Commons:Village pump/Archive/2005/12

Village Pump archives

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Category:CC-BY-SA

Most of the images shown there should not be there. Their license template was moved/changed but it seems this was not catched with the category although the images show their correct license category. Just opening and saving these images seems to fix this error. Does anyone have a Bot for this work (hundreds/thousands of images there) ? --Denniss 02:49, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I need help from an admin to change the locked Template:BesigedB/license CC-BY-SA cat to CC-BY-SA-1.0 . Thanks ! --Denniss 18:19, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Done. User:dbenbenn 18:33, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, do you know why both old cc-by-sa templates now redirect to 2.5 instead of the 1.0 version ? --Denniss 21:41, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I've reverted the changes to Template:Cc-by-sa and Template:CC-BY-SA Unfortunately, the incorrect redirect was made on September 12. Which means that any images that were tagged with cc-by-sa or CC-BY-SA since then now have the wrong tag. Ideally, for every image that uses that template, we should sort out which license was intended, and update the link. Then replace Template:Cc-by-sa with an explanation about how you have to choose a version, and that 2.5 is the latest version. User:dbenbenn 00:13, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

AFAIK we can't change the licens ourselves, only the copyright holder should do this. Maybe add a note to the 1.0 license template like Note: This license is obsolete, please update to cc-by-sa-2.0 or 2.5 license! . We need a bot replacing all the CC-BY-SA and cc-by-sa templates to cc-by-sa-1.0. Then we (or you) are able to add the explanation. --Denniss 02:02, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

That's what I think, too. The only complication is that images that were tagged cc-by-sa or CC-BY-SA between September 12 and December 2 should actually be tagged cc-by-sa-2.5, because that's what the redirect said at that time. User:dbenbenn 04:19, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

cc-by-sa-1.0 might be obsolete, but isn't it the only one that wikitravel can use? If so we should really encourage people to dual license rather than replace. Thryduulf 08:41, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

since a license can't be revoced anyway, we can only as then to also put their work under the new versions of the license. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 14:39, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I can do the bot work, but I kinda got lost in your tango. What exactly does the bot need to do (Distinguishing one template from another based on a date is no problem)?--Orgullomoore 20:44, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

All images with {{cc-by-sa}}, {{Cc-by-sa}} and {{CC-BY-SA}} templates should have these replaced by {{cc-by-sa-1.0}} --Denniss 22:48, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

This has always confused me about the CC versions. Anything released under v1 is "free" under all future versions of CC licenses, yes? (Forward-compatability) So what is the incentive for authors to release material under the latest version (currently v2.5)? Doesn't it just mean every time they release a new version, everyone should go back to their images and change the license? pfctdayelise 21:33, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I think that versions 2.0 and onwards are forward compatible, but 1.0 isn't - hence my comments about WikiTravel above. I use 1.0 2.0 (or 2.0-uk) and 2.5 on all the ones I release under cc to allow people the flexibility. Thryduulf 22:00, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

That's what I mean! When they release v3, are you going to go and change all your licenses to {1,2.0,2.5,3}? What a pain! pfctdayelise 22:05, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

No, it's worse: only 2.5 is forward compatible, all other versions are not, afaik -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 22:17, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

A new direction: A democratic/participatory news network/structure/system

Hey

I'm a Computer Science student in Ontario. I've spent a long time trying to devise a robust dem/part new network/structure/system. There is a web page outlining how the system works at http://www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~gfcoppol/omnicentric/ . Note that you don't have to read the entire thing to see a specification of the system, you can skip ahead to the meat of the argument by following salient links. I'm looking for help to try to get this system built.

There are two things I would like to come of this post: 1) Wikimedia programmers become interested and help to implement the system 2) Wikimedia users become interested and we create a wiki to develop the outline of the system further

The features of the system are:

• The system allows small groups and individuals to publish and makes it likely that the great stories and analyses eventually reach many people regardless of where they come from.
• It encourages and helps people notify one another of especially important stories in the established profit and not-for-profit newsmedia.
• The system provides readers with many stories likely to interest them and few stories unlikely to interest them. That is, the system filters content.
• It requires no paid editors.
• No one person A has any more influence over any person B than B asks for A to have over him.
• The system does not rely on simple majority votes or majority opinion to filter stories. (Majority votes are vulnerable to fraud and would not allow a given user to choose whose opinions he wants to listen to.)
• The system facilitates large group work between people who have never met outside of the news network itself (eg. one person can find a large group of users to collaborate on a wiki, including people he doesn't actually know, while still being able to prevent other users from editing it).
• The system uses a database, which makes it very flexible and able to handle complex tasks.

What do you think?

Thanks for the time, --Greg1 01:50, 2 December 2005 (UTC)Greg

Most of the developers will not see your post here, you'll likely get a much greater response if you post to one of the MediaWiki mailing lists. See http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Communication for a list. Thryduulf 08:44, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

free screenshot

Hello, sorry for my poor english.

I v got problem with the template Template:free screenshot : it always add the category category:free screenshot ; i dont think its a good thing.

i juste create Category:Screenshots of computer and video games (same as Wikipedia english) as a subcategory of free screenshot, but all computer and video games screenshot using the template "free screenshot" will have both 2 categories, i think it overload for nothing the "free screenshot" category.

What do u think about

1. removing category of the template "free screenshot" ? (not a good idea)
2. or maybe sending category to the template in a parameter (not very simple)
3. or using another template or just not using the tempate "free screenshot" went we put another subcategory of "free screenshot"

Is somebody understand ? my poor poor english ~ bayo or talk 14:31, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

• The best thing to do in this situation is to create a template specifically for free screenshots of computer and video games (call it something like Template:Free cvg screenshot) that adds it to the category. Thryduulf 14:44, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

But (a problem) it exist already a lot of category

• Free screenshot
  • Screenshots of computer and video games
    • Bridge Builder
    • Freeciv
    • NetHack
      • NetHack/Kernigh/22oct2005
    • Tetris
    • Z

May i create a template for all ? i dont think ! then... is this model is need ? Is it possible to create a Template:Free screenshot woc (without category) ? ~ bayo or talk 15:03, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I suggest you treat Category:Free screenshot like a "copyright category" (for example, Category:CC-BY-SA-2.5), and simply ignore it. Make Category:Screenshots (the "free" isn't necessary, since everything here on the Commons is free), and when necessary make Category:Computer and video game screenshots, Category:Bridge Builder screenshots, etc. When you upload a screenshot, you'd simply add the category by hand to the image description page. User:dbenbenn 15:25, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

i agreee, i wait for another comment (i dont like to work for nothing :D). ~ bayo or talk 16:00, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

?

Please, anyone check this image --5-5-5 20:11, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

LOL, looks like a flat out lie to me (last time I checked Wikimedia didn't buy Macromedia Flash). I'll be leaving the user a message in Spanish, his native language, appearantly.--Orgullomoore 20:58, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Deleted. At w:Image:Macromedia Flash MX 2004.png it is tagged as fair use. User:dbenbenn 20:49, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Hola

Subi una foto de Anibal Ibarra , pero no se como funciona esto, si me la aceptan o no!!!, no entiende bien el tem a del copyright. Alguien que me ayude por favorrrrrrrrrrr. Soy medio novato en esto. --Ellibriano2 03:18, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

No, no vale, y es por esto: "Copyright 1996-2005 Clarín.com - All rights reserved", que ves al final de la página. En Commons sólo se permiten imágenes que permiten modificarse, reproducirse, y usarse libremente hasta con fines comerciales. En este caso, al contrario, el dueño del copyright reserva todos sus derechos. Ahora, si has pedido permiso y te lo han dado bajo las condiciones que menciono justo arriba, la cosa cambia. Saludos--Orgullomoore 06:18, 3 December 2005 (UTC)PD:Nótese que hay un Café para que te sea más fácil ubicar un usuario de habla hispana. Se encuentra aquí.

License for pt:Imagem:FEB.jpg?

According to Babelfish the picture is from the offical website of the brasilian army and free for use, if the source is cited. Which is the appropriate license here in the commons? --h-stt 14:27, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

If the only requirement is to cite the source, I would think it is {{cc-by-2.5}}. Longbow4u 15:13, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

No! never, ever, use an "equivalent" license! Only the author can specify a license! If you find an image for which no specific license is given, but the usage restrictions are compliant to Commons:Licensing, use Template:Copyrighted free use provided that. In case only attribution is required, you can alternatively use Template:Attribution. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 16:26, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Update - with the help of very friendly and helpful users from the pt-Wikipedia, I could establish that indeed all the pictures from the various websites of the brasilian military are free for use if the source is cited. --h-stt 14:00, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

tree of categories

Commonstree

There is a new Tool to navigate fast in the categories. The project-page is here. I hope that it help. Kolossos 21:46, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Now, with articles.(70.000 database-entities)Kolossos 22:13, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

The better way is now perhaps the CategoryTree because it works in realtime and in all projekts. Kolossos 23:29, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Duplicate images

This: Image:Wind turbines.jpg newer file is a duplicate of this older file: Image:USDA windmills.jpg. I don't know how to resolve this problem, so could someone more experienced please take care of it (and maybe tell me how it was done)? Harald Hansen 21:08, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

You simply add {{redundant|[[:Image:USDA windmills.jpg]]}} to the image that needs to be deleted. Optionally, you can use check-usage to find where the redundant image is used, and update the uses. Once that is done, you can overwrite the image with Image:Cross.jpg, and add {{deleted duplicate|IMAGE=USDA windmills.jpg|USER=[[User:Harald Hansen]]}} (in case the image is still used somewhere. Check-usage doesn't check all the Wikimedia projects.) Then in a month you can add {{db|deleted duplicate more than a month old}}. Of course, all that extra stuff is only if you have sufficient motivation. User:dbenbenn 21:22, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, thanks! Harald Hansen 14:54, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Category:The Yorck Project

I am astonished to see how casually such an important collection of artwork is beeing dealt with.

Speaking about licensing, Directmedia will acquire the rights on the databasefrom the producer.

source Commons:10,000 paintings from Directmedia

Will acquire is a verb in the future tense. So We need to know if these rights eventually have been acquired or not. If they have not been acquired, I'm afraid we'll have to delete all these pictures alltogether. Actually we should delete them immediately and upload them again only when all necessary authorisations have been cleared. --Teofilo 12:45, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

All of those images are identical reproduction of 2D public-domain pictures. According to US and german legislation, they can be considered public domain. The only problem is : what about photographies of paintings exposed in countries where the legislation is unclear ? Fabos 13:01, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Erwin Jurschitza is the person responsible for the publishing of the German Wikipedia's CDROM. If he says that he needs to acquire the database rights from the Yorck Project Society, and that the artworks will be released under GFDL, not PD, I think that he knows his business. --Teofilo 13:13, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

The collection as such is released unter the GFDL. The individual images are PD. The distinction is important, because a collection or words/images/etc itself can be protected by copyright, even if the individual entries can not. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 14:42, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

This was the original announcement, which was a bit confusing. Erwin is the manager of both The Yorck Project and Directmedia [1], and he clarified later that the "acquisition of rights" meant "putting a knife to his own throat in the shaving mirror" [2]. In other words, in his original message, Erwin was simply not sure yet which licensing option would be the most desirable and feasible for the community. It was never about any "acquisition of rights" in a legal sense since Erwin was in the position to make that decision himself. He later published the data [3] and explicitly stated that the licensing should be used as initially proposed.

Furthermore, is absolutely and unambiguously clear and always was that the individual pictures are in the public domain because they are reproductions of public domain images. What was not clear is whether the database as a whole could possibly be copyrighted (there are special regulations regarding database copyrights). Also, the metadata about the pictures was copyrighted by Directmedia. It is this data which was licensed by Erwin, as director of both the Yorck Project and Directmedia, under the GFDL.--Eloquence 16:09, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanations. It is easier to understand when one knows that « Erwin is the manager of both The Yorck Project and Directmedia ». So I understand that every single picture is PD under the en:Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. doctrine which is legal in the United States. For countries still lacking a decisive precedent, like France, it remains doubtful, whether we can use these pictures. So perhaps, they should have remained on the individual Wikipedias, and not been uploaded in the Commons. We cannot completely rule out the possibility that a French photographer recognizes his work among these pictures and complains. Do you have any idea about the nationality of the photographers? --Teofilo 00:53, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

It has always been practice on Commons that Bridgmen v. Corel applies; there are thousands of public domain images here which are used purely under this doctrine. But even if it didn't, any reproduction rights are owned by The Yorck Project (remember they also distribute this DVD commercially), and they have agreed to donate the pictures to the public domain. So The Yorck Project images are probably the "cleanest" public domain images we have here on Commons, since unlike for most, the reproduction rights issue is actually resolved. I'm sure eventually someone will claim that they own the copyright to a public domain work of art here on Commons, but Jimbo has always said that he is prepared to go to court to defend the right to distribute art in the public domain. The attempt to re-copyright it through reproduction copyrights is pure piracy, and we should stand united against it.--Eloquence 08:01, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Do you know if The Yorck Project hired photographers who were paid to do the job, or received these pictures as gifts from various photographers or copyright holders? To give you a hint about the situation here in France, this picture of Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci on the French ministry of culture's website is "© Bellot ; C. Jean Réunion des musées nationaux, 10 rue de l'Abbaye, 75006 Paris, tél. 33 (0)1 40 13 46 00, tlc 33 (0)1 40 13 46 01" according to the attached notice. That means that the "Bridgeman vs Corel" philosophy is not yet very widespread among official institutions in this country. --Teofilo 13:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

So the licence of this image from the York project is probably a violation of the photographer's rights. That's awful ! We could'nt have any reproduction of pictures exposed in France ?? Fabos 08:06, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

ACK Eloquence. We should call such claims what they are: COPYFRAUD --Historiograf 17:41, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Here is the policy for the so-called « fair use » : The Wikimedia Commons does not accept fair use content, because fair use laws vary from country to country - thus, content deemed acceptable under, for instance, US fair use concepts (which are very broad) is not usable in the majority of other countries. (quoted from Licensing). By the same token, we should have the same policy for Bridgeman vs Corel pictures, which are not deemed acceptable in countries like France. I think we should avoid by all means to go to court and lose, because in that case we would have to implement afterwards much tighter policies, and people probably would no longer be able tu upload files as simply as they can now. And going to court is much stress, and even if some people might find that exciting, other people might find that tiring, even if we win. --Teofilo 09:17, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Before making decisions about deleting images, please considerer doing a deeper study on local legislations. Don't go too fast :-) Fabos 10:01, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Reproductions of PD work are considered PD in all wikis I know of - claims to the contrary are common, but IMHO should be considered copyfraud. Also, I have no idea how someone could claim rights to "his" reproduction - how would he tell it apart from other reproductions? There's no way to tell...

Also, Jimmy Wales has a very strong oppinion about the right to publish (reproductions of) PD art, and is prepare to go to court about it if neccessary. I belive we should make a stand here. I don't know of any country where reproductions are explicitely protectable - in some pleaces, the situation is not quite as clear cut as in the US, that's all (for instance in most EU countries, there is no formal concept of precedence rulings - so the situation cannot be clear, unless adressed by law explicitely). -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 12:26, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

« Jimmy Wales has (...) is prepare to go to court about it if necessary » Yes but what does "necessary" mean? Do you have a quote from Jimmy Wales adressing precisely the problem of Bridgeman vs Corel pictures outside the United States? --Teofilo 14:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Teofilo, if you want to know my opinion about copyright law in France, I will not be able to give it to you without swearing. The IP legislation and precedents in France are alredy insane, and the content industry is now lobbying to declare free software illegal in France -- possibly including MediaWiki, the software which runs all Wikimedia sites. It is not and has never been a practical approach to comply with the lowest common denominator.

Instead, what Commons needs to do is comply either local applicable law or the internationally prevalent standard, whichever is more permissive. In this case, the internationally prevalent standard is to treat reproductions of public domain paintings as public domain. Using this doctrine, the notion that we have to follow some country's crazy copyright laws becomes moot. Should a French court rule at some point that we are not allowed to distribute certain content to users with French IP addreses, then I'd much rather do that then pull Commons down to the lowest common denominator.---Eloquence 21:44, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

How about a country like Britain? «The Library also emphasized that under United Kingdom law, such reproductions seemed to be protected by copyright; » says the en:Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. article.--Teofilo 17:40, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

« pull Commons down to the lowest common denominator » : isn't that just what we are doing regarding "fair use" images? The expression "common denominator" contains the word "common" which sounds very similar to "Commons". --Teofilo 18:05, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

We should follow our divine MASTER JW Show two 400 year old paintings. Routinely get complaints from museums saying there is copyright infringements. National Portrait Gallery of England threatens to sue, a chilling effect, but they have no grounds. Controlling physical access keeps people from getting high quality images "I wouldn't encourage you to break the law, but if you accidentally take a photo of these works it would be great to put it on Wikipedia for the public domain. [4] There is NO French or other decision outside Germany (and in Germany is Bridgeman v. Corel mainstream) I know which is relevant for this question and I am monitoring the problem since several years. There are only claims. No international convention says that a 1:1 reproduction of a PD work should be copyrightable. IPR should support creativity but if I claim a copyright on a Mona Lisa reproduktion I will make money with the work of a man which is dead several hundered years. Or, more gentle: SHUT UP, Teofilo. --Historiograf 01:36, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Here is a report about a decision from the Paris court of appeal in 2001 condemning an American publisher publishing photographs of Picasso paintings without the consent of the photograph copyright holder. --Teofilo 09:49, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

« and in Germany is Bridgeman v. Corel mainstream »

I'd be glad to know some references of German cases and not always rely on "Brigdeman vs Corel". Could you find that for me?--Teofilo 10:13, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

« and in Germany is Bridgeman v. Corel mainstream »

How mainstream is it among German publishers? When you go to a bookshop in Frankfurt or in Berlin, how many books can you find that display artwork photographs without revealing the photographers' names? --Teofilo 10:29, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Are you sold by publishers? Publisher's claims are irrelevant. Eloquence has said the right things. --Historiograf 04:47, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

How about "shutting up" about law, and talk about ethics, instead. The photographers provided a camera, probably film, used their skills, and spent time on the phone or by mail to arrange with the museum an appointment to take the pictures. Is it moral not to say "thank you", while the humblest Wikipedian who changes one comma in an article deserves to have his name written in the article history page? These photographers are benefactors to Wikipedia. Why hide their names? --Teofilo 09:49, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Providing a work of art to the public which is part of our cultural heritage is an intrinsically good act. Its morality is not reversed even if you were right and some other aspect of what we are doing was morally questionable. So let's examine whether you do have a moral case, but it does not have a bearing on whether we should provide the picture. We should, because making all valuable works in the public domain available to the public free of charge is the right thing to do.

The person who made the photo or scan was very likely paid to do so by some publisher or company. They were appropriately compensated for the time they spent. If they willingly donated their free time to preserve public domain art, that is of course to be appreciated. But if they did so, it is almost certain that they would not want the work to be deleted -- for the reason they photographed it in the first place is to protect it. In both cases, if we know who it is, we credit them. If we don't - we don't. In both cases, your moral argument is very, very weak.

If you believe the person providing the reproduction deserves so much credit, then how about the museum, which allows the public to view the painting? How about the conservators, who worked to make sure that it is in pristine condition? How about the art collector who donated it to the museum? And how about the young man who risked his life to save the painting from a fire 250 years ago? How about the model in the picture? How about all the past painters who inspired the artist to do his work? How about the king who paid his salary? How about the peasants who paid the king?

Almost all this information might be worth having somewhere. To propose that an image should be deleted because it lacks some or all of it is, quite frankly, an absurd iconoclastic notion. You do not protect culture by destroying it, by removing it from our archives. The best thing we can do to honor all the people associated with a work of art is to provide that work of art to the public, so that they may enjoy it and use it, free of charge, forever. To do so, all we need to know is that the work is in the public domain, and that it is relevant to our cause. For many paintings we have, we don't even know the artist (such as the paintings from Pompeii and Herculaneum, or the Fayum mummy portraits). Knowing the artist names would be nice (if impossible), but it is not a condition for archiving their works. The same is true for other information about the content in our archives.

Tell me, why are you so intent on destroying large sections of our archives? Do you have a financial or personal stake in making sure that the public does not have access to works of art whose copyright has expired?--Eloquence 12:12, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

« In both cases, if we know who it is, we credit them. » So, would you be so kind as to have a look at the Directmedia CDROM and check whether the photographer's names are written in the CDROM. And if not, could you ask Erwin Jurschitza to give you these names, or any information relating to where the pictures come from? Then ask a lawyer whether it is safe to make these names public while these people have not given their consent to the publication. It might be preferable to ask for their consent first. The lawyer might give you a case by case advice, picture by picture. --Teofilo 16:41, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I have the metadata, it does not include reproduction information. The legality is not in question in any case.--Eloquence 16:50, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

If you say that all participants should be mentioned it will be ok to name the photographer who donated us a digital image of an old painting, if known.

Concerning the rights on the database (which are indisputable existing due to Berne Convention) I understood Erwin Jurschitza that they were assigned to Directmedia and Directmedia allowed the transfer to Commons.

The "public domain old" declaration seems to be correct concerning US-jurisdiction. Details for users in other countries are matter of the local laws. E.g. an American decision cannot be "mainstream" for Germany, France or Indonesia. -- Simplicius 14:10, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

PS: see Berne Convention: "Collections of literary or artistic works such as encyclopaedias and anthologies which, by reason of the selection and arrangement of their contents, constitute intellectual creations shall be protected as such, without prejudice to the copyright in each of the works forming part of such collections."

Thanks for the Bern convention excerpt : that's interesting.--Teofilo 16:41, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome. Just a raw frame for national law, 1. -- Simplicius 20:36, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Pfft Bot

I'd like to run an image uploading bot under the username Pfft Bot. It'll be a pywikipedia bot, and the first two runs will be for sets of images for some games I can't spell and don't feel like copy/pasting the names of. All images will be under a free license and have source information, and the first run will have about 300 small images, a total of just a few megabytes. I'm on dialup, so it won't run very fast no matter what I throttle it to. Additionally, if this isn't the right place to ask, tell me....and you wouldn't happen to have any bot policy pages around here would you? --Phroziac^(talk) 16:32, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

GFDL licence thumbnails?

An artist who has been contributing to Swedish Wikipedia, sv:User:Brobygubben, has been uploading some of his works to Wikipedia, and agree to license 50 kb thumbs as GFDL, and is now wondering if that is ok, and still keeping his paintings in original size copyrighted. The images it's about are sv:Bild:KLOSSA-KNAPITATET.jpg, sv:Bild:MÅLTID.jpg, sv:Bild:Makten och Härligheten.jpg and sv:Bild:Dear Mamma.jpg. Is it possible to license thums in GFDL and still keep the copyright for the large versions? I thought a better bet to find out was to ask here than on svwiki. Thanks! /Grillo 22:07, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

There's a difference between a license and copyright. He will still be the copyright holder no matter what he license he uses (unless he releases them into the PD). I think what you mean to ask is, can he license the thumbnails while refusing to license the originals? (I don't know the answer.) pfctdayelise 22:23, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I would say the answer is yes (except for the details that, technically, he keeps the copyright even if he puts his work under a copyleft license). The GFDL requires "transparent copies", this may be a problem, but it's unclear what that means for images anyway. It would probably be better to use cc-by-sa, which does not have such clauses.

Personally, I belive releasing an image with reduced resolution under a copyleft license is a good way to, for instance, be able to market the full resolution image commercially. Actually, maybe we should advertise this possibility to get more professional photographers to release things on the commons. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 01:37, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I really dislike the idea of turning Wikimedia Commons into a sales tool for commercial photographers by offering a hosting service for low res images so the photographer can keep the high res versions proprietary. That's what stock agencies are for--they all have preview cd's and stuff for people to shop from. The suggestion is not in the GFDL spirit either, which is for the GFDL to be a GPL-like license, which is to say, a license that, as a condition of distribution, asks for release of the "source code", defined in the GPL as the preferred form for modifying the work. The preferred form here should mean the highest resolution version available, that's freest of lossy compression and stuff like that, i.e. the version that the photographer himself would load into an image editor in order to work on it.Phr 12:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I know that GFDL images are still copyrighted, but you get my point. If he uses cc-by-sa, can he keep the copyright license (you know what I mean) for the high-res images? I would probably need a clearer answer to be able to answer him, since once you license your images with a free license there's no turning back. /Grillo 14:46, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

for all I know, the alswer is yes. He should however make it clear that he owns the copyright to the original, and does not license the original under a free license. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 14:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Great, thanks! /Grillo 16:05, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Hiya

Bold text Uh, you know how it says for newcomers and baffled oldcomers, or something like that? Well how about baffled newcomers? I am so confused I don't know where I put my tail lol, just kidding! But seriously, help!

--207.200.116.134 04:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps Commons:First steps is a good start? Thuresson 06:17, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Also, you need to have an account to upload files. pfctdayelise 10:10, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Help me!! for license

Copyright holder permit me to use his photos.

Conditions : his name and his website

How to selecr license tag? My English is poor...help me!!

My name is James WY. Lee

Copyright holder' name is Yu, Yong Weon

his website is http://bemil.chosun.com

his email is bemil@chosun.com

Image:Korean army K-1 tank.jpg : edit license, please!! Jimy 06:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

{{Cc-by-2.5}} looks appropriate one, but copyrights owner should place info on his/her website that all/some images available under this license. --EugeneZelenko 15:52, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

It's not appropriate to use that unless the copyright holder has explicitly stated as much. It doesn't sound to me like he has. pfctdayelise 22:05, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

use {{Attribution}} or {{Copyrighted free use provided that}} -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 17:19, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks very much!! I use {{Cc-by-sa-2.5}} Jimy 06:38, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Add cc-by-sa-2.5-ko

I want creative commons korean version

cc-by-2.5-ko, cc-by-sa-2.5-ko, etc... Jimy 06:35, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I think you are the best person to do it because no one here seems to speak Korean! (yet.) Please look at http://www.creativecommons.or.kr/ You could make something similar to Template:Cc-by-sa-2.0-br (Brazil). pfctdayelise 13:49, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Return of the FlickrLickrs

The FlickrLickr UI for selecting photos and editing metadata.

Flickr has finally updated their API, so the FlickrLickr project is back in operation. We now have metadata for more than 50,000 new images, so that should keep us busy for a while. All existing FlickrLickr users have new slices.

If you don't know FlickrLickr yet - it's a project to select, describe and categorize images on Flickr that are licensed under CC-BY and upload them to the Wikimedia Commons. FlickrLickr users have a convenient interface to select photos and edit metadata.

See User:FlickrLickr for details about the project.

This is far from a dumping process. Good FlickrLickr users spend many hours to produce accurate metadata and select only the best photos. So far, we have uploaded more than 4000 images, and reviewed 55000.

In spite of the effort involved, many users find the project addictive, since it provides a never-ending flow of photos while also being useful to Wikimedia. You can also get your name into the statistics. (Every slice has 1,000 photos.)

If you would like to become a FlickrLickr, drop me a private message.--Eloquence 23:08, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Steward

I'm asking for the steward status at New candidate for stewardship: villy at m:Stewards/elections 2005 (n° 2) If you feel like supporting me, please vote for me. villy ♦ ✎ 14:21, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

automated upload of 1500 Turkey related images?

I'd like to upload ca. 1500 Turkey related images for wikipedia user -jha-. He wants them put under GFDL. Unfortunately, they don't have individual descriptions. Thus, e.g. the pics from his "TopkapiSarayi" gallery would have to be named something like "Topkapi Palace n", n being a consecutive number, as I'd like to use a bot to avoid manual fiddling. A few images of that gallery however, don't depict the Topkapi Sarayi, example. Anyway, if you check this overview (look for "Westtürkei-Rundreise August 2004" - journey through West Turkey 8/04)) you'll see that it would be a pity not to use the vast material. I'd care for the english translation of the topics.

• Does commons need the pics?
• What's your bot policy, if any?
• What should the license info look like, apart from the GFDL blurb?

--tickle me 09:07, 10 December 2005 (UTC) (de / en)

More pictures of Turkey would be good, general descriptions are OK (and no worse than half of our uploads now, ahem). Probably worthwhile to create a distinct category for all these images, which will help people review and sort them later. Dual GFDL/CC is said to be better than just GFDL, if you can manage that. Dunno about bots. Stan Shebs 14:29, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

If I were you, I would a) save them down from the pages giving them an equivalent name and number according to the sub-gallery and then b) try to use an upload program, using a standard disclaimer.

Some pictures have to be turned for 90 degrees, I think.

If you make an "dir /o:n >contents.txt" from the contents of the photo folder on your disc, one can derive some galleries for the user page as an overview. Just mail the text to me, I can built the galleries together. -- Simplicius 16:27, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

"create a distinct category for all these images": will do, "dir /o:n >contents.txt": will do something like that, but as of yet, its not my, but jha's disc - but we'll sort that out. As I have an OK now, I'll do the transfer/upload, allow some days/weeks, I'll do it when I've time. Just one question, do you expect me or jha to do the 90° turning? I'd like to avoid "manual work" - is it OK if I leave that to other wikimedians afterwards? --tickle me 21:33, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Maybe you can use a graphics programm with a "batch processing": Choosing the relevant pics in the thumbview and then doing the turning together in one step. -- Simplicius 21:39, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I can, but that still would require to sort the images (~1500) beforehand manually, as programms can do the turning, but they can't tell which images need to be turned. (there are some advanced algorithms that can under certain conditions, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't apply here). Besides, if this goes well, I'd like to do more of it, i.e. doing large scale semi- or fully automated uploads. The fun part would be the programming stuff, so large scale manual sorting is not really an option. IMO, leaving the turning to others is an acceptable compromise here. --tickle me 22:25, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Have a look in the Windows Explorer with thumb view modus, mark them with Ctrl and Mouseclick, then do a Ctrl X and put them into an own folder with Ctrl V, then there is no problem. -- Simplicius 15:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

You can just upload the un-rotated pictures, and tag them with {{Rotate}}. Unless you can do "lossless rotation", that's actually better, since the original version is kept then. User:dbenbenn 19:22, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Simplicius, as a programmer, I know well how to handle technical issues, we're talking at cross purposes here. The point is, I'm not willing to look at ~1500 images to decide which need to get special treatment; whether moving them do another directory for further batch processing or processing them directly by hand, it would be the same tedious work I won't take the time to do. The same applies to tagging them with {{Rotate}}: I'd have to check any one of them to know which one needs the tag. As for lossless rotation, that's something any user will be able to do even after upload using free open source tools like Paint.NET, I'll add a corresponding remark and links to such progs (for Linux too) in all image descriptions. --tickle me 23:55, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

downloading, rotating and re-uploading is quite painful. I understand that looking through 1500 pictures to find out which to rotate is not much fun - but someone has to do it, right? The pictures are not much use sideways... maybe ask for help for that job, it should be done before uploading in any case.

Btw: with the right software, 1500 images could be done in a couple of hours... -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 00:04, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Sourcing from other projects

What with the deletion of images from en:, either by transfer to here, or because they weren't free, it's basically never going to be the case that using the link to the image on another WP as the "source" is going to be reliable. I'd like to encourage people to copy over the entire description page when uploading to here; either the upload screen or Commons:Upload summary could be tweaked I think. Does everybody agree? Stan Shebs 14:38, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

YES -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 15:20, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Because they are afraid of violating the terms of GFDL, en don't even delete the images that get moved to commons (or if they do delete them, it's like one a month). See w:Wikipedia talk:Moving images to the Commons. pfctdayelise 22:27, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I've done some. Most images don't have any history to worry about. Stan Shebs 14:12, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Think of the Orphans! (or: CommonSense reloaded)

We have lots of orphan images on the commons, which can not be found by looking at categories or gallery pages. Finding and categorizing them ba hand is quite hard, so I have written a tool that will hopefully help with the job:

Please try CommonSense

CommonSense tries to find out where to put an image by looking at where it is used in wikipedias, or by keywords you enter. It is intended to help cleaning up orphan images on the commons, categorize own uploads, or images that are moved from wikipedias.

I had announced CommonsSense before (see #Semi-Automatic categorization), but the server broke. Now it's back online, and I have changed CommonsSense a bit, to make it easier to use. The interface is currently available in german and english, if you could make a translation into some other language, please tell me.

Any feedback is welcome -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 20:01, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I know enough (usually) to categorize once I see the image, but how does this tool help me find the ones needing work? Stan Shebs 01:38, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Click the "Random Orphan" button. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 01:50, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

wow, it's better than ever! awesome. I just have a few comments about the interface, which I think could be clearer.

• firstly that you only need to provide one of the image or the keywords, for example you can use it to find categories for an image you haven't uploaded yet, by entering just keywords.
• I still think the "Random orphan" button should be more prominent and not next to the "find categories" button. you could put it above the "produce raw output" box, in the corner by itself.
• It's not clear at all how to use the "Move (Image in wiki)" bit. I can't even figure out what I'm supposed to type in - the full URL of an image? That didn't work. Just the image name? no... Is it supposed to be used in conjunction with the top bit? I can't figure it out...
• As with above, I'm not really sure how the "random image" is supposed to work. Also, you might want to put a disclaimer that not all images are necessarily suitable for commons (eg fair use).
• If it doesn't produce any results, it doesn't always say so, which can be confusing.

Thanks! I might try a Chinese translation soon if you like. pfctdayelise 11:37, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments! I guess i'll add some more text to the page, explaining things... not sure where, though, i don't want to crowd it too much. Anyway, a few answers:

• In the field under the "Move" header, you would enter a single Wiki: the one in which to look for the image (or for the keywords, or both). "Random Image" will give you a random image from that wiki.
• "Move" is alternative to "Cleanup", both use the options at the top (image / keywords). "Random Orphan" is exclusive to "Cleanup" mode, "Random Image" is exclusive to "Move" mode. That's the reason for placing them as they are. Not sure how to make this clearer.
• I had originally experimentet with a two-phase interface, where you would select the "mode" (Move or Cleanup) first - but that seems to confuse people too.
• It should always tell you (in red) when it doesn't find anything. If it doesn't, that's a bug - please save the current URL when that happens, so I can reproduce that case.

So, I'll try to clean up the interface some more, keeping in mind you comments. Please try the "Move" bit again - if you have any suggestion as to how to make the interface clearer, tell me. Thanks! -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 14:02, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

new version

I have just put a new version online. I have fixed some bugs and tried to work in some of the suggestions I got. I hope it#s a bit clearer now, I will probably have to tweak the user interface some more (pfctdayelise made some interresting suggestions).

So, if you have tried CommonSense before, try it again! If you havn't, try it now ;) -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 19:04, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I like it, so I just "adopted" 20 orphans. Harald Hansen 09:31, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I have changed a few more bits... among other things, I have added some JavaScript - please tell me if you have problems with that. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 15:31, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

That's quite good fun. But we all have our specialities. Would it be feasible to have a 'another orphan like this' button in addition to the 'random orphan' button. The second orphan I tried was a building and I could do a good job with it because I have an interest in buildings and architecture. The third random image I got was some sort of fern and I would have had more difficulty in categorising botany. If I had had another building I would have been on a roll. In principle it would seem possible to group images by their provisional categories, but the processing overhead might be too high - and come to think of it non of the provisional categories for the second building image were actually architecture related. -- Solipsist 20:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. Selecting orphans by topic would be cool, but the problem is: they are orphans, i.e. a topic is not know. All I could do is keep choosing random orpahns and search for categories, until I find one that matches a given topic. That would be massive overhead.

It is also quite normal that sometimes, especially for quite generic pictures, CommonSense does not return the "right" categories: it can only take guesses based on where the image is used. That may be misleading sometimes. Giving a few keywords by hand will usually help. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 23:45, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Much fun! Knocked off a bunch of orphans. Presumably you filter out some cats of little interest (like "PD", etc). I suggest adding the "Meyers Blitz-Lexikon" to that list - there's not much anyone will do with the raw page scans. Stan Shebs 22:09, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Some adjustments need to be made: I had an image and Sense offered me Category:Well. Bit since mid August 2005 this cat is redirected to Category:Wells. --Denniss

Thanks for the hint - for a real redirect, CommonSense would have done the right thing. But Category:Well is a pseudo-redirect using the {{Category redirect}} template. I'll see if i can teach CommonSense about those.

As to filtering out categories: I'll add "Meyers Blitz-Lexikon" to the blacklist, thanks for the suggestion. That list will never be complete, though - I can only try to cover the most common stuff. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 15:43, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok, new version is up, the issues above should be resolved. Try it out :P -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 16:53, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Former PD-Soviet tag ?

All the works published in USSR before 23 may 1973 were unprotected by international copyright, and thus public domain everywhere outside USSR. In USSR they were well protected, and therefore are still protected in Russia and other post-soviet countries.

Since wikimedia servers are located outside ex-USSR, such images are allowed here, and we have PD-Soviet tag to mark them. But there is one problem with this tag. In fact, also the works that are no more protected in ex-USSR (author died more than 70 years ago, or anonymous work is more than 70 years old) have this tag. Therefore also this now-free images will not be used by peolpe in Russia, because thay know that they thay cant use PD-Soviet images there.

So should we made special tag, say "This image was originally public domain only outside USSR, but now it is public domain everywhere because of it age", or will we just put one of appropriate existing tags (PD-old or PD-Art) on them? Kneiphof 22:18, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

For images from the USSR which are now also free in Russia, because of age, should be tagged with {{PD-old}}. I see no reason for a special tag. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 23:06, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

German lawywers do not believe (and I do'nt also) the myth of the pre-1973 Soviet-PD. There are strong reasons not to use pictures of which the author is'nt dead 50 years. --Historiograf 03:55, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Internal Server Error; why?

My wiki has been running fine for months. All of a sudden, it has a "Internal Server Error" now, and doesn't work. The host is fine, and so is the rest of the site besides the wiki section.

Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@rebirthseph.noobify.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/1.3.33 Server at www.rebirthseph.noobify.com Port 80

Anyone know why this is happening or what is wrong? --136.150.200.99

This page is for discussion about the commons wiki, not just any wiki. Also, the page loaded fine to me. pfctdayelise 22:45, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh. Where would I go for any wiki support? Besides IRC. Yeah it's working now, but I'd still like to know why it was down. --24.194.240.177 22:57, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

For technical questions, IRC is the best place (at least if you happen to be there at the right time to catch the right person in the right mood...). There is no help-desk wiki page for mediawiki anywhere, afaik. But ther's an external website, http://www.mwusers.com/, which is trying to build a community of mediawiki users. It's quite new, I don't know how many of the core programmers ever go there... -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 00:05, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. My college blocks most outgoing connections, I can't even login to a Cpanel. Can't connect to IRC either. This section can be deleted if anyone wants to. --24.194.240.177 00:18, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

There are several ways of communicating with MediaWiki users/developers, including mailing lists, listed at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/communication. Thryduulf 01:15, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Documentaries produced in the Soviet Union

Hi,

I have access to some documentaries produced in the Soviet Union (although post-1973). How would I go about finding out the copyright details?

Title: Three Portraits (Year: 1982?) (Duration: 15 mins 02 secs)
Credits: Script: Elena Chornik, Victor Granin Director: Victor Granin Photography: Yuri Nikolayev Sound: Elena Semyonova Consultant: Elena Shibarina Editor: Taisa Yanson
Description: Short biographies of three Soviet women, their lives and careers; scientist, film director and artist.
	
Title: They Defended Their Motherland (Year: 1979) (Duration: 18 mins 30 secs)
Series title: Soviet Army
Credits: Script: Vadim Spitsyn Photography: Igor Osipov Text: V. Kapitanovsky Editor: G. Lysoi Series Editor: V. Kazakova
Description: Documents the achievements of four WW2 veterans and their lives since the War, with WW2 footage.

Title: The Future in Jeopardy (Year: 1985) (Duration: 58 mins 33 secs)
Credits: Script: Jemma Firsova, Genrikh Gurkov Composer: Oleg Yanchenko Workers on the film: A.Khlebnikov, V.Mikosha, E.Orfani, V.Ivanov, 
E.Kotova, Yu.Kasparov, A.Sineokaya, L.Markova, I.Linkova, M.Kalashnikova, T.Saleyeva
Description: Cold War peace film commenting on the destruction of the environment by humans, with particular emphasis on the development and 
use of gas and chemical weaponry from WW1. The film focuses on America's dominant role. Contains footage of humans and animals in distress.

Title: The Toxin of Chernobyl (Year: 1987) (Duration: 87 mins 32 secs)
Description: Soviet documentary on the effects on local communities resulting from the explosion of the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl.

Title: Nuclear Plague (Duration: 23 mins 27 secs)
Credits: Script: Alexander Bovin, Alexander Pumpyansky Camera: Yuri Orlov Editor: Z Golofayeva Sound recordist: V Ivanov Consultant A Grachev Design: T Kononova The makers 
of this film thank the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Council for the Conservation of Natural Resources of the USA and the general staff of the Soviet Armed Forces for their
co-operation. Commissioned by the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries.
Description: The history and effects of nuclear testing, attempts to ban them and the long term struggle towards nuclear disarmament.

I can't find any information on imdb. What kind of copyright might they have had? I have some others which are pre-1973 that I will upload when they've finished downloading. - FrancisTyers 18:12, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

WikiQuiz

I have an idea! There is a lot of information in Wikipedia. However if one really wants to learn something it is useful to be quizzed on the topic. There are many different flash card programs out there's each with their own different format for storing the cards . Many of them have substantial libraries of cards available but only in their proprietary format. If Wikipedia were to come up with a standardized format then people would be able to contribute flashcards just like they do articles. Then the makers of the flashcard programs could write their programs to use the WikiQuiz format. The WikiQuiz site could even offer to quiz you on a subject and help you to keep track of how well you are doing an a topic.

Just a thought. Unfortunately this is about all the time I have £ contribute to the project. I just wanted to put a big in someone's ear.

Ideas like this for new projects should be posted to m:Proposals for new projects at Meta. Thryduulf 08:57, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Requesting a map

I do not know whether we have a request process here, but I am hoping to find, beg or borrow a version of this file, Image:BlankMap-World.png which also has federal territory and state borders marked out, in Australia, Canada and the US. If anyone can help, please let me know. Thanks, Haiduc 17:24, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

categories with uncertain distinction

Category:Geometrical figures vs Category:Shapes - could you help to figure out what's the difference. --W!B: 06:56, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there's any difference... I think they should be merged together, and the empty one deleted. pfctdayelise 23:59, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Articles?

Article on commons?--5-5-5 01:55, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Weird. I nominated it for deletion. See discussion: Template:Deletion_requests#Democritus. pfctdayelise 03:38, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Adding Pictures

I am trying to add a picture, but nothing happens when I click Upload File. What should I do? — Preceding unsigned comment added by User:TheComedian (talk • contribs) 15:16, December 15, 2005 (UTC)

It looks like you have figured it out now, as you uploaded Image:Jon_Stewart_at_College.jpg. Are you still having problems?

Also, you will have to provide license/copyright information for all images you upload, otherwise they will be deleted. Just providing the website address of the image is not good enough. Please read over Commons:Licensing. --pfctdayelise 10:45, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Search system - free of the troubles of categorization

I am sure I cannot be the first to suggest this, but I really wish this system would use the text and categories of the wiki pages that link to the images to categorize the images/media. Using dictionaries of the languages would also help. Maybe wiktionary can be put to some really good use as well. Shyamal 13:23, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Try CommonSense - it's a Tool that categorizes images based on their use, and optionally bease on the description. I don't know if this will ever be tightly integrated, this type of search would cause a lot of server load if it went mainstream. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 16:52, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Category:Deletion requests

I just realized that there are six identical categories for deletion requests each for another language. This seems to be senseless to me. The difference is only in the used page description. But this could also be done in a single page. In the future there would be a hundred or even more categories. Shouldn't they be unified into a single page and the others been deleted? (huh, a deletion request for the category deletion requests ;-) --::Slomox:: >< 15:49, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I changed the template to make non-English categories invisible. Thuresson 20:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I belive we should get rid of the redundant categories. It's sad that we don't have redirects for categories (or, even better, real internationalizatuion for templates and categories), but maintaining redundant cats for every language seems silly. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 23:17, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Duesentrieb. It should suffice to add non-English descriptions to Category:Deletion requests, using the new fancy language templates. The current system doesn't scale to many languages. (The same issue shows up with the speedy deletion templates Template:Delete and Template:Db.) User:dbenbenn 01:17, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I went ahead and merged the descriptions from the various translations of Category:Deletion requests. But I don't see how to deal with the menu boxes at the right side. User:dbenbenn 01:37, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism from User:Gegge

This User is overwriting some Pictures at 11:54, I reverted them. I think, User should be blocked for a while for cooling down. --Wmeinhart 11:52, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Blocked for a week, all uploads deleted. (Only blocked for a week since this doesn't appear to be the PS/AP vandal.) User:dbenbenn 18:02, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Plural form of en: words obligatory?

is it true, plural form of en: words is obligatory for categories in Commons? nothing here, in Help:Starting a new page - no information, and meta:Help:Page name only gives technical info. if so, is plural form obligatory for articles?

• would it be a technical problem to have equally named articles in commons and w:en: --W!B: 22:40, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

plural is the convention for categories, like on en, with a few exceptions. As to equal names: commons is (kind of) multilingual, and also has different needs than wikipedia. In many cases, the names should be (and are) the same, but not always. Especially, articles about countries, cities, etc, are conventionally kept under teir "native" name, with a redirect from the english name. Categories should always be english, though, because sadly, redirects don't really work for categories. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 23:15, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

danke!

Vandalism from User:Granadin?

Hi! When this user is on a image with text in Catalan on the description page, or with a category in local endonym, he clear all of it and moves all the images again and again into spanishized names. Could be this action considered as vandalism?. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 11:10, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I've tried to talk him about the multilingualism and about the recommendation of using local endonym for places, according to Commons:Language policy, but he doesn't attend to reasons, he seems loathing Catalan language, and he wants do make edition wars. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 11:21, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Please, block him, he's making persistent war editions now. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 11:35, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism from User:Martorell

I assure them that I'm not no vandal. Simply Martorrell has an opinion and different I, but it isn't my intention vandalizer here. Absolutely everything what Martorell has said is false. He wants to call to the names in his dialect, and I want to put them in Spanish, because it is more correct, more international and more spoken (in the Balearic Islands, and in the rest of Spain). It is really very unjust what he says of me, since he is absent to the truth. Granadin 12:31, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Calling Catalan as a some kind of dialect is an exemple that you're loathing linguistic diversity. If Catalan can't be used for some Spanish places located in the Catalan-speaking area, Catalan couldn't be used anymore and anywhere, but it's supposed that Commons is a multilingual project. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 18:02, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

As an outsider to this dispute, would it not be possible to include both languages? We have templates to highlight for the different languages - e.g. {{Es}} and {{Ca}}. Thryduulf 20:08, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Of course. But the problem is other, any description text in Catalan is being deleted by this user, altough there is a description in Spanish already. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 20:18, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Improving the Main Page.

Hi.

I've been experimenting with a redesign of the main page.

In my opinion, we could improve the Main Page so that:

• The casual user has a better browsing experience, and to make it more easy to find content. - I think that browsing content starting in the main page could be easier.
• Reducing text in the main page to improve design and usability for the new user. - Moving text of interest to the intermediate user to other pages, and create links to it from the main page.

The Main Page is protected and I didn't found a wiki page dedicated to a "development" version.

Can I create Main page/Draft so that we can experiment improvements in the main page ?

Best regards

Osvaldo — Preceding unsigned comment added by User:OsvaldoGago (talk • contribs) 06:23, December 19, 2005 (UTC)

Sure. Be bold. User:dbenbenn 00:50, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Done. Main page/Draft I'm still developing it, but everyone is invited to contribute. See Talk page please. --OsvaldoGago 02:05, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't see that many differences between the current page and your draft. I think the main page should be more eye-catching with, for example, small featured pictures for every category. Just my $0.02. Husky 12:27, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Please continue this thread in Talk:Main page/Draft. New ideias about Wikimedia Commons can be posted there too .--OsvaldoGago 16:01, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Tools and services

Please note the creation of Commons:Tools to start a central collection of tools and services regarding wikimedia commons stuff. Hopefully every tool will get an info page and the possibility to discuss and contact the author. (Check-Usage will be updated soon to a very performant solution by User:Duesentrieb working directly on the live database). --Avatar 16:55, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

How to delete an image

I inadvertently created a duplicate of an image: Image:Gauss.jpg is a duplicate of Image:Carl Friedrich Gauss.jpg. I've looked around on the help pages, but can't figure out how to delete it. Can anyone help? Thanks!--Bcrowell 17:12, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Done. In the future you can just write {{db|duplicate of OTHER IMAGE}} on the image description page. User:dbenbenn 17:30, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks!--Bcrowell 18:33, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Could someone please check ?

Special:Contributions/Casainho@gmail.com looks like this user uploaded copyrighted images and music. I can't read portugese, maybe the band releases the music as PD or GFDL (sounds strange) but the images may be copyvios --Denniss 02:09, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

It looks like a copyright violation due to a misinterpretation of the portuguese law. Please check pt:Supernada and the following links. I didn't found anything that proves that the band as lauched this musics under a compatible licence. The band hasn't recorded any cd, but that doesn't mean it wants to release their work under a free licence or under public domain. In my opinion the songs should be deleted, because they may not be under public domain, as stated.

• Manel Cruz
• Devian Art (fan) page?

--OsvaldoGago 23:12, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

from Template talk:Lang-mp

Estonian

Could someone please add Estonian Mainpage: Esileht, Language name: Eesti

--WikedKentaur 18:47, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Any administrators out here? --WikedKentaur 09:31, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Faroese

Could someone please add the Faroese Main Page: Savn, Language name: Føroyskt. That is: <span lang="fo">[[Savn|Føroyskt]]</span> | Quackor 11:46, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Aragonés

There is a mistake in the page Template:Lang-mp, Internatinal code for aragonés is AN, but not AST, please will change it.

Done. User:dbenbenn 17:19, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

• Thaks you, of my part (Aragonese Wikipedia). es:Gracias de mi parte (Wikipedia en aragonés) y supongo que de la wikipedia en Eesti y en Faorés también). --C.H.V. (Z.E.B.) (O mío Buzón de Correus) 17:41, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

What is with the variable {{NUMBEROFFILES}}?

We use it on the main Page, but it's empty.Kolossos 10:10, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Bug reported, see bugzilla:4324. User:dbenbenn 17:37, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Template:Crystal 128

Could someone please verify the conformity of this template? Images/Icons are from http://www.eldorado.com and are copyrighted strictly for personal use only. --Denniss 20:39, 21 December 2005 (UTC) ps. it's http://www.everaldo.com/ not eldorado. Dake 15:53, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I found this link, perhaps it helps: [5]Longbow4u 14:59, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Longbow, have seen your msg on my page on :fr, I'm not the author of these icons. I actually set the LGPL license according to what I had seen on kde-look. As the author seemed to have himself put his icons on kde-look ("posted by Everaldo"), I assumed that the LGPL was ok. But on http://www.everaldo.com/, I agree, there is no mention of LGPL. What does apply here ? I tried to mail the author but never got an answer. :( Dake 15:51, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Please see this page : [6] - the Crystal icons are also mentionned as LGPL there. I guess they are considered as LGPL since their upload on kde-look by the author is under this licence. Dake 15:56, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Other links : [7] : The Crystal SVG icon set is from the KDE packages. They are licensed under the LGPL with an additional section that defines "source code" in the context of graphics. For more information, see http://artist.kde.org/new/license.html Dake 15:59, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

About fan arts from manga and anime

Hi, sorry about my english. I have a question about about the use of manga and anime fanart images. I can publish a fan art image if I say that I'm not the author of the character? --Kerosene 13:12, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

That's a tricky question, but generally, the answer is no. Usually, the artist or publishing house reserves all rights to the character design - under what conditions and license you can publish fan art ist up to them, so best ask if they allow you to publish those pictures under a free license (tell them very clearly what that means, though - especially that commercial use must be allowed).

Fan art can probably be considered fair use (in most juristdictions), so publishing it is generally legal, at least if not used commercially. That is, however, not compliant with commons policy - all images have to be under a "full featured" free license. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 13:28, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

In the Café in Spanish we were discussing about images such as Image:Naruto.jpg, which seems to be fan art about a protecxted character. One user asked how he could ilustrate articles about manga and anime in Wikipedia in Spanish, where US fair use of copyrighted images is not allowed. We're using photographs of dolls and action figures about some characters. Any other ideas? --user:Erri4a [[talk:user:erri4a]] es:discusión usuario:erri4a 23:14, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Alas, even the dolls and action figures are copyrighted. A common misconception is that once something is three-dimensional, copyright no longer applies -- this is of course not true. It's sad but true: the character designs are copyrighted (and for cartoons, probably trademarked, too), and no matter in which form you represent them, you're creating a derivative work. The only possible exception I can see is if the copyrighted artwork is not the center of the image -- such as a man in a Mickey Mouse costume hugging a child in Disneyworld. But then, it is probably not very illustrative of the subject in the first place. Maybe you'll find a medieval image that has some semblance to your character. ;-)

However, Spanish copyright law almost certainly has "fair use" like provisions for scientific / educational materials. The best approach is for each Wikipedia to define its own exceptions for logos, copyrighted characters, etc. These files don't belong here on Commons, though.--Eloquence 00:51, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

How can I add a subcategory?

I like to add the subcategory Friesack under the category Brandenburg but if I create the red link Friesack then I get directed to the an article page called Friesack and not the category page called Friesack. What could be wrong? --Olivhill 14:13, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Use Category:Friesack. Marry Christmas -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 14:34, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh, well, thanks --Olivhill 21:10, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Uploadtext in other languages

Hi there!

My first post on this village pump!

I am French, and I am surprised the MediaWiki:Uploadtext is not translated in other languages than English. I think a lot of French people don't know English much, so it would be great to have a translation, linked in the page. I translated it in French here. GôTô 10:19, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

It is translated, see MediaWiki:Uploadtext/fr. Just set the interface language in your preferences to french - then you should see it. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 12:48, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Arf :/ Never knew we can set the language in preferences :S Thx GôTô 13:02, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Maybe that should be advertised better because most people wouldn't ask or know. Bawolff 03:42, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, this needs to be implemented better. I see lots of images from Spanish and Italian speakers that are either lack source or a license tag. I can only conclude that the information about license and source is insufficent in those languages. / Fred Chess 03:47, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

mp3 audio policy?

Is there a policy against uploading mp3 audio files because of the mp3 patents? I know that ogg is preferred but I'm asking is mp3 is forbidden. I've made some recordings using a machine that records directly into mp3 format, i.e. there's no "original" that's been converted to mp3; the mp3 IS the original. They can't be converted to ogg without a loss of quality. Since Commons is hopefully a long term archive and the mp3 patents will presumably expire sometime, uploading the originals seems preferable despite the temporary patent problem. Phr 21:59, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Phr, we have to upload using OGG files anyways. What you could do it try to email the MP3 files to me and I can have them converted into OGG. Just tell me what bitrate and project rate the MP3 recordings are and I can match that as best as I possibly can. Zach ^{(Smack Back)} 22:17, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I see the discussion Duesentrieb cited and it was informative. You guys are missing the point though, the issue isn't about mp3's popularity but rather that I see some value in hosting the highest quality version of the file. Converting mp3 to ogg will necessarily lose quality. Of course there should be an converted ogg version made available, but what to do with the original that it came from? I see from the patents page linked from en:MP3 that the first batch of MP3 patents expire in 2007, which is pretty soon. Is it too early to start "parking" mp3 files? Phr 11:28, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

See Commons talk:File types#No MP3 is hurting us for some discussion of this -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 22:31, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I also criticizing the ogg versus mp3 decision. Take a look at google-fight and you see ogg:mp3 = 9.250.00:202.000.000 so ogg has only 5% usage of mp3. Perhaps, we should to think over our policy. It's not forbitten to host mp3. Perhaps we should additional converting the uploading ogg-Files automatical in mp3. Whould this be a problem for the policy? Thats the only way to hear easily our audio-files in car or at jogging.Kolossos 22:50, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I still think we should have OGG files, since that is what Jimbo asked us to use. There are free programs to convert MP3's into OGG's, and vice verse. And, you can listen to the OGG files on the computer too using WinAMP. Zach ^{(Smack Back)} 23:03, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Converting MP3 to Ogg is a lossy process. Much of the original quality of the recording can be lost in this process, depending on the recording. The answer "Just convert the mp3 to ogg" is not a valid point if you are attempting to maintain the highest quality recording. -- Christopher Schmidt

Strange contributions

I wonder if these contributions should stay here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Nsmith Anna 02:46, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Looks very, very professionally done, so I will take this with a grain of salt. I am going to sit on this one before we do anything about it, but I think the pages where the photos are hosted at should be deleted, IMHO. Zach ^{(Smack Back)} 03:25, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Wow! Too bad the resolution is only so-so, and there's no EXIF data. I went ahead and categorized all the pictures; I agree with Zach that the page Bianca is probably not necessary. (Though the uploader could certainly put it in his or her user space.) User:dbenbenn 03:57, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

(It's now at User:Nsmith/Bianca. User:dbenbenn 17:25, 25 December 2005 (UTC))

We should assume good faith regarding the origin of the photos, but at the moment, I'm not sure about their potential usefulness for Wikimedia. (In case you haven't noticed, they're photos of a nude and semi-nude voluptuous young woman in the snow.) We should, of course, have illustrations and photos documenting human sexuality and anatomy, but as in any other category, there's no need to have hundreds of photos showing essentially the same thing. In this particular category, allowing them to remain risks turning Commons into an amateur porn site. She is quite cute, though. :-)--Eloquence 04:15, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

My main concern is while the lady is posing for the camera, she might not have let the cameraman post them on the Internet. Though, if we have a value for Wikipedia, we can crop the photo to show her nipple piercings. Zach ^{(Smack Back)} 05:09, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Eloquence that "there's no need to have hundreds of photos showing essentially the same thing". At the moment, though, we have 12 photos of one subject, and 13 of another. Given that the technical quality of the photos is quite good, I don't think that's excessive. Zach, perhaps someone should ask Nsmith if Bianca gave her permission. User:dbenbenn 17:25, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

We defenetly should have images like that because they serve as a good exmple of nude and semi-nude model shots of which there are almost no images which are free. Those particular images might be copyvios, although the uploaded could be their author and simply gave that erotic site permission to use them this edit certantly doesn't reinforce that possibility. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 13:22, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I think this is likely to be the same person as en:User:Nsmith24, who is currently blocked from en.wp for disruption related to the en:Latex and en:Bianca Beauchamp pages, as well as image copyright issues. Thryduulf 15:22, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh crap. The woman in those photos is obviously Bianca Beauchamp. The photo at [8] is a lower-resolution mirror image of Image:Blue13.jpg. I guess at this point we can no longer assume good faith; I suggest we should delete the photos until the uploader can prove his claim that he's the photographer. User:dbenbenn 16:55, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Dbenbeen, I agree, we should delete the photos. I know that the second set of bikini images are copyvios, but not sure of the first set. Zach ^{(Smack Back)} 09:53, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Deleted. User:dbenbenn 16:57, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Dee

The same is the case with the photos on Dee. The model on the pictures is Francine Dee of [9], and I doubt very much that these pictures are PD. For the record, images of her have been uploaded to Wiktionary earlier too, to…describe…the entry hot tub… Jon Harald Søby 17:04, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

How to use this is still not known.

Multi-Language version is needed...

I am korean wikipedian. In korea wiki, image license is "same" exactly. kowiki=commons

so, kowiki admin says, "upload to commons, not kowiki..." and he delete kowiki image.

but...wikipedia is not only for english user. commons image describe is only english...how korean elementary school user can use commons?

so, I suggest.

someone who can understand english translate to mother language, and add it's below. commons is not only for english users.

how about? my idea?

temaplate also must be multi-language.

example :

This file has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. This applies worldwide.

Korean version ? ??? ??? ??????. ???? ??? ????? ?????, ??? ????? ????, ???? ???? ?? ??????. ??? ?????? ?????.

-- WonYong 10:18, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

The idea is not bad, but doing this for 50 or so languages would make description pages completely unusable. What we really need is internationalization for templates (and maybe even description pages), that works like it does not for system messages: {{GFDL}} would be the (english) "base" version, {{GFDL/de}} would be the german version, etc - users would see the template version for the language they selected for the interface.

Sadly, this does not work with the current way pages are cached. It would also mean much more load for the servers. But I hope we'll get a solution similar to this in the future. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 11:57, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

We could start using {{En}}, {{Ko}}, etc in template messages. I wouldn't mind that, since I have a customized CSS file; though I guess it would be annoying to others. User:dbenbenn 17:29, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

When Ultimate Wiktionary is functioning, one of the next projects will be to bring translations to Commons. I have written about it and, there is funding to be found for exactly this. Thanks, GerardM 17:36, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Templates should always be in english, that's what most people (should) understand. You have your local image description page to use for local license templates and description if needed. Maybe in the future there's an option to display templates in the language selected for the user interface or via a special language selector . --Denniss 01:40, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

For the moment it would be possible to add a link in the template pointing to a larger page, where the same text as in the english template could be written in several other languages. So it wouldn't need much place in the template, but information is accessible. The only question is: what language(s) should the link text have? --::Slomox:: >< 12:08, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Template:Redundant and Template:Redundant/Translations could be a good example. The text for link text? How about ISO code ("de | fr | ja | ko") or a language bar (" Deutsch | Français | ??? | ???") ? -- ChongDae 03:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

The Creative Commons way [10] could be a guide for multilingual copyright tags. It displays the copyright tag based on the browser's preference. And other language versions are still accessible. -- ChongDae 02:57, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Is this Commons material?

I was looking for pics when encountering a full article: Mary_Ellen_Burke. However, it looks more like a genealogy story than an encyclopedic article. Can I write a story with photographs of my grandpa as well?

I fail to see the point of this kind of article. The author, User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), has made a lot of pages like that, as part of the "upcoming Wikipeople project". Is such a project really in the works? User:dbenbenn 18:19, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

On this other wiki site one can read that Mary_Ellen_Burke is the daughter of a William_Burke: http://jnana.wikinerds.org/index.php/William_Burke. William Burke is listed as an (http://tiny url.com/aumr4) ancestor] of User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ). So they are related. He is placing his own relatives on wikipedia.

This user has been at this for a while on Commons and on en:WP, practically turning them into his own personal geneology site. He has been repeatedly warned about uploading images without source information and dubious licensing and was rejected in a request for adminship. I have brought him up before but without raising much interest. --Tysto 00:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Is my impression correct that Mr. Norton is using up rather a lot of database space? MartinD 12:15, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

This is just bad, bad, bad, and counter to WP fundraising messaging. 24.17.48.241 16:25, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I have removed Mary Ellen Burke and said why on its Talk Page - Arpingstone 17:59, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Here is Mr Norton's reply to my removal (not deletion) of his material on Mary Ellen Burke. Is he right?:

I appreciate your concern for Wikipedia, but please do not delete information that you do not understand. Your expertise seems to lie in Wikipedia and not Wikicommons. The opening page for Wikicommons reads:

The Wikimedia Commons is a project that provides a central repository for free photographs, diagrams, animations, music, spoken text, video clips, and media of all sorts, used in pages of any Wikimedia project. (emphasis added)

Criteria for inclusion:

Material would be eligible for inclusion in the Commons if it is useful to at least one Wikimedia project. This includes plausible future usefulness. (emphasis added)

The information you deleted is for the upcoming Wikipeople project. Please try and read more about Wikicommons before you undo other people's work. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 18:59, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Arpingstone 22:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Except the Wikipeople project doesn't yet exist. He's actually creating articles for inclusion. He's neglecting to mention that we don't include entire articles here, nor generalized data. Media is all we have here. Galleries are for inclusion of specific images, but not entire articles on people who are not worth noting on the Wikipedia projects. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 23:16, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and the intent for Commons is to share material with multiple projects. He can clearly upload these items to the WikiPeople project when it occurs. Otherwise, no dice. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 23:20, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

One more time

"The Wikimedia Commons is a project that provides a central repository for free photographs, diagrams, animations, music, spoken text, video clips, and media of all sorts, used in pages of any Wikimedia project. (my emphasis added)

"Material would be eligible for inclusion in the Commons if it is useful to at least one Wikimedia project. This includes plausible future usefulness." (my emphasis added)

What part am I misinterpreting? Wikipeople is a proposed project, as are dozens of others waiting for approval from the Wikimedia Foundation. The approval process has taken years for both Wikicommons and for Wikisource. I am not aware of any rule that states that Wikicommons is for Wikipedia use only. Is the argument that the text is not allowed, because it is not a valid Wikicommons medium? I am looking forward to your answer. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 00:41, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Even one more time

"The Wikimedia Commons is a project that provides a central repository for free photographs, diagrams, animations, music, spoken text, video clips, and media of all sorts, used in pages of any Wikimedia project. (my emphasis added) "Material would be eligible for inclusion in the Commons if it is useful to at least one Wikimedia project. This includes plausible future usefulness." (my emphasis added) I guess I need a lawyer to explain the wording for me. Is your argument that Wikipeople is not plausable or that the images would not be useful to that project?

If you do want to change the mission statement, contact the Wikimedia Foundation first. The mission statement is the contract for which people donate money to the foundation, and any rewording will affect that contract. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 02:13, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

for short:

• media - this means multimedia files, which can be uploaded.

If this is correct change the word "media" to the "non-text based media" where it is used. A newspaper is a medium even though it is text based. The text here provides contextual information on the images.

• central repository - this means we collect things that can be included and used directly from another wiki - which works with uploadable files, but not with text.
• Wikimeadia project - this means an existing project.
• future usefulness - this does not imply that we have to keep everything, just because it could be useful to someone, somewhere, somtimes, maybe. It surely does not mean "I proposed project X, so I can upload everything related to X".

I did not propose Wikipeople, and as far as I can tell, its has not been ruled out.

It's quite OK to make pages on commons about any topic that is relevant by the guidelines of any existing wikimedia projects. It's also OK to upload images and other media files for those topics (provided all licensing questions are taken care of). It is however not the purpose of the commons to collect and maintain additional (textual) information about those subjects, if not directly related to the images. If you want to prepare data for a not-yet existing project, go to wikicities, install mediawiki locally on your box, or put your own wiki up on some webspace somewhere. This is the wrong place, for the same reasone wikipedia is the wrong place. If it was the right place, WikiPeople would be pointles, right?

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of notable people, and an almanac. There was a time when all almanac listings were deleted. Its called project creep.

-- Duesentrieb^(?!) 01:13, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Text as media

Removing text associated with an image serves no purpose. It would be like stripping the text from the back of each image in a photo archive. What good does an image serve without the text to put it in its time and place? Are we starved for storage space, or is text considered inferior. Since and image is worth 1,000 words, can I deletes an image so I can keep 1,000 words?

A description of the image, what it shows, where and when it was taken and by whome, is more than welcome - in fact, such information is required. Extensive information about the image's subject, on the image description page or on a gallery page, is a different issue - it is not the purpose of the commons to compile and maintain such information. That should be done on the respective projects that use those images. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 14:34, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Please direct me to a written rule somewhere so I can read the rule directly. The rules should be no different from a paper archive of images. Text on the back of the image and text on the folder containing multiple images. So instead of debating back and forth, let's both examine the written rule. Everyone has a different vision of how this collection should be handled, so lets stick to what's written in the rulebook. OK?

--Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 21:55, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

As usual, I agree with Duesentrieb: we shouldn't be hosting biographies of people here. The Commons is about media, not text articles. I disagree with what Bastique wrote, "the intent for Commons is to share material with multiple projects. He can clearly upload these items to the WikiPeople project when it occurs. Otherwise, no dice." No. The purpose of the Commons is to host media files that are useful to any Wikimedia project, even just one project. A photo such as Image:Burke-Mary 01.jpg should be here on the Commons if and only if it will eventually be used by some Wikimedia project. User:dbenbenn 22:07, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Where is this alleged WikiPeople project documented/proposed?

It seems in direct violation of the stated Foundation aims in their fundraising messaging. 165.121.27.249 02:03, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Criteria for inclusion?

Commons:Criteria for inclusion states: 'All files uploaded must be free of use in any jurisdiction and No restrictions on the use of the file should apply. For example, all files uploaded on Commons must allow commercial use. Should this be modified for coats of arms such as those mentioned in Template:insignia-Sweden?

My problem is I saw Image:Arvidsjaur City Arms.jpg (and others), and then saw the parent category's template which read This image shows a registered coat of arms from Sweden. Even if the design is free to use (per the license), it is not permitted to use as part of marketing of commercial products without permission of the municipality, according to Law SFS 1970:498 and 1976:100..

Is this pointing out the difference between its use in a commercial product (which should be free), and its use as a logo to advertise a product (which would break the Swedish law)? I see Norwegian coats of arms has something similar, but there is no dire non-commercial warning there. So, are Swedish registered coats of arms Ok or not? By the way that particular coat of arms may be of 1945 origin so may still be under copyright too. -Wikibob 19:21, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

LOL

Something is wrong with this image.--5-5-5 22:59, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Indeed - it looks like something went very badly wrong with dithering! Thryduulf 09:45, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Semi-protection

The English Wikipedia now has "semi-protection", a feature wherein a page can be protected from unregistered and new users, but still allow most people to edit. The Commons doesn't yet have this feature; does anyone know why not? I suggest the Main Page and other pages should be semi-protected. User:dbenbenn 23:29, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it would be very useful for the commons. There are no high profile articles here to be protected. Opening up the mainpage vto normal users could be done using templates, like most projects handle it. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 00:31, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, the software feature is already there, and the Main Page is currently protected. Another page where I think it would be helpful is Commons:Community portal, which gets a tremendous amount of link spam from anons. Semi-protecting that page would solve the problem quite nicely. User:dbenbenn 21:02, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Brion thinks turning it on globally could be controversial and won't do so unless there is clear community approval for it. Alternatively to a global decision, each project has to point to some kind of policy and decision, and ask Brion to turn it on for a specific project only. Personally, I think it should be turned on globally; I'd suggest creating a discussion and vote at m:Semi-protection or similar.--Eloquence 07:04, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't see what would be controversial about enabling the feature. Just like any other software feature, it's up to us whether we choose to use it or not. I think it would be nice to give it a try on a couple pages. It's probably not worth "drafting a semi-protection policy", as m:Semi-protection says. Here on the Commons, we're a little bit looser about policy than that! User:dbenbenn 22:26, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

It's a feature yes but how will it help us? Our real problems are located in images without usefulness/license and it's no solution to semiprotect them. I think it's a no-effect feature on Commons. --Saperaud 00:11, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Well of course semi-protection isn't a universal cure for problems like untagged images. But semi-protection should remain disabled only if we decide we will never ever want to semi-protect any page at all. And that's not the case. As I wrote above, it would be nice to make Main Page and Commons:Community Portal semi-protected (reducing the protection of the Main Page, and increasing it for the Portal.) User:dbenbenn 01:03, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Another page where semi-protection would be useful is Image:String Bikini (Jassi) Rear.jpg. It's fully-protected, and has been for months, merely to avoid vandalism from IP addresses. Making it semi-protected would be much better. User:dbenbenn 00:27, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

A little bit of help

Could anyone check this Image:Udmurtia Coat of Arms.jpg? The user claims is free but I think it comes from here: en:Image:UdmurtiaCoatofArms.jpg where is licensed fair use. Thanks. Anna 00:51, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, this user quite often uploads images with questionable licenses or sources and he nearly always "forgets" to add these to proper cats/articles. --Denniss 02:14, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Please keep an eye on User:Walden69. He does not seem to understand the requirements of the commons. I have tried to explain to him repeatedly, and he always seemed cooperative, but did not add the info required - I even blocked him for a while because of this. Maybe it's just a language problem, he does not understand english too well. But several people have explained to him in spanish, too...

His most recent uploads now at least have good license and source info, but he's still not categorizing, and keeps uploading fair use stuff. I don't really know what to do... -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 09:09, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I am watching this user and explaining him everything in spanish, he doesn't seem to understand Commons policy though not even in his own language. His lattest contribution is Image:Ben Nighthorse Campbell.jpg licensed as PD with an odd origin copy/pasted from en:wiki image. I deleted this image some nights ago, as it isn't free according to http://bioguide.congress.gov/copyright.htm Also he keeps on uploading russian flags stating they're free, images like this one Image:Ishi.jpg from http://www.provincia.venezia.it/levi/ma/ (a copyrighted page with all the material protected), yet he licensed it PD-old. Lots of tribal american flags from pages without a clear copyright status, old photos of indians tribes which come from a copyrighted page university or, like this one Image:Whitecloud.jpg from http://www.nga.gov/kids/catlin/catlin2a.htm which states: Copyright © 2005 National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Privacy Policy
The contents of this site, including all images and text, are for personal, educational, non-commercial use only.
The contents of this site may not be reproduced in any form without the permission of the National Gallery of Art.

I have deleted some images and cleared them from the catalonian wikipedia where he links all his uploads but still plenty of his contributions to check and delete. I would suggest another blockage as it seems impossible to make him understand and stop uploading illegal material. Do you agree? Anna 01:00, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I think Image:Whitecloud.jpg is indeed public domain, since it was painted in 1844/1845, hence the author is most likely dead for more than 70 years and the image is PD. This is true regardless what the copyright notice of the website says. See en:Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. -- Chris 73 03:04, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Linking 101 requested

Okay, I'll admit it - I'm a newbie (what else?). I just uploaded a photo, but can't figure out how to link it to other content. I have read a bunch of text help content on this issue, but I don't get the process. I can't even find how to physically begin the process, let alone insert a link. (Is it me, or the syntax a little arcane? It's probably me.)

Thanks for the help!

-Jim

Hello

Please sign your post using ~~~~, for it helps finding your work. For example you uploaded Image:Angel Falls.jpg which seems to be fine. To which content do you want to link this image? --Teofilo 09:23, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

(You know the link syntax is only for sister wikimedia projects, right?) Edit the page you want to insert the link. Where you want the link to appear, type

[[Image:FILENAME.jpg]] 

You can add various parameters such as left|right (float to the left or right), frame|thumb (make the picture a thumbnail - this is usually a good idea; or just give it a frame - note that thumbnails already have frames) and you can also add captions (usually a good idea, too). So you could have

[[Image:FILENAME.jpg|right|thumb|This is a caption. Blah blah blah blah.]] 

The caption always goes last. HTH. pfctdayelise 10:26, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Pictures of Thai tv program

Goodday I am Waerth a wikipedian on the nl.wikipedia. I have a question. Apart from contributing to the wikimedia projects I am a comedian here in Thailand IRL (see here). While filming the episodes for the Chuan chun cafe shows between christmas and new years I took pictures of many of my fellow comedians and some other Thai tv stars. I have gotten permission by all of them to put them on the internet (which was easy to get as all of them hope to become famous outside of Thailand) and also the permission of the shows producer / director of the production company / co-host Jimmy to place the pictures on the internet. I am going to upload them somewhere in the coming week. I have one problem though. I do not know the correct names of many of the stars as I know them by their nickname. So I am going to ask Thai wikipedians to help me provide with this information. I hope the Commons community will give me the time to sort out the right pictures without starting to delete things because they do not know Thai stars nor will they find anything in English on them! (I hope to change that btw) Waerth 20:32, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

A question on German WW2 pictures

Is this paragraph in German law, 72 § 3 mom Urhebergesetz, applicable for the copyright of photos, what Commons regards?

Das Recht nach Absatz 1 erlischt fünfzig Jahre nach dem Erscheinen des Lichtbildes oder, wenn seine erste erlaubte 
öffentliche Wiedergabe früher erfolgt ist, nach dieser, jedoch bereits fünfzig Jahre nach der Herstellung, wenn das 
Lichtbild innerhalb dieser Frist nicht erschienen oder erlaubterweise öffentlich wiedergegeben worden ist. Die Frist 
ist nach § 69 zu berechnen.

The essence is, as it has been translated to me, that picures that are of less artistic value has a shorter time of copyright - 50 years after the image was published, rather than 70 years after the death of the photographer. If it is, then lots of photos taken by German photographers taken during the second world war is, by now, in the public domain since the copyright has expired. / Habj 00:18, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

NO, it is NOT applicable. Feel free to read in German the lengthy summary of the laws in Germany, Austria and Switzerland at http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichtbildwerk . If you are unable to understand German you should not quote German laws. Most interesting stuff for us is protected 70 years pma as Lichtbildwerk. If one nevertheless agrees that a historical picture is only a simple Lichtbild he has to do a very complicated and difficult examination regarding the question if the picture has been protected still 1985-1995 as a Dokument der Zeitgeschichte --Historiograf 20:54, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. It is not me who is quoting it really, we have a user who studied some law and who says it is applicable. Historiograf has answered a similar question at dewiki previously, in the same matter. Voices from more people would be greatly appreciated, since Historiograf after all is only one person and we don't know who he is. Otherwise, I guess the best way for us to have it settled would be to upload a couple of images here and see what happens to them. / --Habj 10:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

What links here

When pictures are put on gallery pages, one still gets "No pages link to here."  Is it a bug, or a feature?  It would be very useful to know where an image is used. — Monedula 09:44, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

You probably forgot to clear your cache, so didn't download a new version of the image page. Example image? User:dbenbenn 22:16, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

It seems that no image has links to it. Although there may be links in the "Links" section on the image page, still pressing "what links here" shows nothing. — Monedula 09:14, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

It is a bug. Go and vote on bugzilla:360. / Fred Chess 09:46, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

On every image page you have a section caled "Links" and the following text "The following pages link to this file:", then a list of pages will come up. It is very useful to know where an image is used. --OsvaldoGago 10:27, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Convert video files to Theora format under Linux

Hi! I'm trying to prepare some videos to upload to Commons. There are taken with digital photo cameras and are in avi format. I have two different cameras one with sound, one not. I've tryed ffmpeg2theora. I simply put

$ ffmpeg2theora file.avi

and it generates an file.avi.ogg with the video in theora format.

But when video has sound there is not syncronization between image and sound (image runs slowly). ¿Anyone here has experience in convert videos to theora? Thanks, --Colegota 21:56, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I could convert the video for you. -- Sam916 04:06, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, but I really prefer learn how to do it. Because I have a lot of videos to convert/upload. --Colegota 18:17, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Have you looked at the examples on the ffmpeg2theora website? -- Sam916 18:38, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, of course. And I've passed several days making work google servers, installing applications in my computers and asking people in newsgroups.

But I can't find how to convert a video from my digital camera avi's files into theora format without the sync problem described above. If you know how to do it, please let me know. Regards, --Colegota 00:55, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I belive VLC can do that, too... though the command line options to use are a bit arcane -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 19:18, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I've tested VLC, Avidemux and a bunch of programs for Linux, but my problem is that all programs are at this moment only comprehensive for people used to edit and convert video files. But if someone can write me detailed explanations of the commands I need, I have no problem to test it. --Colegota 00:41, 8 January 2006 (UTC) PD After read again VLC doc I think it's capable to play Theora but not to convert.

wikinews crossword

Hi, I am working on a crossword, for en wikinews, I have worked on a program, do the crossword , but in puts put the file in JPEG, is JPEG file format ok for me to use for the wikicrossword (the crossword will be uploaded on commons) thanks Brian New Zealand 22:07, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

w:PNG is probably better for a crossword. (w:SVG would be the best, if you're willing to learn how to do it.) User:dbenbenn 22:21, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Cool, does this mean we're getting our cross-word back. It hasn't been updated in a long time.(sept. 5). Bawolff 03:55, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

That page at Wikinews shows that the very best format for a crossword puzzle is probably a table, with no images at all. User:dbenbenn 21:46, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Watermarks

This is an idea I just thought of in my head thats probally been thought of before and not a good idea for some reason. Images that are about to be deleted should have some sort of watermark transposed on them saying something like: This picture is about to be deleted at commons. If you find it useful, please have your say at commons.... This way people at individual projects would know about the deletions, and there'd be less work for people to track them down throughout the various wikis. Just a thought. Note I previously posted this somewhere else in commons, when it should of been here, And I should know where to post things by now.(sorry) Bawolff 03:51, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm....well...that could be a problem since I think a majority of the projects that will be affected are the minor languages and I have no clue how often those are updated. And, the watermark will have to be in more than one language. Plus a watermark detracts from the image quality and probably a lot more effort for little to no results. Don't blame yourself, the idea is good, but I think the deletion tag that can be visbible like the Template:This file is from the Wikimedia Commons could be out best bet. Zach ^{(Smack Back)} 04:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

There is relatively little controversy about deletions at commons. Most cases are where it is very clear - usually a copyright violation (copyvio). In cases like these, it doesn't matter what else the wikipedia users have to say, a copyvio is a copyvio and must be deleted. The onus is on commons admins to check where the image is being used. I don't think it would be that helpful in the end. But an interesting idea, nontheless. pfctdayelise 06:23, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

There is some advantage to the certainty of summary deletion when the source or license info is unsatisfactory; bad images aren't around long enough to get used by projects, plus uploaders and image users get the message that the two rules have to be taken seriously. Stan Shebs 12:58, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I meant to say that a new version of the image would be uploaded over it with the water mark. the origional version will always be there. Even if the watermark isn't text, People would still look at the image, wonder what happened to it, go to the image description page and see the more descreptive notice. Arn't images updated instantanously? At least it would give the users a little notice so they can go find a new image. Bawolff 21:27, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Tracking new uploads of files ?

Hi.

Is there a way to track new image uploads with the same name of older files? I think that if someone uploads a new file with the same name of an older file, the new upload is not mentioned at Special:Watchlist (unless the user changes the image page). Is this correct ? --OsvaldoGago 13:07, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it's completely irritating - I've had a couple of my images overwritten, first "notification" was when I looked over my image galleries and saw something unfamiliar. Stan Shebs 13:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I think the software should add a "null revision" to the image page when you upload a new version of an image. It would be similar to the null revision that happens when you move a page. That way the new upload would appear in watchlists. User:dbenbenn 17:58, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree completly. I suggest you raise a request on bugzilla about this. Thryduulf 20:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

It's already there. See bugzilla:778. User:dbenbenn 21:49, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Kriegsmarine images

Could somebody more familiar with the subject (and knowledgeable of Spanish) please take a look at Galería imagenes Kriegsmarine? I'm pretty sure most of those images are not in the public domain as has been claimed. Stan Shebs 13:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I've created a Google link for those unfamiliar with Spanish. --OsvaldoGago 13:25, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Uploading new version of image

I have uploaded an image to commons but when I wanted to upload a new version of the image (by uploading an image with the same name; the same way I have always done in wikipedia) I get the message "A file with this name exists already; please go back and upload this file under a new name." and I don't see any way to get past this message. I have checked FAQs and the village pump without finding anyone else with this problem. Jeltz 10:47, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I get the message Upload warning: A file with this name exists already. Please check Image:Tuna Gills cut out.jpg if you are not sure you want to change it. and the option to Save file: Ignore warning and save file anyway and Re-Upload: Return to the upload form. Clicking on Save file works fine for me -- Chris 73 11:15, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

That is the message I would expect to get (and what I got on Wikipedia last time I tried this). Vould it have something to do with that I just registred at commons? I get no "save file" option. Jeltz 12:18, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes. There is a delay (I think of 4 days) between registering an account and being able to overwrite files. This is an anti-vandalism measure. Thryduulf 13:24, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. Jeltz 13:48, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

The delay shouldn't apply when you are trying to overwrite your own image, I think. User:dbenbenn 19:57, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Access to logs

Access to deletion logs and possibly others seems to have been taken away from normal (non-admin) users. Was this done on purpose, or is it simply a mistake? I'd really like to regain access, as it helps to see where a lost picture has gone, why a category was deleted, and so on. -- Ranveig 14:08, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I seem to be able to access the deletion log so maybe it was a temporary problem. Jeltz 14:31, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

The deletion Log can still be viewed, but "ordinary" users are no longer able to list deleted revisions. This right was taken away be cause there was a massive increase in insults and personal information posted in the edit summaries, which would be shown in the list of deleted revisions, and could not be removed by admins. Thus, sadly, deleted revisions are no longer visible. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 14:41, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Deprecate the PD tag!

I would like to suggest to deprecate the PD tag, because it is much too unspecific, and often used without giving any rationale why the image is supposed to be PD. We have {{PD-self}}, {{PD-user}}, {{PD-old}}, {{PD-art}}, {{PD-USGov}}, etc, and we could add {{PD-because|something}}. "PD" alone is simply useles and misleading, I propose to change that template into a warning message.

We would then have to go over the images tagged as PD over time. I could make a tool that lists all images tagged as PD, along with their description, so it would be easy to see wich specific tag would be appropriate, or if the image is missing information.

So, what do you think? -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 14:48, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. But there will need to be a sensible method of moving everything from [[category:PD]] and category:Public domain into an apropriate sub-category of the latter. Thryduulf 15:30, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I also agree. PD alone is useless — empoor (nl) 15:50, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

We probably should add a note to the template -- "This license tag is deprecated. Please us either .." -- and remove it from MediaWiki:Licenses. But we should assume good faith and use the slow process (user talk, deletion requests etc.) if we have doubts about the legitimacy of a tag, except in cases of obvious mistagging.--Eloquence 17:34, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Would it be possible to get a bot to go through the images in the generic PD categories and leave a message on the talk page of the uploader saying

You have uploaded one or more images that are tagged with the {{PD}} license tag. This tag is now [[<page where deprication is explained>|depricated]]. Please can you retag the images listed below using a more spefic public domain license tag.

This would then be followed by a list of images that person has uploaded with a generic PD tag, e.g. Image:000910 tivoli v d este 08 stanze.jpg, Image:0085 Kastell auf Astipalaia.jpg.

It would also link to somewhere (here?) where they could get more information. A note about always providing the source would help as well. Thryduulf 18:17, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Agree that it should not be used on new images, but we do need a PD-because for exceptional cases, and we'll probably have to keep it forever for the images that already have it (since only the copyright holder really has any legal right to update the license tag, and they might never come back even if the assertion of PD is correct). Deco 00:12, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

If the image is PD, there is no copyright holder. If it is in fact PD, it would be OK to change the tag. If it is not PD, it should be up for deletion. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 02:32, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

You might not get sued for doing it, but it absolutely would NOT be "OK". ¦ Reisio 01:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

At Duesentrieb's request, elaboration: Template talk:PD. ¦ Reisio 03:11, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

There are still nations in which it may be legally impossible to release a work into the public domain. If this is the case, the original uploader still has copyright but releases all rights. No copyright is lost if the uploader was not the copyright holder. Deco 06:32, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

In that case, {{PD-self}} or {{Copyrighted free use}} should be used, as appropriate. But those are technicalities: Even if there is still a copyright holder, we could still change the tag - just not the license conditions. Replacing the template with a more specific one is a matter of standardized layout and categorization; the new tag should represent the current license status more clearly, not change it to something else. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 11:55, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I have a question. Will this in reality change anything apart from increasing our workloads? If the problem with {{PD}} is that some people use it inappropriately, will having more specific templates change that? If someone doesn't care what the copyright status is, they just want to upload their image, won't they then just choose whatever template happens to come at the top of the list?

OTOH, if this could be implemented with all the grunt work being done by bots, then I'm all for it. I just hate to see "improvements" that mean more manual work with little material gain. pfctdayelise 15:02, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree with Duesentrieb's proposal. "PD" is hardly to validate. A declaration should be more specific. -- Simplicius 15:51, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

---

Since there have been no objections, I went ahead and deprecated the PD tag. This will at least keep people from using it for new uploads, and maybe some will also fix their earlier uploads. Please spread the word.

The next step would be to put more specific tags on description pagews where there is sufficient information. This could be done semi-automatically with a bot, based on some text patterns. If you have some ideas what to look for in the description text in order to determine which tag could be used, please post it here. There are currently just over 13000 images tagged with PD on the commons. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 17:08, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, i saw that one comming. User:Reisio reverted my changes, so i'll wait for some more input, as to not to start an edit war.

@ Reisio: You said about changing PD tags to more specific ones: You might not get sued for doing it, but it absolutely would NOT be "OK". Uh, why not? Can you give some details? This is not about changing terms, just about clarifying them. Also, are your concerns only about re-tagging, or do you also want to keep the PD tag for new uploads?

It's not just about licensing, it's about accuracy & sourcing - things released as "Public Domain" are released as that and nothing more. You won't get in trouble with the law for relicensing it as something else, but you will with people here like me, because I typically license my media as {{PD}} and you have no right or good reason to change that...and having giant warning crap on my media's pages is annoying. Put it on Commons:Copyright tags if you like, but not in the template. ¦ Reisio 18:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Nobody is altering the license of your images. You released them into the public domain with a tag that says (to paraphrase) "This image is in the public domain", what Duesentrieb is doing is replacing that tag with one that says "This image is in the public domain because creator of this image released it into the public domain". Thryduulf 22:13, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

@ pfctdayelise: as you asked again on my talk page, maybe you can explain your concerns some more here. I see what you mean, but not how deprecating the PD tag would make the situation any worse. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 02:49, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I guess my concern is about making people who have already used this tag go back and change their images, even if they have provided a reason. I disagree strongly with this: these people have taken the time to provide the required information. I think it just annoys people if you keep moving the hoops and ask them to go back time and time again to "correct" something just to fit the current process. What if it is further "refined" in the future? And even if other editors volunteer to do all this cleanup, I see it as a waste of resources when they could be checking genuinely orphaned, unused or untagged images. It seems a little bit like we enjoy creating work for ourselves.

I don't really have a problem with depreciating it, as long as pd-by/pd-because is made prominent. (And what's going to stop people using that and not providing any reasoning...) pfctdayelise 09:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Nothing is going to stop people from using the wrong tag if they want to. My point is mainly this: the generic PD tag is a "lazy" option, and is very often used without giving valid reason. This, at some point, we'll have to go over all those anyway. While we are at it, we meight as well change the tag to something more specific.

About images already tagged, we have to options: go over all pages tagged as PD (with a bot), and change the tag as appropriate. But Deco and Reisio seems to have concerns about that. Or we could leave it to the uploaders to change the tag, which means work for them, or having a warning tag on their image descriptions.

I'm aware that it's a bad idea to change stuff after the fact. One more reason to deprecate the PD tag now, not later.

In any case, I hope we can all agree that the PD tag should not be used on new images (that's what deprecated means, right?). -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 12:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, @Reisio: you have uploaded lots of images as PD without stating a reasons. Please fix that. Putting a reason in the description text would be OK, but using a more specific tag would be better, obviously. Your claim that many things are specifically "Public Domain" and nothing more is simply wrong - ther's always a reason. If you can't specify it, you shouldn't have uploaded the file.

Maybe we should have a specific tag for flags and insignia that are PD, btw... but it should make it very clear that not all flags and insignia are automatically PD. maybe it should have a parameter specifying the law/country or something -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 12:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

There may always be a reason, but if the reason is "because the creator released it as PD", that's pretty redundant. As for being more specific, what you're leaning towards is forcing people to make very specific {{PD- templates for everything under the sun. {{PD}} is not lazy, either - AFAIK the typical way of finding a copyright tag is by reading the Upload file page info and finding your way to Commons:Copyright tags where usage guidelines are provided...I'm not sure plain {{PD}} is even available in the dropdown box on the upload page. There's also the cases where media is made of various public domain parts made by different people, a situation where {{PD-self}} wouldn't be very accurate. ¦ Reisio 18:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

it's not in the dropdown any more, because I removed it yesterday. On Commons:Copyright tags, there are no specific usage instructions, besides "please give a reson in the description text" (which you did not for many of your images, btw).

If you create an image from various PD sources, you can tag it as PD-self, but you should also say what you used to create it. "because the creator released it as PD" is not redundant, it's a vital part of the description - and you should also name the author, and point to a place where the author's staement can be verified. Maybe we should have {{PD-by}} or {{PD-as-stated-at}} for that, because it seems to happen often.

About flags: because not all flags are PD, it's important to give more specific information when uploading flag images - just tagging them as PD is not sufficient. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 19:34, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Copying this from Template talk:PD:

Note that using {{PD-old}} by itself is no better than using {{PD}} by itself. The same goes for {{GFDL}} or any other copyright tag. In general, for any image, we require source information that is sufficient to verify the copyright status. I don't see that deprecating the PD tag will help with that, because exactly the same problem applies to all other tags. User:dbenbenn 18:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

¦ Reisio 19:00, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

As I said there: deprecating the PD tag aims at urging people to give a rationale for the PD claim. Right now, people have to take a guess at why an image is tagged as PD - that makes the claim rather hard to verify.

Deprecating the PD tag does not change the fact that a source must be given in addition to the tag. It also does not change the fact that people can put a random tag on images they just found somewhere on the web.

Again: the idea is to make people think about their PD claim, and to make it easier to others to understand and verify the PD claim. It's not a cure for all our problems, just a small improvement that will hopefully help to clean up part of the mess. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 19:27, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the concept, but am not sure if we have sufficient substitute tags yet. For instance, old postage stamps are PD for reasons that vary with each country, but we don't have a PD template for each one of them. Instead of officially deprecating, why not just add a recommendation to use one of the more specific types, and perhaps a invitation to add a note on a talk page when an image doesn't seem to fit any existing tag. After all, your purpose is to get people thinking, not to try to force anything yet (the word "deprecation" often makes people think force is imminent). Stan Shebs 22:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

In that case you could either:

• use {{PD-because}}
• create a template for each country or create one template with a paramater for each country (e.g. {{PD-postagestamp|Fooland}}) that reads "This postage stamp from Fooland is in the public domain. See Commons:Public domain postage stamps#Fooland for details.
• If there are only a few different reasons then create a template for each reason (e.g. {{PD-postagestamp-reason1}}. Thryduulf 00:24, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

As this discussion is getting rather long, should we take it to a separate page and sectionalise it? Is there a Commons equivalent of en.wp's Centralised discussion? Thryduulf 00:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

300.000

Congratulations ya'all! — empoor (nl) 15:50, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Taxoboxes

I Sam916, have been putting taxoboxes in articles. My rationale for a taxobox to be in a commons page is that they are merley navigational aids through the commons vast database of flora and fauna. Recently, these taxoboxes are being deleted. Should we put taxoboxes as navigational aids inside commons artilces and categories? -- Sam916 19:14, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think taxoboxes are really necessary. The category structure is perfectly fine for navigation needs up and down, and higher-level organization is less stable than most people think, which means they need to be explained, which is better done in the WPs rather than stuck in here as if there was no debate. If you want to add navigational aids that are actually useful, set up all the interwiki links correctly, huge numbers are missing and many WP articles are not benefiting as a result. Stan Shebs 01:02, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikimedia logo in SVG

I have created and uploaded Image:Wikimedia logo.svgImage:Wikimedia-logo.svg. I got Jimbo Wales's "stamp of approval" and I am just seeing if y'all want to clean it up a bit before we could use it project wide. I am still trying to figure out transparency issues, so any help will be appreciated. Zach ^{(Smack Back)} 20:01, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Looks great to me. Deco 00:09, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

(I moved it to Image:Wikimedia-logo.svg, which is the naming convention that all the other logos use. User:dbenbenn 01:23, 1 January 2006 (UTC))

The old PNG logo is transparent; this new version has a white background, which should be fixed. Also, the red circle should use the <circle> element, instead of using a hard-to-understand <path> specification. User:dbenbenn 01:29, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

It's transparent now, and the SVG code is human-readable. I also made the geometry (nearly) the same as in Image:Wikimedia-logo.png. It wasn't changed intentionally, was it? User:dbenbenn 03:51, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks dbenbenn. Well, the main issues I had with the image is that I could not do that "partial circle" stuff in Inkscape and just hard to deal with the transparency. As for the name change, I just picked a filename that would work, but I tried to keep all elements of the PNG the same, including the size of the various circles and placement of them. Zach ^{(Smack Back)} 04:27, 1 January 2006 (UTC)