Commons:Village pump/Archive/2006/05

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May 1, 2006

Main page tweaks

I am planning on moving the lang template to the bottom of the page, as well as merging the welcome and the six quicklinks boxes again. If you're an admin and you find it broken or just plain ugly, please revert. Other than that, please discuss the new scheme. Mainly, my intention is to present the most content possible without scrolling, and hoping that if users don't understand the language, they'll start scrolling down to see if the language changes or links appear. —UED77 18:52, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I moved the language links to the top again, because the page is the main entry-point for users of all languages. So they should find immediately the content in the language appropiate for them. --::Slomox:: >< 16:08, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
the page is the main entry-point for users of all languages. This could be cured by providing a truly multilingual page, similar to http://www.wikipedia.org for URL http://www.commons.wikimedia.org . That page would mostly contain links to the different language versions of the main page, plus the logo, the picture of the day and the search form.
In order that German speakers no longer need to access the English main page, you may add "Menüs links und oben auf Deutsch schalten" links at the top of every German page, as I did with the French page. For example, have a look at this changeTeofilo 16:43, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
commons.wikimedia.org is the real entry point, because that's where our logo links to and that's where other WM projects will get to by typing the interwiki link [[commons:]]. I know it's kinda ugly, but I think probably the language links should be at the top. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:56, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Pfctdayelise, do you agree or disagree with the fact that http://www.wikipedia.org is not http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_page ? I do personally agree and therefore wish we had the same disctinction between an English main page and a multilingual main page here on Commons too. Teofilo 13:03, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
But the point is that there's only one Commons and there's dozens of Wikipedias. If a Farsi speaker comes to a "portal" and clicks on their language, and gets a one paragraph translation with no further links in Farsi, that's really misleading. And IMO the vast majority of our traffic is coming directly from other WM projects, not just random internet people like the Wikipedias. pfctdayelise (translate?) 09:38, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I have removed the "Menüs links und oben auf Deutsch schalten" as it is plain ugly and just pointless as the switch is going back if you click on a further page. Please let us wait until a MediaWiki feature exists that anonymous users can permanently switch their interface language. These links with the uselang variable are only useful at the login mask. I really dislike Commons becoming a choose-language-on-every-page-but-don't-expect-usability-project instead of a media repository. That's what I always try to explain: Please let us create as much as possible multilingual content but please do not criple the whole system with ugly political correctness. Arnomane 09:18, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
pointless as the switch is going back if you click on a further page.--> As I explained, this is only one example. Of course that link has to be provided on every German page ! And please spare us your rethoric use of "usability" as a euphemism for your own egocentric needs. Usability is multilingualism. Multilingualism is usability. Teofilo 13:03, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I have also hidden a lot of translation links at the main page. For sure they are just a further mouse click away they aren't "destroyed". :p So now only updated main pages are visible as it is simply a sign of unprofessionalism having lots of pseudo translations recommended equally to good ones (and it is also hard searching your language in a large crowd of links that just point to rubbish). Feel free to flame. I did anounce it long ago. ;-) Arnomane 11:44, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I have reverted, of course. Commons is a wiki and a work in progress. If you do not like a page, you have to improve it not "hide" it (which has the same result as a deletion for uninformed readers) Teofilo 12:45, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Well maybe I can't speak spanish, maybe I can't speak indonesian? Maybe I did inform you even in person about that some months ago? ;-) Maybe the pages aren't really hidden but just one further mouse click away? If someone is interested in his language he can update the pages. Simple as that. No flame wars needed just some lazy people that stop being lazy and care about their mother language. But a large link graveyard with just rubbish pseudo translations between really good ones on top is everything but true diversity of languages and does harm the translated pages severely. So there are two possibilities: Either the language menue moves at the bottom with all links embedded or we keep it on top and only upt to date translations are directly visible at the main page. Arnomane 17:09, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I really like how you removed the ones that were updated long ago. However, I've changed my mind, and now think that it should stay on top, as I would rather have it there than have a language-independent portal. I agree we should focus on content right from the start. —UED77 17:55, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I just made it invisible via a CSS style declared in MediaWiki:Common.css, see [1]. If I set the visible variable to anything but nothing (like eg "yes") the "hiddenStructure$text" doesn't exist and thatfor the previously "removed" entries are again visible, what I did in Main Page/All languages (see page code). However I don't like that much the current approach. It would be better having it expandable to all languages (also the "outdated") directly at the page but this requires again JavaScript which I think is not that ideal at the Main Page. By the way I really like your integration of the languages into the welcome box. I just asking myself why I didn't come to this nice solution. ;-) Arnomane 20:16, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
You could move the now English only Main Page to Main Page/en or whatever and under Main Page create a new multilingual version. --::Slomox:: >< 15:36, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
For what purpose? I don't think that a language gateway like http://www.wikipedia.org would be helpful for Commons as we want to present our content directly to newbies. Arnomane 17:12, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, this is exactly what I was thinking. Teofilo 19:01, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

A few requests

Hi, I am Flamarande (obviously) and I have a few requests to make. First of all, I sorted the Category:Romans (boy, that was a complete mess, took me 2 and a half days to sort that caos) and now I have a few "dead ends" who are of no use whatsoever.

1)There is an article Roman road, completly empty and useless, can someone please turn it into a re-direct to Category:Roman roads?

2)The same in case of article Maps of the Roman Empire, please turn it into a redirect to Category:Maps of the Roman Empire

3)Please, obliterate Miscellaneous (Roman) completly. It was completely ignored, and a user should (and they did) instead leave a new image at Category:Romans. It is simply easier and quicker this way (unoficial motto of mine: easier, quicker, better).

4)Please, obliterate Category:Battle of the Trebia completely. The correct term is "Category:Battle of Trebia" which I created, it was a simple mistake in the english language.

If someone fufills these requests would he please write it here? If this is not the proper place to make these requests, please forgive me and point me to the correct place. Thanx a million Flamarande 16:38, 1 May 2006 (UTC) PS: I will soon have more of these requests.

I've followed 3 and 4 and deleted Maps of the Roman Empire. Roman road seems to have turned into a little gallery, do you want to keep this? For requests like this one, you can use {{delete}} plus a short explanation. --Fb78 17:12, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Another "little" article/category war. The roman road article is a well structured article and should not be deleted just because one user wants to. It was different with the other articles 'cause they have only been listing of images without much further explanation. Also deleting articles is not that good 'cause other wikis may link to them and now have a dead Commons link. Please consider changing them into a redirect in the future. --Denniss 19:27, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
If you read point 1)(above) you will notice that I am requesting a change into a redirect and not a simple deletion.
If you look at Category:Roman roads you will notice that there are 2 articles and 8 images, simply better structured than the article which only has 10 images. I allready copied the explanation from the article into the category.
As for the term "article/category war" I simply don´t know what you mean (I am new here), but I can guess its meaning. To be honest, I think that, if:
a) one links the category with the correct term from wikipedia, and the best way to do that would be to turn the "proper term" into a redirect to the correct category, besides writing it inside of the category.
b) the user presents a short summary of the event/subject of the images.
then Wikicommons really does not need articles to a wider extent.
I really think that it is easier and simpler to organize images under categories. All one has to do is to:
I)go to the image and "click".
II)write down the proper category(ies) inside the image/file. And "voila", it is allready done.
To write down every single "image/name" inside of every single article is simply harder. If one tries to change it, it becomes quite difficult, because the "image/name" is written down in more than one article. One has to go to all the articles, search amongst other "image/names", delete it and do the same in the next article. And again and again, ad nauseam.
But hey, feel free to disagree. I never claim to know the whole truth. I am new here. If you think it is better this second way, please explain me why and how. Flamarande 20:15, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Flamarande said: "it is easier and simpler to organize images under categories". That is true, but articles and categories are not mutually exclusive. I agree with DennisS. Articles are superior for many tasks. I don't personally share the vision that Commons should exclusively be some huge Coffee table book, but if some folks want to generate pages with high quality interfaces, then hey- more power to them. I am all for that. Secondly, consider the end game for commons. We have 500K images now. What happens when we have 400 pictures of roman roads on commons? In a category, great images will get buried in the mediocre one. Also, it is not possible to organize and provide explanatory text for subgroups of images in an article. My bet is that as Commons gets more mature, gallery articles are probably going to be more exclusive whereas Categories are inclusive. Gallery articles will be the best of the best, or the best representative images- whatever the editors agree the standard should be. If a user wants a particular roman road in a particular location, then they may have to catscan for it and find it on a category page. It will have the file name and not the hand edited caption, but the user is happy because they will have their picture.
As DennisS intimated, this is an issue that is continually revisted and upon where there are many different POVs. Here is a link to some of the past discussion: Commons:Images on normal pages or categories:Vote. There is no concensus on it and a live and let live attitude on article vs categories is what has grown up in place of a formal policy. -Mak 20:22, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
We could alltoo easily make a subcategory under the main category (e.g.Roman roads) and give it a proper title like "best images of Roman roads" or something similar. :) But, hey, I won´t press the issue. I am too busy sorting images. Flamarande 20:43, 1 May 2006 (UTC) Ps: I will have more requests soon.
Flamarande, you can easily make any page into a redirect yourself. For example, at Roman road you could replace the page content with #redirect [[:Category:Roman roads]]. See w:Help:Redirect for more information. (Note that you can only redirect articles, not categories or images.) User:dbenbenn 17:03, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

May 2, 2006

Commons-actions damage Wikipedia

Ok, now that I have your attention, I'd like to discuss an issue with the deletion policy. On my home wiki, a user has been (and still is) busy for days uploading maps of Italian cities and villages. But, he's doing that on my home wiki, and not on Commons. So when I suggested him to upload to Commons, and asked why he didn't do that in the first place, he responded that he normally does that, but that he had lost trust in Commons, because he had repeatedly experienced that stuff he uploaded was deleted without any notification or explanation at all.

I find this very disturbing, because in my opinion, it is not acceptable 'not notifying' people about a deletion request. I would like to have this matter resolved, so the loss of trust can be avoided in the future, so I can convince users to upload their images to Commons again, without having to be scared that their effort is going to be deleted.

(And for the damage: 1. Other wiki's can't use the images now. 2. Someone (presumably multiple persons independently from each other) will start transferring these image to Commons at some time, off course changing the names, which I presume will lead to chaos and disorder.) --Tuvic 19:54, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

First, let me say thanks for bringing this issue to our attention here, Tuvic. We certainly don't want to damage Wikipedia, but we can't fix problems if people don't tell us.
Looking at Westermarck's upload log, I see two images he uploaded that were deleted. Image:AarlenLocatie.png and Image:BastenakenVlag.gif were both deleted because they never had any source information given. This is an example of the Commons working as it should—no Wikimedia site, not the Commons, and not the Dutch Wikipedia, is allowed to keep copyvio images. User:dbenbenn 20:54, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I also see that some of Westermarck's other uploads don't have any source indicated. For example, Westermarck tagged Image:ArdennesFlag.gif as GFDL, without saying who made the file. User:dbenbenn 20:58, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Similarly, Westermarck tagged Image:HauteGaronneFlag.gif as GFDL, but apparently simply stole the image from [2]. User:dbenbenn 21:00, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I have had plenty to do with Westermarck's uploads. I'm still not satisfied with the sources and I also notice that Westermarck continues to upload images without any source. Thuresson 14:37, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Notification of the uploader is commons policy. Notification is done on the commons. For copyvios, it's usually considered to be enough if the user has been warned about giving accurate and complete source and license info once.
Also, I'm planning a tool that will automatically post changes to images on commons (like changes in tagging, deletion requests, replacement, etc) to all wikis using it. This is not done yet, but I hope it will be up and running soon.
All that being said: people should complain here if they feel they are treated badly - otherwise, we can't do anything aboutit. In the case of Westermarck, however, I don't think there is any reason for complaint. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 21:04, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
My 2c - it seems to me that this user has not quite understood the requirements of the Commons. For example Image:LuikVlag.gif is tagged as GFDL, but stated as "public domain". And still no source is given either way. Now the Commons:First steps guide has recently undergone huge improvements, so it would be very helpful if a nl-speaker could translate these pages for their fellow wp-users. pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:47, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I'll forward this message. If I understand this correctly, tagging and sourcing here is very strict, and should be done with extreme care and attention by the uploader, so if that is done (and the license is ok), there's no problem, is this correct?
Next: it's very hard to explain why people lose trust (no 'h') in Commons, but I guess it still has to do something with the issues in the past. So it would be good when you people made notifications or announcements to other Wikipedia's Village pumps about major deletions, of new exciting tools or so, so people would feel you're involved, and not just some outsiders sitting on a large image stack.
The tool that's going to be developed: that's a great idea, and I' already waiting with excitement for it.
About the translation: I've got the message ;-) --Tuvic 09:59, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, i understand very well the feelings of the user tuvic spoka about. When a user uploads usually images correctly, it is very well possible that he makes sometimes a mistake. That he forgets to put certain information in, a source, an author, some license, it's all human. Isn't it then weird that it will be deleted however the user appears to have good faith? I always hear assume good faith, but in commons it looks at least the other way around. If you don't proof every image again that you are correct, you will be warned once, your images where you forgot something will be deleted. Please remember we are humans, and humans have the nasty property to make mistakes. We do things wrong. So I would like to ask you commoners to assume good faith as well, and if someone has not completely filled in the form, put it on a deletionlist, and notice it to the uploader. If nothing has changed in about two weeks, you can delete anyway. I find some other solution. I know you have a lot of work to do, and I know my so-called solution will probably have a lot of disadvantages, but i just hope you will try to find some way to stay in contact with people. To help them if they slip away. If they forget something... Effeietsanders 11:11, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Sure, everyone makes mistakes. But there are people who simply keep uploading all their stuff without appropriate info license info (or, worse, with wrong license info), even after they have been warned repeatedly - I don't think a notification for every single image is neccessary in such a case. It is up to the admin to check a user's uploads to see if he/she knows what to do and simply forgot something, or if the user does not understand or care about copyright oer commons policy. The "Gallery" tab on the top of the user pages can be sued to do that easily. Generally, current practice is as follows:
  • Clear copright violations are deleted on sight. The user should be informed about this, so he/she does not keep uploading copyvios. It's up to the admin to decide if the uploader has to be told about it again or if further uploads are simply deleted.
  • Images missing license and/or sorce info are tagged accordingly, and the user is informed (for each image or for a group of images). IF no appropriate info is given in 7 days (and the uploader doesnot seem to be working on that), the can be deleted without further ado.
  • If the copyright status is unclear or disputable, or the image seems unfit for the commons for some otehr reason, it is tagged and liste on Commons:Deletion requests, and the user is informed. In such a case it should be made sure that the image is orphaned in all wikis before deletion. In some cases teh image could even be copied to a "local" wiki, where it is acceptable - this is, however, normally in the responsibility of the uploader.
  • Notification is generally done on the commons only - putting a notice on the uploaders wiki (and possible all wikis that use the image) is nice, but it's not possible in general for two reasons: it takes time, and we already have a big lag in dealing with deletions and other problems. Secondly, it's very hard to deal with a wiki in a foreigh language. I can kope with Dutch well enough, but I'm not going to mess with Hebrew, Russian or Japanese wikis. The tool I described above (dubebd CommonsTicker) will hopefully resolve this to some extend. Also, it's often hard to even find out what the "home wiki" of a user is.
Regards -- Duesentrieb(?!) 11:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

@Effeietsanders and @Tuvic: Wikimedia Commons significantly lacks people that care about proper licensing from the beginning on. Many people upload images here and regard Wikimedia Commons not as a project but "just an image dump" and forget about their pictures and never look back until "suddenly" it did disapear. We do notify people a lot inside Commons but we can't help those people if they don't look at their user talk pages. So we do proof a lot of good will (also considering how long it usually takes until an image gets deleted here in Commons). Manual notifications in local projects simply take way to much of our time and of course it is really difficult doing so in every local project you can't speak the language of (Ever tried to write in a right to left language wiki? You won't believe how hard it is.) we are simply not able doing it manually (see Duesentriebs comment what he is working on, this will solve the issue half automated). And of course there were even complains by people that we did use "evil english" in their local project and we have to write in let us say French :p to them... So I hope that the majority of nl.wikipedians (and several other projects too) just acknowledge that we do care a lot about images but that there are many things that need improvement, that our software needs badly certain features (hey there are for sure coders in nl.wikipedia, aren't there?), that they can't sit back and hope that small brownies make everything for them with their images and that these small brownies never do anything wrong. It only works if all people work together. Arnomane 11:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

P..S: There is one issue were I urgently need help from nl.wikipedians. See Commons talk:Licensing#Review_of_license_templates; it is about a lot of images (and it took me much of my energy stopping that person doing everything unilaterally without giving other people a chance considering the whole thing). Arnomane 11:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Mogao Caves

These two pictures are without source. According to that People's Daily article, there is a potential copyright problem in the People's Republic of China. Delete ? Teofilo 15:52, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

May 3, 2006

don't really know how to do this but....

this image Image:Phillipines.gif is spelled wrong. it should be 'Philippines.gif'....i'm used to wikipedia where i could just move the article, don't know how to do it here. could someone please fix this and change the corresponding 4 articles or so with the old spelling over on en.wikipedia.org? most appreciated, JoeSmack 03:11, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, images can't be moved. The only way to fix the misspelling would be to reupload the image with the new title. User:dbenbenn 03:34, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
That's also true on wikipedia, by the way: MediaWiki does not allow images to be moved for technical reasons. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 16:02, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Category:Moved from PL - unsorted

Simple question: Do we really need such a category ? If images were moved fromm pl wiki why put them in category? At best use pl interwiki. If we start to introduce this then every other wiki will sooner or later complain why their images are not in a category and we start to get images with 20+ cats like moved from xxx wiki. --Denniss 23:29, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, please delete and unlink, unless someone is definitely going through them soon. Images insuch a category "appear" to be categorized, but can not be found in any meaningful way. It would be better to have them uncategorized, so they would show up as thus in the tools designed to find orphans.
So, unlink and delete, and talk to the users of that category - mainly User:Julo, it seems. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 00:16, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I think there was a discussion here a while ago where this category was suggested. The idea was that PL users or others could go through the category to help sort these. Duesentrieb, what if we delete the category but don't unlink it? Can your tools show an image that's only in red-categories as uncategorized? User:dbenbenn 03:14, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Exactly, the idea was that users from PL can easily find the moved images and categorise them. The 'moved from PL' category is not meant to stick to the images forever: it is always to be replaced by other appropriate category. It's just a working space: sometimes the knowledge of Polish and of the context is required to categorise the images properly.
If it really goes against some rules or practices here, I'll remove the category with the bot. However, let's wait a day or two: there is at least one user who is interested in sorting some of these images, let's not make it more difficult for him. I'll remove the category after he's done.
I understand then that the right practice is to leave the images uncategorised?
tsca @ 10:06, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
@dbenbenn: no. a category "exists" in the database when it is used. If the categorie has a "header text" is not important for that - and additionaly check for that would be possible, but would make things more complex and slower.
Okay. I understand that. But it does expose a flaw in your tool: if an image is only in red-categories, it's no better than being in no category at all. For example, Image:First ladies.jpg is in 2 copyright categories, but all the other categories are red links. User:dbenbenn 04:15, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
@tsca: Well, there seem to be a lot of images that have been hanging around in that category for months. That way, it's basically a "black hole" that swallows images... no one is going to find them there, but they do not show up as orphans either. A workable compromise (admittedly tailored for my tools) would be to make a list of images from PL-WP that are pending categorization - that list must be outside the main namespace - I would suggest the User: oder Commons: namespace (maybe a WikiProject?). That way, they can be found by people interested to categorized them, but would still show up as "orphans" by the definition I use for my tools. There should also be some instructions about categorization, names of people involved in the project, and maybe a link to CommonSense there. I.e. it should be converted from a dumping ground into the working list of an active project
So, what do you think? -- Duesentrieb(?!) 10:16, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

We've discussed it on irc, the category will be removed and the images will be available in a gallery at Commons:Bar/Do posortowania. tsca @ 10:36, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

May 4, 2006

en.wp considering automatic upload to Commons

The interproject communication is just fantastic. :P I forwarded part of the correspondence to the commons-l mailing list, which any interested party is welcome to join. Wikien-l is discussing it here: http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/thread.html

Essentially I welcome the proposal, with the following caveats:

  • a global "you have new messages" system would be welcome (assuming we have a universal login) to stop people's outrage at not being notified before their images are deleted
  • some extra hands from en.wp (and any other project that does this) would be more than welcome as well - especially for non-English projects to act as a language "contact point" for other admins
  • some requirement or at least hints on categories should be considered almost mandatory.

--pfctdayelise (translate?) 10:02, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Reading the discussion on wikien, it seems they are mostly opposed to it because they don't think we could handle the extra bad traffic. Probably they are right (since we can't really handle the current bad traffic ;)). But then they can't handle the current bad traffic either. So eh. MarkGallagher makes the excellent point that the consequences of a bad upload being missed are worse here than in en.wp, because here you might have to unlink a copyvio from dozens of projects (or even three is enough to be a pain), whereas if it's uploaded to en.wp it's much more "contained". pfctdayelise (translate?) 10:12, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Hm... maybe we should have a system of "upload patrolling"? edit patrolling did not work too well (at least on teh de:wp), but I belive it could work for uploads. What do you think? -- Duesentrieb(?!) 10:20, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Do you mean actually enabling the Mediawiki patrol system, or an informal "RC patrol" type group? At any rate, I don't think there are enough regular dedicated eyes on the sight for either system to fully work. pfctdayelise (translate?) 10:23, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
What I mean is a modified version of the Mediawiki patrol system, just for uploads. I hope it can increase the number of eyes on the issue. Also, I think we should advertize to use my Gallery tool instead of the Newimages page for monitoring uploads - it shows tagging and image use inline, without teh need to load the description page to check. It also highlites (some) problem cases automatically. Here is a link:
annotated gallery of recent uploads
Note that it's set to only show uploads until 12 hours ago, to give people time to edit the description page and/or link the image after upload. Both (the gallery and the patrol flags) work best in association with a loose project-style association of people doing the patrolling, of corse. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 11:01, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Two things: one, when there's serious lag, you should instruct people to go back to Special:Newimages. Two, the useful thing of the Mediawiki patrol is that you can mark off edits as have been 'checked', which stops people duplicating each other's work unnecessarily. It also makes it clearer what has slipped through. Can your system indicate this somehow? pfctdayelise (translate?) 11:38, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Could be added (both: a hint when lagged and flagging). Also, I would prefer a counter to a simple flags... four eyes see more than two... -- Duesentrieb(?!) 11:52, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Thinking about it, the flagging should be done inside mediawiki - I could provide an interface for it thouhg. Also, it would be even better to be able to see who has reviewed an image. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 12:42, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Pages moves

Just to leave a little note in here: Pages moves are restricted for newbies on Commons from now on – as it is already the case on several other Wikimedia projects. After currect move vandalism especially regarding user pages and some blocked users (see log), I've asked Tim for such a restriction today. Greetings --:Bdk: 13:33, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

How old does their account have to be? Is it 4 days, the same as image re-uploads? pfctdayelise (translate?) 16:29, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
yes -- Duesentrieb(?!) 17:18, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
What error message will new users trying to move pages get? MediaWiki:Movenologintext or MediaWiki:Fileexists-forbidden or something else? We need like MediaWiki:Accounttoonew. pfctdayelise (translate?) 17:57, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Point in question... the vandal has a habit of creating usernames and using them several days later... Perhaps we should require some activity prior to page moves too? Not sure if that's feasable. Cary "Bastique" Bass parler voir 18:03, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
My understanding is that restrictions like this are only intended to stop low-level vandals. People intent on vandalism will find a way around whatever restrictions we make. pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:39, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Files with bad OGG encoding

Here is a list of files that have the ogg extension, but have not been recognized as vorbis or theora encoded.

Some are probably Xvid/DivX videos, or MP3 audio, or they are not ogg at all (the mime type check is weak for ogg) - or they are simply broken. Please have a look at those files, talk to the uploader, re-encode, list for deletion, as you see fit. IMHO, we should only have ogg files on commons that use truely free encodings (i.e. not mpeg, avi, etc). -- Duesentrieb(?!) 17:18, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Mispelled Category

All the items in Category:Geneology should be moved to Category:Genealogy. Cary "Bastique" Bass parler voir 19:23, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I made it a {{category redirect}}. Now User:Orgullobot should automatically transfer all the images to the correct spelling. User:dbenbenn 19:37, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

May 5, 2006

New look of search page

I was just wondering how to improve the search mask and as there was a better one available at Commons:Searching that obviously not very much people do regularly use (as it is simply not prominently linked in the interface) I was thinking why not merging it with Special:Search and thus improving our search mask for all users and reducing duplications at the same time. So I just merged it into MediaWiki:Searchresulttext (strange name for a string displayed above the search bar by the way ;). In case you haven't set your interface to english just click at this link in order to see it in action [3]. What do you think? If you other admins like it just adapt the usual /lang-code sub page so that you have the same in your language (but be carfully doing so you can easily mix up the whole interface if you forgot to close one div ;-). Arnomane 01:11, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Does andybody know a good external image search engine that does index our image pages currently, because I want to add one into MediaWiki:Searchresulttext (because Wikimedia Commons google image sarch still doesn't work I have removed it). Arnomane 08:44, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the one I wrote :) Please try out MediaSearch. The interface is still clunky, and the search is not yet using the Commons:Tag categories, but it already works pretty well and I would like to get some feedback. Note, however that it does not index the description text: search is done primarily by category, and can be filtered by file size, resolution, license status, media type, etc. So, please try it out! -- Duesentrieb(?!) 08:53, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Ah cool that it progresses so nicely. I hesitated to link yours without your prior approval. ;-) Arnomane 09:04, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I too would prefer if some people here would first try it out and give some feedback. The earch queries are also quite complex and can put considerable load on the toolserver. I will probably have to optimize then first, and maybe even throttle the query page, so it does not kill the tool server. -- Duesentrieb(?!)
Hm I have linked it now. So please inmediatly remove it in MediaWiki:Searchresulttext if somethings goes wrong. Arnomane 10:20, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I'll be gone for a few days - if something goes wrong, please coordinate with de:Benutzer:DaB., he is root on the toolserver. I have told him to talk to you, too. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 11:25, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Naming problem

Image:Ivan Kalita.jpg uploaded 00:30, 5 May 2006 probably has the same name as another image which shows up when you click on it. (Maybe there is a special tag for this kind of problem?). - Mu 05:23, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean, there is an image with this name uploaded at some local project (for example your Wikipedia)? If that's the problem, you won't be able to use this Commons image. You need to rename one of the images (upload it under a more specific name) and have it (the one with the double name) deleted. There's no special tag for this. pfctdayelise (translate?) 23:41, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

German tabs

On my userpage, I have German tabs in my FireFox, but not in IE. Why? Sceptre 08:47, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Which tabs do you mean? The tabs "user/benutzerseite", "talk/diskussion" and so forth or the "gallery/galerie", "Orphan/waisen"? In case of the second it is due to a caching problem in IE (and in general in all browsers if you switch the interface language in your user preferences). Refresh your browser cache in IE and it will load the right Javascript file for the German interface and the extra tab should show up in German. Arnomane 08:53, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm English, though. It's the extra user tabs (Gallery, Orphans, etc) Sceptre 15:49, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

In regards to flags with borders

I've uploaded a few flags with the border, since flags with borders were not available before. The reason is that the {{border}} does not look good in bullet or numbered lists, and some people have also requested flags with borders. Someone will probably fix the problem "in some future", but the problem exists now. If you want to upload flags with borders (which is of course only necessary if the flag contains white by the edge) then I'd recommend you name it "Flag of X border.png" or "Flag of X border.svg" depending on format. For example, image:Flag of Poland border.png.

Fred Chess 19:08, 5 May 2006 (UTC)


{{border}} fixed (from es:Plantilla:Borde), you can delete these images. Sanbec 00:39, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Sanbec. I deleted the images I uploaded. / Fred Chess 07:34, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Deleting an image

I recently uploaded three photos for an article in wikipedia that was eventually deleted (long story) I have moved two of them to University of Toronto in wikimedia and linked the page to U of T in Wikipedia. I want to delete the third redundant picture and don't know how? How do I delete a photo that is no longer needed? WayneRay 20:51, 5 May 2006 (UTC)WayneRay

Add {{deletion request}} to the image description page and leave a note at the bottom of Commons:Deletion requests, explaining what you want and why. Thuresson 23:59, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

May 6, 2006

Picture of the day for the 3rd of June is missing

Is it me or is the photo really missing? --Tarawneh 05:33, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Remove /ad/ from your ad blocker. See #Image not showing in the file page above. And complain at bugzilla:5402. The problem could be easily fixed, but Brion Vibber has refused to attempt to understand the problem, so won't allow it to be fixed. User:dbenbenn 05:47, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Remove the "/ad/"! No way :-)
I have checked bugzilla:5402. Nice argument by Vibber. I will write some thing there --Tarawneh 06:07, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Category redirects

Is it possible to redirect Category:1963 March on Washington to Category:March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom? Thanks Arniep 15:13, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

You just edit the category and add
{{category redirect|March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom}}
User:dbenbenn 15:57, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! Arniep 00:11, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Category:Ferris wheels in the United States

There is a photo of my uploading and even though it is in the public domain it is not part of this poto collection of [4] and should be moved to Ferris Wheels in Canada, I can't seem to find any way of editing or doing this?? Help please. WayneRay 16:03, 6 May 2006 (UTC)WayneRay

If you want to change the category that Image:Wfa042.jpg is in, simply follow the link, click "edit", and change the category. User:dbenbenn 16:19, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

International crisis group - copyright question

I have uploaded a map of iraqi kurdistan from the wepsite of the Internatioanl Crisis group. The file has been deleted by people claiming abus eof copyright. However The ICG website [[5]] (which I had consulted before uploading the file) states:

Crisis Group encourages you to copy and distribute the Crisis Group copyrighted materials and documents found on this site (the “Crisis Group Materials”). In that regard, so long as you credit Crisis Group as the source and so long as you comply with the other terms and conditions in this notice, no permission is required to use, reproduce, copy, modify or download any of the Crisis Group Materials.

What stronger statement that the file may be used could I have found ?--Vindheim 17:54, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Please read the full copyright notice and do not pick the sentence you think it's important. There are several restrictions that may be not compatible to Commons licensing policy. Especially regarding derivative work, contacting author etc. --Denniss 21:07, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
I've read the full copyright license, and I don't see any problems. What specifically do you think is incompatible with Commons? User:dbenbenn 21:21, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
I've read the full copyright license, guess the following statements are clear (each by it self):
Unless otherwise specifically stated, the material on this site was created, authored, and/or prepared by the International Crisis Group ("Crisis Group", formerly "ICG") and Crisis Group is the copyright owner of such materials.
Then
Unless otherwise specifically stated, no claim to copyright is being asserted by Crisis Group and material on this website may be freely used as in the public domain
And, later
If you do, however, modify the Crisis Group Materials, you will indicate that you have done so, so that any inaccuracies or omissions will not reflect on Crisis Group’s or the original authors’ reputations
Some Contradictions!!!!. Yet, if it to be used as in the public domain then it is public domain. --Tarawneh 18:23, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
It seems the intent of the ICG copyright notice is clear, and I will therefore upload the Iraq kurdistan map once more, and tag it as being in the public domain. --Vindheim 18:31, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Not possible: "Upload warning. Protected page" Could an adminstrator please look into this ?--Vindheim 18:36, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Check the Protection log:
19:35, 5 May 2006 Bastique protected "Image:Iraqi Kurdistan.jpg" ([edit=sysop:move=sysop])
If you are after Image:Iraqi Kurdistan.jpg then it must be unprotected. --Tarawneh 18:48, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
I have unprotected this image. If there are objections, please voice them. Cary "Bastique" Bass parler voir 13:56, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Move request

I meant to upload Image:Image-QuadrilatereduManio.JPG over Image:QuadrilatereduManio.JPG but stuffed up. Could someone please move it? The photos are very similar, but the "Image-" is a slightly better angle. Stevage 20:24, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

You can do it yourself. Just go to Image:QuadrilatereduManio.JPG and click "Upload a new version of this file" at the bottom. Make sure to tag Image:Image-QuadrilatereduManio.JPG with {{speedy delete}} when you're done. User:dbenbenn 21:23, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Oh, good idea. Does the same go for renaming images? I uploaded Image:Coueson mud.jpg with a typo (it should be Couesnon...). Stevage 22:04, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately you have to upload it under its correct name and mark the bad one for speedy deletion. pfctdayelise (translate?) 23:38, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

google status

Has there been any news or progress with Google (or any other searcher- yahoo, msn, whatever) on getting image searches working on our favorite site? -Mak 23:48, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

May 7, 2006

Category:CommonsRoot page is a mess

The template with languages and the logo of Wikimedia Commons are mixed in Category:CommonsRoot At least this happens on platform Windows XP and browser Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.3. Is there some template specialist who can do something about this? Maybe this is a Bugzilla thing, maybe some of you guys here know the solution. Thanks in advance Patio 06:31, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I spent half an hour last night reformatting the Sisterwiki templates to fit a smaller form factor, and once I did that, it looked okay. Today, I found out all my edits were reverted >.<
Nonetheless, I added column separators to the page, so it doesn't stretch some insane amount of pixels horizontally anymore. —UED77 18:26, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

italian coats of arms

hi all. I am afraid to say you that all italian COAs (except witch are tagged with {{PD-DAUI}}) are copyrighted by Italian governament and are used with permission. Derivate works and free use is not allowed without permission. Please, help me to delete they (and if you have doubt with any images, ask me).

Any images surely copyrighted:

Italian provinces - coats of arms

Category:Coats_of_arms_of_Italian_municipalities and all subcategories (attention: 3 or 4 images are photos of walls of Italy, like this. these are ok).

--RED DEVIL 666 08:32, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

  • We should get a bot to do this, it's silly to do it by hand... What is it.wp going to do? Are they uploading them locally? pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:41, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
None of these are PD because of age? Is there a specific Italian law on coats of arms? Then please point to it (and give a short explanation what exactly it says). --::Slomox:: >< 15:17, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Pfctdayelise> it:wiki use they with permission (images with permissions are deprecate by WMF but they don't listen Jimbo or others)

Slomox> none are Pd, because are not allowed commercial use and derivate works, because are seals of town councils. --RED DEVIL 666 16:53, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

The same is true for German coats of arms (Template:PD-Coa-Germany). They cannot be used freely, because they are official emblems of the municipalities. Putting the coat of arms of Dummsdorf on a packet of cheese and calling it 'Original Dummsdorf Cheese' would not be legal. Putting the coat of arms of your hometown on your official letterhead is problematic too. But the trick is: That are two different laws. Use in Commons is about being free regarding copyright. It is not necessary that the image is usable in every possible context. So restrictions on the use of coats of arms specifically is a thing which only the re-user has to think about. For example:
We can have a picture of G.W. Bush on Commons, when it is PD. But if you use a very unappropiate derivative of that picture, which is extremely offensive to Bush, this is surely not legal and punishable as libel.
For coat of arms: depicting a coat of arms can be okay, while using a coat of arms may be restricted.
I don't know whether such a legal view is portable to the Italian legal situation, but think about it. (I hope I made the point clear, my English is a bit poor to explain complex issues) --::Slomox:: >< 15:24, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Pages vs categories

I'm not that familiar with how Commons works. However, it seems to me that there is a duplication of effort involved if there are actual pages on various topics, and then categories as well. Case in point:

Most of the photos in the category have been added to the article page. But why bother? Why not just add the content on the Rennes page to the top of the category page? Can someone explain this to me? Stevage 09:21, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I am also quite new here and I share your point of view, but many users here like the articles. Just put the articles inside the correct categories. Flamarande 10:04, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Articles can be made prettier and thus more useful. See Malmö for an example. Articles are also easier to link to. I suppose you could redirect Rennes to category:Rennes and paste all images in its top section -- Perhaps this is not so convenient for very large categories, but otherwise I find it to be a good idea. / Fred Chess 11:11, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
You restarted the war :). Articles are not easier to link to, quite the opposite. They are not more useful. They are prettier but also much more unhandlier. Flamarande 11:19, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Don't put image galleries on the category page; put the images directly in the category. It is quite a small category, but the article doesn't hurt. The problem here is that the article has no structure. It should have first a map and any flag/COA, then like major cities, then maybe transport section or other related sections. I'm not going to restructure it because it's in French, but someone should. pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:08, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't quite understand, what should it have exactly? Surely we don't want to mirror information at Wikipedia or Wikitravel? Can you point me to some examples of useful articles here? Stevage 20:54, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
WP and wikitravel would never present so many images in one page like this (not that wikitravel is a Wikimedia project, but anyway). It is hard to evaluate articles, but here are some that at least have some structure... London, Wien, 上海, Boston. None of them are perfect (especially I would try and avoid ever having a "miscellaneous/other" section), but they're something to compare with at least... pfctdayelise (translate?) 23:17, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
One point, because of which I don't like galleries, is, that they are not easy to localize. Look at Wien. The descriptions are messed up. Some in German, some in English, some have no description at all. For a person, who isn't capable of both languages, the page isn't more useful than a category. --::Slomox:: >< 15:04, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

changing image names

I feel sorta stupid for even asking this, but I accidentally made a typo when uploading a few pictures the other day. I tried to change their names after the fact, but I can't seem to figure out how. The two images are Image:Obama at Darful Rally 3.JPG and Image:Obama at Darful rally 2.JPG. Both should say "darfur" rally, but apparently I can't type :-). I'm sure changing a file name is something simple that I'm just completely missing, but I don't see it anywhere. TIA --Bachrach44 16:38, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Nope, contrary to what you'd expect, you just can't rename an image. Please complain at bugzilla:709. What you can do is re-upload the images with the correct names, and tag the old ones with {{speedydelete}}. User:dbenbenn 17:07, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the workaround tip - I'll reupload them soon. --Bachrach44 13:25, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Inclusionism vs. Notificationism vs. Deletionism

Surely, those frequenting Meta have heard about Inclusionism and Deletionism. They refer to the tendency of editors to keep or delete material. Adapted to the Commons, the issue is mainly about deleting images, and thus, it's not so much editors as Admins who can be equipped with such labels. However, our case is very much unique, as a plethora of other Wikimedia projects depend on us for hosting media. Of course, every good Commons admin is trained from an age of four years to be a Notificationist: to use CheckUsage, warn the uploader, warn all projects that use the image, and then, upon receiving a prompt and understanding reply from the uploader admitting his error, upload the image to the project if it's fair use and the project accepts fair use, or if not, then unlink the file, and finally delete it.

Does that sound like a lot of work? Plus, what are the chances of a user admitting that a 64x64 dithered gif logo of some obscure South American football team is actually a copyvio? Chances are he'll fiercely argue that he has permission, and even though he will be proven painfully wrong in the end, considerable work, discourse, and time have been wasted by the time the matter is sorted out.

This matter has been touched on several times, (eg. Commons:Village pump#Commons-actions_damage_Wikipedia), but not adequately. We at the Commons have a lot of files to work with, which are mostly unmodifiable (as opposed to articles, which you could edit until it makes sense), so our only two options are to keep or delete, and in either case, we're expected to notify the uploader. I'm not saying I can't spare 30 seconds of my precious time to insert a {{subst:Image source}} into a user's talk page and a {{subst:nsd}} into the image description page, but I would prefer to stop there. If an article is deleted from a Wikipedia, does the deleter create an account on 10 other wikis just so he can warn them to remove obsoleted interwiki links?

It's a question of obligation. What is the Commons obliged to do? Are we obliged to serve other Wikimedia projects with images? Should we work thrice as hard so that someone at a Wikipedia doesn't see a blank picture? Considering that the overwhelming majority of Commons contributors "throws a couple of files over the wall" — I saw somebody use this the other day, and it's a perfect metaphor — and never comes back again, it's quite hard to play the Notificationist game.

My intentions are not to draft a "Commons Declaration of Independence", or set the wrath of all Wikimedians on me, or have my userpage vandalized for expressing my frustration. However, those who complain that Commons actions damage other projects should realize the unique situation us Commons Admins are in. Ample reading material exists in English to explain how to flawlessly fill out an image upload description. The new Commons:First steps is so detailed that to advanced users, it's borderline ridiculous. A good, albeit long guide exists at Commons:Licensing, which is probably the most linked-to page from other Policy pages anyway. The easy-to-use license selector even recommends you which licenses to use. Even the very upload text explains concisely how to perform a perfect upload, and a the Commons:Help page maintenance project is working on translating these important texts to other languages. I feel we are doing our part. Isn't it time Commons uploaders and other Wikimedians do their part as well? —UED77 20:23, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Small observation: Today, after uploading my 25th or so image, I saw the "first steps" for the first time. None of that material is very present, and it seems to be buried behind several links. Make the key points clearer. Also, there is some helpful material provided when you upload a new version of an existing file ("now go back and fill out the description properly") - but I don't get why that material isn't provided when you upload a new file from scratch. I didn't realise until recently that files should be categorised, for instance. Stevage 21:04, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for calling this to my attention. I added prominent links to Commons:Welcome and Commons:First steps in Mediawiki:Captcha-createaccount. Given the existing scheme, this new message can be localized easily. Hopefully, new users will heed our recommendation and read the two most important pages before creating an account.
As for the "go back and fill out the description" message, I'm not exactly sure why that doesn't show up, but I'll look into the matter. —UED77 22:52, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Erm. which language setting do you have? At Special:Upload you hardly can miss the precise info and links to all essential pages in case your local language text is already updated (see Commons:Help_page_maintenance/Wikimedia_Commons_interface#MediaWiki:Uploadtext). Despite that you hardly can miss Commons:First steps if you come across http://commons.wikimedia.org our just clicked on the usual left side navigation links that are called for a very reason "welcome" and "project portal".... Arnomane 22:59, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
English. Depends what you mean by "can hardly miss". The typical uploader is not looking to read a page of text before he uploads, he's looking to fill in boxes. Probably the most helpful thing would be another line of red text saying something like "The rules are different from Wikipedia, Wiktionary etc!" I also find sentences like "Sort your files after upload as well." unhelpful and unlikely to achieve anything. Much better to describe a process the user should follow: "1. Choose a licence. 2. Describe 3. Upload 4. Categorise". Stevage 10:20, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
@UED77. Yes I see this as you. We are woking very hard but average Wikipedians don't have the slightest clue how damn huge their demands towards us are and how much we are working in order to satisfy them... See also the major flame at http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-May/thread.html#6982 (although originally centered around a completly diffeent topic, which is hopefully now over ;). Arnomane 23:05, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't believe it is our responsibility to upload fair use images to local projects and I virtually never do this. It is the uploader's responsibility, no way is it ours. I also don't feel bad about this because if it's a fair use image, chances are they got it off the web, so there is another source besides us.
The requirements of us to not upset anyone are part of the reason that there is such a huge backlog in items to be deleted. (I don't think that we should be upsetting anyone, but it's just a hella lotta work not to.) I wrote a small rant about this recently at User talk:AYArktos.
Also UED77 you will be happy to know that I have been working with someone to develop an automatic "nominate for deletion" script that should save a few small steps. And after universal login arrives I will push very strongly for delinker bot. Then maybe we can be a bit more productive and effective. pfctdayelise (translate?) 23:26, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi, sorry to jump in, but I really do not understand this guilt thing. If an uploader puts a fairuse, then it is his problem, not yours. Why not simply replace the picture with a new one that will show on every linked wiki, a picture saying "This photo is about to be deleted, Replace or Remove". You do not have to go looking for them, they are connected to commons. Give it a week or two then delete it. If some is really looking after the pages linked to such images then problem is solved. If not, well, you gave them a two week notice. Please do not misjudge my words as Call for Deletionism. It is simply not your problem; you people have too much in your hands. I am a sysop at Arabic wiki, and it is hard there, I imagine it is 10000000 times harder here.--Tarawneh 00:04, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Whoa, sympathy, how flattering :) Regarding your idea about overwriting the image with a warning notice, I believe Fred has experimented with a few ideas like that. But I don't think it will be popular because for one thing, we should provide an explanation text in every language, or at least 20...for thumbnails it will be unreadable. The main problem though is that when an image is overwritten it doesn't make any change to the page it appears in. So if the article is not actually edited during the week, no regular editor is likely to be checking it for this random thing - there's a bit too much of a "surprise" element. It is important that on the whole we keep good relations with the local projects. Commons is most effective when everybody participates (call it CommunismCommonsism). So if one project gets too pissed off and decides to stop using the Commons, everyone may miss out which is a shame. Duesentrieb is working on a tool to automatically notify local projects when an image they're using has been nominated for deletion. This is a great idea and should also go some way towards greater co-operation between Commons and the local projects. pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:40, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
IMHO what is needed there is a way to delete the image, but make it so that a link will appear which will explain why the image was deleted, and a way to get it back if necessary. Having your image disappear from your article is one thing, but having no explanation what happened is another. Stevage 10:22, 8 May 2006 (UTC)


As I have said before, I'm working on an automatic notification system - so, if only my life would stand still for a few days, so I could finish it... -- Duesentrieb(?!) 11:33, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Still, with our without automatic notification system, local project have to take part of the responsibility. I really believe that the concept of free lunch is not the way to go. If a project wants to use the images, then they have to participate; for example, notice should be sent to one central page in that project, and they take it from there. It is easier for commons and gets the projects involved. Each project should prepare its own templates, universally named among projects, yet each in its own language. Commons would have its own templates set by commons or by the projects. For example, let us say ar-wiki is using a questionable image. Then commons users, sysops, pots, (whomever) puts a {{ar-check}} template in that picture page (in commons), this template contains
  1. the ,already set in ar-wiki, template that explains the problem, and
  2. the image link in commons.
This text is then copied and pasted into link (already plugged in {{ar-check}}) pointing to the related central page in the Arabic wiki (with the &action=edit). This way it is simply a matter of copy and paste. The projects get involved more easly, (we are talking about one central page), and take a share in checking and figuring out the copyright status of the file in question.
So it is simply, 1. put the template, 2.copy the text in the template, and 3 paste the text into the link given in the template.
Even if automatic notification system is used, the local projects should get involved. --Tarawneh 12:17, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree that projects using the images have to take responsibility - and so does the uploader. I'm not sure your suggestion is feasable, though, since on an arabicl (rtl!) wiki, I'm not sure I could even find the "save" button... Also, it requires to run CheckUSage before tagging, and tagging and copying the message gets annoying if the image is used in 20 projects or so (some images are using in hundreds of projects...)
To clarify: my notification tool would post modifications (replacement, tagging, deletions requests, etc) to a well known, central page on each project using the image (and for which a commons notification page is know to the tool). The projects should take it from there. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 12:48, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Perfect, but, still you need the text prepered by the local wikis in the local languages. --Tarawneh 14:59, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
what text? the one describin the problem, i.e. the content of the tag? Sure, the translation has to be somewhere. We already have a scheme for that, have a look at the language links in Template:No license, for example. I could tweak me tool to look for a localized version of each template and lonk to it if available. Copying the text would cause a lot of bloat. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 17:16, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Who cares about my 50 cents? Well, since I am doing alot of this "charity" work that UED77 described, it might be interesting.

I think, yes, Commons admins should work thrice as hard as admins on other Wikipedias. Because we should serve them, not the other way around, IMHO.

Fred Chess 17:50, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

The coming single-user-login system (users will be able to log into every wikimedia project from the same account) will help with this situation.Phr 18:30, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Project: blueprints?

Is someone intrested in finding/drawing/uploading/organising of blueprints? I'm shure that collection of blueprints will be intresting for many visitors. Unfortunately, we have very small number of blueprints now. Who wants to help? Kneiphof 22:44, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, blueprints are engineer's drawings used in the construction of buildings, machines etcetera. They do have an evocative quality, but I think that they do not have an artistic quality per se. Unless, perhaps, one is a retired engineer, or something like that;) As an illustration of, say, construction details of steam locomotives, they would be excellent. But otherwise, the additional value is not immediately clear to me. But please do not let this deter you! Best regards, MartinD 14:28, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Hello. I guess I used wrong word. I dind't realy mean real "technical" drawings, like all the details of diesel motor (just an exaple), but rather scetches and outlines like ones you can see here. Such outlines would be very useful for people who make scale models or 3d-modelling. It would be great if we had someting like [6], but with free content. Kneiphof 21:02, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

New Edit tools

Hi I have taken over the Edittools Javascript from Wiktionary (see MediaWiki:Edittools.js) and did embedd it into all MediaWiki:Monobook.js files (every existing language) and thus changed MediaWiki:Edittools to display far more characters with less screen space wasted and a nice grouping at the same time. :-) See the drop down menu below "save page" on editing a page and play around with it. ;-) In case you don't see the drop down menu refresh your browser cache. I will add more non-latin alphabet sets later (just reduced the number at first in order to test the whole thing). I18n of the label texts and the tooltip are no easy thing I will investigate how to do that in a easy maintainable way. But that's a minor issue as we now have a way better support for more special character sets. Have fun. Arnomane 15:36, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Yay! Great job again! I added IPA just for the fun of it, to test if I can add others, and it works beautifully. —UED77 16:25, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
It is about time ;-)
Please add the following arabic code :


ا ب ت ث ج ح خ د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ك ل م ن ه و ي  
ﺿ ·
·
·

الهمزات و رموز أخرى : ء- ّ- ْ- ً- ِ- آ أ إ ة ؤ ئ ى  
حروف إضافية: پ چ ژ گ ڠ ۰ ۱ ۲ ۳ ٤ ٥ ٦ ٧ ۸ ۹  

Thnaks in advance --Tarawneh 18:02, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
I added it; it looks a bit strange to my LTR eyes, but I hope it's correct. Please check it and tell me if anything needs to be changed. —UED77 18:23, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, But can you get the <br> back in the code, it looks much better with the Breaks in, check our ar-wiki version --Tarawneh 18:34, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Concurrently, Arnomane is tweaking a few things, so I don't want to touch it at the moment :) But in a couple hours if he doesn't but the <br />'s back, then I'll do so. —UED77 19:40, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Huh this is really complicated. I have now entered one br in order to separate the tow labeled groups from the rest. I added the "invisible" thing as otherwise you will get a strange display effect at page load until the javascript is loaded (it will expand at first the arabic text and then suddenly hide it). Does it look better now? (I have removed the text highlighting for the time being) Arnomane 20:03, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Some how better, but the first three groups are on the same line. If you try to copy the code exactly as above. It could yield better results. (Copy from within the edit page, all the needed code is there) --Tarawneh 20:59, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Have made now the br's after everything (Originally I wanted so use vertical screen space more efficiently, but as you will use it way more often than me I'll do what you like ;). However I don't know what all the code in the span beside the fontsize and the tt does. Doesn't seem to have an effect for me. Is this some code specially designed for ar.wp? Arnomane 21:55, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
It seems that we needed all the code back there, still I missed something. this is a ltr wiki. Sorry, but I think we need a <dir dir=rtl> </div> tag. --Tarawneh 23:06, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Fascinating all this. ;-) I have added the div rtl tag and now my browser is less confused. :-) (Konqueror previously displayed the arabic 9 at the wrong place in contrast to Firefox). I needed to add the div rtl outside the p-tags as inside of the p-tag the text was suddenly hidden for whatever reason... ;-) Arnomane 23:39, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I have added now a lot of further languages to the menu (all sorted alphabetically, apart the the general latin, greek and cyrillic special characters and the IPA). So make a cache reload and look if I did everything right with your language(s). With regards to arab I have some further questions: I needed to remove the br's and the div as they did break the display of the following entries a bit (I thus use span now like initially). However I noticed that the first three rows have lots of redundancies. In envision only repeating the different parts (look for a comparison at the other languages) in oder to make this less crowded. However I haven't the slightest clue if the differences are somewhat compareable to latin characters with diacriticals and might thus can be grouped after their standard sign (or are this three different writing styles for the same thing?). Arnomane 18:53, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Most Arabic characters can have four forms, depending on where they are located in a word (initial, medial, terminal), or if they are isolated. The shapes of these don't typically change that much, so that's why it appears there are many duplicates.
You're going to kill me, Arnomane, but I actually liked the fewer dropdown options, containing all spec chars in a given script, and not by language. I don't think the size of the Edittools box will ever be a significant issue, and it's much nicer to see all chars you have available — in fact, you have said so yourself that often, people are trying to insert a char into text in a language they don't know. In that case, I think it makes more sense to provide all available chars in a script than chars typically used by languages. —UED77 22:52, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
No I won't kill you... ;-) In the meantime I tried to meet User:Maha at our weekly local Wikipedia meeting as he is a professor of linguistics (and he fluently speeks I don't know how many languages) but I did miss him this week. I want to talk with him about it in order to get some valuable feedback so that we can find a good solution that works for all sorts of languages and alphabets... Arnomane 15:41, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Sorry to plug myself, but I'm the actual inventor of this device over on the English Wiktionary. I might still remember some of the inner workings if you have any questions. I actually did it both to improve the way it worked on Wiktionary at that time as well as to teach myself JavaScript. Since it was my first ever JavaScript project it may be less than perfect. Since I implemented it a few of our other contributors have added to and improved it.
  • There are a few problems that could be vastly improved with MediaWiki support that I was not able to do with JavaScript, CSS, and Templates alone:
    1. There is no way to remember from page to page which section was used last.
      • This could be fixed if MediaWiki gave us access to a special cookie.
      • The best fix would be for MediaWiki to have full awareness of this tool and provide a user preference.
    2. All sections must be loaded every time with every page load - due to each character being wrapped in a JavaScript function call this adds up to a lot of HTML and has been known to be troublesome for users with slow connections.
      • A small reduction would be possible by replacing the full JavaScript function invocation with a wrapper that uses a single-letter function name and takes only one argument.
      • It may be possible to make a better MediaWiki extension that generates more efficient HTML - or it may not be possible - I don't know enough about the issues.
      • With full MediaWiki support we can make it customizable per-wiki like the navigation bar or internationalized messages now are. MediaWiki:EditToolList or such would contain a list of identifiers, each of which also exists in the MediaWiki namespace and contains the actual list of characters.
        I don't know if MediaWiki also yet has per-user customization of such features but the ultimate EditTools would provide a User:EditToolList or such which would override the global list. This way she gets only the languages she needs and much less unused HTML.
        With this customization we can provide sets of characters in various ways: per script, per language, and per codepage or character set - the sysops of a given site or in the ultimate version, each user can decide which of these makes the most sense for them.
  • I'm glad you found my work. Please make the most of it. I hope my thoughts above prove useful and that somebody knows how to get all the features and improvements implemented. — Hippietrail 19:39, 25 May 2006 (UTC)== Random image deletion ==

Hello,

An image used on the English Wiktionary dissapeared recently.   vanished with no trace. Fighting my way through the MediaWiki software, I arrived here on commons (where there is a link to the deletion log.)

  • QUESTION: Why wasn't the image replaced with something (like a big red X?) saying it was marked for deletion?
  • QUESTION: Why wasn't the project using the image notified, before the deletion? Wouldn't it make sense to run CheckUsage as soon as it was tagged as having a technical/license problem of some sort?

Thanks in advance, --Connel MacKenzie 16:12, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

First let me provide the image history
     * 18:02, 21 May 2006 Rüdiger Wölk deleted "Image:Enchiladas 1.jpg" (no source/no license over 7 days)
     * 09:52, 12 March 2006 . . Howcheng ({{no source}})
     * 20:41, 31 October 2005 . . Ruby
  1. It is the responsibility of the uploader to provide source and license.
  2. A red X wouldn't be useful
  3. Consider implementing CommonsTicker, as described in #CommonsTicker: the Germans are watching! above.
Fred Chess 17:51, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
You seem to be stuck in some kind of tunnel-vision. Please think it through, before commenting again. To say that a red X would not be helpful, is so absolutely narrow-minded and wrong, you should be embarrassed that you said it. --Connel MacKenzie 23:47, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Personally I use CheckUsage to remove any image I delete from a project, even writing a summary in their own language saying "Removing image. This image is a copyright violation and will be deleted from Commons." I think every admin should do this, so we would avoid these kinds of complaints, but there is no consensus to make it a requirement. / Fred Chess 17:55, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
For images deleted after debate, or when deleting duplicates or superceeded images, unlinking is a must. When dealing with copyvios and unsourced images, that is not a requirement: it's in the responsibility of the uploader to clean up, and it's the responsibility of people in local projects to check if the images they are using are OK. We already have a huge backlog of things to delete, and we will never get through it if we do not require the help of local communities with cleanup. That being said: notifying the upload of the problem (on commons) is always required, of corse.
And yes, this is exactly the type of thing I wrote CommonsTicker for. The test on de:wp is going well, but I want to add some features and do some more testing before it put it live for other projects. The english wikipedia will have to wait untill we ge a fresh dump for the toolserver, sind the en:wp database there is currently broken. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 18:38, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
If we get a DelinkerBot we can do this. (waiting for universal login) There is at least me, Fred and WarX who always delink everything, even copyvios.
It doesn't make sense that images on COM:DEL should be delinked and copyvios should not. 95% of the cases on COM:DEL are where it is decided the image is a copyvio after all. pfctdayelise (translate?) 23:38, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm not opposed to delinking, but it's more than can be asked of commons admins, at least for real "speedy" cases (I said "after discussion", not "if listed as deletion request"). A bot may help, but may also bring new problems. Also, people have actually complained about "anonymous commons related editing", etc; apperently they would rather have a nice notification (where i'm not sure). In any case I belive local communities should get involved more with commons - if they want to use images from here, they will have to help to keep things clean. We should work on making better tools and processes available for this, bot on a community and on a technical level. Single login will be one pice of the puzzle, CommonsTicker another, I hope. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 23:45, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
en.wikt can implement a CommonsTicker straight away, right? It could be a good experiment to see how it goes on a smaller project (probably even better than a large one). pfctdayelise (translate?) 23:49, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Wow, I really misunderstood what you were suggesting, at first. OK, I'll set up an en.wikt: page and get the appropriate requests in place. For some reason, I thought this would be a much more passive operation. --Connel MacKenzie 16:23, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
  • My apologies for not checking back more frequently.

It is my opinion that when an image is tagged for deletion, (copyvio, unsourced; whatever) it would be in commons' best interest to immediately replace that image with something akin to the "big dumb red X" so that people can see that there is a problem, before the image automagically vanishes!

Would the commons appreciate more community participation? Well, once you delete an image (or any other media file) the sister-projects can no longer get to commons easily.

If, on the other hand, there were SOME kind of advance warning, clicking on the image (on the sister-project page) will usually direct that contributor to the commons version of that page (where the image actually is.) That in turn, leads to whatever discussion pages exist on commons regarding it...and more people "accidentally" ending up on commons, where they can discover this entire (separate) community.

One of my recent cleanup activities has me reviewing the current state of image links on the English Wiktionary (note: not Wikipedia.) I am encountering an astonishing number of image links that link to nothing. No trace of where the image was (local or commons.)

The thing the really bugs me about Image:Enchiladas 1.jpg is that it went unmolested for months, then without warning, vanished without a trace. No one did a CheckUsage on it, obviously. No redirect was left behind, pointing to a plausible alternate. Nothing on the image indicated its imminent demise, prior to getting zapped. I'll guess that the original contributor was not contacted (on their sister-project page.)

There has got to be a better way to go about all this. Every single image deletion hamstrings a sister-project somewhere. Zapping images with a replacement (of some sort, any sort!) will garner the participation allegedly desired. But deleting an image makes it very, very, very, very, very difficult to contributors on sister-projects to figure out what you are up to. (Remember: because you never notify anyone, the first indication a sister-project can possibly get is the magical disappearance of their content!) --Connel MacKenzie 05:25, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

We have a huge backlong in teh images-for-deletion category, and a lock of active admins. The more steps become necessary for deletion, the larger the backlog will get. People uploading images to the commons must take responsibility for the, at least be checking every now and then if there's something on their talk page here. People using images from commons must check if the licensing info is ok - otherwise, the image is likely to "vanish" at some point.
Note that Image:Enchiladas 1.jpg had been tagged for deletion for about six weeks before it was actually removed, and the uploader, User:Ruby, was notified. He did not respond in any way, not did he provide any information about himself, far less a link to his "home wiki".
CommonsTicker will hopefully help by providing a central page for image-related notifications on each project. It would be very nice indeed if we had a software feature that would put a warning on the image wherever it is used, when it's marked for deletion on commons. Manually overwriting it with a red X or something takes a lot of time and fiddeling. Notifying the user'S on ther "home" wiki is verry difficult too - many uploaders don't link to their home wiki at all, and editing in a wiki where you do not understand the interface language is quite tricky (ever tried editing a right-to-left wiki? it's no fun). A "delinker" bot that automatically removes references to images that are (going to be) deleted from all projects may help - or may annoy people even more, i'm not sure.
So, I agree that we should make commons as transparent as possible for the local projects - but only as long as it does not put even more load on the commons admins. Let's thing about procedured for allowing this, technical or otherwise. I stand by the commons deletion policy:
  • always notify the uploader (on commons). Notifying on the "home wiki" would be nice, but is not required (and often not possible).
  • delete obvious copyvios on sight. Unlinking would be nice, but is not required - it takes far too much time and effort for a commons admin to do by himself by hand. If we did that, we'll never got on top of all the (excuse me) crap that people upload here. When using images from commons people should make sure they have good license info.
  • delete images missing crucial source and license info after giving the uploader one week to supply the info. Again, unlinking would be nice, but is not required.
  • when deleting images after debate, or when deleting duplicates, unlinking in all projects is required. Duplicates and superceeded images shouuld be deleted only only if there are no objections.
I belive we must educate both commons admins and people using commons images about these procedures and resposibilities. Please help us to find new practical ways of tieing commons more closely into local communities, and try to make people aware that using images is not a matter of "link and forget". -- Duesentrieb(?!) 08:39, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
    1. I suggest a 'bot, to 1) d/l images nominated for execution, 2) superimpose a translucent red X, 3) re-upload new version (in a manner that can be rolled back!). (If too technically difficult, then just replace with big red dumb X.)
    2. I further suggest a second bot: 1) run a full CheckUsage on all items nominated for deletion, 2) auto-post the results of the CheckUsage to Commons:Deletion requests so that the CheckUsage only gets run once. Note: The English Wikipedia has a User:Mathbot that seems to do something similar for WP:RFA.
    3. I suppose I could also suggest a 'bot to review the commons Special:Log/delete, run CheckUsage on everything there, and auto-post talk page messages to the affected sister-project pages.
  • Note that none of these things would require Commons' sysop effort. Erm, if someone so inclined (with time available) decided to it it, that is. --Connel MacKenzie 18:03, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
  • P.S. Note that most of Wiktionary image links are of the "link and forget" variety - anons visit from Wikipedia and courteously link the common image, then never return. Because of the tricky inter-project nature, I'd suggest that drastically longer times between when nomination and deletion occur, should exist for Commons. --Connel MacKenzie 18:03, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Hm, a bot for X-ing images nominated for deletion actually sounds like a good idea. Superimposing requres downloding and processing the full image, that would be overkill and slow things down. Posting usage to the deletion request page does not seem to good to me though - speedy cases, copyvios, images missing info, etc, are not listed there anyway. The bot that reads log/delete and posts messages to the local projects is prertty much what CommonsTicker does - only that the ticker posts to a single page on each project. A second script for posting to talk pages could be added, running on the same ticker-database.

I'm opposed to longer delays before deletion, at least for copyvios and images missing info. Problems should be dealt with swiftly, otherwise noone will feel responsible for them, and we would have a huge "buffer" of "bad" images. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 18:37, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I can understand the concern for copyvios...perhaps they should be replaced with the X, rather than having it superimposed. Is there a programatic way to distinguish "unsourced" vs. "copyvio"?
On second thought, merely uploading the X as a new version of the file would accomplish the goal...providing a traceable link from sister projects. I'll have to look into CommonsTicker - it sounds great. --Connel MacKenzie 18:52, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
  • On the point about backlogs: once an image has resided on Commons for a week or so, if someone later comes along and tags it for deletion, the window for effective communication is already gone. This seems to be the most common scenario. That is why I suggest a longer time between nomination and deletion. Tagging immediately is of course the best possible approach. But I think it is rarely feasible, without a few hundred more sysops on commons. --Connel MacKenzie 19:00, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Just replacing the image with an X is much easier and faster, so I would prefer it (it could conceivable also be undone automatically). "Unsourced" and "Copyvio" have different templates - "copyvio" is for clear cases (obvious, or source stated, etc).
About the delay before deletion... hm, maybe the wait should be longer for pictuires that have been here for some time. But that would complicate the procedure for deletion even more. I whish more people would use the Gallery tool for watching uploads - much easier to spot bad stuff that way. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 23:04, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and thank you for discussing this in a constructive way! Mostly people just whine and leave :/ -- Duesentrieb(?!) 23:08, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Ahem. Yes, I think I learned my lesson last year.  :-)   --Connel MacKenzie 07:28, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I am not convinced that overwriting to-be-deleted images with big crosses is going to help much. The most important point about this is that the articles will change with no watchlist or history indication whatsoever. This is a nasty surprise. wikt:enchilada had only one edit between 5 March and 24 May (Rudiger's anonymous image removal - I have suggested that he use edit summaries from now on - but he actually did remove it from use, so there would have been no nasty red link). If we had overwritten the image during this period chances are no one would have noticed, and in the meantime the article looks terrible. I think this approach is too damaging for low/rarely-edited articles and projects. I think trying the CommonsTicker, see how effective or otherwise it is, is the best step here. pfctdayelise (translate?) 23:21, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
That is why the combination of the two techniques should be A) of no effort at all to anyone besides the 'bot operators, B) a safety valve for when one of the two isn't working, C) obvious not only to the contributors, but also to the people viewing entries with images/attachments earmarked for termination.
When viewed as something that affects everyone that views a sister-project page, it is silly to think that a talk page message to the original contributor (who may have left that sister-project just as rapidly as leaving Commons, BTW) is just as likely to be lost in the shuffle, before it is too late to find a replacement.
When other contributors on the sister-projects see the big red X, they will at least be able to click on it, directing them to the appropriate section of Commons. Not only will this encourage more people to visit Commons more often, it will also be biased towards encouraging the helpful janatorial types (AKA sysops) from the sister projects, instead of the fly-by-night copyvioers. Yes, I know that is not a word. Sounds like a win-win, to me. --Connel MacKenzie 07:28, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
But it's not just contributors. It's also readers, the wider audience, who have no idea any of this is going on and just want to know the definition of enchilada. Don't you think it will give a kind of unprofessional look? Who knows how many visitors will see the ugly red X before something gets done about it? (I will point out that there is often a freaking long, long time between any nomination for deletion and actual deletion. Look at how long the backlog on COM:DEL is. It's certainly not 7 days, even for simple cases.) This proposal is going to affect all projects, not just Wiktionary. I fear that this will make us more unpopular than anything else we've ever done. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:16, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Hm... so, maybe a superimposed X, or a red corner or something, may be better after all? Or do you think that would be just as bad? But I agree that we should first look if the ticker alone is enough. I'll look into making it post to individualt talk pages too. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 08:44, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I think a red corner (or similar) will be too small for most people to notice it, and for the people who do notice it, it will just confuse them. But talk to Fred Chessplayer, he has been experimenting with methods like these. I really think it is very likely that a Ticker will solve 99% of these problems, if there are project people who will watch it. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:56, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
shifting left, removing indentation

I'm sorry, but that is incredibly fallicious. Do you not understand the extensive dammage you are CURRENTLY doing to sister-projects by leaving broken image links all over the place? You think that doesn't bug the [profanity-censored] out of our current readers? Not only are they left with a preposterously "unprofessional" looking broken link (in the form of a broken image box) but they are also left with no indication that the image was deleted from a server living on a different planet!

The "readers" that do investigate, are then pushed face-first into a brick wall, as the local deletion log not only shows nothing about the image in question, it also denies that Commons even exists. If they are astute enough to check the deletion log for only the Image: namespace, they are again faced with an appalling absence of information.

Your continued assertion that "CommonsTicker" would solve 99% of these problems is absurd. It is a fine tool, that I wished worked universally already - but it will do NOTHING for the plethora of broken image links. Nor can it possibly communicate to a wide enough audience, what is going on.

--Connel MacKenzie 23:43, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Addendum: I have a question - what percentage of images/files nominated for deletion here on commons actually survive the process? 1%? 0.1? 0.01%? Or 0.001%? Isn't the nomination itself the death-stroke? --Connel MacKenzie 23:54, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I'm having trouble letting go of this. The notion that a "red X" would last more than a day or two (after being seen/noticed on a sister project) is also incorrect. In fact, the opposite is much more likely: the "bad" image reference would be removed quickly, with a search for alternates happening quickly, and/or the request being added to the appropriate image-requests page. The more visible the execution-notice, the better. --Connel MacKenzie 00:29, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


In closing (still can't let it go) I feel I must point out that User:Pfctdayelise's out-of-hand dismissal of sister-project feedback does very little to encourage further inter-project communication. --Connel MacKenzie 00:53, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, whoa. Hang on a sec. You came to us with one deleted image (which never left a broken link in any article - the deleting admin removed it before deleting). You said the problem was the that the project was never notified the image was up for deletion. That is exactly what CommonsTicker would offer, that notification.
Now you are accusing us of "leaving broken image links all over the place" and I'm sorry, but I don't see any evidence of that. The recent complaints we've had at the Commons have not been about that. What other images has it happened with at en.wikt? Let's focus on specifics, that we can do something about, rather than wild statements no one can verify.
Maybe other people will like the red cross idea and we can do that too, OK. I'm sorry if it seemed like I was dismissing your idea out of hand because that wasn't my intention. I'm just concerned about other impacts it might have. I'm saying, we three people who are writing here shouldn't be the only ones to decide it. It will impact on all the projects. --pfctdayelise (translate?) 01:07, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, it seems much of my ire was misplaced. I did not realize the anon who removed the image reference on en.wikt: was the same Commons sysop who deleted the image...I also did not realize that that edit happened before the deletion (it seemed like the other way around, when I looked before.) Currently, the only image: redlinks seem to be for images that previously were local images, now deleted. --Connel MacKenzie 14:10, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the history is not exactly accurate: it doesn't show the article exactly as it was at that time. Same problem with templates. pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:37, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
OK, thank you for your help, then. I've set up what I think are the appropriate pages for wikt:WT:CT, and put the request in, as you suggest. --Connel MacKenzie 06:28, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

May 8, 2006

WelcomeBot

What does everyone think about running a WelcomeBot, that will put a {{welcome}} on the talk page of each new account? I think it shouldn't be too hard to do. I notice we don't use it as much as for example en.wp. Because we want to highlight uploading tips and licensing requirements, it could be handy as another way to drive that point home. Thoughts? pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:53, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly support. Anything to get as much users as possible to familiarize themselves with our policies and stricter rules (compared to other Wikimedia projects). —UED77 02:58, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
"Stricter rules" as in organized caos? Please, don´t make me laugh :) Flamarande 09:18, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Well we have very strict rules on our content. Rules en.wikipedia can only dream of. Arnomane 10:33, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I have seen the way rules are used in en-wiki. Fairuse photos have been modified, croped, and used in talk pages. --Tarawneh 12:37, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Great idea! As anything what will help to avoid manual labor :-)
But may be this thing could be implemented in MediaWiki software itself (with a flag of automatic welcoming and special message)? This could help other projects too.
EugeneZelenko 13:59, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I think it's an excellent idea, in principle. It could help getting people familiarize themselves with the actually fairly strict rules of Commons. Just one question that comes up in my mind: your current template is in English. Now, that's OK with me, but I understand there is some discussion as to what should be the working language here. (Don't worry, I'm not going to put forward that everybody here should learn Dutch.) I won't go as far as to suggest that new users should be inundated with the same text in English, Chinese, Spanish, French and perhaps some other languages whose native speakers I would not wish to offend;), but is there perhaps a tool to make an educated guess as to what might be a user's native language, for instance from the TLD? If I'm asking a really stupid question, do not hesitate to say so. Regards, MartinD 14:19, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
It's not a stupid question. It is too hard to guess what languages a totally new user can speak (even for long-time users who don't put Babel boes it can be hard). The welcome template has links to translations at the top. Should these links be more prominent? BTW we are missing an NL translation, you are welcome (heh ;)) to add it as well as any others. pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:30, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I've added it to my to-do list, but I'm unable to say when I will get to it. But I think having a Dutch translation is not really very urgent, most Dutch have sufficient English to get the gist of it. Regards, MartinD 09:49, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
See also bug 4914. --EugeneZelenko 16:39, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Problematic copyright tags

I find the "self" (as in {{PD-self}}) copyright tags problematic. They say I, the author of this work..., and the information content of this statement is zero, since the name of the uploader is not shown on the local description pages fetched from Commons. Who is "I"?

Either we solve this problem, or we need to replace all "self" tags with "user|username" tags.

Any comments?

tsca @ 14:20, 8 May 2006 (UTC)


I would prefer {{PD-user}}, {{user}}, etc, too - if they now work with MediaWiki:Licenses (automatically substing the username there was not supported when I created the self-templates). I'm not sure of that. Anyway, a bot could be employed to change the templates. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 17:12, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

A bot could deal with the past uploads, but what about the uploads to follow? tsca @ 18:13, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
This has been commented on before. I made the same comment on template_talk:self a couple of months ago, and filed a bug as bugzilla:3283 . / Fred Chess 18:01, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps, a simpler way is to add the "~~~" string to the templates or the description box; it'd get expanded on saving. Can this be done? tsca @ 18:13, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
can you confirm this really works? This is not "normal" saving, after all... it it works, everything in the license list should be changed to user instead of self. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 21:07, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Any progress on this? I was coming to say exactly the same thing. Inclusion in the projetcts is a perfect thing, but the "I, author" without the author makes no sense whatsoever, expecially in the case of licences where the author NEEDS to be named. notafish }<';> 14:23, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
tsca, I don't think this works. Play around with {{selftest}} on Image:1-2-3-4 Cake cooking implements.JPG. I can't get it to expand. pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:29, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
From User talk:Pfctdayelise:
Before you start testing on all self-templates, I feel obliged to tell you that I created template:self-test where you can test all you want... (and , no, I didn't get the automatic signature expansion to work either).
Fred Chess 01:05, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Sorry to barge in, but I learned this the hard way with my ventures with {{Langs}} (or {{User:UED77/TestInclude}}):
  • Since ~~~ works like a subst, even if you put in in a template between includeonly tags, it will expand it when saved.
  • If you put it between nowiki tags, it will never expand.
  • If you create two templates that contain, respectively, a nowiki open and a nowiki closed tag, and you try to use that coupled with noinclude to force ~~~ not to expand, your templates will be included correctly, but they won't be parsed as wikitext by the server.
  • If you deliberately try to mismatch noinlcude and nowiki tags, it won't work.
That's all the scenarios I can think of at the moment :D —UED77 01:39, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
So you think there is no way to do it? :( pfctdayelise (translate?) 01:43, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
My past experience has shown that wikitext in templates only gets evaluated if substed — which, of course, we don't want in this case. Therefore, I'm fairly certain that without a software change, there is no way to do it. —UED77 01:47, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Copied here for relevancy. —UED77 02:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I can't think of a trick to make it work. Perhaps we need to request a new magicword on bugzilla? Anyway, while this doesn't work, I suggest we remove the self- templates from the menu presented to uploaders. tsca @ 21:33, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Is it that bad? I mean it's only one click extra to get the information, and I think all Wikipedians can manage that... pfctdayelise (translate?) 22:17, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
You could say that about all description pages from Commons. Do we need to show them at the local Wikipedias at all? After all, they're just one click away...
Seriously; the regular Wikipedians don't realise that certain things are far from obvious - for a lot of people the information is not just one click away, it's simply not available.
At this point, it is not the fault of the software (Mediawiki) that the requirements of the licences aren't respected - it's the fault of the templates which don't take the limitations of the system into consideration. It's the templates that, practically, violate the licences. So, if the templates can't be fixed, they should go.
tsca @ 22:43, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Nonsense. Simply fixing bugzilla:3283 would fix the problem without any draconian efforts.
Also, in reply to the discussion above about substing a signature: I haven't tried it with the license selector, but in regular wiki text, {{subst:username2|~}} will be equivalent to ~~~. Using tricks similar to Template:Nld (which is substed from MediaWiki:Licenses) it should be possible to subst the signature (which is not the same as the username). User:dbenbenn 05:11, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes but can it in fact be fixed? Is it likely to be fixed any time soon? pfctdayelise (translate?) 22:39, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, the bug could easily be fixed (image descriptions are already copied from Commons, so it should be easy to include the file history). Your second question is a good one. I don't think it's likely to be fixed soon, since the development process for MediaWiki is so closed.
If you want, I could make something to stick in the license selector that would be similar to doing {{GFDL-user|~~~}}. Unfortunately, that would require forking Template:GFDL-user (or making it more complicated) since ~~~ includes a link. The other drawback is that the tilde-signature can be anything the user selects in their preferences.
I don't think it's necessary to remove, replace, or deprecate the -self templates. I use them all the time, and I want to continue using them. User:dbenbenn 14:45, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

PD Iraq

Ok, as long we are talking about Problematic copyright tags. Can any one explain this tag PD-Iraq? There are no new laws in Iraq regarding such a claim, and no treaty (if exists) can stand as a law. Up to my knowledge, Iraqi copyright law has not been changed yet and it states that photos are PD 5 years from the publication date.--Tarawneh 21:49, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

So, :-) the no answer thing means PD-Iraq is ok , or not? Should it be RFDed or not? --Tarawneh 05:36, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I asked the user who created the tag here to explain his reasoning. See also w:Template:Iraqcopyright - perhaps our tag should be updated to reflect this, if it's correct? If you still have questions I would ask w:User:Anthony DiPierro who created that tag. pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:23, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I created the template such a long time ago, i forgot where exactly I got the info from. It was probably modelled after a template on the english wiki, but there is no en:Template:PD-Iraq. Sorry, but I guuess I can't be much help here. -- Chris 73 18:52, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually w:Template:Iraqcopyright is not 100% true; the law is called law numbwr 3 for the year 1971 (Protection of Iraqi Authors). It states that the protection is valied for 10 kinds of works. but the protection period is not the same for all types. Photographic work have 5 years of protection, then PD. what is mentioned in w:Template:Iraqcopyright is applies for books, articles, text in general and other stuff. the law in Arabic states:

بالنسبة للمصنفات الفوتوغرافية والسينمائية التي يقتصر فيها على مجرد نقل المناظر نقلاً آلياً تنقضي هذه الحقوق بمضي خمس سنوات تبدأ من تاريخ أول نشر للمصنف

Translation: Regarding the photographic work and cinema work which only provide scenery [(explain: if there is no actors in the movie , like nature files, ordinary people walking the street (faces must not be recognized, if people are not famous), buildings, and so on)], the protection period expires 5 years after being published. --Tarawneh 15:07, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, I think the rest of us will trust you to update the tag to reflect reality (with a /ar translation of course). Also update the en.wp tag (some people might come out of the woodwork to explain it). pfctdayelise (translate?) 22:21, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I have created the tag PD-Arabic some time ago. It includes the Iraqi law. I am not sure if the one-for-all tag is fine? --Tarawneh 03:54, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
You should include this explanation about "scenery" somewhere. If that will make that tag too crowded, make it a separate tag (like it is now) and link to it from that one. pfctdayelise (translate?) 22:42, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Need to rename an image

I just uploaded "Image:Recol_operation_key.png", but I misspelled the filename when I saved it, and didn't catch that when I uploaded it. It whould be "Recoil_operation_key.png" not "Recol_operation_key.png". Can anyone tell me how to move/rename it, or, if it's beyond my account's abilities, do it for me? Fluzwup 16:24, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, I uploaded the image again to the correct name; now Image:Recol_operation_key.png can be deleted.
Sorry for the late reply. I'm glad you've figured out that the correct solution is to reupload it. I've deleted your incorrectly named image. The next time you run into such a problem, tag the bad file with "{{speedydelete}} Bad name" :) —UED77 22:44, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Navigation from Image pages

I am a little confused about usage of Interwiki links on pages.

In general, Interwikis are used for allowing users to easily jump to pages with further information regarding the subject on a Commons Page. Usually these are links to wiki articles, but in many cases editors feel it is better to link to wiki categories. Just to emphasize this is not a category/article issue, I am not confused about the issue of whether to link to categories or articles, or enter into a discussion about that. The question concerns not the destination of the link but the source.

What I am confused about is that while users can expect to get further information from interwikis on Category and Article pages, the links do a different thing on Image pages. This non uniform behavior is usually not a good idea in User interfaces, but the rationale is that it is handy to keep track of where that exact image is being used on other wikis. I understand that on page Image:Mona Lisa detail face.jpg it is not permissible to put any interwiki links to articles on the Mona Lisa, as are present on Category:Mona Lisa.

If that is what we feel should continue to be common practice, is it permissible to add a language bar like set of links from an Image page to the various articles?

For example, the Mona Lisa Language bar I placed on Image:Mona Lisa heart.JPG

[Edit- Arnomane has updated this page, here one possible way such a language bar might look for see also links on a particular feature in am image:]
Mona Lisa Links: Template:Lang-Mona Lisa

Why do we care about better navigation from Image pages?

Images pages are an order of magnitude more common that any other type of page. This will become many orders of magnitude in the future. Inbound navigation to commons via external links and via internet searchers will land people with corresponding frequency on Image pages, not other pages on Commons. Maybe someone is discussing da vinci and wants to comment on the smile so what is he going to do, link to the entire gallery article on Mona Lisa or the individual picture, eg: Image:Mona Lisa detail face.jpg? OK, so now we have a vistor. How good a host are we? Ask yourself- How many first time visitors are going to figure out how to scroll to the bottom of the page, and look for what articles use that Image much less click on it, or figure out that they can get more information by clicking on one of the categories?

I can see many acceptable solutions to this question. I am just wondering what the suggested practice that deals with this issue of better navigation from image pages. -Mak 22:31, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

You can acvieve way more better image descriptions with a lot better navigation if you use Template:Information. The current image description of your example is really not ideal. For some ideas of best practice just have a look at Commons:First steps/Quality and description. Arnomane 00:14, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I am familiar with all that, and sure there are other things that would be helpful. But where in that documentation does it tell me how to make links to the wikipedia articles in 21 different languages as for this picture. Are you suggesting that making any such links to relevant wikipedia articles from an Image page is to be grounds for reversion? If it is not to be forbidden, then what method is considered best practice? -Mak 03:42, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Hey I am not the reversion devil. :p I didn't want to blame you the description wasn't entirely created by you.
  • At first a pybot (driven by maksim, he did create lots of such bad image descriptions :( made an ugly table and some bad written text no average user unterstands.
  • The wiki links table you created is meant as (or at least will have the effect of) a replacement for text. This is not good. Every image needs a short description what it displays at all, although at the mona lisa you're happy finding a wikipedia articlee that almost 1:1 fits to the image (very seldom this case). But these wikipedia links still todn't explain the white lines in the image...
  • Wikipedia articles in all languages can get linked with normal interwiki links. These links to local wikipedia show up at the usual place in the left. So a doubeling of existing structures is not that good.
I will change that image description in order to show what I meant. ;) Arnomane 09:56, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
P.S.: I have now changed the description according to my suggest. Feel free to add further translations of the description there like the two I already provided. Arnomane 10:25, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
(Mak) OK. You favor proposal #1- Use the interwiki bar like Categories and Gallery articles do.
Pros: Consistent user interface- users know interwikis are "For more information in your language located elsewhere."
Cons:
  1. Supports the notion that there is only one feature of interest in a photo. Take a photo of two political leaders together, like Nasser and Khruschev. Who goes in the sidebar? Articles about Khruschev (russians are happy) or Articles about Nasser (Pan arabs are happy). Either way, someone is unhappy.
  2. Goes against current practice. It is handy to be able to reference where images came from and where they are being used in other wikis. This allows maintainers to fluidly move back and forth and if made uniform, it allows bots to move back and forth to gather and update information because a human has established the link and the bot didn't have to guess.

I have done hundreds of images the way you did, and I see your POV, but if people want to go to language bars or some other multilingual structure, that is fine by me too.

But if no one has any objections, then let's say we do it the interwiki sidebar way. What should we do with the links to the Image pages in other wikis that followed the old practice?

  1. Throw them away
  2. Move them from the sidebar to the main body, possibly using some standard template that bots recognise. Bury the template in the end matter with license stuff.
  3. Keep both. EG. There will be two interwiki links "English". Which is which for the user? Should the encyclopediea ones be first, or last. Or should they be interleaved? If we can do two interwiki links for english, can we do more? Would we handle Nasser and Khruschev problem that way? That could make for a very long sidebar for a picture of say, the Potsdam conference with Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt. Or how about a picture of the Project Mercury astronauts? These are not uncommon examples. Multifeature photos represent at least 30% of the collection if not more.

I'm not trying to be difficult. When I said I was confused, it was not out of ignorance of common practice or not having tried possible solutions. I see many different ways people would want to do this, and all in all I would think some variation of the language bar method is the most versatile and steps on no ones' toes.

But it seems folks don't really have much of a position, so maybe people could at least tell us where the red lines are.

-Mak 16:48, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I still feel that it is really, really not necessary to have this detail on an image page. If we had it for every category and gallery page that would be more than enough. pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:27, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Does "really, really not necessary" mean you think that this is a lot of effort best spent elsewhere but if people are nuts and are willing to do it then you don't think it should be forbidden,
OR- that you think that it harms Commons in some way and should be forbidden? If you think it should be forbidden, on what grounds? -Mak 08:18, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I think it should be discouraged. I think a uniform approach should be encouraged rather than a mish-mash everyone-has-their-own-method approach. I think the will of the community should be respected. And yes, I think it's a lot of effort best spent elsewhere.
Admittedly, "the will of the community" is a hard thing to gauge on the Commons. But from what I have seen, this approach has only confused everyone who has seen it. pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:36, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

In general, I prefer to look at image pages as the raw material, and put organizational effort into galleries and categories. We really need to focus on those, and on organizing images so they can be found. Improved description pages are so much less important I don't think it's a good idea to spend much time on it. Stan Shebs 14:49, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, so since no one is saying that enhancement of Image pages is forbidden, then the general question about how desirable it is to do this in relation to other Commons priorities is peripheral. People will modify Image pages and so without any guidance they will do it in the 3 different described ways in a mish mash that Pfctdayelise very rightly laments. So, the specific question about recommended uniform approach requires resumed focus.


The question is: Where should Interwiki links be placed on an Image page?


So, Pfctdayelise, by "confused everyone who has seen it", do you you mean Arnomane's scheme (proposal #1) or Proposal #2, use a language bar?

Let's make this concrete. Should we add the following wording on whatever guidance pages we have:

Preamble: Some individuals wish to enhance image pages with additional content information. Others feel that this is effort best spent elswhere since Commons urgently requires attention on enhancement of content on category and article pages. For this reason, many feel that enhancement of image pages should be discouraged. If you feel that an Image page does require addition of subject matter information beyond the facts concerning the particular image (author, caption, licensing and so on), please observe the following suggested guidelines.

After that preamble, we have the following guidance (indicated tersely here, with fuller elaboration in real text):

Proposal #1

Please place links to Wikipedia articles in the sidebar using the interwiki notation eg [en:Mona Lisa].

Proposal #2

Please place links to Wikipedia articles using a language bar like interface (see above example). Use Interwiki notation only for indicating the location of wiki Image pages with the identical image.


So which do you folks prefer? Or does anyone have a 3rd proposal? Really though I prefer a Language bar, but if no one else besides Arnomane states their preference, there will be no concensus and we are guaranteed to have the Mish Mash. -Mak 17:16, 10 May 2006 (UTC)


So the only way you're going to stop doing this is if we actually forbid it? pfctdayelise (translate?) 22:07, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I was merely focusing on the problem at hand. Consideration of what is "unnecessary" on an image page is relevant only you mean to assert that the question of where interwikis should be placed is irrelevant because the practice should not be allowed. If enhancing the pages in this way is not disallowed, then some people will do it. Arnomane did so on the Mona Lisa page above, someone else added such an interwiki on this page:Image:Michelangelo Buonarotti.jpg. I point out that people are making interwiki links today. And they will do it randomly if there is no guidance. So- what do you suggest? So far, Arnomane suggests Interwikis on the sidebar. I have expressed my preference for Language bar, but am willing to go along with Arnomane's if most folks go that way.


I have clearly stated my position. I am unclear on yours. I have asked some questions of clarification which have gone unanswered. That's ok by me. If you'd rather not get into it that's fair. At least you took the time to make some response.


Anyway, the choices as I see it are:

  1. Make no recommendations on location of interwiki links. People do it in non uniform ways- the Mish Mash results.
  2. Disallow links to wiki article pages from Image pages. The question of where to place the links is therefore irrelevant.
  3. Place the Interwikis on the sidebar as is standard with Commons Category and Template pages. This triggers a secondary issue of what to do with the Interwiki links to pages using the identical image on in the various wikipedias.
  4. Place the links to wikipedia articles in the body of the image page, using a laguage bar like that demoed above for the Mona Lisa Image page.


No other alternatives have been suggested, but if anyone cares to give their opinion, please do so.

-Mak 03:26, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Can I ask a question? On the image pages of pictures I have uploaded I now add a wikilink to the page in which I have used this picture. (See for instance Image:Plofsluis.jpg.) My idea was that it might be useful to other users who might consider using that picture -although I am well aware that for most users articles in Dutch are quite incomprehensible;) Would this be OK? MartinD 09:43, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

May 9, 2006

Image:Chion-in_120224880_d7670b75a6_o.jpg

This image I uploaded appears to be broken somehow. Thumbnail is not being generated and if you load the page, it might freeze your browser. Any idea on how to fix this, besides just deleting it? --Melanom 06:23, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

There is a memory limit for the thumbnailing process, in order to protect the servers from getting bogged down when trying to scale huge images. If thumbnailing takes too much memory, it is skipped, and the full image is served to the browser, which then does the scaling client side (which may take a lot of cpu and memory). This limit normally effects only large png and gif images, not jpegs, which can be scaled in a memory efficient way; it does however effect the thumbnailing of jpegs encoded in "progressive" mode - like this image.
I have re-encoded and re-uploaded the file as a "normal" jpeg, and thumbnailing appears to work fine now. It would be nice if MediaWiki would show a warning when the memory limit is hit... -- Duesentrieb(?!) 11:08, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
How can you tell how an image has been encoded? pfctdayelise (translate?) 11:16, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
i downloaded it and used jhead to look at the header. there are probably a lot of similar tools out there - maybe ImageMagick can also be used for that, not sure. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 11:55, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
@Duesentrieb: Thanks! --Melanom 11:43, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

CheckUsage is down :(

For admins looking for some maintenance work, until it gets back up, now would be a good time to watch Special:Newimages... Speedy items where the uploader is requesting deletion of a double image should be pretty safe too. Category:Candidates for speedy deletion pfctdayelise (translate?) 10:29, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The Database of the Toolserver is being worked on. Should be back shortly. Apperently, the beeding-edge version of MySQL on the toolserver is a bit unstable :( -- Duesentrieb(?!) 11:09, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
It's back now. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 11:10, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

L.m.k (talk · contributions · Move log · block log · uploadsblock user

This vandal has been speedy deletion because he apparently doesn't like me. I mean I spend time uploading bleeding images to this project, I am an admin on w:en: and this prat comes along and tries to delete them all. Dunc| 16:19, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Well I fear that a look at your talk page User talk:Duncharris explains everything. As far as I can see it User:L.m.k has done everything right and was very friendly towards you but your answers to him were everything else but helpful. And apparently you should first read Commons:First steps and Commons:Licensing in order to see that GFDL licensing of images of others without their quoted permission doing so is a clear no at Wikimedia Commons. Being an admin in another project does not mean that you can't make anything wrong. So please fix the issues with your images or we sadly have to delete them. Arnomane 16:41, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I have permission for those images. I can quote his email "I have no objection to my material being reused if it is of value to someone else, but the link to my site would be appreciated." Is that enough? Because I could be lying. Dunc| 16:59, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
permission and terms of use must be clearly documented for every individual image, on the description page. Ideally, permission emails should use the Commons:Email templates and should be forwarded to permissions@wikimedia.org; {{PermissionOTRS}} can be used to refer to that permission mail on the description page. Even better, the copyright holder could note on his homepage which images are released under which license;
As an admin on en, you should know how these things work... looking at Image:66719 18-4-06 - Peterborough.JPG for example, there is nothing about the terms of use/license, and the source link leads to a page that sais "all rights reserved". With only the info present, delete on sight would be the thing to do (clear copyvio according to source given); notifying you and waiting a few days for clarification was actually being nice. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 18:04, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes I do know how these things work. Yes I have my own email request note which explains everything. What happens to an email when it is sent to permissions@wikimedia.org?
And fyi, the "All rights reserved" note is automatically created by the fotopic gallery. You can't change it even if you want to. Dunc| 18:57, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
It is your responsibility to provide all relevant information about terms of use and authorization on each image description page (along with source and author, which are fine in this case). {{simonedwards}} contains no such information. You are obviously free to use your own text for requestion permission, but the response should be unambiguous. The request and response should also be either posted in a publically accessable place (on commons if you like - but that means it must be GFDL), or forwarded to the adress I gave you for future reference. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 19:15, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Many people will post a copy of permissions (i.e, email transcript) on a category talk page or a user subpage or similar, instead of using OTRS. So far this has not shown any major problems. I rather dislike the fact that OTRS is so hidden :( although I didn't think of what Du. said about GFDL here. D'oh. User:Bastique has access to the OTRS queue and would be a good contact point if anyone has questions or wants verification of OTRS items. pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:23, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

@duncharris: Nobody of us said that you're lying. Please don't suspect a hidden agenda. We just suppose that you aren't aware of some things and thus made something wrong and thus want to fix this thing in collaboration with you. GFDL-free usage means:

  • Everyone is a allowed to reuse this image without prior asking.
  • Everyone is allowed using it commercial or not for any purpose (if not permitted by other laws than copyright).
  • Everone is a allowed modifying the image unasked in every espect (if not permitted by other laws than copyright).

You're current answers didn't answer to that points, that's why peole are asking you. Really. So a "kind permission for Wikipedia" is not enough. All details can be found at Commons:Licensing So just post the email in the wiki or better forward it to permissions@wikimedia.org. For example have a look at this image Image:Messier-101-cutout.jpeg (The answer itself wasn't enough as it directly refers to the question that's why I posted the whole conversation) how you can make it perfect for images you upload.

@pfctdayelise: DavidMoniaux, Avatar (currently not much active here but usually he is), tsca and me for example have access to the OTRS too. For sure we must things make a bit more transparent with the permission email thing and whom to ask... Arnomane 09:01, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I am happy, that the accusation of being a vandal is smoothed out now. But what's next? I got a short email from Max Batten, where he agrees that the pictures can stay in the Wikipedia, but there is still no word of any licence (Whole email conversation). And Duncharris did not publish any permission within the Commons up to now. I don't know, if he forwarded the permission mails, but there are no OTRS codes in the image descriptions. --L.m.k 15:11, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Fallback if not localized

I've recently come across the {{exists}} template, and it was love at first sight. So, I've edited the {{Motd2}} Media of the Day template (see {{User:UED77/Motd2-Test}} for own copy for testing) to fall back to English captions for every string if the localized one does not exist. I've compiled a small demo at User:UED77/Test that demonstrates all four types of behavior the template is capable of. If this is appreciated, I'll do the same with {{Potd2}}.

I hope that the fallback for English will not be seen as promoting Anglo-Saxon dominance. It's just that English is one of the two captions that are maintained (guess by who? no, not Arnomane this time ;) ). The other option would be to fall back to Hungarian, but I don't think many of you would appreciate that :P —UED77 18:43, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Note that there is a minor bug with Exists. This may or may not affect you, but there is a workaround. Exists will return true for template names whose first character is lower case This is probably true for Image: and Category: as well but I haven't checked.  :Anyway, the following example deals with this software anomaly. In this example, a template name is being passed in parameter 1 with a lower case initial letter. Remove the UCFIRST, and you will get true (non null) even if the template does not exist.
{{Exists|Template:{{UCFIRST:{{{1|FailIfIsBlankString}}} 
-Mak 19:29, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I've checked out en and meta, and decided to replace our en-based copy with the supposedly lowercase-bug-free version from meta. —UED77 19:55, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Silly me. I assumed the WP version would have been the best of the best when I copied it from there. Nice work. -Mak 22:39, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Correction- nice work except for the little bit about not testing your new code to make sure you didn't break anything. Failing that, in cases where breakage is unavoidable then at least you ought to notify folks if there is any observed change in behaviour on pages using the new code. You broke about 70 pages with the update. No problem- I fixed it, but next time- test even when you are positive it is such a miniscule change that no one could possibly be affected. -Mak 23:47, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Ouch. Sorry, and thanks for fixing it. The fact that the meta copy returns 1 or 0 broke things, right? I find it ironic that I've tested my Motd2 for a day and then I failed to test the behavior of the new Exists :P —UED77 23:56, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
The new logic is so much better though. I am glad you upgraded it before a lot of people used the old one I xferred from WP. -Mak 05:05, 10 May 2006 (UTC)


Well, given that Commons is awfully quiet today, I will go ahead and implement this for {{Potd2}} as well. —UED77 04:39, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Done. —UED77 05:31, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

May 10, 2006

New resolution selection

Would it be possible to have images display on description as by 512x whichever. 640x480 doesn't display well on 800x600 displays, and 320x240 isn't too exciting. Help a RoyBoy out. :D RoyBoy 04:14, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

What's wrong with 640x480, why doesn't it display well? pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:25, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Deletion requests

I am sure you already talked about this, but could some one summarize the reason for using template name-space for Deletion requests. shouldn't it be Commons, not template. Also the archiving of that page; It seems the page history is lost! --Tarawneh 04:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, the content is probably more fit for the Commons namespace, but the de facto way is to put everything in the template namespace that is used in the manner of a template, which, of course, {{Deletion requests}} is. If we were to move it to the Commons namespace, a new name would have to be found to avoid collision with Commons:Deletion requests. By the way, now that you've brought this up, I personally believe pages such as {{Commons:Administrators/Requests_and_votes}} should be in the Commons namespace. {{Commons:Featured picture candidates}} is placed "correctly", and more pages should follow its example. However, the Commons community as a whole likes to apply the don't fix it if it ain't broke principle, and any change will require careful testing to make sure no links are broken without warning.
As for the page history not being there on the archives: that is because the archives are actually newer pages, and the history of the original page contains logs of all the modifications, not the history of the archives. —UED77 04:53, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Template:Deletion requests is embedded in Commons:Deletion requests. This allows people to 'translate' this page by translating the frame, ie the Commons page (which has instructions and explanations), and embedding the template. In theory, people should be able to converse in their language of choice on the template.
If you are interested in watching the deletion requests, you quickly figure out that you need to watch the template, not the Commons page. :)
COM:A and COM:FPC are also like this. COM:VP is the only one I can think of that has separate discussions in separate languages, so it doesn't need this embedded template.
Old requests are archived at Commons:Deletion requests/Old I think (the link is on the Commons page, not the template). They're not "lost". At any rate, it is often easier to find a specific discussion by using the "What links here" feature for a specific image, if that's what you're after. pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:56, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
In ar-wiki we have a special page for each rfd (wikipedia name space, that is a sub from the main rfd page). Each month has a main rfd page that contains the the individual rfd pages requested withen that month. We never archive, we simply have a new page every month. The old month pages are there, no need to move. Once done with, move the month link from the main rfd page to the archive page. it is all done using templates. each template provides a text to be copied to given link.
For example the main rfd contains some guide text and, currently, May rfd page. Now May rfd page displays all the individual rfd pages created in may.
It only starts with one template in the page to be deleted, then you drive your way only by copy and paste from templates already displayed to links already provided.
The system takes time to be developed, but once in action, it takes about 5 seconds to nominate a page into the rfd system. All the archive blaa blaa is already there --Tarawneh 05:31, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
But here, we don't create individual templates for each deletion request (unlike COM:FPC and COM:A). Also, the nature of COM:DR is that some discussions will take literally months to be resolved. (Let is never be said that we're deletionists by default!) You wouldn't want to keep the whole month hanging around just for one unresolved debate. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:26, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
BTW I am not opposed to a change in the system, especially if it simplifies nomination and deletion. We just need to tweak it to suit the Commons' needs. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:27, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:Tl conflict

As many may know, {{tl}} is the favourite way of linking to a template without transcluding it. Unfortuately today I found out it's the language code for Tagalog. Normally the two-letter codes are used for description paragraphs, like this: {{en|This is a brief description in English.}} -->

English: This is a brief description in English.

So if you try this for Tagalog it um... doesn't work.

Given the prevalence of Template:tl under its old use, it would be unwise to change it now I think. Hm... after investigating {{en}}, I notice they all use {{description}} anyway. Nice work, whoever implemented that! :D OK, so I'll just use {{description|tl|...}}. Uh, continue about your daily business... --pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:05, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. Okay. The two-letter descriptions can be deprecated soon, if {{description}} propagates. It needs a shortcut, though, as the amount of time it takes to type in {{description}} is enough for the average admin to delete five copyvios. Would {{desc}} be fine? —UED77 05:24, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I wasn't suggesting the two letters should be depreciated! :o Just mentioning this workaround for this special exception. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:20, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Status of upload only block

What is the status of implementing upload only (soft) block in MediaWiki software? As far as I remember, pfctdayelise proposed this idea.

I just tired to mark unknown architectural designs from 3 users (repeatable violators) yesterday :-)

EugeneZelenko 14:33, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I have just been thinking about it recently, actually. There exist in MediaWiki the possibility to create user groups, and then you can give those user groups particular rights. I'm not certain on how they work. But we could have a usergroup 'bannedupload', and they have ['bannedupload']['upload'] = false.
But I don't know who has permission to change user groups (ie add/remove people). Probably Bureaucrats by default since they make sysops and bots. We would actually want this permission for administrators, since they can block users, blocking uploads is a lesser action. So... at this point it gets tricky, and I will let Duesentrieb or someone else more knowledgable step in and say if this is possible or not. :) But yeah, I often wish we had this, when I see user talk pages with 10 deletion notices! --pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:43, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Also bugzilla:4995 is the place for any solution to be posted. pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:54, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

a possible vandal here?

Look I am not sure, but I noticed ~in the recent changes that a user called User:Willy ON Wheels is here. here is an copy of the entry: "Image:Dirck van Baburen - Prometheus door Vulcanus geketend.jpg; 21:26 . . Willy ON Wheels (Talk | contribs)". I remember very clearly that such an user is banned in the en Wikipedia because of continious and persisting vandalism. I checked his edits and guess what: He is doing it here also. So I am counting how much the administrators here at wikicommons are going to take to:

1st) check the edits of this user out, for I might be mistaken. If I am, I am really sorry and ask your forgiveness.

2nd) If guilty of vandalism then block him as swiftly as possible. Flamarande 21:37, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Hey- looks like vandalism to me. Eugene has been nailing his keyboard stuck "improvements." -Mak 21:48, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

May 11, 2006

Automatic 'nominate for deletion'

Good news! I co-opted User:Jitse Niesen into writing a helper Javascript function to make nominating images for deletion easier. And it works! You'll get a link in the toolbox on all image pages, and when you click it you get prompted for a reason. It automatically puts the warning on the uploaders' page and posts the reason to Template:Deletion requests and puts the delete tag on the image. Woot!

To use it, copy all of this: User:Pfctdayelise/monobook.js

To test it, well you can test it on my image Image:1-2-3-4 Cake cooking implements.JPG, just clean up after yourself please :P

You can change whether or not it automatically saves the three pages by changing this: nfd_autosave = true;

Any bug reports to Jitse (on en.wp).

What do you think about making this default? Too likely to be abused? The reason I like it is that it ensures uploaders and notified. --pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm at a loss for words! This is incredibly great! Many thanks to Jitse!
One thing, however, is that it only posts the reason for deletion on RFD. It would be nice if it did the same thing on the image description page and the user's talk page. Opinions? As for making this default, I was thinking it should be sysop-only for a while, while it's so new. Then, perhaps, in a month or so, this can get implemented into monobook core. —UED77 02:24, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Cool--Tarawneh 03:56, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
It's not sysop-only -- anyone can install it themselves. I don't think it should post the reason on the user's talk page - do you do that? I never do. (I don't think it should post the reason on the image page either, but then, I think {{delete}} should be changed first. >:| ) Do you know JS? Have a fiddle with it... pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:08, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Outstanding! Thank User:Jitse Niesen and you for great job! I'm waiting script for marking unknown/no source/own work images and notifying uploader :-) --EugeneZelenko 15:45, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Really a nice thing. I just used it. I support the idea making it default for all logged in users (easy to detect, see our old get_admin_status function in the history of MediaWiki:Extra-tabs.js for ideas). This would prevent us from random IP's making more deletion requests (some do have knowledge but most of the Rfd I saw from IP's were not helpful) and should as well help keeping the abuse on a low level. However there are some bugs we need to iron out prior to make it default in our interface:

  • It does not work with my favourite browser w:Konqueror. So we need to test it with more browsers and look why it does not work with them.
  • It does not add the deletion reason at the image as well.
  • The box for entering the reason should have a larger text field (especially in case you want to add a source URL or something in the like).

I will have a look. ;-) Thanks a lot for this nice script. Arnomane 13:07, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Missing Wiktionary logo on en sister projects

Hello. I can't see any image for the Wikitionary logo on Wikibooks, Wikiquote and WikiSpecies even though they have the same {{Sisterprojects}} template image reference as other working sister projects. Anyone know how to clear the cache properly? Using action=purge didn't seem to help. --Connel MacKenzie 07:40, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Hm. Me too. Here's the exact URL. No "/ad/"...other size thumbs are fine...I'm not sure how to fix one specific thumbnail. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:27, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Re-upload the file. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 10:41, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Not necessary. Anytime a thumbnail gets bolloxed, you can force MediaWiki to throw out all the thumbnails by appending "?action=purge" to the end of the image description page URL. (Then the next time you load a page that wants a 35px thumbnail, MediaWiki will re-generate it.) User:dbenbenn 16:10, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I've been told that before - but it dfoes not seem to always work, for some reason. Re-uploading fixes it reliably. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 16:43, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
As I said in my initial post, action=purge has not helped. I'll try re-uploading the image - now the en.wikipedia.org's template:wiktionary has lost the thumbnail image as well. --Connel MacKenzie 18:23, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Note: image is also blank on this sister-project's Main Page... --Connel MacKenzie 18:36, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I see, it's a problem with the bloody runtime memory limit. MediaWiki is currently designed to silently produce broken thumbnails. Please complain at bugzilla:2888. Anyway, I uploaded a smaller version of the logo, so it should be fixed now. User:dbenbenn 14:32, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for fixing it! --Connel MacKenzie 08:07, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Error when trying to upload images

I've tried to upload two different images today, both resulting in the same faliure. I get a upload warning saying:" "." is not an allowed file format. See Commons:File types for more information."

I tried looking at Commons:File types, but it didn't help me much. The files are in .JPG format and are both taken directly from my Canon EOS 350D camera. The files are fairly large, both exceeding 2,5 MB.

What does the error mean, and what should I do to get the pictures uploaded? Zig 11:03, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

What are the names of the files? (I presume they have an extension...) Do they have any special characters? Can you upload them by either changing the filename or uploading a reduced-res version? (although I don't think the file size should be a problem) --pfctdayelise (translate?) 11:11, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
It sounds like you used a name without a file extension in the "target name" field. That field is for the name the file should have on commons, not for a page that the image should appear on. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 11:18, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
The error was that I didn't include .jpg in the destination filename. Thanks for the help, and sorry for being stupid ;) Zig 11:42, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, that error message is a bit obscure... -- Duesentrieb(?!) 12:22, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
What about adding to the message please check the extension you're setting in the destination filename ? Platonides 20:33, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Dynamic Navigation Bars

Can some one activate the Dynamic Navigation Bars, please check MediaWiki talk:Monobook.js#From MediaWiki:Monobook.js, they are needed in things other than gallery pages :-) I need to use it in a template. --Tarawneh 13:27, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

 :-) Hello, testing testing, 1 2 3. can some one hear me. I guess the mic is dead again. Maybe I should write next time :-) --Tarawneh 02:49, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Well... can you elaborate on what you 'need' it for? Maybe there is another way. (BTW this is talking about implementing the ability to make 'hide' 'show' links for certain things) pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:24, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I am working on a test VFD template, some stuff are bulky, and needs not be shown all the time. Check User:Tarawneh/Delete. It is similar to the system in Arabic but with no need to keep the whole month hanging around just for one unresolved debate. When an entry status is resolved simply delete it from the voting page and the record will remain in a commons page searchable and reachable through categories.
Again this only a test, if no one likes it, it can be deleted. No strings attached --Tarawneh 04:25, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
sample page in ar-wiki --Tarawneh 04:29, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Can you set up a complete set-up in your userspace (make a few fake nom's or copy current debates) so it's easier to see how an individual nomination will look and how the board will look overall? It's hard to judge at the moment. pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Direction

Is it only me, or do others feel annoyed when marching 1000 miles just to get to to this section! could the section order be inverted; new topics on top? (Ya, I can see the TOC; it is 10 miles long)--Tarawneh 13:37, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

There should be an "End" key on your keyboard, usually next to "Page Up / Page Down", which immediately takes you to the bottom of the page.--Eloquence 14:10, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
And a Door was opend :-O --Tarawneh 20:24, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
But i don't wnat the end of the page, but the end of the TOC! (to then upload a little until last read topic), so better, clic the first TOC entry to go up :P Platonides 21:40, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Category:Colors

Is it really recommended to use categories like Category:Green or Category:Black (and other subcategories of Category:Colors), sorting after the main color of the image? I really can't see, for what this should be useful... --::Slomox:: >< 17:17, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

You're right, sorting images by their dominant color is hardly useful. Such categorization should be discouraged. I doubt anyone would be looking for totally random images as long as they contain green. —UED77 17:27, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Not exactly, I used some pictures to teach colors to my child. --Tarawneh 21:12, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Images should only be categorised under colours if they're overwhelmingly/dominantly that colour. They could be used in those moziac pieces where you use heaps of tiny pictures and when you stand far away it looks like another picture. (What are they called?) pfctdayelise (translate?) 22:30, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Heh, okay, I do have to acknowledge the two aforementioned uses :) However, the point must be made that categorization by color is nonessential, and the emphasis should be placed on topical categorization. Fortunately, I do not see the danger that color categorization would be outnumbering topical categorization, but giving tips for users seldom hurts. Is there a categorization tutorial somewhere besides the one in Commons:First steps? By the way, I believe it's called a photomosaic, although AFAIK that's a trademark :) —UED77 22:59, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
There's Commons:Categories for generic categorisation guidelines. A good place to make your point would the the headers of the color categories, I think. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 01:08, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

May 12, 2006

Minimum requirements for voting

It seems there is no minimum requirements for voting, see 1 and 2. Once upon a time a 12-years 30-student school-class went into Commons, and controlled it. Could this be, one day, in a wikipedia article? I mean No Requirements, what ever!!!!! come on, Commons articles are not easy to restore. Once a picture is deleted, that's it, no coming back. Or a vandal simply gets his friends in the neighborhood to vote for him, simply a new username, a few friends a few edits by him, and he scores, next it is bye bye Commons (at least a good part). Don't tell me it is not that easy, well according to your system it is that easy. Giving the power to vote is serious business within the walls of Commons. --Tarawneh 02:41, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I trust our bureaucrats to recognise this situation and throw out such a vote as invalid. We like to reduce rules :)
But I wrote one of those suggestions, so obviously I would be happy to see some minimum requirement. :)
I think a more likely issue is that of users from a particular project coming to "flood" RfAs. This has actually happened several times. It is not necessarily a bad thing... can indicate that a project is enthusiastic about having a language representative (as in the case of Italian/Red devil 666 and currently Norwegian/Ktejil r). But obviously it leaves a lot of room open for abuse. So... hmm... pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:20, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Exactly as you said: lot of room open for abuse. With the type of contents available in commons, can it afford such an abuse,? --Tarawneh 04:35, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Having a lot of room for abuse is in the nature of a wiki. The remedy is an active community and some common sense. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 21:54, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree, a wiki allows certain amount of abuse, but until commons get a retrieve key for lost photos, voting for admins should be more restricted. If you feel it is too much then, delayed deleting should be used. Photos are not directly gone; the actual file erasing takes place after a week or two. The system then, would give the impression that they are deleted, with the possibility of retrieval during this one to two weeks period. --Tarawneh 00:11, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
If they're controlling on a RfD, and you think it's an unfair one, you should save a local copy.
The problem on votes is that commons is a partner project. It's not having importance per se. So if you were to set some restrictions they shouldn't apply only to activity in commons but also within the other wikimedia projects. Maybe "you need at least X edits on commons or Y on any wikimedia project to vote on Z" ? (X < Y)
Sadly, our bureaucrats can't throw out votes as invalid. They would be accused of dictatorship. The whole community would need to decide for forbidding the sysopness to someone which already won a vote. A rule is needed for it, even if it is as obscure as "if an amount of the community suspects abuse on votes, action can be delayed until community decides what to do." (so your're saying nothing but empowers fight against such remote cases, again bureaucrats are supposed to know what they're doing to avoid abuse of such clause)
+1 for the delayed deletion on filesystem.
-Platonides 11:11, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
So you think "project flooding" is acceptable? Even though those people may have no idea what the candidates' activities in the Commons have actually been like? A good admin in one project is not necessarily a good admin in all projects (especially the Commons as its focus is so different to all the others except maybe wikisource).
Regarding "delayed deletion", is this something you think is a good idea because of current problems or because of possible future problems? If it's because of current problems then we should address this directly, now.
Anyway, this feature is bugzilla:2099 and from Rob Church's comments (#4) I don't think it looks like being fixed anytime ever. pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:55, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
Handling some types of problems after striking is not really a wise thing ( at least that is my belief). Serious points that could jeopardize the projects should be handled in advance. Take a look at the G.W.Bush ;-) . If we wait tell some vandal finds out that it is somehow easy to become an admin at commons, then it would be too late to react. People, lots of them, speared effort and time for commons. We should make sure that their efforts are not lost. Any one can become an admin with enough votes; his own. Creating accounts for 70 user, and voting through proxies takes about 60 to 70 mins. No vandal will plug that into a 5 min bot. He will simply take the week to vote, some votes saying, : he is really helpful at IRC, others recommending him for getting some cat down a tree, ..... I have seen such a behaviour on other wikis. No one can say:" Oh I think there is something fishy, simply because it is allowed by the policy, and by wiki-low, personal opinions are not policies. Or some vandal puts a Swahili language tag, and we all just run and vote for him : "yeah we need that lang". All what I am saying is simply we should careful, way much careful. --Tarawneh 16:29, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Hey folks please don't get paranoid. This evil admin attack does simply not work. The voting is secure by a "I know of someone that knows him" network. Really. And if there is something suspicious to me I wouldn't grant someone admin rights regardless what others might say (I don't feel that I am bound to a policy without using my brain ;). It is simply not possible that an evil vandal will get admin rights. What is indeed difficult are different backgrounds of the single people that came from different wikipedias and now work together and people that did do quite some good work but did make failures as well. The other problem is that we have many admins but not many active admins. That's the problem we need to care about nothing else. Arnomane 18:16, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Pfctdayelise, i'm not saying that project flooding is acceptable, although i think all of us like that an admin which speaks our language and -usually- we know from our wikipedia, gets elected. The only i said that could lead to understand that, was that i think contribution to other projects should count in order to be able to vote. Less than commons contribution, but people with thousands of contributions to another project shouldn't be equaled to a guy with 10 contributions.
Of course not everybody is going to know very well commons policy, and other projects have different rules; but at least any wikipedia admin should know what fair use is. Being able to discriminate that is enough -i think- to permit that user be a good commons contributor.
I myself i'm pretty new here, only recently have been working more on commons. Before i simply came here when i wanted to take an image to my wikipedia from another one.
It's a secondary project. I know it is a repository whose duties are not simply image serving for wikipedia projects, but it's understood as it. <Not really interesting, but upload and go on to my wiki>.
If i do that, am i a commons-ignorant? I may don't patrol image uploads hare, but i check all uploads on my wiki, which -by the way- use the same policy. One can fail with commons, but he doesn't necessary is ignorant about it.
Rob Church's comment and bugzilla:2099 are talking about full undeletion. Here we simply refer to a delayed undeletion. It's quite different. And i think it can be done.
Platonides 21:25, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

May 13, 2006

Geocoding Images

I whiped up a little perl script which scans the commons xml dumps for geocoordinates (for the code see my userpage). The output is pretty disappointing, only about 300 images are geocoded. Am I missing someting here, or are really only so few images geocoded? The script currently checks for

Dschwen 12:30, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

What kind of images do you envisage should use these coordinates? I imagine portraits, for example, don't need them.
I would not use these until my camera automatically detects them via some GPS. Otherwise it must be too much hassle for what gain...? --pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:58, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
I would (and do) use the coordinates for buildings, sculptures and other objects, which are of interest, but don't have an article with coordinates (yet). With the coordinates, interested parties can find them with map or see aerial photos of these objects. This is especially nice for Germany, because Google supplies hi-res aerial photos. It would be nice if other people with local knowledge tag images in their places, too. Please use the "Location" template. One can easily get the coordinates by using Google Earth. Longbow4u 17:54, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
All outdoor imaged could use them. And it really is not that much hassle (with google maps). The gain will be enormous once the appropriate query tools are available. Imagine searching for pictures within a 2mi radius around a given location/picture, browsing all pictures using an interactive map etc. --Dschwen 17:51, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
I love the idea; I know the exact coordinates of all my uploaded files, most of them are located within Bremen, Germany. However, going back through hundreds of them to write the xys is not going to make me happy. I am not a bot expert. Is there some kind of global edit to add text to all photos within a certain category? Just to make things easier. --Tarawneh 19:21, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
I think it is sensible to start with one's best pictures, or pictures that are used already in articles. I don't know much about bots. I use simple copy+past and firefox tabbed browsing to update multiple pictures with the same coordinates. It is useful to always add a personal user category to the pictures. That helps with later updates of the pictures. Or to browse the personal user contributions list. Longbow4u 22:10, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

To make the geocoding a little easier I wrote a little Javascript exension to put into your monobook.js file Insert the folowing snippet into your monobook.js file:


// [[User:Dschwen/coordinates.js]] - please include this line 
document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="' 
     + 'http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Dschwen/coordinates.js' 
     + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"></script>');

It creates a new button and inputbox in edit mode. If you paste a GoogleMaps URL (get it from "Link to this page") into the input pox and push "Convert to coor_d", it generates a {{coor_d}} template to paste into your image description. --Dschwen 20:34, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Commons:General disclaimer

It has several ortographic typos, like:

  • The Wikimedia Foundation is a fondation
  • Resonsibility (section title)

It also talks about the GFDL, when only our text can be considered under the GFDL. It should refer to the image page to know about the files license.

Platonides 12:32, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Category:Kosova

The official name is Kosovo and Metohija, commonly abbreviated Kosovo but not Kosova. See en:Kosovo and other interwikis. Only two wikipedias have name Kosova (Albanian and Turkish). Can some of admins change the name of category? --Jovanvb 13:52, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, my god. They're all called Kosova except for Category:People of Kosovo. Organised chaos indeed... (This is a mission for Orgullobot!) pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:44, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
Kosova is the Albanian form, and the name dispute can get quite heated. I think the name should be changed to the official one, but it's probably necessary to keep an eye on them to prevent them being changed back. Cnyborg 19:25, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Jovan and Cnyborg. Name must be changed to official name. --Sasa Stefanovic (talk) 18:05, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Problems with svg -> png conversion?

Hi all, why doesn't Image:Pregnandiol.svg show the image even though it clearly exists ([7])? I even tried reuploading it. Is there a problem with svg to png conversion or is something wrong with this particular picture? Lennert B 17:59, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I touched it with inkscape and got it work. I guess it's something to do with the stuff Adobe Illustrator SVG Export plugin sets, and all those <!ENTITIYs, not being recognized by the SVG2PNG system Platonides 21:34, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Odd thing is though, this isn't my first svg I've uploaded (see my user page) and I've never had problems before. Strange. Lennert B 23:30, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
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May 14, 2006

Category:Candidates for speedy deletion restructuring

Given the recent discussion about {{redundant}} and {{duplicate}}, I was thinking that perhaps Category:Candidates for speedy deletion should be separated into more categories. Specifically:

  • Category:Copyvio for clear-cut copyright violations and fair use images that were uploaded against Commons policy. These images could be deleted after a simple check of the nomination's validity; no CheckUsage would need to be done, as the responsibility would fall on the offending uploader. Suggested nominating template: {{copyvio}}.
  • Category:Superseded for what we now use Category:Redundant for, but named more clearly. Should include files that were made obsolete (ie. superseded) by clearly different, but (subjectively) "better" files (e.g. PNG → SVG, so PNG is tagged, JPG → PNG, so JPG is tagged, thumbnail to hi-res, so thumbnail is tagged). The procedure to delete these files would be the "cross" method: to replace it with a cross, and once usages have been replaced, delete the file (see {{Deleted duplicate}}). Suggested nominating template: {{superseded}}.
  • Category:Duplicate for images that seem to be or are in fact exactly the same. Only one should be tagged at the evaluator's discretion. The deletion procedure for these would be the same as for superseded. Suggested nominating template: {{duplicate}}.

Please keep in mind that the goal of this proposal is not to extend the bureaucracy, but to make Commons easier to manage. With this three-way speedy deletion sorting, obvious copyvios could be deleted faster, while those files that need more attention to check and replace usage would be separated to avoid having to fish trough CAT:CSD. —UED77 03:22, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree that we should split up the speedy-category - but i'm not sure a three-way system is needed. In my mind, we need one cat for things that should be deleted fast, even if they leave "holes" in wikis (i.e. copyvios/non-free stuff), and things that should only be deleted if that does not disturb anyone (i.e.e duplicates).
After all the trouble we have had with "inferior" images being deleted prematurely, I would actually suggest not to treat "superceded" or "redundant" as speedy deletions at all - that should simply be an advisory, like {{vector version available}}, that may or may not be followed by a regular deletion request.
Another note about duplicates and redundant images: we must take care not to deleted images that are the basis of other images. I.e. when deleting (true) duplicates, the one with the full version history should be kept. Also, if someone made an SVG from a PNG, we should probably keep the PNG as being the original - we should also have a tag for this, something like superceded, keep because; OTOH, if someone simply uploads a rendered version in addition to the original SVG, we do not have keept that, IMHO.
Regards -- Duesentrieb(?!) 10:13, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Indeed; it is a good idea to turn superseded and duplicate into marker templatates rather than speedy deletion templates. Then, regular (slow) deletion could be requested on a per-file basis. I recommend adding a {{badname}}, or something of the like, intended to be used if the uploader misnames an image, and reuploads it with the correct name; all inappropriately-named "duplicates" should be tagged as such, and the file will be placed in CAT:CSD (along with the clear copyvios; there is no need to separate these two). —UED77 02:10, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Hm I had merged a lot of categories into speedy deletion, like categoy non-derivative category non-commercial and so forth... I think for clear copyvios category speedy deletion is the perfect place as they are indeed speedy deletion. But I agree with you that separating duplicates and superseeded files into other categories makes perfect sense. Arnomane 11:01, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree fully; I don't see any need for CC-NC, CC-ND, or fair use categories, all that matters is that they are against our policy, and belong in CAT:CSD. Sorry if my original post wasn't clear on that. —UED77 02:10, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
All right. The new Category:Candidates for speedy deletion is done. It now has three subcategories: Category:Against policy for copyvios, Category:Incorrectly named for misnamed files, and Category:Duplicate for exact duplicates. The current nominating templates are {{copyvio}} and {{fair use}} for Category:Against policy, {{badname}} for Category:Incorrectly named, and {{duplicate}} for Category:Duplicate. All of these four templates still put files in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as well.
In addition, {{redundant}} has been deprecated along with its category, Category:Redundant, and such files should no longer be considered to be speedies. Instead, slow deletion could be requested on a per-file basis.
Furthermore, {{superseded}} is now in effect, which places files into Category:Superseded for reference. {{vector version available}} was redesigned so that it calls {{superseded}}.
I might have made a mess of lang templates, but I was focused single-mindedly on getting the English done. Sorry if I broke anything. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to crash (UTC-04) —UED77 07:29, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
I hope this is the last major reshuffle of the deletion categories :/ and please indicate VERY clearly for users who just want to delete their own mistakes, how to do it and NOT to list on COM:DEL. What on earth is the difference between {{superseded}} and {{redundant}}? pfctdayelise (translate?) 11:22, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
in theory, "redundant" is the same as "superceeded" - but it was and still is often used to mean "duplicate". So, to avoid confusion, it has been deprecated. Hm, Commons:Deletion guidelines needs to be changed to reflect the new types of deletion requests. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 12:06, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Commons:Deletion guidelines still lists {{Redundant}} for dealing with duplicate images, and says nothing about {{duplicate}} which is preferred now i think ({{Redundant}} says use {{duplicate}} at least). --Tomia 18:11, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Tags for images missing info

While we are at it: we have far too many "missing info" tags. here are a few:

So, what we need is to define a) what is crucial info b) what happens if it's missing c) what tags do we need. My personal take:

  • Crucial info: Author, License (verifiable), Source (if not original work); Date of creation is required for works claimed to be PD because of age (but is always nice to have).
  • If such info is missing, the image should be tagged and the uploader informed on his/her talk page. If there's no activity or hope of getting the required info for 7 days, the image should be deleted without further ado. Unlinking the image is not required for the deleting admin, but is appreciated.
  • We need one tag for each info that may be missing - could all be mapped to one generic template.

So, what do you think? What would be the best way to clean up this mess? -- Duesentrieb(?!) 22:13, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

It should be one tag! And it should work fast. And it is necessary to inform the uploader. and it must easy work for the admin to delete. I prefer Template:No source and Template:No license too. -- Rüdiger Wölk 22:41, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
For Untagged utility, read User_talk:Orgullomoore#No_tag_bot Sanbec 00:14, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I think "unknown" must be redirected to "no license" and "incomplete license" to "no source" Sanbec 00:17, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Less is more. pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:55, 18 May 2006 (UTC)


See changes in templates and at Commons:Copyright_tags#Tags_for_incomplete_or_missing_license_info Sanbec 09:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

New version of an image

Not sure if anyone else knows about this, but today I discovered that if I upload a new version of Image:Example.xyz, and type a summary of {{subst:Image:Example.xyz}}, the old summary will remain. This is certainly handy for preserving detailed info and copyright tags. Maybe {{subst:{{FULLPAGENAME}}}} should be pre-loaded into the "Upload a new version of this file" form? Seahen 17:22, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Whatever you set on the upload summary, it doesn't show on the image page. The image page only copies that when it's void (when it's uuploaded first time). The summary is only to show in the upload entry. Platonides 19:18, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
You're talking specifically about Image:Parabel.png. When you're uploading a new version of an image, please use the summary to indicate how you changed the image. The only place your summary goes (for a new revision) is in the "File history" section at the bottom of the image page. Writing {{subst:Image:Parabel.png}} doesn't communicate anything, and the wiki code doesn't have any effect. User:dbenbenn 19:40, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:ADRM2

Proponent of this license reverts changes that ask people to re-license files. This license is listed in Commons:Copyright tags#Unfree copyrights, so I protected this template.

However I ask help of anybody who knows legal issues better then me to participate in this dispute.

EugeneZelenko 18:44, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

The Gallery should have alt-text

The Gallery "element" (<gallery>) should have alt-text or link text.AirBa 22:21, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Images in a <gallery> element can have alt text. See President of the United States for 43 examples :) —UED77 22:27, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Interface links I18n now solved :-)

Hi folks I just got this bug fixed: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5925. I suppose this did annoy many of you for ages.... Please join Commons:Help page maintenance now and look at its sub pages for contributing translations and which conditions a translation of these important legal pages must meet in order to get directly linked from the interface. Have fun, Arnomane 23:08, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Nice work with bugging the devs about the bug! I'll get to work soon. By the way, can this "/ISOCODE" not be extended for all pages? (i.e. if your interface is set to German and you click on a wikilink, you get directed to target/de instead of target if target/de exists, or if it doesn't, then to target?) —UED77 01:14, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
No this is not possible as you have no easy possibility determining the language as user did set. We would need a USERLANGUAGE variable or an automated jump into /-subpages in MediaWiki in order to make this work. Arnomane 06:13, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
There are some other pages not fixed yet. I put two of them at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5925 Sanbec 07:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

May 15, 2006

questions

can you check my images and add info? = Owe 15:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Honestly it is your duty to check your files and giving them proper info. We have written many help pages in order to assist you as much as possible to do everything right on your own. We simpy don't have the time cleaning up after lazy people. So please see Commons:First steps and Commons:Licensing in order to see how to improve your image descriptions. And please read warnings like overwrite warnings (do not click the "ignore all warnings" checkbox). For exapmple you did overwrite Image:Images.jpg with an image that surely should have another name and it also lacks important information on author and source (a scan does not generate own copyright). Arnomane 15:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

May 16, 2006

Goldfish2.cropped.jpg

Goldfish2.cropped.jpg

this photo is in the marine sections of photos. There are KOI and goldfish in the pic, neither are marine fish. I'm pretty sure this is the wrong place to bring this to the attention of anyone that can and wants to change it but there it is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.163.101.6 (talk • contribs) 02:28, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

WHY

Vipuser removed the Pin Yin and Zhu Yin versions f Main Page from MP LAng template. Why? And now it is PROTECT so cannot edit! HELP

You can still edit the Talk page. I would have to support his decision though. Here are the pages: Shǒu yè (pinyin) and ㄕㄡˇ ㄧㄝˋ (bopomofo or zhuyin). The pinyin one actually makes my skin crawl! Yuck.
Is there anyone who could read these that could not read the 简体中文 (simplified chinese) or 正體中文 (traditional chinese) versions? If you can honestly say yes to this, then there might be an argument for keeping these pages. And Chinese learners reading pinyin is not a good argument: we would expect them to read in their native languages. Also is there support on any other Wikimedia project for either of these 'languages'? If you can say yes to that as well, then we might be getting somewhere. --pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:13, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
The pages in both Hanyu Pinyin and Zhuyin Fuhao version is already exists since in May 2005, I've only updated the page layout for these two pages and not letting them to be abandoned. :) --Shinjiman 12:09, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Resurrected from Commons:Village pump archive-27 by User:24.251.68.75
I don't know about BPMF -- I do know that little kids use it, and I'm *guessing* that it's also used for the mentally-disabled. I do know, though, that Pinyin is used in a practical way -- some things have been published in Pinyin, it is intended for people who know how to speak Mandarin (mostly national minorities who learned it as a second language), but didn't learn the characters. This would presumably include an audience of many millions of people. I don't know how many of them have internet access. And whether or not it makes your skin crawl is entirely irrelevant. --24.251.68.75 03:21, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
I am not aware at all of ethnic minorities using pinyin as anything other than an aid to learning full Chinese characters. In fact, your assertion is not mentioned on w:Pinyin so I encourage you to add it to that article ...with a credible source cited of course. Your last point is correct. But I don't see the point of keeping pinyin transliterations that are bound to go out of date when there exist several automatic converter tools (linked at the end of the WP article, e.g. http://www.rikai.com/ ). We should just provide a link to that, since that will always be up-to-date. Unlike automatic translators, an automatic pinyin converter will be extremely accurate, since for the vast majority of characters there is a 1-1 correspondence between character and pinyin.
We could provide an IPA transliteration of the English main page too, but we don't. I consider it very similar. pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:32, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be rather costly to put all minority adults into hanzi literacy education? So what do they do when they want to reach people who speak Mandarin but never knew how to read it?? You're probably the same kind of person as thinks we shouldn't have a Cantonese Mainpage. And you speak with such an air of importance, tell me, why does your opinion any more important than mine? —— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.251.68.75 (talk • contribs) 05:49, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
OK, people who are completely illiterate will not be using the internet, let alone the Commons. It is ridiculous to provide pinyin on that basis. People who can speak Mandarin (but can't read characters) can't automatically read pinyin anyway! Why don't provide a strong argument to include such pages instead of resorting to snide personal comments? In this topic my opinion is only marginally more important than yours because I am willing to identify myself and stand behind it. Why don't you get an account? pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:12, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Upload Size Limit

Sorry if this question has been answered, I couldn't find this exact answer, only similar). In a fresh MediaWiki installation on my computer, what is the upload file size limit? How can I change it / remove it?

Thanks, 84.109.54.93 13:44, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

First of all, you are in the wrong place, since your question is about en:MediaWiki, not en:Wikimedia Commons. Secondly, the upload size limit is a PHP setting, MediaWiki does not care. Look into the PHP documentation: http://www.php.net/manual/en/ini.php -- Duesentrieb(?!) 13:47, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks and sorry for the confusion. Ripper234 14:46, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

600,000 files

Commons reached 600,000 files yesterday while nobody was paying attention. I attempted a backcount of images based on current numbers, and the image I came up with is this one: Peperomia graveolens - Botanischer Garten Bonn.jpg, and I've created a page at Commons:Media File 600000, an image of Peperomia graveolens by Raymond de, that he took while he was waiting to get this image: Amorphophallus titanum with 3 flowers - Botanischer Garten Bonn.jpg. Cary "Bastique" Bass parler voir 18:01, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

These milestones are passing rather quickly. Which begs the question: what should we do when the time comes for 1 million files?
We should probably start translating a press release now ;)
How do we even count a million files? How do we discount the several hundred waiting to be deleted? And what if the millionth file is a copyvio? :) --pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:44, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Easy. You count as the 1 million file the one that would make the {{NUMBEROFFILES}} show 600,000. You would only need to not start deleting a hundred files when you're between 999,989 and 1,000,020 ;)
Commons growing should avoid get under the million again. And i don't think that would be a problem. I'm sure there'll be several people ready to add dozens of files to beat the number. So we'll get good images plus images enough to not go down under the number.
In the case that this would be a copyvio, well, i'd sugger replacing it for a free version of the same content and give the new version the '1 million' name.
Platonides 09:52, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Why don't we prepare the "1-million image", have it ready on another wiki, and plug it just in time to be the 1000000 image, No one would like to see a penis being the 1000000. Have the image researched, prepare good background, and so on. --Tarawneh 01:32, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

May 17, 2006

Email Confirmation

I created an account, and clicked on the button to generate an Email confirmation. When I got the Email, I clicked on the link to verify my Email address, but it came up "Email-confirmation_invalid" or something like that. Why? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrgabbard (talk • contribs)

Try again, and this time give us the exact error message? pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:46, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
"confirmemail_invalid" is the error message. I've tried it several times, and I get the same error message.
I finally got it to work. I'm not sure what the glitch was, but I must have done something right. Thank you.

Naming categories of maps that are "historical" / "old" / "showing history" / etc

Hello all,
Looking within Category:Maps, there sometimes seems to be confusion over the intended meaning of "historical" in subcategories' titles. "Historical maps" appears to be intended to mean pictures of old maps, but, understandably, it has also been taken to mean contemporary maps indicating something historical. Would anyone balk at or forsee problems renaming/creating these categories:

  • Category:Historical maps of X → Category:Old maps of X
  • Category:Maps indicating history of X (or the like) ...?

I'd suggest "old" is taken to mean "over a hundred years ago" and a message to that effect included at the top of the relevant categories' pages.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts, David Kernow 12:04, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with the rename; the clarification would be beneficial. Unfortunately, though, since a category would be split, it would have to be done by hand. Nonetheless, I like the idea. —UED77 18:11, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your support – as regards implementing the change, yes, I realise I'd need to work through the relevant categories; but I'm making enquiries as to whether I might be able to use AutoWikiBrowser or the like to assist... Regards, David Kernow 21:26, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
I couldn´t agree more with your propposed category "Old maps of ...." . In fact, this case is a fine example of too much techncality. "Historical maps" is simply an too ambigous description, whereas "Old maps of..." is simply easier too understand, but we have to add the proper text you propposed.
As for "Category:Maps indicating history of X (or the like)" I don´t agree with it. Keep it simple I say. If there are plenty of maps of an previous period, then sort it by the proper name (for example: "Maps of the British Empire" and not "Maps indicating history of the UK", the later would be completly useless in my opinion). "Old maps of X"
We should only create a new sub when we really need it and NOT before. Only when the number of maps reaches (more or less) 10 should we create a new sub.


Lets use real examples we can follow (and should implement, if we all can agree with it), lets not be too abstract:

Here is my proposal, on how we should handle all maps of every kind: First we have to turn the article Maps into a redirect to "Category:Maps". Then we put several categories inside of "Category:Maps" (we will have to rename a few)

"Maps of Europe", "Maps of Africa", "Maps of Asia", "Maps of North America", "Maps of South America", "Maps of Australia", "Maps of Antartica", "Maps per language" (for maps of the diffent languages), "Maps per religion" (diffrent faiths), "Maps of the Moon" (instead of Lunar maps), Maps of Mars (etc for all maps and images of all the planets and moons), "Old Maps" (for old maps, more than 100 years), "Maps per country", etc. There is simply NO need to have a sub called "Maps by continent". Let´s follow the example of Europe.

Inside of "Maps of Europe" we should have all maps and images which show Europe along diffrent views (geographical, linguistical, religious, etc). "Maps of Europe" would also have subs like "Maps of the EU", "Maps of Spain", "Maps of France", etc, "Maps of the Roman Empire", "Maps of the Byzantine Empire", "Maps of Austria-Hungary" (I know that these later states don´t exist anymore, but soo what? Ppl will still look for them following these links, so lets keep it simple).

Only IF needed (if there are simply too many maps) should we create more categories like "Maps of European Languages" and "Maps of European Religions" (let me repeat that: if there aren´t many of these maps, leave them under "Maps of Europe"). Let´s follow the example of Spain.

We have the geographic "Iberian Peninsula" (where Spain is located), today with 3 countries and a British overseas territory: Portugal, Spain, Andorra, and Gibraltar. According to history the Iberian peninsula (and therefore Spain) was inhabitated by the Iberian celts (or Celtic-Iberians or something like that), colonized by the ancient Greeks, the Carthaginians, conquered by the Romans, and invaded and colonized by the muslim Arabs. We had several countries at the time of the Reconquista like Portugal, Aragon, Castilhe, Navarre, and Leon. The later four joined into Spain. At the time of the Discoveries (or shortly after) Spain had a Spanish Empire and Portugal had a Portuguese Empire (alltough the later was never referred as such).

Lets assume the worst (best?) scenario: we have plenty of maps for everything (in fact it isn´t so, but this is only an example). Needless to say that "Category:Maps of Spain" should be a sub of "Category:Spain"

We need the following categories: "Maps of Spain", "Maps of Portugal", "Maps of Andorra", and "Maps of Gilbraltar". Then we need subcategories: "Maps of Pre-Roman Hispania", "Maps of Roman Hispania", and "Maps of Muslim Iberia". All of them should be subs of "Maps of Portugal" and ALSO of "Maps of Spain", etc. We don´t need "Maps of Pre-Roman Portugal" or "Maps of Pre-Roman Spain" or "Roman Spain" these countries did not exist at that time (to make these cat´s would only be technical nonsense and add to the confusion). Maps of Roman Hispania should logicaly also be in the category of "Roman Hispania" but there is really no need to create a sub called "Maps of Roman Hispania" (unless there are too many images).

Maps which are (more or less) over 100 years old of these areas should be organized under "Old maps of Spain", "Old maps of Portugal", etc. A old map of Roman Hispania should be under "Old maps of Portugal" and "Old maps of Spain" and certainly also be in "Old maps of the Roman Empire" and NO-WHERE else. There is no need to create another sub called "Old maps of Roman Hispania". Only if there plenty of maps of Aragon should we create "Maps of Aragon" which should be a sub of "Maps of Spain". Only if we have plenty of images of the Spanish Empire should we create such a sub ("Maps of the Spanish Empire") which should be a sub under "Maps of Spain". A image which shows a territory contested by Spain and by Portugal should appear in both of them, (there isn´t any, but there are plenty of countries which have such a thing). Maps of the city of Madrid should be in the cat "Madrid", and only if there are plenty of maps of Madrid should we create a sub called "Maps of Madrid" which should appear inside "Madrid" and also would appear as a sub in "Maps of Spain".

Articles should be organized under the correct categories. For example: a article about Spanish Maps should be found in "Category:Maps of Spain" (duh). a article about the whole Iberian peninsula should appearin "Maps of Spain" AND "Maps of Portugal", etc. An Article about old spanish maps should appear in "Maps of Spain" and "Old maps of Spain"

Keep it simple as possible, avoid overcatagorization, and create as few subs as we can. Flamarande 17:21, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Thumb bug

 
Frozen Bubble.png

Hello, this image Image:Frozen_Bubble.png have a strange thumb seeing an computer hardware.

Is it possible to recompute the thumb ? ~ bayo or talk 13:25, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Looks fine in Firefox. Cary "Bastique" Bass parler voir 18:00, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Indeed it does. Try clearing your cache. —UED77 18:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Its my cache. Thanks a lot. ~ bayo or talk 15:34, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Inschrijving leden voor VWN

(This message is in Dutch. If you want it to be in your language, plese be bold, and translate it into your language and place it under mine.)

Beste Wikianen,

Mensen die lid willen worden van Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland, kunnen zich nu als zodanig aanmelden. Op nl.wikimedia.org kunt u meer informatie vinden over de inschrijfprocedure en de te volgen stappen. Ik hoop dat wij vele leden mogen verwelkomen.

Met vriendelijke groet, Lodewijk Gelauff aka Effeietsanders 21:06, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Babelfish says: Dear Wikianen, People who member wants become of association Wikimedia the Netherlands, can submit an application now as such. On nl.wikimedia.org you can find further information on the inschrijfprocedure and the to next steps. I hope that we suffered a lot of can welcome. Kind regards... (--pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:22, 21 May 2006 (UTC))

Just to patch a hole in the translation, "inschrijf" is to sign up. But I guess you could figure that out :) —UED77 23:50, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Need for further information on image pages

Moving from 500K images to 600K images is an indication of a condition that is only going to accelerate with time. Commons is exceptionally unique in that its most common pages are regarded somehow as second class citizens. This chauvinism is mostly due to historical reasons, but like other innovations, it takes a while to come to grips with qualitative changes (eg- the way television was at first treated as theater in front of a camera). The absurdity of this status should be painfully obvious- Image pages are currently an order of magnitude more common, and at this rate soon will be two orders of magnitude more common than article or category pages. Interestingly, the upper limit of pages in an encyclopedia is bounded, whereas it is virtually unbounded in the case of numbers of images on a particular subject. This has profound implications for documentation of these images.


If for no other reason that the shear weight of numbers, it should be painfully obvious that visitors coming to Commons via a link or (in the future) an internet search will in nearly all cases find themselves on an image page. Further, the high probability is that the Image page will have very little information regarding the subject of the image, and if there is any, it will be in english. Non english speakers will have no information about what they are looking at because such multilingual text about the subject of the image (if it even exists) will be an article or category page. Yet anyone unfamiliar with Commons will not be aware that further information might be available or how to find it via links to articles or understand how to use categories to navigate.


A few weeks ago, I asked about people's preferences about where navigational links to Wiki articles should be placed on an Image Page- in the sidebar or in the body of the page. Only one person gave a response, and another responded that no such information belongs on Image pages.


While it is everyone's ideal that all Commons' images have unique translated captions for all of its images, we have to question how practical it is to not provide any mechanisms for at least providing some background information on the subject of an image. To that end, I'd like to question what people's preferences are regarding inclusion of information related to the subject of an image rather than just the clerical details of the image (source, license and so on).


It is possible to translude information about a subject onto an image page. To this end, I have been working on an approach to make this simple. An example of the kind of information I am talking about may be found on Image:Uss iowa bb-61 pr.jpg. While this particular example uses an obsolete template, the information that the templates produce is the subject I am asking about. Some object to the concept of transclusion, not understanding that the concept was invented as a form of hypertext without the need for making a jump.


While it is true that custom captions are better than "generic" background information on a subject, is no information on the subject of an image better than some information? The scheme I have in mind allows background text for particular languages to be turned off when a custom caption is written for an image. It is intended as something to give assistance to visitors while fully translated captions are being produced.


If only custom captions are permissible, then how many years do folks honestly think it will be before the current 600K images have captions in all 20 major languages? And at that date how many more images will there be?

-Mak 21:30, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree with half of what you say, and disagree with the rest. When I first came across the Category:Info Templates, I admit I cringed at what I considered to be too many templates, and I couldn't readily see a use for them. However, the point you have brough up is indeed a grave one, as the vast majority of our images lack necessary information. While I am not expressly opposed to the idea of using template transclusion to convey some facts about the subject of the image, I believe that if used, these templates would need to be categorized much the same way as the images themselves, in addition to being categorized as "Info templates" or something of the like.
However, I do believe that a better solution, especially in order to promote the Commons' function as an organized media repository, providing obvious links to articles and categories that relate to the image is more important. Such links should be stand-alone; not embedded in text of any language, and should take both an English form and the localized form (e.g. After the English and other language {{Information}} (or similar) templates, links to USS Iowa, Battleships of the United States, and similar links would appear). Following these links would lead users to a truly multilingual page.
I understand that it is hard to make such links multilingual, so let me reiterate, I am not expressly opposed to your template method. If indeed that does end up being used, however, they should be organized logically, in addition to being "dumped" into Category:Info Templates. I do agree with you that image description pages tend to be ignored relative to articles, and something must be done. The question is should we create templates for every single topic (basically every single article+category), or trust that users know to click on shiny blue text, even if it might not be, in all cases, fully translatable to their language. Originally, I favored the links, but for the sake of better internationalization, I would be inclined to get used to the templates. —UED77 22:40, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
The rewrite I am presently undertaking does not use the Template space. They don't need to pollute that namespace, and besides they are just containing data, so I am moving them to a pseudo namespace Info:. So former Template:Info-USS Iowa (BB-61) becomes Info:USS Iowa (BB-61).


As for how the format of how the data is actually presented, I don't really care that much. The current scheme separates the data from the presentation more, so for example with interwikis, they are not presented as [[en:USS Iowa (BB 61)]] but |en_article=USS Iowa (BB 61). This allows you to run a display method on the Info Page either to put it in the interwiki sidebar, or using some internationalized scheme as you were describing. To get any scheme to work, you need the data of what is the article in which language for which subject. Currently, we are not expressing that in a form so that you could write a multilingual see also as you describe.
The scheme I describe attempts to separate the data from the presentation. The former version made a lot of compromises with that, the current one is better, but I face many instances where I can make the data abstraction ideal, but the Info: Page is way way to intimidating for users. So there is a balance.
In any case, as I was saying, alternative displays can be used with the Info Pages. They are as you must have seen, just a list of parameters that can be passed to Any Template. Or you can selectively do a chinese menu approach using the templates to extract just the portion desired. This is why there are so many of them- I could certainly glom them all into one template, but then that returns us to the fragility/ opacity meta template issues. You can individually run a method like so: (old syntax example) {{Info-USS Iowa (BB-61)|Method=More-wiki articles}} displays Arnomane's sidebar wiki location, substitute More-text as the method, and you get just the text. New method scheme puts more formatting in the methods so that end users can mess with them. Template code in the display methods is typical of other templates. However the central execution template will continue to have complex logic which probably will not be of any interest to 99% of template editors anyway. I expect it will largely be treated as a black box with the two ends editable by end users- the Info: Pages data in the front end, and the Formatting methods on the back end.


The architecture is a new approach to Meta Templates- addressing the Fragility and Opacity issues that made former attempts problematic.


I continue to revise the approach and it is by no means finished. Any technical comments are welcome either here or on my talk page. -Mak 01:30, 18 May 2006 (UTC)


I still disagree that the entry point to the Commons for most people will be the image page. I believe most of our traffic is still Wikimedia-based. And most of the links to the Commons are to categories, articles or the main page.
Of course there are no available statistics about this so neither of us has any firm ground to argue from, which makes it rather pointless... pfctdayelise (translate?) 23:48, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Even if that were true, if we believe in our destiny to be the definitive Media repository for high quality free media on the net, then we naturally would expect that the WPs will be a rapidly diminishing source of inbound traffic. It could happen the very day Google engineers read their email and figure out that urls on our site with Image: are text, regardless of the extension (.jpg) or whatever. -Mak 01:30, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
We already have a lot of extra information for many of the images on Commons, mostly related articles and sometimes even captions. That base of information is called Wikipedia. It makes no sense replicating the image use information that we have from there. There already exists the CheckUsage tool, which all Commons images link to now. Other entry points than Wikipedia pages are meaningless, since they provide no extra information, so a simple trackback link as often used in blogs wouldn't be useful. Since you would like to see static data and querying all the databases run-time isn't possible, I suggest you go to bugzilla and propose a framework for updating image links to Commons whenever a link is made from a Wikipedia page. Some people are doing this effort manually by adding interwiki links to image pages, articles and categories, but it is just a total waste of time since a one way link exists already. Now we just need to have the software make that link bidirectional. --Para 11:15, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I am a little confused about your response. Info page used by Image:Uss iowa bb-61 pr.jpg and all other images of category USS Iowa (BB-61) do much more than simple cross linking. Info Pages also:
  • include a representative image on a category page
  • transclude text in multiple languages
  • provide a list of equivalent terms (Vernacular terms) in multiple languages (optional). See Category:Struthio camelus for an example.
  • provide See Also links to WP, Commons and External sites.
Regarding the Do/Don't use Interwiki sidebar conundrum. I really don't care where the cross links go and I suspect this may be fought over forever. Don't be thrown by the crosslinks appearing in the the sidebar as in the Iowa example. They easily can go in the body of the page, and the alternate option will resemble the Mona Lisa example described in an early thread above. I am not super happy with the format of that either, so the templates are written in such a way that very simple templates can be written to present the information in whatever format an editor desires. Interested parties may refer to the More-text example I gave to UED elsewhere in this thread.


In any case, even if cross linking to wikis was the sole function, how is it that a bidirectional cross link can be made if Wiki never makes the initial link? In many cases, there are dozens of images that could be used but aren't. Does that mean that someone browsing commons should not have the benefit of information about the wiki article on that subject? -Mak 20:04, 18 May 2006 (UTC)


This could all be done automatically, without forking yet another set of external links.
  • Representative image of a category: Take the first image of a category. Any image can be placed "first" by using a sort key.
Problems- implied not explicit semantics means that the convention will most frequently not be obeyed or understood. Commons is extremely explicit about Rights tags on the upload page. Take a look at the compliance rate. But ok, let's assume the miraculous occurs and you get decent compliance. Still, the scheme is implicit, and so will break with new image additions. -Mak
  • Text in multiple languages: Take the introductory paragraph from Wikipedia, using interwiki links to find the available languages.
Doesn't answer the already stated issue of multiple terms -Mak.
You are thinking of equivalent terms in same language. If you look at the ostrich example I gave, it is for multiple languages. However, I agree that if wiki articles exist in all languages, that this could be solved automatically. Eventually this will be the case. Currently, it is seldom the case.
  • See also: Take the "See also" or "External links" section from a Wikipedia article
Pearl Harbor Attack has 28 entries. You going to put them all in a see also box?. Sorry, a human has to be on deck to tell us which ones make the short list. Besides, See alsos also are to Wiki articles. Which of the countless links to other wiki articles will your algorithm choose? Algorithms don't have sufficient intelligence to replace subject matter experts. How does your algorithm know which ones are the best ones? -Mak
  • Images with no link from Wikipedia: Use the information from the "representative" image of the same category.
Not clear what is meant by this, but again, you are placing more weight on a scheme that will break easily. (Fragility issue due to implied, not explicit semantics) -Mak.
It would be possible to make a proof of concept of all this, as a dynamic Greasemonkey script for example. You would not be limited to sidebars. There is really no point in manually replicating existing information within the same project. --Para 11:17, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Your proposal fails on all counts. You cannot replace human subject matter experts with algorithms. Algorithms cannot extract information reliably if semantics are not explicitly encoded, that is, unless you have come up with a breakthrough in AI software. People keep saying that the information is there. Sure it is there, it is readily apparent to humans. Info pages make these relationships explicit, and in a form that can be used by algorithms with high confidence because the rrelationships were explicitly declared by humans. -Mak 19:45, 19 May 2006 (UTC)


(edit conflict) As I have said before: more information about each image is always welcome. Copying or transcluding the same text to dozens of images is not helful to people or search engines - quite the contrary; Having the interwikis for "Foo" on all images in the "Foo" category is plain counter-productive and misleading.
I agree however that to people hitting on an image page as an "entry point" to commons, the "browse category" and "pages that use this image" stuff is obscure. Those two things could be combined into a nice "For more information see..." section - i.e. we would need a special image page specifically tailored for media-centric projects like the commons. Issues like internationalized keyword lists for search engines could be adressed in the same go. and I still dream of doing away with the distinction between galleries and categories...
So: a complex template system for transcluding the same info all over the place seems a very bad idea to me. Instead, we should think about and work on a technical solution that would put the information already available in the database to better use, for users and search engines, without any additional handy-work being required. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 11:17, 18 May 2006 (UTC)


"Copying or transcluding the same text to dozens of images is not helful to people or search engines " -Duesentrieb

Oh? Perhaps if transcluding "generic" information damages Image pages, we should ban use of Creator transclusion? Consider Image:Sommer, Giorgio (1834-1891) - Agrigento, Tempio della Concordia.jpg. If Info Pages are bad because they transclude the "same text", then is this page bad because it also transcludes? Info Pages are doing a much better job than Creator is in delivering useful information to users in this case, which is not atypical. If Creator Pages are allowable for transclusion, then why not Info Pages?


When is transcluding such so called "generic" text Transclusion was invented for this very purpose you disparage: "copying text everywhere", but with the beauty that it really is not a copy. Only one copy is kept, and when it is updated with an explanation line in another language, everyone benefits. It is a convention used in the print media- Inset boxes with factoids are commonplace.
It is secondly incorrect that the information is not useful to search engines. There are more words for the search engine to hit on. Therefore, the user doesn't have to know to search for "B-17", they can simply search for "Bomber" and "Hawaii" and get all the Hawaiian bomber photos. Consider the photo: Image:NARA 28-1277a.gif. Unlike the vast majority of Commons images, this has a decent caption. And we'd like all images to eventually have this kind of caption. But even this caption would benefit from english language background text, because for a search to be successful the user would have to know what a B-17 is. And most people don't. They use vague terms like bomber in search expressions. That term does not exist in the caption. Usually, such hyponyms occur in subject descriptions. And that is exactly what Info page Text lines are intended to do.


No one should be laboring under the misconception that we can simply put images on a category or article page with suitable multilingual descriptive text and get a hit on such typical searches that way. If pictures are worth a thousands words- they usually deal with more than one subject. And that in essense is the death of the "throw it on a categorized page" approach. Consider photos of politicians. The more interesting the picture, the more the subjects, the higher the value. This picture is just as much about the Pearl Harbor attack. When both Pearl Harbor Attack and B-17 bomber Info subjects are associated with this image, it is now possible for a user to search for hawaii bomber and get a hit on this image.
Note also that using this scheme, we can also search on pearl harbor 真珠湾 and bomber 爆撃機 and get a hit on this image. Or they could mention hawaii ハワイ instead.


Lastly, info pages, because they are very simple to use are simple for naive users to update. Already, french and chinese translations have been added to the BB Iowa Info page by users who were not prompted, not given any explanatory information how to use them. They simply clicked on the edit link- saw the familiar wiki text on languages and added their own. In that way, they saw their contribution impact several pages, not just one. It Keeps it Simple for the user, and that is what matters.


Is it true that Image pages are better off without Any of this information? If this is true, we have not heard why. -Mak 17:32, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
'Creator' tags are only used for a very small subset of images. You could not, for example, make a 'Creator' tag representing yourself. And they were intended for use specifically with the DirectMedia collaboration uploads -- not as a totally new method for image pages. Creator tags are concise, brief and not designed for Google hits -- nothing like your Info tags.
My comments on Creator were in response to the controversial statement: "transcluding the same text to dozens of images is not helful to people". I pointed out that it is regarded as being helpful to transclude some types of text but not others. I think most people feel it is helpful to provide additional subject matter information on an image, and this is reflected in the use of the Creator Tag. Info Pages are a continuation of this principle. Nothing you have said explains why transclusion is regarded as good in one case, but not in another. -Mak 19:45, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
You said No one should be laboring under the misconception that we can simply put images on a category or article page with suitable multilingual descriptive text and get a hit on such typical searches that way but I don't see why not, especially since we currently have ~0 hits anyway.
Have you actually even done the searches you claim are so impossible? bomber site:commons.wikimedia.org gives Category:Bomber aircraft as the second result. And guess what, Category:B-17 Flying Fortress is an extremely visible subcategory of that!
Doesn't it make more sense to offer a searcher a structured overview straight-up (ideally a gallery, but to a lesser extent a category) than give them dozens of unsorted unidentified images? I.E. prioritise gallery/category results over image-page results. Which is what we have been unconsciously doing to date.
(Please try and be more consise in your replies) --pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:19, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Info pages address more than the theoretical problem of providing terms for internet search. Nonetheless, regarding your comments on that subject, you are seriously mistaken. The search was for Hawaii bomber in multiple languages using image search like Google's, Yahoo's, or MSN's. You searched for Bomber only using Commons search. Sure, hyponyms occaisionally will occur in captions, and Hawaii and Bomber terms happen to be on that particular gallery page.
  1. Do we expect everyone will search in english? Will users find the hit using non english languages? No.- Have you tried searching on commons for pearl harbor 真珠湾 and bomber 爆撃機 (That is, when commons search is not overloaded and suggests you try google search instead?)
  2. Will they find it using english? No- reason why is that both bomber and hawaii are not associated with the same image. See prior non concise explanation of that subject if interested. (search VP for "proximity").
  3. Even if there was a hit on a gallery page using Google image search, would the users find it? No- because gallery pages reference only a small image, and google search will rank that hit last. Most google users don't go beyond the first one or two pages of hits. Our page would be buried.
  4. Ok, let's assume even very narrow uses of google. Let's assume people know that commons is a great place for images and restrict their searches just to commons. Now, there is some multilingual capability- you will get a hit on Pearl harbor gallery if you type 真珠湾. You will also get a hit on 爆撃機 (bomber) for the B-17 gallery page. This case illustrates the following issues with multilingual search and problems with proposed solutions to interested parties:
    • If you search for both terms, there is no hit. If pictures are worth a thousand words, this approach supports only one word. (single subjects and term variants. Info page approach can associate multiple subjects with an image, as in the example image.)
    • These multilingual hits are generated from image titles in the interwiki links. Japanese is the only language that mentions the hyponym in the page title. For the others? if you don't use B-17, you other option is to ask for "flying fortress"
    • This cannot be relied on for multilingual support becasue it uses an extremely restricted vocabulary- it is about as useful as google would be if we could only get search hits on text that is in the title of an internet page.
I'm afraid the subject is a little more complex than you suspect. I do apologize for not being able to explain the subject in a more simplified manner, but it is very easy to misunderstand how searchers work. Your thoughts? -Mak 17:37, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
I just think you are trying to provide mind-reading capabilities for searches in every langauge
Hardly. I am just trying to provide terms that a search engine could use. By the way, these terms don't have to be visible to be used by search engines.

known to man and it's unnecessarily ambitious.

Not ambitious at all. Instead of tagging something Category:USS Iowa, a person tags it Show-Info|USS Iowa That's one more letter to type. Does that seem ambitious to you?

It is not usual that the exact thing you're after drops into your lap with any search. The search is only the first step in finding exactly what you're after - you have to use your brain to sort the wheat from the chaff. This is my experience. Therefore I would expect someone searching for 真珠湾 and 爆撃機, if that fails, to then search for just one of the terms.

I get it. People should just stop using more than one term on Google.

That would succeed. For many, many more general searches (if I'm doing an assignment on aircraft and I just want a picture of an aircraft... I don't care what it is, but I will choose one that looks flashy), then your "spammy" method will actually worsen their results. For this type of search a structure overview such as a category/gallery result is the best result.

Uh? Were you reading? Do you understand that a category/ gallery page will be ranked Last in any google image search? Hello? -24.161.144.164 03:03, 20 May 2006 (UTC)


I could probably abide the info tags if they much less intrusive.
All items can be turned off by parameter at the editor's discretion. If the community would rather have some items be default off, that is fine. I recognize some people will prefer them while others will not like some of the visual elements. It is flexible that way.


At the moment they are bulky and distracting from the specific information that is relevant to that particular image (including licensing info). It is hard to distinguish what is generic and what is specific.

Like I said, formating is customizable, and you don't have to accept the formating that one particular template writer chose. The Info Page just has information, mostly without any formating characteristics. There are hundreds of formats for distinguishing factoids and backround info from the body of print media articles. I agree that background info should be visually distict. There are many ways of doing this. I chose one, possible not the best. -24.161.144.164 03:03, 20 May 2006 (UTC)


I guess I am opposed to them because I see the image page as an endpoint in a search, not a starting point. I assume that to be searching for a picture of the Mona Lisa, the searcher must know what it is.

Because that is your style of search, should everyone else be bound by the limitations you impose on yourself? There is a very large class of users who use search to find things they only have vague understandings of. That is one of the great motivations for them to search. That is, to increase their knowlege about things they do not already know about. -Mak
Anyway more to the point I just realised something important. template:Info-Struthio camelus is actually going to make it harder to provide a multilingual interface in the future. Ideally we are likely to use the "hiding method" to hide captions (in the form {{en|caption}}) that the user doesn't understand. Since you are removing this information directly from the category and article pages, it won't work, I don't think. So this is especially a good reason not to do this... --pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:24, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Wrong again. I use the templates en, fr, de etc and so the hiding will work properly. Perhaps the equivalent terms current implementation does not do that, I don't recall. In any case, this is all aligned with the hiding scheme.
Could you sum up why you think Transclusion is a bad thing for image pages? Please make it clear to us why Creator transclusion is good, but Info Page transclusion is bad. -24.161.144.164 03:03, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

My last point; I never said Creator transclusion was good. I am not very fond of it actually, but since it has a limited scope it has limited impact (thus I can ignore it).

It is impossible to reason with you.

It's quite simple. Just use an argument that is based in fact and logic. If your argument has been shattered in the face of facts, it is time to change your position, not assault the person who has presented you with the argument. I have been wrong countless times in the past. Maybe this is one. We help each other by showing each other where we have erred. It's not about winning or losing. We both win when we get closer to the truth. If I have erred in any of the facts I have presented you regarding proximity, behavior of image search on pages like gallery and category pages, and how that undermines your concept about how image search works, then show me where I have erred. -24.161.144.164 05:07, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

You obviously won't accept that any opinion other than your own is valid.

That's not fair. Dbenbenn presented me arguments about problems with fragility and opacity my earliest attempts at Info Templates and I very much was convinced he was correct. Other points I was not convinced of but I saw a way to accomodate his point of view. DennisS and I have strong differences of opinions on use of Categories, but I am now relying much more heavily on See alsos instead of categories to accomodate his point of view. Duesentrieb felt I should not use the Template namespace and I should use #if parser functions, and presented reasons for those items. So I am making those changes.


I have tried several times because I think your scheme will not improve the Commons - that is my only motivation in continuing your exhausting arguments - but I am giving up again because it's a frustrating and obviously pointless exercise. You have the words of a dozen people but it is only one person who is defending your stance; you. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:38, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate you taking the time to respond. If you think that Info pages don't improve pages you edit, then by golly, don't use them. No one is forcing you to use templates de, information, parser functions or the tag Creator either. I happen to think they are useful and so I use them. I am sorry that you have chosen not to respond to my arguments though. Really, I do think you are mistaken and should think about some of the facts I presented. -Mak 05:10, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Mak. Stop using your template or I will make a roll back on all of these edits using that templates. I don't make fun with that. People including have talked to you in previous a lot and with a lot of patience why it just makes no sense. EOD. Arnomane 10:30, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Really? On the contrary, very little patience has been shown on this subject. We have seen drive by pronouncements, and when I take time to show why the pronouncement is mistaken, no one wishes to defend their position. After two days of consideration of this important subject, you are ready to proclaim yourself judge and executioner.


You seem convinced that Image pages are better off without any of this information. Is that so? And yet, you yourself instructed me that I should copy transwiki information to an image page. So isn't it true that you are only opposed to part of what the templates do?


It would be simple to accomodate your request not to use templates. It would be trivial to write a bot to eradicate the info template use and instead copy the transwikis links to each image page. Presumably since that follows your guidance, you would be happy. Is that correct? -Mak 00:55, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

This wiki is a bloody mess- and I mean this in a bad way

I am new here, I certainly grant you that. But everywhere I go, I can only see caos: We have here way too much categories which many times differ from each other only in useless tecnicalities. In fact they compete with each other and only add to the confusion. Keep it simple for Chris´sake !, any subject that has more than 4 ! layers of subcategories is probably being handled in unefficient manner. Create new subcategories only when they are really needed. Link the categories to each other! Flamarande 22:29, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Welcome to the pits of hell! Here's your showel... -- Duesentrieb(?!) 22:34, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
If Dante were alive, he would describe the Inferno of several control-freaks as "they are organizing things in Wikicommons". Flamarande 22:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
You need to understand our situation, Flamarande — "and I mean this in a bad way" :) Seriously, though, us "control freaks" who in your edition of the Inferno are in the lowest circles of hell, are some of our most valuable users. You see, we need more "control freaks", as it's the other twenty-or-so-thousand users who leave baskets full of pictures at the Commons' doorstep in the morning are the ones responsible for this. If everyone actually categorized pictures, and actually looked a bit around before doing so to know how they should be categorized, we wouldn't have such a chaos on our hands. Unfortunately, though, that is not the case — just look at how many copyvios get uploaded each day even though you can't possibly upload pictures without being told to read the Commons:First steps! You can't even create an account anymore without being told to read it before you do so. But people don't follow directions, so the Commons remains in a chaotic state. We are all aware that it's disorganized, so why don't you help us clean it up? I maintain the ones you are addressing this to are not in the lowest circles of hell, although the cold air might be nice to cool us off after the work we do :) —UED77 22:54, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, I agree with Flamarande. I have never been a fan of categories, and the way commons has used them as a primary method of organization is, honestly, a disaster. Pity the poor soul who actually has to navigate around the category system here. Raul654 22:58, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Really? What exactly is so problematic about navigating categories? Jkelly 03:49, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
The problem is that there are simply too many of them, which many times differ only in small tecnicalities and compete with each other. Many times there are simply too much "layers of subs" when they are not really needed. Flamarande 15:23, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for all the criticism, folks. Now does anyone have a better solution? That is simple and easy enough that we can enforce it widely? We're waiting... pfctdayelise (translate?) 23:35, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion: A recursive "see all content from this category onward" option?

Although I suppose I'm pro-categories, I recognise Flamarande and Raul654's point. Sometimes here and also on Wikipedia I wish I could just click a button and have all items/articles in a category and its subcategories (and its subcategories, etc) displayed all on one page, even if it might take a while to load. I realise the category system isn't strictly hierarchical, so I guess some coding to prevent infinite looping would be required. I think it'd then be easier to justify categorising smaller groups of similar items, as those folk frustrated by what they see as over-categorisation could then override it.

Hope that made sense. If so, what do people think – and, more importantly, could/would it ever be implemented?  Regards, David Kernow 00:32, 18 May 2006 (UTC)



I hate the yellow pages. Stereos listed under "High fidelity equipment" etc. Sheesh. Here, all you have to do to find what you want is navigate the tree structure to Audio output devices of the 1990's manufactured in Aichi prefecture. Hmmmm. I hate Commons. When do I get the direct cerebral cortex implants so I can just jack in to Commons, think of an image of what I want, and it pulls up similar images for me. Ok. Maybe I'll stick with the yellow pages approach. -Mak 01:55, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Mmmm, I love the smell of sarcasm in the morning. Seriously, just because I cannot resist the urge to go by your example, enter "electronics" into the search box, get presented with Category:Electronics, click on Category:Electrical devices. Alternatively, navigate to Category:Audio, then to Category:Hi-Fi equipment. Or simply enter "Hi-fi" into the search box. While it is sometimes a challenge to find images of a very narrow topic in Commons, if one has a little patience browsing through categories, it's not nearly as bad. Sure, we could use a better search; we could use a lot of things. However, complaining about things we already know helps nothing. Be bold. —UED77 02:47, 18 May 2006 (UTC)


CRITICISM OF TECHNICAL LIMITATIONS THAT WE HAVE NO CONTROL OVER IS NOT HELPFUL. BUG THE DEVELOPERS OR CODE IT YOURSELF. >:|

  • bugzilla:3834 'Number of articles in subcategories known and showed on category page?'
  • bugzilla:2725 'View list of articles in subcategories all on one page' (David Kernow's idea, where articles = images/media files)
  • Only eight – well, now nine – votes for this... sigh... David Kernow 11:26, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

--pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:53, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I've always favored just imitating the wikipedias' category and article structure as much as possible. That way you can let those folks argue it out, and not have to redo all the arguments all over again here. Plus which if somebody starts whining about how bad it is here, you can just forward them to the WP in their favored language, lets us get back to more important tasks. Stan Shebs 03:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

The issue with that, is that you're probably referring to the English wikipedia's category structure. I don't believe that french, german AND polish all have the same type of structure as english. And we have to accomodate everyone. Cary "Bastique" Bass parler voir 05:09, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

May 18, 2006

placement of copyright

I apologize for asking yet another stupid newbie question. (sigh). Does it matter where I place the copyright info on a page? Since the thfo box was started, I've been placing the copyright info (in this case pd-self or pd-user) in the info box, but then when I look at the gallery, I see it flagged in red as not having a license tag. When I add the {{pd-self}} template at the end of the page, the red flag goes away, but it seems somewhat redundant. Any comments? --Bachrach44 02:42, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

It's not a newbie question; early questions prevent later work :)
Customarily, the license tag (license template) is placed after the {{Information}} tag. The "Permission" field of the Information template was meant for textual quotes (or weblinks), such as "Works by John Doe are released under CC-By-2.5", or "I release my works under the GFDL". Regardless of the content of the Permission parameter, a license tag is required, and since Duesentrieb's tools apparently do not check for the tag if it's inside the Information template, you are better off with putting it outside of it. For a good example (shameless plug :P ) see my Image:Cape Cove, Oregon.jpg. —UED77 02:56, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Try explaining that to the commonist-0.1.13 running loss on my computer ;-) --Tarawneh 03:17, 18 May 2006 (UTC)


Hi. Maybe the restriction about Duesentrieb's tools must be explained in Template_talk:Information. The first I did when I started using the template was put the cc-by-sa tag into the Permission field.
In Commons:First_steps/Quality_and_description reccomends to copy the code into Summary field without mention the template. There seems to be clear to put a text into the Permission field and the tag outside. While I wonder if there is not redundant information because template tags tells a lot of information in several languages... so maybe this field was unnecesary.
I also miss references to Commons:Multilinguality in first steps and even in referred template documentation.
Honestly when I upload my first files many time ago I've copied from others. I believe that then was an older help in Spanish (I'm not sure). I changed the info in my files as I watch different ways by others or some helpful user correct mines. But recently I try to explain it to new users and I think that we must navigate across many pages if we want to have a "perfect" content in the image (video, audio...).
Of course this is not a compliant. I know there is people working on it. It's just a little feedback. Regards, --Colegota 09:52, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Translation of an article into many languages; prioritizing a translation

What would I want to do to get a particular article seen by other Wikipedias, if it were something that were, for example, a medical article containing information that was not widely known abroad, but was of significant importantance?

How would I suggest an article, eg::-- Sammy_Do_Not_Touch_Yourself_There to be reviewed for translation based on it being something important in Switzerland, Germany, and Israel?

Thanks! —— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.140.139.97 (talk • contribs) 05:56, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Is meta:Translation of the week what you are looking for? --::Slomox:: >< 10:46, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:PD-user-w and Template:PD-user-wikimedia

Two tags for the same think. PD-user-w is like GFDL-user-w, PD-user-wikimedia is easier.

Which do you prefer? Sanbec 11:50, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

They are different. PD-user-wikimedia assumes the project is Wikipedia (bizarrely, given the name - it should be PD-user-wikipedia!). PD-user-w you have to fill in the project (could be wikinews, wiktionary etc). I vote depreciate PD-user-wikimedia. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:06, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
No, PD-user-wikimedia has a parameter to fill in the project code, as well as PD-user-w. The difference is only the project name. I prefer PD-user-w too. Sanbec 14:24, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Function : Download a Categorie

Some categories became really big, can we have a funtion "Download All" [the files of this category]. This can be usefull for webmaster who want all the pic about one subject. Yug (talk) 16:57, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that's done so often really, so you probably won't see anyone doing scripts for that. But, CatScan (also linked at the top of each Category) handles recursion nicely and will give you a page with all pictures in a category and its subcategories. Then you only need an extension for your browser to be able to download all images linked on a page. There's probably many for each browser to choose from. --Para 17:51, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Image:LCD macro view.jpg

This image 40pxis a Featured picture candidate. Am I the only one to see it as a Copyvio. --Tarawneh 15:50, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Check this one 40px It is clearly a copyvio, I uploaded it just as an example of copyvio, what is the difference between the two images. --Tarawneh 16:01, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

The difference is simple: for the LCD picture, the creator can simply ask the foundation for permission, with a good chance of gettinmg that permission. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 17:14, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Nothing about any permission within LCD macro view.jpg page, and the photo is licenced under cc-by-sa-2.5 --Tarawneh 17:33, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
40px, another photo with the same problem, the two logos are not free. More talk in Template:Featured pictures candidates/Image:LCD macro view.jpg--Tarawneh 22:48, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but copyrighted material is allowed if the copyright belongs to the Wikimedia Foundation. So these images are safe, but they belong under Category:CopyrightByWikimedia. I'll dual-tag them. Seahen 00:04, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Actually, this exception was only intended for genuin logos, not for derivative work of those. But as a matter of fact, the current logo policy makes it impossible to host Wikipedia-Screenshots on commons :( I hate that license/logo crap -- Duesentrieb(?!) 01:19, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Aren't we the ones who make policy, by the way? If the rules don't work out, and you just happen to have access to the rules, change the rules, no? :) —UED77 01:36, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
It's the Foundation that holds the copyrights and trademarks, so it's the Foundation that tells us how we can and cannot use their logos. And if Wikipedia screenshots couldn't be put on Commons, I very much doubt we would have Template:GFDL-en for long. Seahen 02:05, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
We can't have our policies breaking the law. What belongs to wikimedia, simply belongs to wikimedia not the community. Copyrighted item can be freed by law, not by a local website policy. I do not even think we can have any photos combining personal work with copyrighted work, and simply double tag them. Being copyrighted protects such original images from being modified. I am not talking about a MacDonald logo showing up on a wall in public  , by putting the logo in public they implicitly authorised graping photos. I am talking about modifying a protected image like  ; the creator says: If anyone wants to go ahead with a copyright paranoia they can ask Angela or another board member how she feels about it, I do not think however it is necessary to bother board members with this. we can't break the Law because we think it is OK or they would not mind. Any action that involves the use of protected items should be clearly documented, check out  , where it is clearly stated: Creator requested and received permission from Angela (who had received no objections from the rest of the Board) to upload this for use on Wikipedia projects. the board should say it is OK, not: I think that Angela would not mind. --Tarawneh 07:31, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

The policy on uses of logo derivtives is still a work in progress. For published works, the Wikimedia Foundation Visual Identity Guidelines are very clear, however: "Note that no derivative of the Wikimedia logo can be published without prior approval from the Foundation." This is not free according to Commons policy. Based on established practice, we can accept derivative images on Commons which are used internally (on project or policy pages, but not in article content) by the Wikimedia projects. These need to be tagged with Template:CopyrightByWikimedia. Images that incorporate Wikimedia logos and are used to illustrate articles, however, are non-free. These should be deleted from Commons.--Eloquence 12:55, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for discussing the issue, I'll try to get permission from the foundation, I think the logo makes a good LCD example. --che 15:34, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

A supplementary question: does protection of trademarks also mean that photos like London 501593 fh000027.jpg (logos of Sanyo™, TDK™ and McDonald's™) are non-free? --che™ 15:22, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
No, composite images like that are fine. If you make a crop that only shows the logo, that is not OK, though. pfctdayelise (translate?) 22:09, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Graphical Work on Japaneses/Korean alphabets

 
 
 
 
Our team already made the ㄅㄆㄇㄈ alphabet. We need help for Katakana/hiragana/hangeul.

Hello, on commons, some wikipedians work on the Chinese Stroke Order Project, it will restart (work faster) this summer, and we need some graphic help for japanese Katakana/hiragana and korean hangeul (In Black&White style).

  • If some japanese/korean wikipedians have basical graphic habilities, please consider this project.

The work is to do your alphabet systems (List here) into pics like  . For this basical graphic work, read Chinese stroke order:Protocols (I think this is ok, but you can improve it too), and the arrows issue. Remember you to categorised your work as [[Category:Japanese kana stroke order in BW pictures]] or [[Category:Koreanese hangeul stroke order in BW pictures]].
If you know some users who can be interesting in this work (~30 pics), in -bw.png or -bw.svg as well, please contact them and give them this : Talk:Chinese stroke order:Strategy. Your help is welcome, even little :] Yug (talk) 23:07, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Category deletion

As only an occasional editor here, I couldn't find the page to propose category deletion. Category:Jacques lipchitz should be a Category:Jacques Lipchitz. Thanks. Rmhermen 17:29, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Done -- Rüdiger Wölk 22:13, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

CommonsTicker: the Germans are watching!

I just activated the CommonsTicker page on the german Wikipedia: de:Wikipedia:CommonsTicker. The page lists changes in tagging of images, etc, if the images are used on the german wikipedia. I hope this will help to integrate commons more with the wikipedia communities. If this works out well, I'll create such pages for other projects on request.

So, have a look if you like - don't worry about the german, that's just done with templates. The page should be readable anyway :) -- Duesentrieb(?!) 21:35, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

How long will the German trial be before rolling it out more widely? (Is there a way to enforce a view in English at all?) pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:02, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Google translation into English - very cool! I especially like how you can quickly identify the naughty admins who haven't used CheckUsage. :) Encourages accountability. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:21, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure how long the trial will be - I want to see how people use this thing, and if there are any problems or bits missing that should be adressed before using it in more projects. So... I'd say, a few days, or a couple of weeks at the most. I'm hoping to have this active at least on nl and fr wikipedias soon. The en wikipedia will have to wait until the database copy on zedler is fixed (should be in the same timeframe, i hope).
There is no way to view the german ticker page in english - but the entries the bot generates are (mostly) language neutral, as you can see in the wiki text. Getting it to show another language is just a matter of editing the template used.
Note that IMHO deletion without unlinking is OK in case the image violates commons policy or someones copyright. In that case, unlinking is up to the uploader or the projects using the image - especially if they are notified of the deletion, as per commons ticker. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 12:56, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree in theory but in reality it doesn't work like that. (Projects will still blame us.) Well, if we have a ticker and a universal login and a universal talk page notification, maybe things will be better. pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:04, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Truly, I agree with Duesentrieb on this one. Deletion of clear copyvios should be allowed go without notification. I hold to my position as explained in the rant/essay "Inclusionism vs. Notificationism vs. Deletionism".
Great job with this tool, as always, Duesentrieb. I'll try to get the Hungarian bunch interested, maybe they'll like it too :) —UED77 02:08, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks :) @Pfctdayelise: Well, sure, people will always complain - but the Ticker is one more place to point to and say "simply look"; and I do hope people will look a bit more and complain a bit less. @UED77: the uploader should always be notified on commons when deleting images. Copyvios, ND files, etc can IMHO be deleted without unlinking them, though, at the admin's discretion. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 07:16, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for all your hard work on this. If there was a Commons Medal of Honor, you'd deserve it. :-) --Eloquence 12:28, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
thank you - in leu of medals, I also take cookies :) -- Duesentrieb(?!) 12:56, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

deletion requests

I don´t know where to place this...

Category:Satellite images of France is a simple duplicate/mistake. The correct name is Category:Satellite pictures of France like all the countries at Category:Satellite images of countries. Please delete the first one.

Category:Satellite photos of The Gambia and Category:Satellite photos of Gambia (last one is my own mistake) are similar to the case above. I allready created the correct Category:Satellite pictures of Gambia and transfered all proper images there. Please delete the first two categories

Category:National insignia of The Gambia, instead of the correct Category:Coats of arms of Gambia. Allready transfered everything. Please delete the first category

Category:History of The Gambia, instead of the more correct Category:History of Gambia. Allready transfered everything. Please delete the first category. Thanks Flamarande 23:41, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll care of it. By the way, just to spare you some work, check out User:Orgullobot. Since you're a trustworthy user, I'll place on on the whitelist, and whenever you need a category moved, just place a {{category redirect}} (e.g. {{category redirect|Satellite pictures of France}} in Category:Satllite images of France). That way, Orgullobot will move the files for you. —UED77 00:16, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm thanks, but I don´t want them turned into redirects (that I can do manually). I want them obliterated (wiped out completly). Flamarande 00:22, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Okay. But you wouldn't mind to be whitelisted, would you? :P Deletions done. Thanks for organizing the categories (yes, the "caos") :P —UED77 00:25, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

User contribs

Hi, someone please take a look at User:Ingc contributions. I believe s/he uploaded a number of copyrighted logos as PD images. Thanks, Renata3 00:11, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for calling the matter to our attention. I notified the user, will wait for a couple hours (as his uploads seem to be frequent), and if he doesn't respond, he'll be temp blocked. Deletions of his copyvios will begin soon. —UED77 00:27, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

What is the black image?

I have found this:

I am not sure if the black image is a map (very old of course), or not. The right corner is supposed to represent Asia, leftcorner Europe, and the lower half Africa. The cross is suposed to be planted in Jerusalem ("the center of the world") I am not sure of this however. Can anyone help me? Flamarande 01:04, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Are you hinting or implying that you're planning to place these into a "Maps of..." category? :)
Regarless, the image in question looks suspiciously like a T and O map, so I believe it is a map, and however un-map-like it is by modern standards, should be categorized accordingly. —UED77 01:16, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Besides, even if I'm mistaken, and it's just a symbol, and not meant to be a map, it is still significant as a page Cosmographiae Introductio! All three images should belong to the Universalis Cosmographia category as well (or more precisely, to Cosmographiae Introductio, which should be a subcat of Universalis Cosmographia, no? Althought the two works were separate, they are related sufficiently that I think we can put it as a subcat. —UED77 01:25, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

It's a Druckerzeichen = printer's device http://oldwww.nlib.ee/termin/index.php?id=2678 --Historiograf 15:43, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Help renaming image please

Would someone please rename the image Rudbeck Olof dy.jpg to Rudbeck Olof sr.jpg. (dy is Swedish for den yngre = junior) since the image is of Rudbeck senior and not junior. I have corrected the links on Swedish Wp. Thank you -- Dr Fredrik Haeffner 05:42, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Done. I have uploaded it under the new name, and deleted the old version. Kjetil r 12:27, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you Kjetil r --Dr Fredrik Haeffner 13:29, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

20th May, 2006

What extentions are installed to allow an image with a word in it that the user has to enter before being able to register. I ask on behalf of another wiki which has a huge spamming problem. Also how do you get the image thing again if you put new external links into a page?

It's called a CAPTCHA - the extension is available in SVN, I don't think there's an official release bundle. That extension can require captchas for account creation, and when anonymous users try to insert external links. You may also be interested in the Spam Blacklist extension.
All that being said: you are asking at the completely wrong place - this page is about Wikimedia Commons, you are asking about MediaWiki - see http://www.mediawiki.org. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 13:50, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Well I am very sorry, but thanks for the help anyway. We use spamblacklist already, and it doesn't work for us. Bruce89 19:52, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Category problem

Category:Nuvola SVG icons specifies at the bottom of the page that it belongs in [[Category:Nuvola icons]], but a link to the former doesn't appear in the latter! What's going on? Seahen 17:46, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

It is there, on the third page of the nuvola icons category. --Denniss 22:01, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
This is a longstand bug. bugzilla:1211. CatScan or the Category Tree can help with these very large categories (see Commons:Tools). pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:54, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Public Domain films

Do we regard films that are in the public domain in the United States as acceptable for use on Commons, i.e., audio or video clips and screenshots? There is a list of public domain films at Openflix, some availiable for download and streaming at the Internet Archive (screenshots have been uploaded at Kirk Douglas). Arniep 19:13, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Commons is primarily for Wikimedia projects. None of our projects is a film archive, so I think the massive storage and bandwidth requirements strongly speak against archiving these here, especially given that archive.org is already doing a good job at that. We might do so when Wikimedia has ten times the budget it currently has, but right now, our growth rate is already dangerous enough without taking on terabytes of movie data.
We could, however, enable the .torrent extension on Commons and allow users to upload Torrents for these very large files.--Eloquence 21:41, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi I was thinking more on the lines of just short audio/video clips and screenshots, not whole films. Arniep 22:36, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
That's fine (PD=fine), but I would only do it if you intend to use the files in specific articles, not just because someone might randomly find them useful. pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:45, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I have downloaded several of these including Charade with Cary Grant. Torrent would be very cool this would allow much better annotation of these films. The archives blurbs don't provide very good information on why you would want to download them. -Mak 01:00, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

You should take in account that Copyright holder successfully have sued people using US-PD-movies outside the US (see e.g. Buster Keaton decision of the German Bundesgerichtshof). Movies should be PD worldwide or at least in countries with the 70 years pma term --Historiograf 15:40, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

That's what I was worried about (i.e. PD-US does not equal PD on commons). Would this limit us to using audio/video clips and screenshots from only pre 1936 PD films or is it more complicated than that? Arniep 02:50, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
If PD-US doesn't equal PD on Commons why don't we redirect {{PD-US}} to {{copyvio}}?! This is more than slightly ridiculous... pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:13, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Are you saying we shouldn't have a PD-US cat at all? I was under the impression that media on commons had to be free to use anywhere, or is it just free to use just about anywhere :-I? Arniep 12:49, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm saying we accept PD-US, so let's either accept it wholeheartedly or not at all. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:18, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
According to [8], works that are in the public domain in the US are also in the public domain in countries that apply the rule of the shorter term. Canada, Chiina, Germany, and Switzerland do not apply this rule. For Canada, non-licensed films listed by OpenFlix, copyright protection probably lasts for the life of the author plus 50 years, for China Copyright protection for movies lasts for 50 years from date of publication or if unpublished from date of creation, for Germany, movies are protected for 70 years after the death of the last author which includes the principal director, screenplay and dialog writers, and musical composers, for Switzerland protection lasts for 70 years after the death of the director. Arniep 13:06, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Problems with Template:Information

It seems like the template {{information}} is somewhat difficult to understand. Especially the part «permission» contra the section «license». I don't think it is very wise to enforce use of a template at all as the user might be a new one and will not know how to use a template anyhow.

Could it be possible to rephrase the text? Perhaps that will reduce the problems. As it is now the template duplicates information without introducing additional benefits.

John Erling Blad (no) 01:15, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't necessarily duplicate information. The permission field should be used to explain the basis for it being under that license. If the author is not the uploader then this is absolutely necessary.
I guess you are talking about the explanation on special:upload? If you have a suggestion to improve the wording, you can write it at MediaWiki talk:Uploadtext and an administrator can make the change. pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:43, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I really need this figured out. I use commonist to upload my files. Commonist uses the template:Information, but it arranges things a bit different, it puts the license-template in the Permission space. Any suggestions? --Tarawneh 06:10, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
According to Commons talk:Tools/Commonist, this has been fixed in the latest version. Please upgrade :) (Improvements to Commonist should be directed to that page and/or the software creator) --pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:10, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 :_( come on Pfctdayelise, give me some space here. I was awake all night and I posted this at 6 am. It had something to do with Template:Information. Program Upgraded :) --Tarawneh 19:30, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Well I invented Template:Information long ago as I was upset about people throwing a random licene template on a file without a single word why this template is justified or even without a single word on a description what the file displays at all. The permission is a textual human readable but not machine readable justification for the machine readable license templates. As Template:Information had been introduced after the license templates and as I didn't want to force people using it I didn't want to mix up the existing usage of license templates. Template information was also meant as a hackish temporarily substitute for the currently non-existant wikidata form on image pages that would enable Wikimedia Commons becoming a true media repository (all other professional image databases provide information in a unique easy to follow way to the people using that database). You can find many more detailed information and discussion about this and other topics at Template talk:Information. Arnomane 09:14, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Please protect Image:Lordi monster rock band.jpg

This image is on the English Wikipedia main page. Thanks, and also you can unprotect Image:Lordi-screen.jpg now. Harro5 07:00, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Protection done, but Image:Lordi-screen.jpg was never protected. pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:06, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

21 May, 2006

Random image deletion

Hello,

An image used on the English Wiktionary dissapeared recently.   vanished with no trace. Fighting my way through the MediaWiki software, I arrived here on commons (where there is a link to the deletion log.)

  • QUESTION: Why wasn't the image replaced with something (like a big red X?) saying it was marked for deletion?
  • QUESTION: Why wasn't the project using the image notified, before the deletion? Wouldn't it make sense to run CheckUsage as soon as it was tagged as having a technical/license problem of some sort?

Thanks in advance, --Connel MacKenzie 16:12, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

First let me provide the image history
     * 18:02, 21 May 2006 Rüdiger Wölk deleted "Image:Enchiladas 1.jpg" (no source/no license over 7 days)
     * 09:52, 12 March 2006 . . Howcheng ({{no source}})
     * 20:41, 31 October 2005 . . Ruby
  1. It is the responsibility of the uploader to provide source and license.
  2. A red X wouldn't be useful
  3. Consider implementing CommonsTicker, as described in #CommonsTicker: the Germans are watching! above.
Fred Chess 17:51, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
You seem to be stuck in some kind of tunnel-vision. Please think it through, before commenting again. To say that a red X would not be helpful, is so absolutely narrow-minded and wrong, you should be embarrassed that you said it. --Connel MacKenzie 23:47, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Personally I use CheckUsage to remove any image I delete from a project, even writing a summary in their own language saying "Removing image. This image is a copyright violation and will be deleted from Commons." I think every admin should do this, so we would avoid these kinds of complaints, but there is no consensus to make it a requirement. / Fred Chess 17:55, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
For images deleted after debate, or when deleting duplicates or superceeded images, unlinking is a must. When dealing with copyvios and unsourced images, that is not a requirement: it's in the responsibility of the uploader to clean up, and it's the responsibility of people in local projects to check if the images they are using are OK. We already have a huge backlog of things to delete, and we will never get through it if we do not require the help of local communities with cleanup. That being said: notifying the upload of the problem (on commons) is always required, of corse.
And yes, this is exactly the type of thing I wrote CommonsTicker for. The test on de:wp is going well, but I want to add some features and do some more testing before it put it live for other projects. The english wikipedia will have to wait untill we ge a fresh dump for the toolserver, sind the en:wp database there is currently broken. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 18:38, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
If we get a DelinkerBot we can do this. (waiting for universal login) There is at least me, Fred and WarX who always delink everything, even copyvios.
It doesn't make sense that images on COM:DEL should be delinked and copyvios should not. 95% of the cases on COM:DEL are where it is decided the image is a copyvio after all. pfctdayelise (translate?) 23:38, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm not opposed to delinking, but it's more than can be asked of commons admins, at least for real "speedy" cases (I said "after discussion", not "if listed as deletion request"). A bot may help, but may also bring new problems. Also, people have actually complained about "anonymous commons related editing", etc; apperently they would rather have a nice notification (where i'm not sure). In any case I belive local communities should get involved more with commons - if they want to use images from here, they will have to help to keep things clean. We should work on making better tools and processes available for this, bot on a community and on a technical level. Single login will be one pice of the puzzle, CommonsTicker another, I hope. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 23:45, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
en.wikt can implement a CommonsTicker straight away, right? It could be a good experiment to see how it goes on a smaller project (probably even better than a large one). pfctdayelise (translate?) 23:49, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Wow, I really misunderstood what you were suggesting, at first. OK, I'll set up an en.wikt: page and get the appropriate requests in place. For some reason, I thought this would be a much more passive operation. --Connel MacKenzie 16:23, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
  • My apologies for not checking back more frequently.

It is my opinion that when an image is tagged for deletion, (copyvio, unsourced; whatever) it would be in commons' best interest to immediately replace that image with something akin to the "big dumb red X" so that people can see that there is a problem, before the image automagically vanishes!

Would the commons appreciate more community participation? Well, once you delete an image (or any other media file) the sister-projects can no longer get to commons easily.

If, on the other hand, there were SOME kind of advance warning, clicking on the image (on the sister-project page) will usually direct that contributor to the commons version of that page (where the image actually is.) That in turn, leads to whatever discussion pages exist on commons regarding it...and more people "accidentally" ending up on commons, where they can discover this entire (separate) community.

One of my recent cleanup activities has me reviewing the current state of image links on the English Wiktionary (note: not Wikipedia.) I am encountering an astonishing number of image links that link to nothing. No trace of where the image was (local or commons.)

The thing the really bugs me about Image:Enchiladas 1.jpg is that it went unmolested for months, then without warning, vanished without a trace. No one did a CheckUsage on it, obviously. No redirect was left behind, pointing to a plausible alternate. Nothing on the image indicated its imminent demise, prior to getting zapped. I'll guess that the original contributor was not contacted (on their sister-project page.)

There has got to be a better way to go about all this. Every single image deletion hamstrings a sister-project somewhere. Zapping images with a replacement (of some sort, any sort!) will garner the participation allegedly desired. But deleting an image makes it very, very, very, very, very difficult to contributors on sister-projects to figure out what you are up to. (Remember: because you never notify anyone, the first indication a sister-project can possibly get is the magical disappearance of their content!) --Connel MacKenzie 05:25, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

We have a huge backlong in teh images-for-deletion category, and a lock of active admins. The more steps become necessary for deletion, the larger the backlog will get. People uploading images to the commons must take responsibility for the, at least be checking every now and then if there's something on their talk page here. People using images from commons must check if the licensing info is ok - otherwise, the image is likely to "vanish" at some point.
Note that Image:Enchiladas 1.jpg had been tagged for deletion for about six weeks before it was actually removed, and the uploader, User:Ruby, was notified. He did not respond in any way, not did he provide any information about himself, far less a link to his "home wiki".
CommonsTicker will hopefully help by providing a central page for image-related notifications on each project. It would be very nice indeed if we had a software feature that would put a warning on the image wherever it is used, when it's marked for deletion on commons. Manually overwriting it with a red X or something takes a lot of time and fiddeling. Notifying the user'S on ther "home" wiki is verry difficult too - many uploaders don't link to their home wiki at all, and editing in a wiki where you do not understand the interface language is quite tricky (ever tried editing a right-to-left wiki? it's no fun). A "delinker" bot that automatically removes references to images that are (going to be) deleted from all projects may help - or may annoy people even more, i'm not sure.
So, I agree that we should make commons as transparent as possible for the local projects - but only as long as it does not put even more load on the commons admins. Let's thing about procedured for allowing this, technical or otherwise. I stand by the commons deletion policy:
  • always notify the uploader (on commons). Notifying on the "home wiki" would be nice, but is not required (and often not possible).
  • delete obvious copyvios on sight. Unlinking would be nice, but is not required - it takes far too much time and effort for a commons admin to do by himself by hand. If we did that, we'll never got on top of all the (excuse me) crap that people upload here. When using images from commons people should make sure they have good license info.
  • delete images missing crucial source and license info after giving the uploader one week to supply the info. Again, unlinking would be nice, but is not required.
  • when deleting images after debate, or when deleting duplicates, unlinking in all projects is required. Duplicates and superceeded images shouuld be deleted only only if there are no objections.
I belive we must educate both commons admins and people using commons images about these procedures and resposibilities. Please help us to find new practical ways of tieing commons more closely into local communities, and try to make people aware that using images is not a matter of "link and forget". -- Duesentrieb(?!) 08:39, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
    1. I suggest a 'bot, to 1) d/l images nominated for execution, 2) superimpose a translucent red X, 3) re-upload new version (in a manner that can be rolled back!). (If too technically difficult, then just replace with big red dumb X.)
    2. I further suggest a second bot: 1) run a full CheckUsage on all items nominated for deletion, 2) auto-post the results of the CheckUsage to Commons:Deletion requests so that the CheckUsage only gets run once. Note: The English Wikipedia has a User:Mathbot that seems to do something similar for WP:RFA.
    3. I suppose I could also suggest a 'bot to review the commons Special:Log/delete, run CheckUsage on everything there, and auto-post talk page messages to the affected sister-project pages.
  • Note that none of these things would require Commons' sysop effort. Erm, if someone so inclined (with time available) decided to it it, that is. --Connel MacKenzie 18:03, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
  • P.S. Note that most of Wiktionary image links are of the "link and forget" variety - anons visit from Wikipedia and courteously link the common image, then never return. Because of the tricky inter-project nature, I'd suggest that drastically longer times between when nomination and deletion occur, should exist for Commons. --Connel MacKenzie 18:03, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Hm, a bot for X-ing images nominated for deletion actually sounds like a good idea. Superimposing requres downloding and processing the full image, that would be overkill and slow things down. Posting usage to the deletion request page does not seem to good to me though - speedy cases, copyvios, images missing info, etc, are not listed there anyway. The bot that reads log/delete and posts messages to the local projects is prertty much what CommonsTicker does - only that the ticker posts to a single page on each project. A second script for posting to talk pages could be added, running on the same ticker-database.

I'm opposed to longer delays before deletion, at least for copyvios and images missing info. Problems should be dealt with swiftly, otherwise noone will feel responsible for them, and we would have a huge "buffer" of "bad" images. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 18:37, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I can understand the concern for copyvios...perhaps they should be replaced with the X, rather than having it superimposed. Is there a programatic way to distinguish "unsourced" vs. "copyvio"?
On second thought, merely uploading the X as a new version of the file would accomplish the goal...providing a traceable link from sister projects. I'll have to look into CommonsTicker - it sounds great. --Connel MacKenzie 18:52, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
  • On the point about backlogs: once an image has resided on Commons for a week or so, if someone later comes along and tags it for deletion, the window for effective communication is already gone. This seems to be the most common scenario. That is why I suggest a longer time between nomination and deletion. Tagging immediately is of course the best possible approach. But I think it is rarely feasible, without a few hundred more sysops on commons. --Connel MacKenzie 19:00, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Just replacing the image with an X is much easier and faster, so I would prefer it (it could conceivable also be undone automatically). "Unsourced" and "Copyvio" have different templates - "copyvio" is for clear cases (obvious, or source stated, etc).
About the delay before deletion... hm, maybe the wait should be longer for pictuires that have been here for some time. But that would complicate the procedure for deletion even more. I whish more people would use the Gallery tool for watching uploads - much easier to spot bad stuff that way. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 23:04, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and thank you for discussing this in a constructive way! Mostly people just whine and leave :/ -- Duesentrieb(?!) 23:08, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Ahem. Yes, I think I learned my lesson last year.  :-)   --Connel MacKenzie 07:28, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I am not convinced that overwriting to-be-deleted images with big crosses is going to help much. The most important point about this is that the articles will change with no watchlist or history indication whatsoever. This is a nasty surprise. wikt:enchilada had only one edit between 5 March and 24 May (Rudiger's anonymous image removal - I have suggested that he use edit summaries from now on - but he actually did remove it from use, so there would have been no nasty red link). If we had overwritten the image during this period chances are no one would have noticed, and in the meantime the article looks terrible. I think this approach is too damaging for low/rarely-edited articles and projects. I think trying the CommonsTicker, see how effective or otherwise it is, is the best step here. pfctdayelise (translate?) 23:21, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
That is why the combination of the two techniques should be A) of no effort at all to anyone besides the 'bot operators, B) a safety valve for when one of the two isn't working, C) obvious not only to the contributors, but also to the people viewing entries with images/attachments earmarked for termination.
When viewed as something that affects everyone that views a sister-project page, it is silly to think that a talk page message to the original contributor (who may have left that sister-project just as rapidly as leaving Commons, BTW) is just as likely to be lost in the shuffle, before it is too late to find a replacement.
When other contributors on the sister-projects see the big red X, they will at least be able to click on it, directing them to the appropriate section of Commons. Not only will this encourage more people to visit Commons more often, it will also be biased towards encouraging the helpful janatorial types (AKA sysops) from the sister projects, instead of the fly-by-night copyvioers. Yes, I know that is not a word. Sounds like a win-win, to me. --Connel MacKenzie 07:28, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
But it's not just contributors. It's also readers, the wider audience, who have no idea any of this is going on and just want to know the definition of enchilada. Don't you think it will give a kind of unprofessional look? Who knows how many visitors will see the ugly red X before something gets done about it? (I will point out that there is often a freaking long, long time between any nomination for deletion and actual deletion. Look at how long the backlog on COM:DEL is. It's certainly not 7 days, even for simple cases.) This proposal is going to affect all projects, not just Wiktionary. I fear that this will make us more unpopular than anything else we've ever done. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:16, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Hm... so, maybe a superimposed X, or a red corner or something, may be better after all? Or do you think that would be just as bad? But I agree that we should first look if the ticker alone is enough. I'll look into making it post to individualt talk pages too. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 08:44, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I think a red corner (or similar) will be too small for most people to notice it, and for the people who do notice it, it will just confuse them. But talk to Fred Chessplayer, he has been experimenting with methods like these. I really think it is very likely that a Ticker will solve 99% of these problems, if there are project people who will watch it. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:56, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
shifting left, removing indentation

I'm sorry, but that is incredibly fallicious. Do you not understand the extensive dammage you are CURRENTLY doing to sister-projects by leaving broken image links all over the place? You think that doesn't bug the [profanity-censored] out of our current readers? Not only are they left with a preposterously "unprofessional" looking broken link (in the form of a broken image box) but they are also left with no indication that the image was deleted from a server living on a different planet!

The "readers" that do investigate, are then pushed face-first into a brick wall, as the local deletion log not only shows nothing about the image in question, it also denies that Commons even exists. If they are astute enough to check the deletion log for only the Image: namespace, they are again faced with an appalling absence of information.

Your continued assertion that "CommonsTicker" would solve 99% of these problems is absurd. It is a fine tool, that I wished worked universally already - but it will do NOTHING for the plethora of broken image links. Nor can it possibly communicate to a wide enough audience, what is going on.

--Connel MacKenzie 23:43, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Addendum: I have a question - what percentage of images/files nominated for deletion here on commons actually survive the process? 1%? 0.1? 0.01%? Or 0.001%? Isn't the nomination itself the death-stroke? --Connel MacKenzie 23:54, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I'm having trouble letting go of this. The notion that a "red X" would last more than a day or two (after being seen/noticed on a sister project) is also incorrect. In fact, the opposite is much more likely: the "bad" image reference would be removed quickly, with a search for alternates happening quickly, and/or the request being added to the appropriate image-requests page. The more visible the execution-notice, the better. --Connel MacKenzie 00:29, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


In closing (still can't let it go) I feel I must point out that User:Pfctdayelise's out-of-hand dismissal of sister-project feedback does very little to encourage further inter-project communication. --Connel MacKenzie 00:53, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, whoa. Hang on a sec. You came to us with one deleted image (which never left a broken link in any article - the deleting admin removed it before deleting). You said the problem was the that the project was never notified the image was up for deletion. That is exactly what CommonsTicker would offer, that notification.
Now you are accusing us of "leaving broken image links all over the place" and I'm sorry, but I don't see any evidence of that. The recent complaints we've had at the Commons have not been about that. What other images has it happened with at en.wikt? Let's focus on specifics, that we can do something about, rather than wild statements no one can verify.
Maybe other people will like the red cross idea and we can do that too, OK. I'm sorry if it seemed like I was dismissing your idea out of hand because that wasn't my intention. I'm just concerned about other impacts it might have. I'm saying, we three people who are writing here shouldn't be the only ones to decide it. It will impact on all the projects. --pfctdayelise (translate?) 01:07, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, it seems much of my ire was misplaced. I did not realize the anon who removed the image reference on en.wikt: was the same Commons sysop who deleted the image...I also did not realize that that edit happened before the deletion (it seemed like the other way around, when I looked before.) Currently, the only image: redlinks seem to be for images that previously were local images, now deleted. --Connel MacKenzie 14:10, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the history is not exactly accurate: it doesn't show the article exactly as it was at that time. Same problem with templates. pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:37, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
OK, thank you for your help, then. I've set up what I think are the appropriate pages for wikt:WT:CT, and put the request in, as you suggest. --Connel MacKenzie 06:28, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

22 May, 2006

scolorq: a tool for reducing color depth

Hi all. I'm not sure how useful this is on Commons, but since a lot of you are image afficionados I thought you might be interested. I created a tool implementing a sophisticated color quantization algorithm from the paper "Spatial Quantization of Color Images". It's open source and you can see sample images as compared to Photoshop's color reduction and download source/binaries at its page. Any feedback appreciated. Deco 07:29, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

If you work on templates or translations...

Hello... in checking anonymous edits and reviewing my deletion actions (to see which ones had been recreated, and if they were valid or not), I have noticed there is a tendency for users to create "tests" in the translations of copyright tags and sometimes also page translations. This is undoubtedly because those red links in the translation bars are so tempting. So please occasionally review the blue links - even if it's in another language, you can usually tell if it looks right or not - and (nominate to) speedy delete non-translations. These non-translations are misleading and of course extremely unhelpful to those native speakers. Also if you make substantial changes to a template/page, it would be nice to leave a note on the talk page of the translations or the talk page of the main translators so they know it should be updated. This is not necessary but can help maintain up-to-date translations which is important to avoid confusion. Thanks! pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:44, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Indeed I have seen the same problem. Strangely those people did never react and it was everytime a spanish translation directly replacing the english text. Some new sort of a very strange troll? (The person did even make it again after I have told her how to make it right). Arnomane 08:55, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
That is a different problem (I saw what you are referring to), and I don't think anyone who actually produces a translation (even in the wrong spot) can be called a troll. :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 09:00, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Hm well creating a translation is work and usually a troll doesn't make some real work... I am only very much suprised that these accounts did only make some edits to that single page. I wrote a friendly hello with a hint what to do better at the talk page but got no reaction... So if I'd have recieved some reaction I would have helped moving the content into a separate page. Arnomane 10:11, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

User Block

I was bolcked by an admin (Devil 666); I think his decision was illegal and the reasons not true. What are the procedures to discuss ( and i hope to remove ) the block? Notice that as a blocked user I don't have the right to edit. Thanks to anyones help. --213.213.35.25 08:53, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

You should be able to edit your talk page - please check if you can. (If you can't I think it's a bug.) Also note your user name would be a helpful starting point. Are you User:Mac9? pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:59, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Well why have you been blocked? Because you were not interested in sorting something out together with Devil but did go ahead with your style and ignored him. So the usual procedure on Commons is then a temporarily block of the user without larger debate (the only thing we could argue about is the time span of the block). If you're interested in a constructive way how to sort italian images right and want to find with reddevil a good consensus I will reactivate your account. Arnomane 09:08, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Firs of all, thanks for the support.

I think there is a bug; I'm not able to edit my page. I don't want to anoy anyone, but I haven't ignored anyone's message; i've always discussed, also with Devil 666, who after few sentences, just stopped to talk to me so thatI supposed he was convinced by my arguments. I think that he's angry with me because in the italian wiki I voted against him, becasuse imho he cannot act as admin ( too rude, too rushed and too "sherif"). Obviusly it's only my opinion. At this point, how can I defend my position? Is there a special procedure? Can I edit my page again? Sorry to disturb other partecipans. Mac

I cannot read italian but have tried to find out what was going on. I only saw the there that Reddevil tried to contact you about how to sort images from italian places and that you made quite some changes that didn't looked very well thought to me (but maybe I missed the bigger frame). The best idea is making some kind of scheme at first, that is not nested too deep. See Commons:Categories and Category:Commons category schemes for some hints how to come to a good solution with a reasonable use of both galleries and categories. I have now turned as well the block into a one day block, see [9] (so your account is automatically reactivated tomorrow at ~12am if nothing changes in the one or other direction in the meantime). So in the meantime Reddevil can tell us more about that matter (by the way it was his first block, so he wasn't too fast with user blocks in the past). Arnomane 10:09, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Is this the normal way to discuss about blocks? Why cannot we discuss in my talk page? Why do I have to discuss as anonymus? Arnomane, thanks for your support, but I'm not new here. Sometimes I also have corrected the reddevil admin ( i.e. maybe I know commons procedures at the same level he knows). The problem is that you don't understand italian, so you cannot fully appreciate the tone he use ( you can see also the italian depate about hime, when he was elected admin). The question is: I have always discussed with anyone, taking arguments for my behaviours, also with him. It's is possible to block someone just because doesn't agree with an admin? Finally I know the rules for categorizing. No single photos is not reacheble through a page or a category. No single photo. Mac
You have removed categories from pictures without good reason, for example [10]. Why do you think images should be reachable through the category structure only one way? In this case, for instance, it is useful to find it by looking for what it shows (and urban square in italiy), not only by where it is. Yes, redundant categories can and should be removed. Being in more than one category does not automatically make one of them "redundant", though.
Like Asrnomane, I don't understand italian, so i can't say how the discussion with Red went. But I can tell you that I will block you if you keep doing that.
Allowing blocked users to edit their talk page is a software option - i will check with the server admins that it's enable for commons. It would sure be useful. Anyway, if you want attention for your case, here is the right spot in any case. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 10:52, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


I don't agree with you, Duesentriebe; there are photos reachable from more than one page. Imho whene you said "I will block you if you keep doing that. " you're rude, and acting as you only hold the trhuth; I don't think an admin should act that way. I've always interacted with discussions, and I've always argued when I was asked for. For the case you take as an exaple, onother solution could be to have two pages, under two different categories. Is this suitable for the case? ( or do you think the the only way is the one you've indicated? ). Mac

Finally, I'm not a vandal; no one photo was lost and I've created a plenty of pages and well desgined categories, and uploaded hundreds of photos. Am I a vandal? Mac

If you make changes that make images less accessible thorugh the category structure, i.e. you remove it from relevant, non-redundant categories or galleries, then you are demaging the Commons, good faith or not; If you do not change that behaviour after being warned, I or some other admin should block you (not permanently, and IMHO not imediately for a full month, but for a few days).
I don't think you are a vandal, but your behaviour seems ill considered. A "man on a missing" can do a lot of damage - perhaps even more than a "normal" vandal, because vandals are mostly easy to recognize. I don't mean to be rude, and what I said is not personal - it's simply commons sense and practice.
As to the example at hand: I don't care if categories or galleries are used to make the image accessible. I do care that before your edit, the image was reachable by asking a "what"-question, and now it's not. What i'm saying is: all images of urban squares should be available in a subcategory (or a gallery in a subcategory) under Category:Urban squares, no matter where they are. Same for bridges, mountains, rivers, etc... again: removing such useful associations is demagaing to the commons, and is a reason to block you (or anyone else) if you keep doing it. If you want to change a category to a gallery, or use a more specific category or gallery, or you remove a redundant or misleading category or gallery - that's fine, no, that's good. If you simply remove an image from one "facette" (the "where" facetter) of the category structure, that's not fine. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 11:18, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I understand your point of view; but imho on this point there was a misunderstanding. I was reconsidering this point and I was building pages to collect squares, churches, libriries...in order to reach a photo from more than one point. You can just surf the italian categories....but sometimes the category is sill, wrong, not consistent with the whole structure ( for example the german cities have a structure), and in this cases i've just corrected the infos, also giving some additional byte of info in the page. Again, can you consider "correct" to have the same photo under 2,3 pages on different cat? Second question? If you and me have a discussion, when can we think that this is come to a conclusion? When you as admin statue that? I've always talked to devil666, I've always argued what I was doing, but because in his opinion he was right he just banned me n( after few talks) and you are threatening to do the same. I don't think it's a correct way to proced. But if the concern handles about the multi-reachbility of a photo, you can be sure that it's also my goal. So can I propose to end here this misunderstanding and to unblock me? mac
can you consider "correct" to have the same photo under 2,3 pages on different cat - yes, absolutely; just like wikipedia articles are often in more than one category, images can and should often b in more than once category or gallery page. For example, think of an image that shows a baroque bridge in paris. Now, you could create a page "baroque bridges in paris", but that only make sense if there are more than a handful of images fitting that description. Instead, it is completely ok to put it into threee categores (or galleries in those categories): Paris (or a subcategory like Architecure of parise or something), Baroque architecture (or some subcat or gallery), and Bridges (or something more specific, like Bridges in Fance or something). The important point is: the image should alway be accessible by all aspects that apply to it.
Generally: if someone (admin or not) strongly disagrees with what you are doing, and you can't reach an agreement, please ask others for their input, for example by bringing up the issue on the village pump. Please note that i have not "threatened to block you", I have stated that i'll block you or anyone who keeps demaging the structure after bing warned. As to what Red did: since I can't follow the discussion, i don't know what his reasons where. IMHO, it was OK that he blocked you, but a month was far too long a term. A "stop that!" warnign shot should be one or two days, generally. Even only a few hours, if the user is very active.
If you understand the general points about "aspects of categorization" I made above, and you agree to revise your edits, and add back any useful categories you may have romved, i can ublock you now. I'm always happy to resolve a conflict as a simple misunderstanding. Or you can wait for the block to expire tomorrow. Regards -- Duesentrieb(?!) 12:22, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
I prefer that you unblock me, because in my opinion red devils decision wasn't taken with the correct reason, procedure timining, and so on ( at least he was rushed-he interacted with me just 1 time and I really understood that at the end he came to my conclusions). I always use a collaborative style of work, so you can be sure that if somebody will disclaim my work I'll stop it untill we reach a common undestanding.

Please note that in the last time I didn't have received any complaint, but just a request of clarification. For the future I'll mainteint the fully reachbility of all the photos. If you can rollback the lock, I'll apreciate it very much. Mac

You are unblocked now, happy editing. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 14:06, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Also I made a request that blocked users in the Commons should be able to edit their talk page: bugzilla:6052. For some reason this feature is only set on en.wp and en.wn at the moment, I don't know why. pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:48, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Also note, admins: you should have your email set, and if you block someone who is not a fly-by vandal, you should inform them as well as inform them how they can contact you to discuss it. 'Should' = it would be polite and will reduce controversy. :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:54, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


Update! bugzilla:6052 has been fixed. Blocked users here should now be able to edit their talk page while blocked. pfctdayelise 07:08, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

FairCommons

I am pushing real hard to force the ar.wiki into commons. So I guess the ticker would be handy. The thing is, we depend on lots of fair-use images. Is it feasible to propose a centralized fair-use project similar to commons? It will make life easier for the admins on the other wikis, and to Commons admins as well. I also believe that having a single copy of a fair-use is much better than having 100's. Certain wikis should be able to disable the inter-connectivity with FairCommons. --Tarawneh 15:56, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

No. Fair use depends on specific editorial context. a central repository of fair use images is a contradiction in terms. Keep them locally, or better, get rid of them. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 16:14, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, the "get red of them" thing is almost impossible in ar.wiki; they will simply desysop me if I even dare to mention it :). That is why I am looking for alternatives.
Yet I do not follow your argument. Fairuse items should meet certain requirements, being on the same server with the articles is not one of them, the sysops from the project could be sysops on the central fairwiki. It might even help relief the copyvio pressure in Commons. Any way it is just an idea, if it not applicable then no harm is done. --Tarawneh 18:33, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
The point is: an image is never "fair use" by itself. It may be "fair use" to use it in a specific article. Making it available in galleries, etc, apart from the editorial content, would not be fair use. Another problem is that the rules about what is fair are quite different in individual jurisdictions. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 18:44, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Well by definition the use of a picture is fair to a relevant content, that is not the issue. For your other argument, I have seen fair use photos being modified and re-licensed under fairuse on en.wiki. So you might have a good point there. Any way, I was just looking for a way to solve the fair use problem on ar.wiki --Tarawneh 19:38, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

@Tarawneh: Hm maybe it would be a good idea showing the people on ar.wp the alternatives to Fair Use images and even the advantages of not using Fair Use images? For example showing them other much much more bigger Wikipedias (that have much less native speakers than for example arab) that have no Fair Use content and even no unfree content like de.wp? de.wp (which I know naturally best) is for certain no text desert. For example the regular German Wikipedia on DVD wouldn't have been possible with a strict image policy. The same is with the (partially) printed German Wikipedia. Without strict image licensing it would have been impossible as well. So this "restriction" to free content only is a key feature to quality and creativity and thus freedom for Wikipedia. Arnomane 21:40, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

@Tarawneh: En.wp is doing what you describe at the moment: making a very strong push that ONLY fair use images should be uploaded locally, and all free images should be uploaded at the Commons. There is even a project: w:WP:MFIC and lately admins have been much harsher about fair use requirements and specifications. Also don't forget to mention the universal login should be coming soon, to make life easier. :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:38, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I will try to push for the deletion of the PD's tags and other free tags from ar.wiki, and provide a link to commons upload page. --Tarawneh 04:28, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

When will works enter the PD?

Some instructive hints at http://english.osu.edu/organizations/ijjf/ (re the works of James Joyce) --Historiograf 00:51, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure that's the right link? pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:34, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
It's a site with frames, so if you want the link without the frames, it's http://english.osu.edu/organizations/ijjf/FAQs.htm --Fb78 08:37, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Nuvola extension proposal

This proposed WikiProject has now been created; please see Announcing WikiProject Nuvola 2.0+! below.

Right to reply

Elise said:"Also note, admins: you should have your email set, and if you block someone who is not a fly-by vandal, you should inform them as well as inform them how they can contact you to discuss it. 'Should' = it would be polite and will reduce controversy. :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:54, 23 May 2006 (UTC)" RedDevils, after I was block with no chance to interact with him or other admin and after that I asked him in his italian page how I could defend my rights, answered me that way: [[11]]. I try to tanslate. "write what you want in your discussion page (I think in the italian one because here I was blocked for a month by him). After put a link on my discussion page with a request to highlight your page in the italian pump". Well I find this behaviour totally unacceptable. How could you fill when you are accused ( imho with an excuse ) and your right to reply is obstacolated? I, as suggested by an admin, as a common user should write in my national page a request to link my complaints to the italian village pump? In Italy we call these as Bizantinismi, mechanism so complicated and frustrting that at the end people don't use them. So my question is: is a common praticte in wiki the way RedDevil indicated to me to reply in order to dibat users rights? Thanks to Pfctdayelise and Duesentrieb for their patience and professionality.--mac 08:04, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


This is a bit tricky. Generally, there's a policy to imediately roll back any edit made by a blocked used, made using a sock puppet account or as an IP. This is aimed at vandals and trouble makers. In your case, it was OK IMHO to post your ciomplaint on the village pump as an anon user - I would say it's a matter of common sense to decide if someone is just trolling and whining, or if there's a valid complaint.

Alternatively, you can contact admins per email (yes, all admins should provide an email address - I belive that should be a requirement for admins); you can either contact the admin that blocked you, or another one, as you prefer. Anotehr way yould be the IRC channel #wikimedia-commons, the emailing list, etc. Note that all thes possibilities are of corse open to "real" vandals, and people will be sceptical of your complaint. But if you stay calm and provide good arguments and document your claims, i'm positive things will work out ok.

Being able to edit one's own talk page while blocked would indeed be useful - i hope we get it enabled for commons. When that is possible, you could ask another user to put a link to your talk page on the village pump, inviting people to have a look at the issue.

PS: I have told RedDevil that blocking you for a month was totally over the top - everyone I talked to about this until now agreed on that. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 09:53, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Mac: what Red Devil 666 said is not a common practice because blocking users (not vandals) is not a common practice in the Commons anyway, so we don't have a formal policy. I guess now is a good time to step towards one. I believe if you disagree with a block you should first of all contact the blocking admin (and for this they should provide an email). If you can't resolve the problem with them you can try contacting another admin or user you trust and ask them to help you resolve the problem with the blocking admin. Not just "go over their head" and revert the block automatically. I think User:Duesentrieb did a great job of this with you, just up the page.
I think both you, Mac, and Red Devil 666 have acted more or less in good faith and with minor changes (such as setting the email) we won't have many problems like this in the future. I also would like to thank you for being very polite and calm while you were blocked. pfctdayelise (translate?) 11:58, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Logo isn't crushed

The most downloaded graphic on Wikimedia Commons, the logo graphic, hasn't been crushed to its minimum size. When I use "pngcrush -brute" I get it down to 6113 bytes, a 44% reduction. Let's save some bandwidth and replace it, shall we? - Deco


Category of administrator by language

I'm interested in categorize admin, rather then simple users, by spoken language; the goal is to put a link in the italian village pump to this category in order to help italian language newcomers. Is this possible? --mac 10:17, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

It's not a category, but it is organised like that on Template:List of administrators by language. pfctdayelise (translate?) 11:52, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

user page tabs are in Polish??

Currently, when I click on my user page, some of the tabs are in a language resembling Polish: "galeria", "nieuzywane", "bec licenji"?? Stevage 06:13, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I think Arnomane's the one to handle that... (they're the extra tabs we custom put in: gallery, orphans, untagged). pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:47, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
The same happened to me, but renaming the CheckUsage and CommonSense tags to nutzung and kategorisieren (conflicting with de:)... I got it out doing a full refresh (Ctrl+F5) Maybe some squid is confusing the language Monobook.js ? Platonides 11:39, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
It's a wired known bug which is not caused by my script but by a serverside (cache?) hiccup (it sometimes delivers the wrong MediaWiki:Monobook.js/Language_Code to the people). The only known (and always working) "fix" is refreshing the local browser cache (like Platonides did). Arnomane 16:34, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

The problem is the handling of the localized javascript pages like MediaWiki:Monobook.js/de, etc. Apperently, the caching system does not know that MediaWiki:Monobook.js has to be cached per user language. This means you get "your" language only if the server you are contacting does not have that page cached, or if the cached version is the "right" language coincidentally. I guess i'll have to poke Brion about it once more... -- Duesentrieb(?!) 16:44, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

23 May, 2006

Description copied from Wikipedia without timestamp

I found that image description of Image:USS Arizona burning-Pearl Harbor.jpg contains ja:真珠湾攻撃 but history of its description doesn't contain timestamp of ja:真珠湾攻撃. Not image but description seems GFDL-vio, how to fix?--PiaCarrot 13:50, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Since the descriptions are very short and usually present facts in a trivial manner, i would simply assume the text isn't eligible for copyright and let it pass. We do have to watch out for the GFDL when copying descriptions, though. It's one of many problems mediawiki does not adequately address: preserving the history when copying articles. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 13:54, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
To fix this problem (and make copying easier), please use the CommonsHelper! pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:07, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I heard the probrem not in Image:USS Arizona burning-Pearl Harbor.jpg but in Template:Info-Pearl Harbor attack in ja.wp, so I changed target of RfD from the image to the template. --PiaCarrot 14:35, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Great, one more problem with Mak's hyper-template stuff. Tell him about it. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 22:13, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I believe you know that your statement is factually incorrect. No action from me is necessary. As with other templates, user can click on the clearly marked edit button and correct the caption. Or are you saying that this convention of providing edit buttons is incorrect? However you say there is nothing wrong with copying the caption from WP's. So what is the issue? -Mak 17:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
The issue is that if you copy anything non-trivial, you have to make sure you follow the terms of the GFDL - i.e. mention source and authors.
This is the single introductory sentence of the corresponding Japanese article on the Pearl harbor attack. It is a list of the pertinent facts, which actually is a bit misleading, suggesting that all the air bases attacked were navy, when in fact by far the huge losses were at the Army air bases. But really, there is no excuse for admins begging that they haven't a clue what translations from major languages say. I haven't a clue about Chinese, but using Googles or altavista's translators, you can get the gist of what is going on. It is certainly no substitute for human understanding, and it doesn't do anything for transliterations of many proper names (you have to understand Katakana or Cyrillic to understand ship names for example) but it is useful for spot checks. Try it. Personally, I recommend Babelfish on Altavista. http://www.babelfish.altavista.com/ Go there and paste in the text. 真珠湾攻撃（しんじゅわんこうげき）は、日本時間1941年12月8日（ハワイ現地時間12月7日）に大日本帝国海軍がアメリカ合衆国ハワイの真珠湾のアメリカ海軍のアメリカ太平洋艦隊と航空基地に対して行った奇襲攻撃のこと。 -Mak 17:37, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
As I don't understnad any of the languages there, I can't tell what's trivial... also, on a "normal" description page, you would hit the "history" tab to see who contributed, and (hopefully) where they got their info from. Using you templates, this information is kind of hard to find. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 08:42, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Really? Aren't you applying a principle that you for whatever reason will not apply to accepted templates? Is it really so hard to find out who changed the language bar at the top of this (Village Pump) page? Click on +/-, then click on history. Same procedure in accessing any the info template. It is very clearly marked "Edit Info- Pearl Harbor attack" which is far more easy to spot than the diminutive +/- symbol in the VP language bar. Arguably, mine is easier. If you can't show why one is acceptable while the other is not, then your criticism is nonsense.
Arnomane suggests that some information about images should be included on every single image page. The Commons guide gives an example of a picture of Orion that has interwiki links to WP articles. Ok- that example is being given to novices of "Best practice". Well guess what. The interwikis are out of date- there are nearly 3 times as many WP articles now. If that was on an Info Page, then the user could click edit, update the links, and the dozens of pictures of the Orion Nebula would be updated. Of course- Arnomane threatens an edit war if I do something so bold as to make this very sensible improvement to what is wrongly considered best practice. -Mak 17:37, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Trikes vs. Tricycles

He have Category:Trikes and Category:Tricycles. Is there any distinction at all? Should they be merged? Is it correct to have them unter Category:Motorcycles? Why don't we have children's tricycles? Where would they go, then? How about Twikes? So many questions... any Bikers around? -- Duesentrieb(?!) 13:52, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

On a related note, anyone who wants to fix some circular categories, please check out User:Pfctdayelise/circularcats and remove them when they're fixed. (Don't worry about the A > A type ones, we'll get a bot to do them.) Thanks, pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:23, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Image:Prisoner of Azk.jpg

I was hoping that someone would be kind enough to tell me which license would be appropriate for this screen shot from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban?

None. WikiCommons do not allow screenshots from movies (unless with the permission of the copyright owner). To put it simply, only Warner Brothers can decide how and when screenshots of their movies are published, not you. Thuresson 01:34, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Please read w:Wikipedia:Fair use and don't upload such pictures to the Commons in the future. Thanks for your co-operation. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Excel files

I have found several Excel files that have been uploaded over the last year. For some reason, upload of XSL files was allowed for a while, although those files are against policy (propriatary) and dangerous (macro-viruses). Below is a list - so, what shall we do with them? Just delete? Convert to OOo spreadsheets (Those are allowed - but I think we shouldn't have those either, really)? Please have a look. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 09:57, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Warning: Excel files can contain malicious code like macro viruses! That's one of the reasons we shouldn't have them on commons. So please be careful.

Can't open. It complaint about invalid format. Platonides 17:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
It's not an Excel spreadsheet, but a MS Word file! I copied the content to Image talk:Fenerbahce.xls. Does anybody understand it? Platonides 17:41, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Content htmlized in Image_talk:Gods.xls. Would need to convert the html2wiki table. It should be moved somewhere else. Although i see no need of that content... Platonides 17:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Uses harmless macros.
Uses password-protected macros!! Platonides 17:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Uses harmless macros. It creates sudokus for you to resolve. Platonides 17:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Two sudoku-formatted spreadsheet. Platonides 17:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC)


About illegal data formats, Media:Wikimedia-organigramm.zip.pdf is not a pdf but a cross dressed zip file with a postscript file inside (wich i'm not able to see completely). Platonides 19:51, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

A hint: you can use csv2wp to convert excel tables to wiki format. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 20:02, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Utter and Complete failure.

What questions would someone have about this image?

Image:Francesco Guardi 001.jpg


The user may have gotten to this page by clicking on the link from http://www.artcyclopedia.com/commons/francesco-guardi.html.


Is it unnatural for such a visitor to want to know what the image is about? How many jumps for them to figure that out?


Info Pages answer this problem by providing information on the "What" concerning the subject of the Image, rather than just the incidental clerical What's that the accepted templates on this page deliver.


-Mak 17:33, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Template Information versus templates for languages

It seems there it is a bit unclear what should be "the best practice" in making descriptions of images with template Information. On the page of this template is given an example of parametr Description with templates for languages:

{{Information|
|Description =
{{en|Part of an oil painting...}}
{{de|Teil eines Ölgemälde...}}
{{nds|Deel vun en Schilleraats...}}

I proposed to add information about using templates for languages in parameter Description into Commons:First steps/Quality and description, see Commons talk:First steps/Quality and description. Arnomane disagrees, see his response and my reply there. Later I found there was some discussion about it at Template talk:Information, but with no clear results.

I still think using templates for languages is better than typing '''en:''' but I may be wrong. But I strongly believe (if Commons wants to be really a multilanguage project):

We can reach consensus about using templates or about using '''en:''' or about "allowing" both methods (or invent some other method). But some result should be reached and should be written at First steps.

I think we could better discuss it e. g. at Template talk:Information but I hope this post here could attrack more commonists to express their opinion there. --Radouch 19:54, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Announcing WikiProject Nuvola 2.0+!

David Vignoni’s Nuvola icon theme was originally intended to satisfy the GUI needs of KDE users; however, it has since grown to find use on numerous Wikipedias (as well as http://shopping.wikia.com) as a set of navigational icons, and may soon find use on other Websites and in conceptual diagrams. It is colourful, friendly, legible and sensible, but its scope is rather narrow for many applications, due to its origins. Outside the areas of electronics and office supplies, its coverage of real objects is hit-and-miss.

WikiProject Nuvola 2.0+ (working title subject to change) is a project to make new icons that will fit stylistically into David Vignoni’s Nuvola icon set, so that it can be used not just for operating system GUIs, but for all kinds of application software, Web sites and conceptual diagrams. The extended set should depict as many objects as possible, and (ideally) completely meet the topic-icon needs of http://shopping.wikia.com and all Wikipedias.

To do this, we must draw new elements, adapt other icons to the Nuvola style and/or manipulate icons at a detailed level. This doesn’t mean simply putting existing icons together, or combining a Nuvola icon with a non-Nuvola icon that doesn’t match it stylistically. (These things appear to be most of what happens in Category:Modified Nuvola icons.) Also, unlike most of Category:Modified Nuvola icons, our icons should be available in SVG form so that (a) they can be used at higher resolutions if necessary and (b) it is easier to edit them further.

Perhaps once the project goes far enough, we can even get Nuvola creator David Vignoni on board. At the very least, we could ask him to codify for us the Nuvola theme guidelines, as has been done for Tango.[12]

Some icons have already been built and organized, and may serve as inspiration for others. I would ask all artists, professional or amateur, to come take a look and consider contributing. You may be surprised, as I was at first, with what you can actually create that matches the Nuvola style. Seahen 02:18, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Help needed! Check newbies' work

Hello, User:Orgullobot now keeps a log of the people it's welcomed: User:Orgullobot/Welcome log. I had an idea that we can use this log to catch misunderstandings and and lack of information earlier. So if you know how to upload an image, cite the source (and remember "From XY Wikipedia" doesn't cut it), know what license are not acceptable and use a category or gallery page, then you know enough to help the average newbie.

Please just have a quick look at their work and offer some tips if they need it. I don't know if this will work or not, but I think it will need more than one person taking part. A mini Commons Welcoming Committee. :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:46, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I've been nominating several files. A direct link to the untagged could be good, too. Platonides 17:43, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
...Sorry? I'm not sure what you mean. pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:49, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Image:Samesex Map North America.png

This image is extremely useful and featured on quite a few different wikis. It is sadly derived from an image with restrictions, and therefore will be soon deleted...unless someone with a GFDL or completely free map of North America (with state outlines for the US) decide to recreate it for us. Please! Cary "Bastique" Bass parler voir 19:43, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

As an SVG, preferrably -- Duesentrieb(?!) 19:55, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

26 May, 2006

Noncommercial licence

On czech Wikipedia is many images of mushrooms, originaly from server http://houby.humlak.cz , uploaded by user cs:User:Zp. These images used to be tagged as Attribution license. We were contacted by admin of the server and when we checked the license, we found out it is not correct. As we have run the negotiation, the final result is noncommercial. Actual license tag is on cs:Template:Humlak. I am afraid there are some images on Commons transferred from cs.wiki as Attribution. I have no names, I do not know the number of images. But if they are on Commons, they shall be deleted since they are noncommercial now. --Zirland 15:42, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I've done a quick scan of Category:Mushrooms, no images there that say http://houby.humlak.cz. After some search I've found Image:Morchella conica.jpg and tagged it for speedy, which you could've done yourself, because it was a comment of yours about the same case I found trough Google. NielsF 16:30, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Attribution &credits

Not sure if this has come up already somewhere, but I occasionally get asked for permission to use my images. Since my images are available under the cc-by-sa license, I usually suggest the following text: By kind permission from Chris_73, this image is freely available on Wikipedia under the creative commons cc-by-sa 2.0 license. Are there any suggestions or improvements? Should i include a link to the actual image (which is awkward if printed in a book)? Should i give attribution to Wikipedia, Commons, Wikimedia? Any suggestions are welcome. Do we even have a page about how to cite image material under the CC and other licenses? Thanks -- Chris 73 16:21, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

We don't have a page... I thought about making one a while ago but still haven't done it.
One guy here charges people for the privelege of telling them whether or not they can use his images, since of course that information is freely and readily available for anyone who cares to read it. :)
I would delete "on Wikipedia" (free=free everywhere, right?) and give the URL of the image on Commons. pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:47, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I like to link to Wikipedia and the Commons, to provide the source and to do a bit of advertising for us. I went ahead and added a suggested text to my license template, User:Chris 73/License, see Image:JapaneseToiletBidet.jpg for an example with the correct link text. Suggestions are still very welcome And yes, we should make a page. -- Chris 73 11:14, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

US government portraits

There has been a dispoute going on over at. It just spilled over onto the commons. These images are all PD, and each Jiang keeps escalating the dispute. Since the images have been incorrectly tagged, and since Jiang is only targeting 14 of the 40 or so images, I am going to revert the tagging. Is there a copyright attorney available?

As far as I can remember, there are no copyright attorneys that have weighed in on the issue. I spoke to Bill Alman, the White House curator, who said the following.

Generally, the portraits are property of the federal government and are in the public domain. In the case of the White House portraits, the photograph of the portrait may have copyright restrictions, but that it should be generally okay to use the images as long as the publisher of the electronic image is credited.

Is there a copyright attorney in the house? --Evrik 18:56, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

User removing delete tags - administrator assistance requested

(related to the discussion above) Evrik (talk · contribs) has gone on a revertion rampage, removing {{deletion request}} from all the images I nominated for deletion at Template:Deletion_requests#Official_paintings_held_by_the_U.S._Government. If Evrik disputes the reasons given for deletion, he should argue his point at Commons:Deletion requests. Removing delete tags is highly inappropriate under these circumstances and an administrator should revert his edits and tell him to stop (I, and several other users, have already unsuccessfully tried to tell at en regarding the PUI tags, so more may be required). --Jiang 19:00, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Rampage? Hardly. I'm trying to fix the damage caused by your continued escaltion of the dispute. --Evrik 19:03, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Cogent Comments by .:.Jareth.:.

Since I got pointed this direction from the dispute over adding and removing the tags, I thought I'd take a second to look in to the issue. I spoke with my congressman, a curator at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and an archivist at the National Archives. Each of them assured me that official photographs and portraits of U.S. Presidents (and other government officials), while being done by non-govenment employees were contracted in such a manner that rights were given to the U.S. government. In fact, since this had been questioned before, the NARA wrote a section into their regulations to cover the handling of Presidential records (NARA Regulations(36 CFR Chapter XII, subchapter E)) however, this only applies specifically to President Reagan and later. You can also easily look at the online websites of the presidential libraries of the pictures in questions and find that the libraries list all of these portraits as being in the public domain. Believe it or not, even photographs and portraits apparently full under the Freedom of Information Act as works of a President. Hope that helps. .:.Jareth.:. babelfish 19:23, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Posted by --Evrik 19:27, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Evrik, while these issues are still being disputed and clarified, you should not unilaterally remove PUI/deletion tags. What part of this process don't you understand? You are free to present your evidence on the PUI page, and if it is persuasive then the image will be delisted and tags removed by consensus. At this point, we are trying to find precise evidence in writing, that (a) the copyrights were transferred to the US government and (b) that the government grants broad enough permission for Wikipedia (permission to "use" is not sufficient). Steven G. Johnson 21:13, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Oh Pulleeze, your justifications for your actions in concert with Jiang make me laugh. I understand what the process is. I also recognize Jiang's (and your) abusive tactics. This all started with a dispute over the picture of one cabinet secretary. Jiang has consistently ratcheted up the dispute. If you're concerned about process, I'm okay with that. I am merely responding to having the debate torqued up a notch. In all this debate, neither you nor Jiang have attempted to make contact with any experts. I will civilly engage in a discussion about this, but if Jiang and you insist on broadening the scope of the debate, don't get upset when i respond in kind. --Evrik 01:26, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Contacting the Library of Congress

This debate involves more than those tagged as EOP pictures, but will involve portraits of all government officials. Next week, I will contact the Library of Congress to try and get some clarity on this issue. _Evrik 01:26, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

This does not belong here. Discussing it in 600 different places doesn't make a certain outcome more likely either way. Please leave deletion tags on things that are being discussed for deletion, and keep all relevant comments on COM:DEL. pfctdayelise (translate?) 01:37, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
    • I posted it here because it has been on the PUI list on the English wiki for a while now, and no one has stepped forward with an authorative answer. I was hoping that by posting it here I could get the attention of a copyright attorney or someone else with expertise in the area. --Evrik 01:46, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

#Public_Domain_films

Please look at the latest information I posted on the discussion above as I think we need to resolve the ambiguity. A German court ruled that some U.S. public domain films were not in the public domain in Germany, so, if that is correct should be really allow the content here or can we just include a caveat that states that this film may not be in the public domain in xxx countries? Arniep 19:56, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

IMO If some material isn't public domain in Germany, then don't use it on German Wikipedia.... and add a disclaimer to the image description page.
Fred Chess 11:58, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Maybe I am wrong but I thought the whole point of Commons was that only media that should be used is that that is is free to use without charge commercially worldwide? Arniep 15:32, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Such stuff should not be used in commons. I do not think that Germany is the only country in which these movies are protected --Historiograf 17:10, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

It isn't (see link above) Canada, China, and Switzerland also do not apply the rule of the shorter term. For example, for the film Big Trees released in 1952, it will not become public domain in Canada till at least 2015 (50 years after death of author, presuming it is the director)), in Germany till at least 2062 (the screenwriter died in 1992), and in Switzerland till 2035 (70 years after death of director). Arniep 21:38, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
It would be complicated if we had to apply the copyright laws of each country to Commons. The most important thing is, for us, if it is acceptable in regards to the servers in Florida (yes, it is). I see no reason why Commons material must be free to use in every country. / Fred Chess 17:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
On the upload form on eng wiki it says (about Commons) "a shared repository of content that can be used on all Wikimedia projects". If we accept that some material which is PD in the US is not PD in other countries then this statement is just not correct. Arniep 19:53, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
You're right. I still think we should be practical about it, and allow it, as -- apart from some differences with current policies -- is no substantial reason for deletion. As long as the image isn't used where it shouldn't be used, I'd say we could host it here forever... and perhaps, the laws of Germany will change some day, and then the image can be used again.... I'll consider tweaking the wording on the upload form a little.../ Fred Chess 20:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

First, the discussion Arniep was referring to has been archived in the meantime, it is now here. Second, that bit about the rule of the shorter term is right, but I'm not sure the list of countries is right. Apart from the fact that we could probably add a whole bunch of other countries, we only know for certain that Germany doesn't follow the rule of the shorter term for U.S. works (despite §7(1) of the EU Copyright Directive) because an old bilateral copyright treaty from January 15, 1892 is still in effect. That bilateral treaty defined that a U.S. work was copyrighted in Germany according to German law irrespective of the work's copyright status in the U.S, and it did not contain a "rule of the shorter term". For the other countries mentioned, we can (so far) only go by the current legislation. However, Canada has had a bilateral treaty with the U.S. since January 1, 1924. For a precise analysis, we'd need to know whether that treaty is still effective, and if so, what it says. Switzerland joined the Berne Convention in 1887, but has had a bilateral copyright treaty with the U.S. since 1891. See Circular 38a of the U.S. Copyright Office for a list of many more such bilateral treaties. Anybody knows where to find the text of these old bilateral treaties? Lupo 20:36, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikisource logo obsolete!

Wikisource has recently changed its logo, and Image:Wikisource-logo.jpg doesn't yet reflect this! So much for wikis being able to update themselves in minutes.... (Note that the new image should probably be a PNG since it is not a photo and consists of regions of solid colour.) Seahen 23:19, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

The new logo is at Image:Wikisource-newberg-de.png and Image:Wikisource-nt.png (with/without text). Platonides 10:55, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Using images released under CC Attribution 2.0

Hi guys,

after seeing that we have a Cc-by-2.0 template, I was going to upload an image which is released under CC Attribution 2.0. When filling in the necessary info, however, I noticed that the license tag dropdown only has CC Attribution 2.5. Does this mean we cannot upload 2.0-licensed images until the copyright holder relicenses them under the 2.5 version? —Gennaro Prota 18:18, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

It just mean that somebody like to simplify license menu :-) You could always add {{cc-by-2.0}} as plain text without selecting license from menu.
However I think will be useful to add {{cc-by-2.0}} and {{cc-by-sa-2.0}}, since http://flickr.com actively use them and many images come here from this site.
EugeneZelenko 19:31, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Indeed :) Thanks Eugene. —Gennaro Prota 11:30, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

catchange

Can someone change the tag Category:Category:Maps of municipalities in the Netherlands into Category:Maps of municipalities in the Netherlands. Thanks. Commonsfreak 20:10, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

User:Orgullobot will move them soon (I will delete the bad category then). pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:28, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

categorization

When an image is added to a specific category, should it be removed from the broader category? e.g. I added http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Chinche_050720_051.jpg to Coleoptera.Pcu123456789 21:21, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Generally images should only be in the most specific categories that apply to them, not the general upper-level ones as well. pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:26, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Copyvio creating user to be blocked

User:Darth Kalwejt has uploaded over 10 images that have had to be deleted as lacking sources. I think it is time to show him the door. Where should I alert people to this? JesseW 23:42, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

That's a little bit harsh, but I left him a warning and asked a Polish-speaking admin to translate my message. pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:25, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Cuban copyright

My aunt owns a picture of Fidel Castro taken by my grandmother back in the 1950s in Cuba. My grandmother was cuban and my aunt doesn't mind about the picture being used here or anywhere. The image was never published. What are cuban copyright laws on the image, is it in Public Domain anyways? I don't know Cuban copyright laws. Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 01:59, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

The copyright lies by the photographer (your grandmother). So when your aunt has inherited this copyright from your grandmother and she allows free use to you, there should be no problem. In this case Cuban copyright laws don't matter. --::Slomox:: >< 14:55, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Technical... would probably need a steward or dev to help

I'm User:NSLE at Wikipedia (email me via the Wikipedia email link, I'll confirm). I created an account here a while back, never used it, have forgotten my password. I don't believe there is an email address on the account. Is there any way to get around this, or is a new account needed? Cheers. 203.124.2.7 02:14, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Side note: Dynamic IP. 203.124.2.7 02:15, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Side note2: If this is replied to, I'd appreciate a reply at my Wikipedia talk page too, cheers. 203.124.2.7 02:16, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't think it'd be very difficult to get that account as it has no edits and you already own that username on other project. Unused accounts are considered as lost on the single login system when a conflict happens. I don't think stewards can help you as they can only (un)set arbitrary user access, not deleting users. meta:Steward You'd need a database administrator. Probably the fast step would be to ask it on bugzilla, although you may want to ask it in a more casual form on irc for example. Platonides 19:49, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Renaming an image

Could someone please help me rename or move an image I've just uploaded? Image:IMGP1747 WEB.jpg was supposed to be named "Praying mantis nymphs" but I messed up. Thanks. --Woggly 07:44, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Please reupload the file with the correct name, and mark the old one for deletion like this: {{bad name|correct file name}}. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:23, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

User graphic abilities : Show what you can do.

Template:Babel-4 Hello, the templates {{User BG-1}} -2 or -3 for Bitmap graphists; {{User ANI-1}} -2 or -3 for user interesting or able to make animations gif ; and template {{User VG-0}} -1 , -2 or -3 can be use to show you abilities. This is really need on commons to share knowledge and abilities, to find help, to work on a SVG project, etc. Most of us are amator photographs, and lot of us are amator graphists working to make good visual files. This project (commons) is a graphical project, that means that one of the more important thing to know is our graphic abilities, and only a good categorisation can do it.

Please, add this kind of user-boxes to your user pages, that will improve this wiki :] Yug (talk) 12:55, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Exemple : {{babel-4|fr|BG-3|ANI-2|VG-3}} on the right.





To spread in user pages

Commons is a graphical project, and we need to know who is able to do what. You can help to spread this templates by adding them to your user page, or say other that they can use this or this template.

Graphics abilities
Category interrested « basic/beginner» « good » « Hight/Master » Tutorial
Category:Bitmap graphics editors not usefull {{user BG-1}} {{user BG-2}} {{user BG-3}} BG Basic Tutorial
Category:Animation editors {{user ANI-0}} {{user ANI-1}} {{user ANI-2}} {{user ANI-3}} ANI Basic Tutorial
Category:Vector graphics editors {{user VG-0}} {{user VG-1}} {{user VG-2}} {{user VG-3}} VG Basic Tutorial
Category:Commons photographers / everyone almost everyone {{user PH-3}} A good camera
Audio file abilities
Category interrested « basic/beginner» « good » « Hight/Master » Tutorial
Category:Audio file editors [.ogg] not usefull now not usefull now {{user AF-2}} {{user AF-3}} AF Basic Tutorial

Yug (talk) 13:31, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

What about audio file editors? I don't know how many audio files Commons has (I've uploaded many), but I think it would be nice to know who can edit audio files. I'll make up the necessary templates if no one minds adding that to the list.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:07, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
[ Category:Audio file editors | {{user AF-1}} | {{user AF-2}} | {{user AF-3}} ] - You are free to editing this 4 page if you think it's need for audio-files-makers. I haven't time today but I think this is welcome :] Yug (talk) 16:33, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Please do not expand this user box stuff, which is very controversial in en:wp, and almost banned in de:wp, to the Commons. If you feel like advertising your capabilities, then write so on your userpage or create a project page, but do not use bumper stickers (templates). The technical templates are not harmful in themselves, but they work as door openers to other userboxes with political or religious content / categorization. Please, no. They should be deleted. Longbow4u 22:57, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Then why have any userboxes? If you will keep ones regarding the level of image editing, it seems reasonable to have ones which explain the level of audio file editing, as audio files are to be expected to show up on Commons. I can see why you would hate politics/religious/etc. userboxes, but what's the problem with adding level of expertise for a form of multimedia that will show up here?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 23:00, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Please expand this user box or their categories, we work in a media project, we need this tool to w.o.r.k. more efficiently. This kind of usefull boxes/categories are need. We have to work and spread it.
I made a "center project page" : Graphics abilities Project Yug (talk) 23:59, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I think such a template (preferably put in the bottom of the userpages...) would be a good tool when people want to "order" production or modification of files. I suggest the "hardcore" users with the skills make/use a page for wanted /whatever/ pages in the category. This way people with an idea can easier get in contact with those who know how to bring the idea out in the world. G®iffen 10:48, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Longbow4u: The specific technical skills that are relevant to the Commons are surely fine, because they are useful, like language boxes. Other random userboxes, no. For example advertising your skill in Flash is not really useful here, because we don't support Flash. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:17, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

As long as these boxes are introduced gradually and approved by the community before being put into use, I don't see a problem. If it does become one, we could create a policy like w:Wikipedia:No factions of belief.--Eloquence 09:50, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, if that is consensus, I can live with it. Perhaps we can add a header with a clarification that only user boxes with technical and language skills are desired, and that political, religious etc. are not desired. If we implement that from the start, we should not have problems later. If the need arises later, we have still the flexibility to add other boxes. User categorization schemes are, as is obvious from my prior post, of great relevance for me, and I am biased against it. I saw the very divisive actions on en:wp and was appalled. Anyway, I hope you all will keep an eye on the development, as will I. OT: @Eloquence, is there progress on m:InstantCommons? Greetings, Longbow4u 11:26, 31 May 2006 (UTC) Just saw Eloquence's answer below. Currently stuck in the processes. Longbow4u 12:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)µ
I m agree with Longbow4u : political, religious, funny user boxes are not/should not be welcome here, neither on wikipedias. But at less with need categories to know users' graphic/audio skills on commons, and knowledge skils on wikis. Yug (talk) 13:19, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Longbow4u: I agree. Let's nip this potential Pandora's Box in the bud before it has time to actually be a problem.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:43, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Public Art

I'm not sure if this has been discussed before or not. I have uploaded a few photographs that I took of public art works in Chicago (see Category:Public art in Chicago, which also contains other peoples photos of public art works), however I am getting increasingly concerned that such photographs could be ruled in breach of the artist's copyright. Specifically, this article suggests that such photos could only be used under fair use provisions. Does anyone know where we stand on this issue? Thanks, JeremyA 16:41, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

There is no known policy on this topic. See also http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Alx/Sandbox --Historiograf 17:13, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Special:Upload lacks licence selection in French

Hello,

If you set "French" in you preferences and then go on Special:Upload, there is no licence selection box anymore. Does anybody know what is wrong ? Thank you, le Korrigan bla 20:56, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


I think it's a new software feature: if you have not the MediaWiki:Licenses translated, the selector does not appears. I have copied MediaWiki:Licenses into MediaWiki:Licenses/fr and now it works, in english, of course. ;-) Sanbec 00:03, 29 May 2006 (UTC)


Ok, can an admin create MediaWiki:Licenses/ar please.

Just copy and paste. --Tarawneh 02:32, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Done!--Did it work? (I checked--it worked) JeremyA 02:47, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
This is extremely bad and before anyone accuses us of language conspiracy I'd just like to point out it's because of a software upgrade... I presume so, anyway. I filed bugzilla:6126. Now we pray it will be answered quickly before the untagged images pile up. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:32, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Maybe some admins could copy the English language file to all other common languages that presently are missing the file? So we atleast have something until it gets translated. --194.116.223.241 10:27, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I did this, but it's hard to tell which are needed. We will see how long my Sitenotice lasts. pfctdayelise (translate?) 10:52, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
It's needed in german language. I also wondered , why it disappeared. Please repair ist. Thank you. --Peng 11:20, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I have the menu in german, but there are some parts of the page, that are now french:
# répertoire des utilisations
# catégoriser
# journal
# orphelines
# défaut d'étiquetage --Steffen 12:49, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
That's something wrong with the extra tabs, not MediaWiki. I don't think it's related. Hm... pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:12, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
  • zh-tw has the same problem.--百楽兎 13:47, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Norwegian bokmål, too. --Torstein 15:36, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
  • And Finnish. --Alfred Dengan 16:00, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Catalan too. --Pepetps 17:59, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Also Estonian. -Mardus 13:08, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Also Indonesian (id). Thx. -- IvanLanin 15:34, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Thx. I made the translation for Indonesian language here. Please update. -- IvanLanin 16:07, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
  • This menu is missing for the Slovenian (sl:) language too. --Eleassar my talk 18:30, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Irish too Iolar 21:18, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
    • I have copied the English version to et, id, sl, ga, the other (zh-tw, no, fi, ca, et) seem to have been done already. --Mormegil 21:47, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

FIXED! :D Note: This is a good opportunity to translate the menu, if you use another language. Any administrator can put up the translation for you. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:25, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Is this free

I agree that a Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license can be used only for my Berlinale photos and used under this license for WIkipedia (only)!

I do not feel that such a statement means FREE. This statement was used to license Image:Hannibal2001.jpg --Tarawneh 01:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

My view is that this means that copyright owner didn't/doesn't understand what the CC-BY-SA license means, since the statement contains a restriction which is in conflict with the license. He/she must either have meant to license it under the Creative Commons license, or to allow only Wikipedia to use it. Since the statement indicates that the person does not understand the scope of this license, I think it's fair to assume that this was not meant as a free license. Cnyborg 09:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi, to clarify, I discussed with it him via email and he has agreed to release without a non commercial clause which is why he later insisted on the restricted resolution of 300px width and height. Arniep 11:12, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
The problem is that he writes «for Wikipedia (only!)», and later that he agrees to publication «on Wikipedia». Does he understand that the CC licence means that anyone can use and modify his photos? As it is, the statement is so vague that it might be considered void at a later stage should he not be happy with any modification or usage of his images. Cnyborg 11:22, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes he did state for Wikipedia only, which is why he later made another statement after I explained we don't accept non commercial clauses, with a limit on resolution. Arniep 12:59, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Stop talking with persons which are not able to understand the sense of CC. If he writes Yes, I know that my picture can be used commercially from everyone and modified and that I have not the right to recall this permission 70 years after my death and longer (Mexico 100 years) it's OK - but only then --Historiograf 15:33, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes he understood that, but only for the low resolution pictures. Arniep 17:28, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Attaching source files for diagrams / information graphics?

Hi, I have a diagram that I created Image:Ultimate force-infographic.png using Wikipedia:OmniGraffle. I uploaded a PNG version because that's what's supported. But if ever anyone wants to modify my diagram they're kind of screwed because it's just a bitmap export. What I'd like to be able to do is to attach the original .graffle file to Image:Ultimate force-infographic.png so that someone with OmniGraffle could go in natively and edit it. But I can't upload the graffle, so it's not very open-sourceish. Sbwoodside 02:58, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Can you make such an image in SVG? Then it's very easy to edit. Also, the large chunk of text should be kept off the image and in a caption, for example. This makes images more likely to be reusable by non-English projects, as well ensuring better thumbnailing. Also, visible credits are not necessary (and more to the point, are discouraged), since you are always credited through the image description page. We can't stop you putting them on there, but you would be aware that any free license allows deriviative works, so nothing would stop us uploading a cropped version and using that instead.
According to wikipedia: OmniGraffle is not open source anyway! If you were using an open source program we could consider allowing that file type. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:21, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Pfctdayelise, I can't use SVG because some of the icons I'm using are font glyphs, in fonts that might not be available on the user's system. As for the text, since this is an wikipedia:infographic it's not just a visual but a text+visual explanation. Someone in another language could easily crop out the text and include their own I guess. But the infographic "style" that I'm using in my art is a text+visual style (like news graphics).
As for OmniGraffle, that's why I said open-sourceish. At least if I could append the original file, there would be a hope for someone to edit it later. Right now, there isn't a hope. I'm not going to switch because OmniGraffle is by far my favorite tool and I'm not a zealot... Sbwoodside 05:45, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, you could always upload the file with a dummy suffix and put a big warning in the upload summary (THIS IS NOT A PNG THIS IS THE OMNIGRAFFLE FILE). But that's not recommended because it rather undermines our aim of providing a truly free database. (Plus, now that I've said it, other admins might delete such an upload anyway. ;)) I would just put a link to Special:Emailuser/Sbwoodwide and say that you welcome improvements and are happy to email the OmniGraffle file to anyone who's interested. Good compromise? pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:02, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Hmm... If this is only about fonts and SVG, then there are a few things you can do. For one, you can always convert the text to paths - of course, that's not a really good solution, but it works for display. To get properly editable text again, you can either post the non-converted SVG source code to another page and link to it, or you can "bury it in history" - That is, upload the non-converted version with a proper edit summary, then overwrite it with the converted one, and link to the old revision in the image description. --grmwnr (homewiki) 14:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Simon, as indicated above, converting the glyphs to paths and saving it as SVG should work. Have you tried this?--Eloquence 08:22, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I'll try that and see if I can do it. Sbwoodside 21:08, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Rationalization of the Ships Category Structure

Josh Baumgartner proposed here last April 25 that Commons rationalize its ships categorization scheme. After a month of discussion about the Commons:Category scheme ships, there hasn't been any opposition to date on Category talk:Ships that has not been resolved with changes to the current scheme.


Any interested parties who are concerned about changes to the existing category structure underneath Ships is invited to make contributions to the Ship Talk discussion. I have converted over the Japanese ships tree and have heard no opposition/ reversions. Unless there is some contrary opinion, in the coming weeks I shall proceed to hammer away at the rest of the tree in order that it be brought into closer conformance with the rationalized Ships trees at EN and FR wikipedias.

One of the benefits as Josh states in his proposal is that it makes it much simpler for naive users to find and apply categories. Rather than having to know that the Japanese Navy is known as the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, or that the Canadian Navy is now known as Maritime Command, all a person needs to know is that they can stick a new ship image in Naval ships of Canada or Naval ships of Japan.

Part of Josh's scheme is that all ships use transcluded Info Pages.  ;-}


Just kidding. -Mak 03:23, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Morguefile

There's been a fair amount of debate on the license status of images from MorgueFile, both on the site itself and on Wikipedia. It seems that at the moment, images from the site are to be considered non-free, but that the intention of the site's owners is that its images are largely free (with attribution), and they're working towards rewording the license accordingly. However, there are a fair number of images on the commons giving MorgueFile as a source, and claiming to be Public Domain, which even the Site's FAQ disagrees with. The question is, what tag is appropriate to replace the {{PD}} with? GeeJo 10:31, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

{{attribution}}? pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:57, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
The problem with that is that at the moment the license states:
"2.1 Subscriber may not: (a) sell, license, sublicense, rent, transfer or distribute any Photo on a standalone basis"
The intention was that people couldn't sell prints of the image by themselves, but were allowed to use it as a part of their own work. But the license doesnt explicitly grant the licensee any right to copy, modify, or redistribute images, and it claims to be non-transferable - meaning downloaded images can't be given to anyone else as the license can't be transferred to them. Basically, the entire wording of the thing is confused and contradictory, and the "freeness" of the images available under it is a bit dubious GeeJo 15:59, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
It seems pretty clear that MorgueFile is not using WMF's "definition" of free content. They are allowing us to access the images free of charge, but place restrictions on how we use them. For a WMF project, we should try to avoid such works as much as possible, as every WMF project says that its content can not only be freely accessed, but that anyone can use it for any purpose (obviously so long as it's legal), can change it as much as it wants, etc. This is a slippery slope to use other people's "free" content that does not match our definition of free, as we will be guaranteeing certain things that simply are not allowed to be guaranteed in this circumstance.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:52, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Category:Sculptures by country

I need the advice of you folks. This category has mostly been used as if it means Sculptures located in particular countries. This is a good and valuable category with this meaning because many contributors will only know where they took a photo of a sculpture, not necessarily anything about what the sculpture is.

Example- Image:Agrigente museum ephebe.jpg. This is a kouros, an example of archaic greek sculpture, but is listed as a Sculpture of Italy because it is in a museum in Sicily. This is not at all unusual. Most of the great Greek sculptures are not in Greece, but in the Museums of Rome, Paris, and London. Similarly, there are many copies of Rodin sculptures around the world. Burghers of Calais is at the Norton Simon in Pasedena, and also in a park in London. Statues in London yes, and thereby part of Scuptures of the United Kingdom. But not a british sculpture, or "Art of the United Kingdom" as is currently the parent category of Image:Auguste Rodin-Burghers of Calais London (photo).jpg. Try it. This image is also listed as Art of France, through the cat of August Rodin. So which is it? Art of UK or Art of France? Well- both- depending on your interpretation.

That's nuts. What do folks suggest? Options:

  • Modest- create a tree of singular "sculpture", to connote the abstract notion of "style", and use the country adjective. This tree would contain Greek sculpture, Roman sculpture, French sculpture, Italian sculpture. Leave Sculptures of [foo country] as it is, but remove it from Art of [foo country], because that cat has the meaning not of location of art works, but being of [foo country's] culture.
  • Didactic- rename existing tree to Sculptures in [foo country]. Instead of Greek sculptures- you can't have "Sculptures of greek sculptors" because many of the great sculptures of the greek style were made by foreigners who merely learned their craft from the greeks. So you wind of with something very unwieldy but vulnerable to subjective interpretation- like Sculptures of Greek Culture.

Anyone's thoughts? The precedent in the WP's is that the location is irrelevant, and they use [country adjective] sculpture, just as they do with any other form of art, and it means sculpture by a French artist. But Location is very relevant to commons because when someone comes in with a photo, they may only know where they took it, not anything about what country style the sculpture belongs to.


I'm leaning towards the Modest approach, and documenting what "of" means, but I am willing to rename them all to Sculptures "in" [foo country].

-Mak
Hm...I agree 'of' is ambiguous and should be avoided. I also think [country adjective] forms should be avoided, since not all countries have natural sounding adjectives. (United Statesian?) You could have two separate classifications, one falling in Category:Sculptures by country (location) and Category:Sculptures by style, and then images could have two categories, eg. Category:Sculptures in France and Category:Sculptures in Greek style. Category:Greek style sculptures. Hm, that doesn't sound right, and I realise I just violated my own rule... You could have locations as categories and use gallery pages for style groupings. Relying on others to follow this convention could be a bit hairy, though.
User:Orgullobot can help avoid a lot of manual work, once a form has been decided. pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:15, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I understand why we should avoid adjectives, but it gets a little verbose. How about this pattern:
Sculptures in Greece [formerly "of Greece" as opposed to:]
Sculpture influenced by the culture of Greece


Verbose, sure. But that gets you to nouns.
Additionally, this allows influences besides geographic ones. EG-"culture of Greece" is replaced with styles. Eg: "influenced by the Gothic style", "Influenced by Cubism", or cultural events- "influenced by the Renaissance"
Variation1- use "from" instead of "influenced by"- Rationale for this variation: Used permissively, you could say that anything from western art was influenced by Greek culture or the Renaissance. Personally, I think such sophmorism will be rooted out easily by folks who care about these cats. The problem with being restrictive is that most folks have very limited language about art and have only very fuzzy ideas of what these styles are. They may think something is cubist when it really is not, and would use the term cubist to try to find it. If "influenced by" is used, the naive user will much more likely find what they want. Use "from", and a lot of the stuff that was influenced by cubism but is not cubist will be hidden from them.
A little wordy, but it deals with those issues. Reactions? I think the main thing to root out is the problem with using "of [countryname]" with art objects- the ambiguity of whether location or culture is intended. -Mak
That sounds more or less fine, but the thing is for many countries 99% of the sculptures in that country will be of that country's style/culture/influence. So should all images of Greek-style sculptures in Greece be double-tagged? For a good many photos it seems like a lot of extra work for not much gain. I don't know... pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:25, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your opinion. I would have thought someone would have said my proposal sounds verbose because it does to me. Anyway, you do underestimate the problem. I randomly took a cat to illustrate the point- The page Category:Sculptures of the United States has images of 19 sculptures. Burghers- Rodin France, 3 Oldenburgs- Sweden , 4 Boccionis- Italy, Henri Moore-UK. That's 9 out of 19 not from the United States. 100% Sculptures in the United States, but only 50% are by Sculptors of the United States. The category tree is junk information as it stands- very misleading. -Mak 06:38, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, OK, but the US hardly has a long cultural history :P Compare some European countries, China, Japan, Russia, I think it will be a different matter.
Anyway as I said I have no strong preference. I think the most important things are that the system is unambiguous and clear/well-described - so I would suggest creating a category scheme (even such a shallow one) and linking it to the pertinent categories. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:21, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, actually aside from Italy, you are quite wrong. I have visited quite a few Museums in Europe. You suggested Russia. Ok- try the Hermitage. Easily less than 50% of the material on display is Russian. Or Pushkin Museum in Moscow- a great museum for sculptures because their casted copies are exact, and they have a huge concentration of the greatest sculptures- going there you can save a trip to several italian museums, but I doubt you will recall seeing one russian sculpture. But your estimate is not even true of the French- take the Louvre- are you saying even 90% of the sculptures on display are french? Well guess again. It's not even true of their holdings, because they have vast collections of antiquities from Roman and Greek civilizations. And don't think that asia is parochial either. You want to see the greatest concentration of Impressionist art? Go to Tokyo- the Japanese are nuts about the Impressionists and have been huge numbers of the paintings that come on the market. You want to see the greatest concetration of antiquities from the ancient world? You'd be wrong to guess some museum in Greece or the Middle East. The broadest collection on display is probably the Pergamon in Berlin. So really, Location of art is not very well correlated with the culture that produced the art, as you seem to suppose.
Maybe this variety is because we are most curious about stuff that is alien from ourselves.
Anyway, I will float a scheme and wait a while. It can't hurt to get a few more opinions from folks that care about art analysis. -Mak 10:04, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I misunderstood, I was thinking of sculptures in parks and stuff, out in the open, not in museums. --pfctdayelise (translate?) 10:38, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Oh I see. Yes, you are quite right on that score. As always, thanks for your responses- I'll contact some folks individually who are active on the WPs and here on commons in the art articles... As I said, I'm not real happy about my solution, but if there is no better alternative I will press it forward. -Mak 15:58, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

After consideration of this problem, I came up with a much more simplified and minimalist approach that employs existing categories and conventions. The key was that Sculptures are already being categorized by the nationality of the sculptors- under the Category:Sculptors by country.

Sculptures of France becomes Sculptures in France, stored in category Sculptures by Location. "French scluptors" which currently stores images of French sculptures becomes "Sculptors of France", stored in the existing category "Sculptors by country". Existing category Sculptures by country is redirected, with explanation to store Fooian nation sculptures in "Sculptors of [Foo nation]", or when location of the sculpture is intended, to use category Sculptures in Foo Nation. Further elaboration in Commons:Category scheme Sculptures. -Mak 17:36, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

user:Page move vandal

Vandal. Don't know what to do about it/where to report. Check contribs. Managed to get stuff on the main page for a while Bawolff 00:01, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I blocked him. JeremyA 00:18, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Have deleted is contribs as well. Please also look always after blocking at the contribs of these people and just delete them on sight in case it is rubbish... Arnomane 00:36, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

bigfoto.com images

Hi! Can someone take a look at the terms and conditions at http://www.bigfoto.com/copyright.htm Image:Abu-simbel.jpg was marked as a copyvio--on the one hand it looks to me that this could be used to illustrate wikipedia articles under a regular attribution tag. However, it has been pointed out to me that they restrict offering the images for download (I am not sure how you could put images on a website without them being available for download, but that is a different issue). Does the download restriction prevent usage at the commons? JeremyA 00:17, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, "Template:Bigfoto" was nominated by myself for deletion in March and later deleted (archive). If they don't want the photos to be available for download, I hardly think they would accept WikiCommons or any other image database offer them for... eh, download. Thuresson 17:15, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Their download stipulations are anything other than the "free" we know and enjoy over here at WMF projects. I'd err on the side of caution and not access those images or upload them to a WMF project.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:28, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Minor note about the licensing menu notice markup

Hi guys,

I know this is very minor, but the markup for "Are you missing the licensing menu at Special:Upload?" has an unclosed <br> element, which is not valid in XHTML. Could anyone please change it to <br />? —Gennaro Prota 11:53, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Done. --grmwnr (homewiki) 13:03, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! :) —Gennaro Prota 16:30, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

New upload

Image:Pandaplant1099.jpg (Kalanchoe tomentosa) Category:Kalanchoe don't know what to do further. --Algont 13:11, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

What do you want to do, exactly? pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:20, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I think, I find it out myself already. --Algont 08:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi. You can follow guidelines and fill the Summary section as explained there. Regards, --Colegota 06:50, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I want to use pictures from commons as links from my mediawiki server

I can't get this to work. I am having to download from commons and then upload to my server on the linux box here. This is absurd. Surely I can get a medawiki based wiki to integrate with commons... no!... oh, but... isn't this the idea of Commons?

Why set up Commons and then stop it from really flourishing?

I read that such use is considered to be bandwidth robbery. This is the kind of talk comes from 1995 ! Wake up! We must & have indeed actually moved on from that era! My personal opinion of this is that Instant Commons represents another positive dimension of development for this fantastic project. The ridiculous 'bandwidth argument' just does not make any kind of sense.

The kind of old fashioned and counterproductive stranglehold arguments that seek to prevent & squash the natural development of Commons are those that would have prevented the development of all Open Source projects. The very existence wikipedia and all related projects depends upon Open thinking as much as it does Open Source.

Frightening development of internal politics

One of the sad things about this is that it is the very same kind of inward looking, protective, narrow minded viewpoint that I often saw while working as Consultant IT Project Manager in large organisations. Come on, please don't allow yourselves to descend to those depths of depravity. Please allow the idea to grow.

Please Help Instant Commons!

Zorgrian 09:12, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Hello. InstantCommons is a proposal to remedy your problem, allowing any MediaWiki installations to use files from the commons. But unfortunately, it's nothing more than a proposal. —UED77 01:22, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Actually, Kennisnet is willing to pay for it. It's currently stuck in the depths of the Wikimedia bureaucracy...--Eloquence 03:13, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
@ Zorgrian. I am very much in favor of InstantCommons. What I heard is that the project already received the GoAhead (link) by the special projects committee (Anthere / Board member). I think they said the contracts had to be drawn, though I do not know which contracts. Perhaps there were initial fears to facilitate a possible fork with this technology, though I think those have been overcome. But this is only my personal speculation, and as I said, this received the Go Ahead later. Greetings, and confidence. As in all volunteer projects, some stuff takes time. But in commercial ventures, such steps probably would not have been taken at all, or if, they would have taken even more time. Longbow4u 10:21, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

{{PD-stamp}}

Can someone explain when and how it is acceptable to use the template {{PD-stamp}}? I can not find any information on that. --ALE! 10:40, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

When he comes back from vacation, you can ask Mark Leon some questions about stamps and copyright policies.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:57, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Seems useless, as it makes no statement why specifically the image is PD. Should be made deprecated and replaced by specific templates mentioning the reason for being PD. --::Slomox:: >< 16:29, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I moved the discussion to Commons talk:Licensing --ALE! 14:55, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Privacy policy: Licence plates

Hello, I saw an image of a house in en.wikipedia, two cars parking in front of it, their licence plates clearly readable. There might be issues of privacy and personality rights: Not everybody might like to have proof of his whereabouts at a given time (embedded EXIF) distributed on the web.
Is there an established policy on licence plates in Commons already? Should I gray licence plates out when I upload images to Commons? Ruins the image somewhat, though.--Wikipeder 13:10, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I saw images with license plates removed in software before upload.
Tags like {{privacy}} and corresponding category for images which should be fixed from this point of view, will be good idea.
Will be good idea to remove original images after privacy fixing.
EugeneZelenko 13:50, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Generally, it will be the make and type of the car that matters, not this individual one. In most cases, greying/whitening/yellowing out the licence plate will not be beneficial to the image, I agree, although "ruining" would be probably too strong. Also, it may be a matter of getting used to. ("Sure, all cars on Wikimedia Commons have lost their license plates. Or perhaps all cars on Commons are owned by Queen Elisabeth.") Altogether, I would say it is a good idea to blank out the licence plate. MartinD 11:34, 2 June 2006 (UTC) PS: Of course this also applies to people's faces. Unless the picture shows a large crowd, it is obviously a good idea to obtain the (informed) consent of the persons shown.

1964 Galaxie

I've been told there was a 64 1/2 Galaxie model. I know there was a 64 1/2 Mustang but I never heard of a 64 1/2 Galaxie, can anybody confirn or deny?

MediaWiki:Quick-delete.js

Woooo automatic nominate-for-deletion-mark-no-source-mark-no-license links!

This file is extremely scrappy, has no i18n, has unnecessary duplicated code and probably doesn't work for Konqueror. Nonetheless, I think you will still find it usable while we (read: not me ;)) clean it up.

These links only appear on image pages. To turn them on, go to your User:Yourusername/monobook.js file and put this:

 document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Quick-delete.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript"><\/script>');
 //[[MediaWiki talk:Quick-delete.js]]

Report bugs on the talk page, try and fix it up if you know some Javascript. If you abuse it I am sure we will find out and probably protect your JS pages as blank >:|

Also if you want to play with it, please test on Image:1-2-3-4 Cake after beating in eggs.JPG (and clean up after yourself - revert all edits), after a couple of days I might delete half the history. :)

--pfctdayelise (translate?) 17:17, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Good work. Platonides 21:43, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
wth is i18n and why do I suddenly see this strange code everywhere? / Fred Chess 17:57, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
en:i18n :P -- Duesentrieb(?!) 19:37, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

SVGs are not inherently better than PNGs

Contrary to popular opinion around here, just because someone makes an SVG replacement for a PNG doesn't make it better. For instance, {{vector version available}} should say "there is a vector version available; vector images have some benefits over raster images". Instead, it says "this raster image has been superceded by a vector image". Can we please only say that images are "superceded" when the replacement is actually an improvement? See Template talk:Vector version available. — Omegatron 19:03, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I don't get your point. UED77 has made the duplicate versus superseded thing super crystal clear. If you see a general problem with the quality of SVG flags please go ahead and get involved in Commons:CommonsProject Insignia. The SVG-replacement-problem has been sovled for my part with the changes of UED77. Arnomane 19:59, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
For instance, my PNG   is superior to its SVG replacement  . Likewise, an original PNG   is superior to my SVG replacement  . I wanted to add the {{vector version available}} template, so others could see my replacement and improve it, but the template incorrectly states that the SVG is superior. — Omegatron 15:03, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Omegatron, I see your point. However, Arnomane is right in that at {{redundant}}, which was quite vague for most cases and is now deprecated, it tells you to use {{superseded}} "if a better file of the same theme was uploaded". A line below, it offers {{vector version available}} as another option, to be used "for raster graphics that have been superseded by SVGs". Going by the definition of "superseded" offered just above, the {{vector version available}} is clearly meant to be used for SVGs that are indeed superior. The name of the template was part of this confusion, although Ed g2s has just recently renamed it to {{supersededSVG}}, which is vastly better. I understand, however, your concerns, but I would be more inclined to say "use this template only if the SVG is superior to the old file" in the template and deprecate the name {{vector version available}} in the favor of the more purpose-oriented {{supersededSVG}} than to make this a simple marker tag. For merely communicating that "a vector version of unknown quality is available", I believe the "other_versions" field of {{Information}} is more appropriate, as you are right that SVGs are not inherently superior to PNGs, which, in my opinion, doesn't necessitate the adding of a "boilerplate message". —UED77 20:44, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
SVGs are not inherently superior to PNGs. Agree, but we seem to be in the minority --pfctdayelise (translate?) 01:59, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Then the {{vector version available}} template should be changed to reflect its name. — Omegatron 04:02, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Omegatron we don't need a boilerplate for everything. If you made a SVG version of something you use the other_versions variable of template:information. This perfectly fits your purpose as UED77 has said it before. Arnomane 22:43, 3 June 2006 (UTC)


On the subject of PNGs, could someone please suggest to people uploading using a tool like optipng, a quick run over several images yielded interesting results: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Png_pixel_cube.png yielded a 4.36% decrease http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Golf_dataset.png yielded a 28.84% decrease

Although the amount of bandwidth saved would be minimal to say the least it only takes a few seconds of CPU time on the contributors end. I would optimise and upload but I can't be bothered creating an account, etc during exams to be honest. -- Anonymous 10 June 2006

Well, you're welcome to come back and do so after exams are over :P pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:20, 10 June 2006 (UTC)


In some cases the non-vector version should always be deleted. A good example is non-SVGs in Category:PD OpenClipart. The images are all made from SVG files so having raster version is just plain stupid. // Liftarn

27 May, 2006

Voyeur photos + censorship?

There are a number of photos (for example in Category:Bikini) that seem to be taken on a beach, probably without the subjects permission (when the subject is not making eye contact with the camera). As Jimbo Wales has stated we should be careful not to offend living persons, should we perhaps delete these photos where it is seems as if permission is not given? Maybe we should even go as far as to insist on some proof that the subject gives permission as there may be an example when the subject is an ex partner and the user uploads the image for malicious reasons (which would not apply just to voyeur photos but any kind of intimate picture). Arniep 00:11, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I think you are right, but how to ensure that the depicted person gave permission? This seems nearly impossible to me. --::Slomox:: >< 14:18, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Well if their face is shown they could hold up a little piece of paper saying "yes you can use my photo on Wikipedia" or whatever. If their face is not shown, maybe unless they write a message on their body or something we shouldn't use it!? But seriously I can imagine people being quite upset or angry to discover that an image of them in an intimate pose (or someone close to them) is being used on a globally known website without their permission so I think they may be placing Wikimedia at legal risk. Arniep 01:14, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Sounds a bit funny, but basically this is a good idea. Not that it is a very practical solution, but as long there is no better way, making a second photo of that person holding up such a piece of paper is the best way to proof permission. --::Slomox:: >< 13:37, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
No, this is a bad idea. From a legal point of view, all pictures taken in the public areas, beaches being one of them, should not be censored. That is the reason why most of the photos made by paparazi cannot be prohibited. If you walk down the street, you risk yourself being photographed and the picture being published, live with it. If you don´t want that someone takes a picture of you in Bikini or even topless, well then don´t do it in a public area. Your reasons might be good, but the risk it getting out of control are way too great. Who will decide if it is a "acceptable" picture or not? If we begin to censor pictures because of dubious reasons, soon enough it will get out of control. If your ideas are implemented noone can give a picture to Wikicommons whithout giving another picture in which the subject show a paper saying: "I am okay with my picture in Wikicommons" ? Are you going to pay for the second photo? Flamarande 09:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
IANAL, and this sort of thing will be different from jurisdiction to jurisdiction anyway, but as I understand it, the general rule is that a picture of a person can't be published without their consent unless (1) It's in a public place and they're just "part of the crowd" (i.e. if it's a public place but clearly a picture of someone, you still have to have their permission), (2) The person cannot be identified from the picture (most people can't be identified from just the back of their head), (3) the person is in the "public eye" (i.e. a paparazzo can publish a picture of a celebrity without permission but not one of an ordinary non-celebrity person). Under exception (2), I think, the picture can be shown so long as the face isn't shown and the person couldn't be recognized. Angr 10:10, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Well even though some people's faces aren't shown in some of these photos I am sure people who know them may recognise them (including the person themselves). Arniep 17:27, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

From a legal point of view, all pictures taken in the public areas, beaches being one of them, should not be censored. In France and other jurisdictions, publishing photos of people found in public places may constitute an offense against their private life with respect to the law. David.Monniaux 22:57, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I just want to be clear that I was not proposing censorship, I was just concerned on a human and legal level about allowing intimate photos of people to be published on such a high profile website without their permission. David, you say in France publishing these photos may constitute an offense- do you have further details on this i.e. specific cases and statutes? Do you know what other countries a similar law may be in existence? I think this is a very significant matter as the Wikimedia foundation could be sued if we are violating laws. Arniep 16:27, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
David, can you clarify your statement? I'm confused. If it may constitute an offense, shouldn't we censor them to avoid legal action? pfctdayelise (translate?) 16:37, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
The Civil code, article 9, states that individuals have a right to have their private life respected. From the "right to private life", courts have worked out what the respect of private life means in practice — including the so-called "right to one's own image". What is permissible or not is decided on a case-by-case basis (though some things are clearly permitted and some others are clearly objectionable).
For instance: a photograph of a politician in his or her public function (such as when giving a speech) does not in itself infringe on his or her private life; however, using that photograph inside an advertisement may infringe on his or her right to his or her own image. However, a photograph of the same politician in his or her garden, or even buying stuff in a supermarket, probably infringes on his or her private life.
In practice, when professional photographers take pictures of recognizable individuals, they often ask them to sign an authorization.
Some groups (photographers, publishers) argue that the "right to image" creates unneeded legal complications and want the law to give more precise guidelines, with more leeways for photographers.
I may also add that French magazines publishing "paparazzi photos" tend to be continuously sued. This is a topic of joke because of the "judicial publications" that result — the magazine being forced to print the ruling in a prominent place.
I will probably research the matter further and keep you posted. Wikimédia France and myself are working on those legal issues, but it takes time.
So far, I don't recommend censorship. I recommend that we keep things reasonable. One important criterion, for instance, is whether people are recognizable.
Just thing about it this way: a person going to a nudie beach, protest, or other event, may accept the small risk of running into somebody he or she knows (especially since meeting that person at that place suggests that this other person considers such activity legitimate). That person might not, though, wish that just about everyone he or she knows, including his or her employer, should be able to find "incriminating" photographs on the Internet.
I have a practical example in mind. There was lately a cosplay convention in Paris. People who go there are all cosplay fans and think that activity normal. Now, I know some schoolteachers who attended the event. I don't think they would appreciate their students or their students' parents seeing the photos — since many people would consider cosplay immature, weird, stupid or abnormal.
Using common sense in good faith goes a loooong way, especially when law is applied on a case-by-case basis. David.Monniaux 08:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
The laws in France don't matter unless the photo is uploaded from France. Only US law matters, and the law of the country from which a photo is uploaded. (And I'd imagine those who want to upload from France could find some kind of US intermediary to use, thus circumventing French law.) Seahen 03:14, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

In Wikimedia Commons we have up to now the general rule that photos of non-famous persons are only allowed if they gave their consent (uploader needs to be credible it is suprisingly easy detecting liars) or if the photo was taken during an event that made the person famous or if the person displayed is part of a crowd and/or not clearly visible. Arnomane 10:50, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean consent for the photo to be taken or consent for a photo of them to be used on Wikimedia projects? If it is the latter then surely most of these beach photos should be deleted? Arniep 13:52, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
If the person displayed is not subject to one of the following points and there's no permission of the person displayed we need to delete the concerning image:
  • part of a crowd
  • displayed at a public event as an integral part of it
  • famous (note: there's also something like 5 minutes fame, if you for example saved someones life people are allowed to release images of you from the event without your permission)
  • a minor part of the image
So feel free to list such images that do not fall into one of these groups at Commons:Deletion requests and we would be happy of your cleanup work (do not list them as speedydelete as in these cases some individual comments are better at first). Arnomane 00:41, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

31 May, 2006

SVG and previous PNG version

I understand that we do not remove old PNG stuf if its license is acceptable even if there is SVG version? It is importanat because if there is some case about breaking Wiki picture license, by some publishers and we will need to prove that this image was done and published as shown in PNG file history. So it is important to keep old PNG versions. -PioM EN DE PL 20:02, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

No you did understand it wrong. It has nothing to do with licenses. Most SVG replacements in question are flags. Flags are public domain. So there is no "license record" needed. In case you made a SVG replacement of a diagram of another user just say so in your description and name original author(s), source(s) and creation date. We don't need to keep images for the sake of a license record. The png get kept somewhat because there were problems with people replacing png's with inferior svg replacements. So it has something to do with quality not copyright (beside laziness) if we keep certain png's. Arnomane 20:18, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
AFAIK only GPL/GFDL have this "retain the history" requirement pfctdayelise (translate?) 01:51, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes but even in that case it doesn't require you to keep the content itself. If you name the author(s), release/upload time(s) and the source(s) where it was originally located you kept that way the history. But anyways this is theory with the changes of UED77 we are far more strict with too fast "duplicate" deletions now and I personally am far to lazy replacing superseded files. Copyvios are far more important. ;-) Arnomane 20:38, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Not exactlly I mean hisory as "how each versions looks like", not when it was uploaded and by who. Because some publishers use e.g. one of old version of PNG grafics and there should be prove that the same picture has existed befor that used by publisher. You must have the picture itself. -PioM EN DE PL 21:22, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
If a file may have actually been used by someone at some point, do not remove the old version just because there's a "better" one. It may still be in use. --Brion VIBBER 06:50, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
? Even with CheckUsage, toolserver up to date and manual checking on en:? Do you know something we don't? pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:23, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Flags and logos are somtimes used directly from a non-wiki page, the the portal at http://wikipedia.org, or the logo at the top right. The database does not know about that. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 14:11, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

3D online rendering

I have an idea, why Wiki engine do not support *.blender files, why not to implement 3D object online rendering, or at the begining export to GIF, 3D animations. Blender file format is open format so I think Wiki engine should allow to upload that kind of files. -PioM EN DE PL 20:02, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Allowing it for upload would probably be OK - it it gets support from teh community, just request it.
Rendering would be difficult - it would take quite a bit of time and memory to do it (for every requested thumbnail size!); also, mediawiki is currently not fexible enough to support rendering many different types of files. It can do SVG and whatever ImageMagick can do - that's it. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 21:35, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

newbie wants to cite right

I'm making overhead transparencies to sell to schools and want to include the image of muscles at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Muscles_biceps_triceps.jpg I cannot locate a creator's name, AND I am not sure how to give credit. (I did email to erez_harpaz@gmail.com from "file history", but it did not go through.) Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

He says he placed it under public domain so not even credit would be needed (however it's recomended). But Fred Chess think sthere's something wrong about it (although i don't find such history) so better wait a little. Fred, can you explain? Platonides 22:02, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I suggest you use undisputed images. e.g: Bicep Image:Arm muscles front deep.png (labelled) Image:Arm muscles front superficial numbers.png (numbered #10)
Tricep Image:Arm muscles back.png (labelled) Image:Arm muscles back numbers.png (numbered #13?)
I don't know if they're the best for transparencies. Oh well. Thanks for doing the right thing! Good luck --pfctdayelise (translate?) 01:49, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

It's the newbie again...Thanks for your time and thoughts. Unfortunately the images you suggest don't show the antagonistice roles the muscles play. I was hoping to get a clean bill of health on my original image.

I have to say I agree with Fred, it seems unlikely to be that user's own work as they stated. It is safest to treat any questioned images as if they were about to be deleted - ie, don't use them. pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:39, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
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