Mário NET (talk) 18:57, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
There are four pages that use these files from the Naturalis Biodiversity Center (in Phacoides pectinata). I will ask for the change of the names in the image uploads. I have some improved editions of these images and I will post them here in the future. Mário NET (talk) 22:45, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
@Mário NET: No need to change file names. Phacoides pectinatus appears to be the consensus correct spelling (apparently because the gender of the generic and specific epithet match), and there should be only one Commons category (you can redirect the old name to the preferred name with {{Category redirect}}). However, the alternate name is widely used, and there is no urgent need to change the file names, although you may wish to update the descriptive text. Similarly, there is no compelling reason to rename files after simple taxonomic changes: A historic image (say a drawing), labeled "Tellina pectinata" is not wrong, merely outdated. Similarly, File:Hyla regilla.jpg is not a wrong or bad name, it's just the widely used name of the taxon before it was changed to Pseudacris regilla (and then Hyliola regilla, etc.) In my opinion, it's better to keep file names rather static, even if a species is placed in a new genus, or a previous spelling is emended, as subsequent taxonomic changes may render file moves moot. Even synonymized names like Lucina funiculata should be kept, in order to preserve historic information, and accommodate the possibility that future taxonomic changes remove taxa from synonymy. File moves to new names are best left to instances where a file name is clearly misidentified regardless of how its spelled, e.g. if a file labeled 'Phacoides pectinata' is actually Ostrea edulis or Canis lupus. --Animalparty (talk) 23:49, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
Single image should never have been a PDF in the first place. Someone should extract it from the PDF, upload in a more appropriate format, and delete the PDF. - Jmabel ! talk23:05, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
We brought back the read and write but GlobalUsage extension has been disabled for now. We are fixing the extension atm. Amir (talk) 11:14, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
A detailed incident report will be shared with time in the regular location with further steps, but for now, this is is the initial summary (all hours are UTC):
From 10:28 to 11:43, Commons Wiki was unavailable and/or slow to respond. Additionally, from 10:41 to 11:10, commons was set in unscheduled read only mode (unable to create new users, upload files or edit pages). The immediate cause was large amount of InnoDB contention for read and write queries on the primary s4 database (which serves commonswiki and testcommonswiki writes). After a restart and a forced kill, the database came back cleanly in read only mode. Global usage extension was temporarily disabled (several queries were observed from this extension blocked on the master) before the server was set back up in read write, ending the incident.
Hello; I can't put this photo in this category, for this message: [4e21670c-0c6f-4f1e-8724-5852993fdbed] 2021-04-28 13:10:01: Erreur fatale de type « TypeError ». Can you fix it, please? Pạtạfisik13:13, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
Commons:Picture of the Year uses a set of scripts to set up the voting system/pages/categories, and to determine the results of each round. These scripts were developed by Zhuyifei1999, who is no longer active on Commons, but has expressed that he will be available to help anyone who wants to learn how to use them (on IRC, Discord, or by email).
As I understand, a few people have learned about the scripts from Zhuyifei1999, but for various reasons they are unable to dedicate the time necessary to run the event.
We need someone (or maybe a couple people) to step in. POTY is one of the highlight events of the Wiki universe, and at the moment its future is uncertain.
Beyond the need to set it up this year, it would be an incredible help for the person who steps in to take the time to create documentation for how to use these scripts. There aren't a lot of active Commons users with the technical knowledge and time to carry out this project, but there are people with the time who could execute it with proper documentation. — Rhododendritestalk | 13:01, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
Here’s an idea: Lets fix the issues that led Zhuyifei1999 to leave. That could cause him to come back and fix the PotY and, incidently, we’d have fix a much greater problem. -- Tuválkin✉✇16:16, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
Sounds like it's a combination of factors, but the most fundamental issue is burnout from the amount of effort/time it takes to run and maintain these things (not just POTY, but bots, scripts, etc.). Compared to other large Wikimedia projects, Commons does not have a lot of people with technical abilities to run programs like this, putting the burden on a small number of people. We feel this acutely when those people leave or disappear for long periods (not just Zhuyifei1999). — Rhododendritestalk | 20:11, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
I think there may be an opportunity here for someone who wants to run this -- if they would also be willing to create documentation -- to ask for a WMF Rapid Grant. I'm not sure it would qualify but it takes enough time and it's important enough that it may be worth asking. — Rhododendritestalk | 20:13, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
Just noting that I'll take this on - I'll look at the scripts and get the pages set up this week. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 16:17, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, Firefly! Let us know what help you need (my impression is that there's some gruntwork involved in sorting, etc. that you can get some of us to help with). Probably best to move discussion over to one of the POTY talk pages at this point, though. — Rhododendritestalk | 15:47, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
Would you like to get the right people elected to the Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees?
Voter turnout in prior elections was about 10% globally. We know we can get more voters to help assess and promote the best candidates, but to do that, we need your help.
Election Volunteers should have a good understanding of their communities. The facilitation team sees Election Volunteers as doing the following:
Promote the election in their communities’ channels
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Do you want to be an Election Volunteer for Wikimedia Commons or any of the Wiki projects, and connect your community with this movement effort?Check out more details about Election Volunteers and add your name next to the community you will support in this table or get in contact with a facilitator. We aim to have at least one Election Volunteer for Wiki Projects in the top 30 for eligible voters. Even better if there are two or more sharing the work.
If you have any questions or comments regarding this role please reach out to me or any of the board governance facilitators.
What can I use as a category name for 'proeve van bekwaamheid' (Dutch)?
In Dutch 'proeve van bekwaamheid' (literally: a proof/demonstration of competence) is an exam work with which a student proofs that he/she has the skills and knowledge to practice a particular profession. In the time of the Guilds it was the masterpiece of the journeyman to become a self-employed master craftsmen, for instance a painter or carpenter. Later on it was the exam work for a diploma, like a complicated/advanced piece of needle work to become a teacher of needlework. What English term can I use? I found Aptitude test and Proficiency examination as a translation for the exam, but not for the work. Could I use Aptitude test works or Proficiency examination works? Or what else would be a good English term? Parent categories would be Category:Examinations and Category: Works. JopkeB (talk) 07:19, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
"Aptitude test" would be wrong, at least in U.S. English. That usually has more to do with entry into a curriculum than completion.
Historically it was "masterwork" or "masterpiece" but those terms have been inflated to where they mean something even more advanced.
So I don't have a specific suggestion. We do (in U.S. English) have a notion of a "project for a degree" done in lieu of a thesis, but that is very specific to an academic degree. - Jmabel ! talk15:08, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
@Jmabel: Thanks for your information. I found some other possibilities: 'examination piece', 'proof of competence' and 'examination work'. Can I use one of those? Are they not only for papers but also for craft works AND are they for completion an education? JopkeB (talk) 05:41, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
@JopkeB: As a native speaker of British English I like "examination piece". I don't recognise it as a phrase, but to me it obviously means what you're trying to convey. --bjh21 (talk) 21:56, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
I would call the whole process a capstone, and the piece a capstone project, but that may not be technical enough a term. Jessepinky (talk) 15:03, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --RZuo (talk) 20:59, 8 April 2021 (UTC) 
!
Yug (talk) 20:25, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
Clarification, not one where there are "two (2) Vietnam's", just a single map like this and with "blank" I mean grey (as in the same colour). --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 05:32, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
--Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 14:53, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose per Jmabel. Besides, proposals belong at COM:VPP. — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 01:41, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Info Mo Billings has been locked as a sockpuppet. --Fæ (talk) 18:18, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
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Done --Jcornelius (talk) 02:44, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
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