Wikimedia Commons

Commons:Village pump/Archive/2023/03

< Commons:Village pump‎ | Archive

Trouble uploading new version of Photo

When I try to upload a new version of photo file, it just says "Copy uploads are not available from this domain." What does it mean? Satsukihuffingtoon40 (talk) 09:28, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Jmabel ! talk 03:27, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Input needed: restructing of {{PD-algorithm}}

There is currently some discussion at Template talk:PD-algorithm#Legal basis about restructuring that template. The question that needs to be answered is: given that some countries (the United Kingdom) are now extending copyright protection to AI-generated works, should {{PD-algorithm}} remain as a single, globally-applicable license template (like {{PD-textlogo}}), or should it be broken into country-specific templates that describe the distinct situation for that country (like {{PD-Russia}}, {{PD-United Arab Emirates}}, etc). Your input is appreciated. – BMacZero (🗩) 04:18, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Commons Gazette 2023-03

Staff changes

In February 2023, 1 sysop was elected; 1 sysop was removed. Currently, there are 189 sysops.

Other news

Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Multimedia and Commons concluded.

Edited by RZuo (talk).

Commons Gazette is a monthly newsletter of the latest important news about Wikimedia Commons, edited by volunteers. You can also help with editing!

--RZuo (talk) 07:59, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Reminder: Office hours about updating the Wikimedia Terms of Use

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki.
More languages • Please help translate to your language

Hello everyone,

This a reminder that the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Department is hosting office hours with community members about updating the Wikimedia Terms of Use.

The office hours will be held today, March 2, from 17:00 UTC to 18:30 UTC. See for more details here on Meta.

Another office hours will be held on April 4.

We hereby kindly invite you to participate in the discussion. Please note that this meeting will be held in English language and led by the members of the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Team, who will take and answer your questions. Facilitators from the Movement Strategy and Governance Team will provide the necessary assistance and other meeting-related services.

On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Team,

Zuz (WMF) (talk) 11:22, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

File:Urbiztondo Ordinance no. 1- 2022.pdf

  Resolved

Licensed as CC-BY-SA, But surely this is a Philippine Gov edict (PD-GOV-edict)? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 17:33, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Terms of Use update and WikiCommons

The WMF right now has a plan to change the terms of use to get into compliance with the European Digital Services Act. Part of that act is about forbidden websites from hosting unlawful content. WikiCommons historically hosts images involving Nazi symbols that are illegal under German law. Under the European Digital Services Act German authorities would be able to make demands to remove those images from WikiCommons. If there's a desire in WikiCommons to keep hosting content that's illegal under German law, it should be important to protest the proposed change in the terms of use. ChristianKl (talk) 18:19, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

We are an educational project. Hosting Nazi symbols for educational purpose should be fine by German law too (see de:Rechtsextreme Symbole und Zeichen#Rechtliche Situation). We use the mandatory {{Nazi symbol}} disclaimer to warn re-users from illegal reproduction. Not sure how the WMF ToU would change anything here. Can you elaborate? Thanks --A.Savin 19:04, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
As far as I know, these symbols are not categorically banned. Showing them, hosting them etc. is allowed for a variety of purposes, including education, science, reporting on history and more (§ 86 (4) StGB, § 86a (3) StGB. --Rosenzweig τ 19:15, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
Wikimedia was incorporated in the United States to take advantage of First Amendment speech protections. The old Terms of Use did not forbid unlawful content to be added to Wikimedia. The WMF wants to add a reference to forbidding unlawful content to be in compliance with EU law.
Wikipedia articles generally report on history. WikiCommons pages generally don't report on the history that's linked to a given item. Historically, Wikipedia uses fair-use images because it can argue that it uses them in a context where fair-use applies while WikiCommons doesn't host those images because just hosting the image out of context isn't covered by fair-use.
While you can argue that some of the images that contain Nazi symbols that WikiCommons stores have historical value, I think it's relatively hard to make that case for images like https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Swastika#/media/File:Fractal_swastika_(IFS).png or https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Swastika#/media/File:17-square_swastika.svg ChristianKl (talk) 17:56, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
  Comment in the two images you cited @ChristianKl: , I think COM:SCOPE can apply. File:17-square swastika.svg cannot be deleted as it is in use in many userspace pages like those of Soumyasch's enwiki userspace pages. It was uploaded by Estoy Aquí (talk · contribs). On the other hand, I find File:Fractal swastika (IFS).png, the only extant contribution of Jmknapp (talk · contribs), having little utility. Since it is not used, it can safely be deleted as out of scope. It is interesting to note that Jmknapp hasn't uploaded other files, except this one, making myself think of what was his intention to host this image here. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 23:29, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
I don't see how the use on Soumyasch's enwiki userspace pages like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Soumyasch/Signature falls under the purposes for which it's allowed to show them under German law. WikiCommons might be fine with images like that getting removed by the Wikimedia legal team or not. I don't have strong feelings either way for content that violates EU law getting removed, but if someone has, now is the time to speak up in the discussion among the terms of service. ChristianKl (talk) 00:22, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
Especially given that Soumyasch has been inactive for over seven years. - Jmabel ! talk 01:51, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
Swastika is not just a nazi symbol. it predates modern civilisation. it had existed long before even "germanic people" emerged.--RZuo (talk) 08:38, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
Yes, and the German law is about nazi symbols, not swastikas in general (nor swastika-based nazi symbols in paricular). Hindu swastikas, for example are not a problem (legally) in Germany. El Grafo (talk) 09:48, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
There's a simple solution to the "not educational because we're just hosting" problem: Just add a proper description that puts the image in a historical context. Preferably in German. If we can't come up with one, that might be a hint to check if the file is in scope in the first place. El Grafo (talk) 09:53, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
It is unclear to me what change we are talking about. I don't find any explicit mention of Germany or the EU in the linked document, and mentions of local laws seem to only caution the user of possible actions of law enforcing entities, not anything restricting Commons' scope. It would be absurd if Commons were obliged to follow laws of countries relevant to the media, such as not being able to host media seen as disgraceful for the "great leader" of such a country (the absurdity is even clearer in the case of Wikipedia). Thus, please point out the problematic wording. –LPfi (talk) 09:51, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
+1, what is the actual problem? El Grafo (talk) 09:57, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
I also don't see the problem: Will this compliance prevent us from hosting of uncritical propaganda pictures of Naziism including nazi symbols? In that specific case, I won't cry outrage for losing some garbage due to policy. Yet: So far I'd still think even this image would fall under the education exception, as long as it depicts a legitimate person of interest. But, since it was mentioned that Wikimedia Commons is incorporated in the US, I would rather be more worried about coming Freedom of Speech restrictions in the education system of the United States. --Enyavar (talk) 11:04, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
A US company hosting this image of a Nazi salute being performed in Australia is not what the German law is concerned with. A person located in Germany uploading this image to Commons could maybe get into trouble for "exporting" it, though. And that's how I understood the ToU too: Users are responsible for their own actions and need to be aware of local laws that could put them in jail for doing things that would be considered legal in the US. El Grafo (talk) 13:18, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Category:Maps by century shown

Is Category:Maps by century shown a good name? I would be tempted to rename it to Category:Maps by century.

- Io Herodotus (talk) 20:53, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Category:Maps by century could be confused for Category:Maps by century made. I suggest keeping the current name for clarity. TilmannR (talk) 21:05, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
Thank you. --Io Herodotus (talk) 21:36, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Batch Categorization

Is there a way to add categories in bulk? For example, in the Category "Houses in Charleston, South Carolina," I would like to add the categories of "1-story buildings," "2-story buildings," etc. and also "Brick buildings," "Wooden buildings," etc. Is there a way to do that other than individually opening each image and manually adding each category, one-at-a-time?--ProfReader (talk) 03:03, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

  • There are a few ways to do it. My preferred choice is VFC. Once you install that, then you'll see a choice "Perform batch task" in your left nav. Go to Category:Houses in Charleston, South Carolina, click that choice, and you are into VFC for that category. It's a little bit arcane -- I'd say 10 to 45 minutes of learning curve, depending on your background -- but it works pretty well once you learn it. I find the "custom replace" action the most useful. For example, you can replace a particular category with two categories separated by a linefeed, one of them en exact match for the original so it stays in that category as well. On your first few tries (and maybe well beyond), you should definitely use the "Examine scheduled changes" feature before you select "Execute". - Jmabel ! talk 04:53, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Mdaniels5757 nominated for checkuser

Deutsch ∙ English ∙ español ∙ français ∙ +/−
Hello. There's currently a checkuser request for Mdaniels5757 to see if they fit the requirement. Your input would be much appreciated. To vote or comment, please go to Commons:Checkusers/Requests/Mdaniels5757. Thank you. —‍Mdaniels5757 (talk • contribs) 16:23, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Categorizing newspapers by their cartoons

I have been noticing a large number of anonymous edits (I think they are related) categorizing a number of newspapers edition PDFs in odd categories like Category:Uncle Wiggily, Category:Howard Roger Garis, Category:Lang Campbell, Category:Anthropomorphic beavers, Category:Anthropomorphic pigs, etc. I asked @Joostik: what was the reason for this edit as it seems odd to say that the 1922 edition of the Glendale Evening News is a subcategory of Uncle Wiggily. I think they are categorizing these by the cartoons inside the newspapers but it is hard to discuss this when it is largely anonymous editors. It makes more sense to strip out of the comics (they are likely all public domain) into separate images but does it make sense to have basically every comic on a day-to-day basis as separate images here? It seems to have an educational purpose. Ricky81682 (talk) 20:56, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

  • Seems pretty weird as a topical category for an entire newspaper. And I don't really see us wanting the full run of a comic, though I guess if someone wants to put in the effort it would be OK. Not sure how best to handle this. If someone is planning to do that, I'd suggest turning what is used on the PDFs into a maintenance category, effectively just indicating that there is something in there some Commoner may want to grab. - Jmabel ! talk 04:38, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
    I think it's silly. The first issue is that things should go down to the proper category instead of having the comic, the author, the illustrator, the general anthropomorphic bunnies parent, all having the same thing if we do do it. At best, we could have a separate Category:Newspaper editions containing Uncle Wiggily comics which I find absurd. Again, it's impossible to deal with since there is no one to speak to. I may just make a comment on the talk page and remove all these categories as Joostik isn't clear either. I just hope this doesn't end up with some slow-moving anon edit war situation but the anons will be pinged by the revert notices. Ricky81682 (talk) 07:39, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
  • I think, rather than have a massive index to every edition of a newspaper with a category for everyone named in the issue, you should crop what you are interested in and isolate that part, I do that with obituaries. Can you imagine if we created a category for every person named in every newspaper? It would look like the index in the back of a book. We already have full text search once OCR has been completed. --RAN (talk) 18:16, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
    A list makes sense if people want but I agree on splitting out the comics if people care. We do that with advertisements but the problem is also one of choosing to do these as giant PDF files rather than separate JPG images so that the page for the comic can be separated. Ricky81682 (talk) 00:14, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Establishing a connection from a person's user account on Commons to that person's creator-page on Commons

I posted a question here: "If a creator has a user account on Commons and wants to connect their username to a creator-page on commons (or their entry on wikidata), is there a way to do that? So that such an established connection can be used to replace individual permission statements for each artwork from that user? This user here appears to be willing to establish such a connection, but unwilling to have to release files one by one (e.g. via Commons:Email templates/Consent). --Bensin (talk) 23:17, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Most commonly, proof of identity is established via VRT, and then we slap a {{Verified account}} on their userpage. In this case, they have provided public proof of their identity that anyone can verify, so they just need to add a link to [1] on their userpage. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:28, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
Otherwise I agree, but the linked image just shows the request for permission, not an approval. Is there an approval somewhere? –LPfi (talk) 08:49, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
@LPfi: Seems to me that by placing the request on the site that we know is theirs, they were showing that they were, indeed, the person who controls that site, which is what they'd been asked to demonstrate. - Jmabel ! talk 17:22, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
@LPfi: @Jmabel: Thank you both for helping out! But even though it seems very likely that the image was posted on davidrevoy.com to establish the identity on Commons, it is not entirely impossible that the image was published with a text saying "Someone is impersonating me on Commons." What is the Volunteer Response Team procedure? Will an email from David Revoy suffice if he writes something like "I hereby assert that I am the person using the account https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Deevad" to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org, or does he need to include something else? --Bensin (talk) 18:04, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
@Bensin: Yes, though it would be even better were he to post that statement on a page at what we all agree is his website. Page doesn't even have to have anything linking inward, just post it and link the URL from his user page. That way literally anyone could verify it for themselves, no need to involve the VRT people. - Jmabel ! talk 18:52, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
We would still need an official record of some sort. {{Verified account}} requires an VRT ticket. The links to the statement would become unusable with a reorganisation of the site, and with no links to it from his other pages, he might not notice. Can a VRT volunteer archive the page and connect it to a ticket? –LPfi (talk) 06:57, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
If he posted an unambiguous message at an acceptable location on the domain davidrevoy.com, then that image or page can be archived on Internet Archive. --Bensin (talk) 22:52, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

BCE/BC

Template:Place by century gives "BCE" when referring to the centuries BC. Why BCE and not BC. This template is used for many countries, I dare not change it.

--Io Herodotus (talk) 17:27, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

  • @Io Herodotus: "Before the Common Era" vs. "Before Christ" because the latter presumes the historicity of Jesus Christ, and the traditional Christian dating of his birth, not assumptions widely shared by non-Christians. - Jmabel ! talk 17:36, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Category:Charlie Brooks categorization

Similar to above, there are a lot of newspapers that have been put into Category:Charlie Brooks. I don't see the connection between 1920s newspapers in Glendale, CA and a British actress born in 1981. Ricky81682 (talk) 21:14, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Speedy deletion

How would I see a gallery of the files up for speedy deletion, rather than just a list of filenames? --RAN (talk) 00:24, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): You can look at candidates for speedy deletion in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion and its subcategories. Here's a neat trick: Searching for hastemplate:X-To-DR finds all files with the "Challenge speedy deletion" button. That way you get all files with {{Speedydelete}}, {{No permission since}}, {{No source since}} etc. with a single simple search. TilmannR (talk) 09:42, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

its close from home — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikan80 (talk • contribs) 10:58, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

'Search inside' template for document files

Do we have a template that could be added to pages about PDF and DjVu files, to allow users to search inside the individual document? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:32, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Mainstream cameras generating non-existent artifacts (AI generative upscaling?), what can we do about it?

 
Pixel 6 Pro stock camera vs. Open Camera artifacts

I believe that AI-generated content should be clearly tagged as such, so that we know what is real and what is not. For instance, if I take a picture of a lake with some Charadrius alexandrinus flying, a picture enhancement tool might transform them into the more common Charadrius dealbatus because that's the only species the tool's AI knows, misleading readers and researchers into thinking that this species is found there.

Problem: Recent mainstream software (be it desktop software or apps) tend to silently include such "enhancements", by default.

Example: On the same Pixel 6 Pro device and at the exact same place and almost same time (at dusk), I took a picture of a building's rooftop using both the Open Camera app and the stock camera app. It seems like the stock camera app generates non-existent artifacts, probably using a mix of edge detection and other techniques. I am not 100% sure it involves AI, but it is only a question of time before most mainstream cameras start doing it.

Question: What can we do about it? I have not found any policy about this.

A first and unfortunately very niche idea could be to embed Open Camera into the Commons app to encourage the use of a camera that does not perform such enhancements.

Cheers! Syced (talk) 11:23, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Do about what? The Open Camera app is generating artifacts too; the letters aren't blurry in real life. All lenses/films/sensors have their own artifacts, and going from a digital raw (or film) to a JPEG involves making choices about how to process the data. Nothing here seems out of the norm.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:40, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
Blur and JPEG artefacts are previsible, confined to a known number of neighboring pixels, and won't transform a given bird into a high-definition other bird. On the other hand, AI can add realistic objects dozens of pixels wide and you won't be able to tell. It is a very different problem, and we definitely need to at least clearly mark these images as such. Syced (talk) 22:46, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
When AI is adding realistic objects dozens of pixels tall, we can talk about it. So far your example image shows some oversharpening and possibly a bit of lens flare.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:55, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
The middle artifact is 80x48 pixels. The leftmost artifact is 80 pixels high (and is 20 pixels far from any edge so this is not a case of oversharpening or compression artifact). Also, the leftmost artifact is very realistic, it really looks like there is a wall joint at that place... while nobody cares about a wall joint, there will be cases where details matter. Finally, by "lens flare" do you mean that the stock camera might have added a fake lens flare for style, or that two camera apps might handle lens flare differently, or that I was just unlucky and might see such flare randomly distributed if I take many pictures with each app, or something else? Thanks! Syced (talk) 04:57, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Redirects "pd-simple" and "PD-simple"

What to do about {{Pd-simple}} and {{PD-simple}}, both redirected to {{PD-shape}}? Must I nominate them for deletion, change target boldly, or what? George Ho (talk) 21:28, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Where do you think they should be pointing to? I don't have an opinion here, I am just unsure what your reason is for your question. From Hill To Shore (talk) 23:56, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
Either {{PD-ineligible}}, import the enwiki version of the template. I just think "PD-simple" is sometimes interpreted as "PD-ineligible", especially when an image is not a simple shape. George Ho (talk) 01:33, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
The redirects appear to be used on thousands of files, so we can rule out "bold" retargeting here - that will just leave the wrong licence on thousands of existing files. Looking at "What links here" on the two redirects, they have been subject to several deletion discussions before. That probably also rules out any bold action as you are trying to overturn a previous consensus. I would recommend reading the previous discussions to understand the old reasoning for retaining the redirects. If you disagree with that reasoning, you can start a new discussion to see if consensus has changed. From Hill To Shore (talk) 15:07, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
I couldn't find past discussions ([2][3]) about this unless I overlooked. George Ho (talk) 16:43, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi. Coming from User talk:Túrelio#File:New Goa International Airport's Logo.jpg, I'm wondering whether the logo at https://www.newgoaairport.com/images/goa-logo.svg falls under the threshold. Thanks for your inputs -- DaxServer (talk) 10:05, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Size of preview?

So I was wondering, how is the preview size of an image determined?

I'm asking because for this file the preview size is 799 pixels, but other files like [4], [5], or [6] have preview sizes of 800 pixels. I was trying the to get that image to show up as a preview when you hover over a link on Wikipedia but that seems to work only for images with preview sizes of 800 px. Alin2808 (talk) 13:24, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

@Alin2808: I wasn't able to find the documentation for this, but this is how it seems to work:
The goal is to make the size at most 800x600 while minimizing distortions. In the case above, if we scale the image to a width of 800, we get
 
But if we resized the image to 800x224, the image would be slightly more distorted than necessary, because the optimal width for preserving the aspect ratio of 3023:848 is
 
I don't believe that the width of 799 pixels prevents the image from getting used in the preview. mw:Extension:PageImages#How_does_it_select_images? says that aspect ratios of 0.4 to 3.1 are allowed. 3023:848 = 3.56 is simply too wide to be used as the PageImage. TilmannR (talk) 15:51, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
Alright, thank you! Will try to get it to work. Alin2808 (talk) 18:42, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Name for text art that's superposition of letters？

 

while looking at cat:ambigrams, i thought about another kind of text art that is essentially superposition of letters. is there a special name (in any languages) for this? RZuo (talk) 08:19, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Category:Monograms. i guess i found it, thanks to the brits' Category:Royal monograms of the United Kingdom.--RZuo (talk) 08:47, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
Slightly off topic, but if anyone is looking for some really cool text art, check out Category:Calligrams. - Jmabel ! talk 15:54, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
  This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --RZuo (talk) 15:22, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Soviet-era copyright

From the article International copyright relations of Russia:

With the accession of the Soviet Union to the UCC, Soviet works published on or after May 27, 1973 became eligible to copyright in all other signatory countries of the UCC.

Does this imply that Soviet works published before that date are not eligible to copyright in all other signatory countries of the UCC?

I see no mention of this in Commons:Copyright tags/Country-specific tags. Synotia (talk) 15:49, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

@Synotia:
  1. With reference to your specific question, I'm not sure.
  2. Questions like this are probably better asked at Commons:Village pump/Copyright.
  3. The answer is probably not relevant for Commons, because to qualify as a legitimate public domain upload on Commons, a work has to be in the public domain both in the U.S. and in its country of origin.
Jmabel ! talk 17:37, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
See also continued discussion at Commons:Village pump/Copyright#Soviet-era copyright. To avoid confusion, I will mark this section as resolved. Please post any further comments on the copyright board. From Hill To Shore (talk) 19:21, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
  This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. From Hill To Shore (talk) 19:21, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Garages

Various "garage" categories are a mixture of (usually small) buildings in which cars are stored, such as File:Garages_on_Lucky_Lane,_Exeter_-_geograph.org.uk_-_743893.jpg and places where you can get your car repaired and often also fill up with petrol, such as File:2 Mile Oak Garage - geograph.org.uk - 15307.jpg. It seems that the intention of category "garage" and all its subcategories is to include only the former. I'm not sure about other countries, but in the UK the tendency to label the latter "garages" is very strong. There almost needs to be a "don't use for car repair premises or filling stations" warning on all the subcategories. Any thoughts? ITookSomePhotos (talk) 10:18, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Also French uses the word for both meanings, and probably other languages also, so for many people not having English as first language (in addition to the British) it is not at all evident which meaning the word stands for.
In this case there certainly needs to be a clarification of the intended category content.
Generally all categories should have descriptions clarifying their use, subcategories possibly by a template pointing at the relevant parent category (I often have to move up several levels to get to a category with a Wikipedia or Wikidata link hopefully explaining the nuance of the words used – such as houses vs buildings). Even words that may seem clear to the category creator can have another meaning when seen in a different context.
–LPfi (talk) 12:08, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
Should be the former; description can only be good; {{See also cat}} or similar is very useful. - Jmabel ! talk 17:33, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
I don't suppose there's any way to automatically propagate a definition of "garage" to all subcategories of Category:Garage, is there? That would be handy. ITookSomePhotos (talk) 18:23, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
@ITookSomePhotos: Not automatically, but you could put the explanation in a template, which would mean that any later edit was easy to propagate, and would work especially well in terms of explaining in more than one language. - Jmabel ! talk 20:52, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
@Jmabel: OK, thanks, I'll have a look at that sometime. Actually, I've never created a template before. Do you happen to know of anything similar that already exists, that I can copy and just change the text?ITookSomePhotos ( talk) 20:32, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
@ITookSomePhotos: Nothing offhand, but this would be a pretty simple template, and a good place to start learning. Really, just look at the code of some of the simpler templates, you'll probably be able to work it out pretty quickly. - Jmabel ! talk 04:45, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Notice for Friday bringing in students

On March 10, 2023, the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (FHSS - https://inf.ffzg.unizg.hr) at the University of Zagreb (Croatia) will host a presentation and hands-on workshop for the students of Information and Communication Science inside of Virtual Museum course, on the topic of Wikimedia and few of its projects, including Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata.org and most recent experiments on Wikispore.org. The program will be facilitated by informed and experienced Wikimedia contributors, open content/data advocates and educators who are actively involved in the (Open) GLAM wiki Croatia initiative.

During the event, students will be able to gain insight into some of the possibilities offered by these platforms, including those beyond Wikipedia, that are publicly less known. They will learn the significance of these platforms for the open knowledge ecosystem, as well as how to contribute and improve upon existing data. Furthermore, in partnership with the Department, students will have the opportunity to complete a portion of their course obligations by contributing data and improving content on selected topics on Wikimedia platforms, as well as to optionally join Wikimedia campaigns and initiatives.

We kindly ask you all for patience and understanding with new users on the day.

Thank you very much. --Zblace (talk) 08:52, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Welcome all! :-) Syced (talk) 08:16, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Review process of nominations for deletion

Hi, I nominated an image for deletion in November last year (as copyright violation imo). However, only the uploader and I have discussed it and since then it has been silent. It seems that, with many other nominations, it is still awaiting review. I am wondering now why the review process is taking so long - especially since in this case copyright issues are at stake. KKoolstra (talk) 14:05, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Can you please provide a link to the discussion? If it was a copyright violation, it should have been flagged for speedy deletion, and I would have expected the admin that refused the case to have commented as well (if the admin accepted the speedy deletion nomination, it would be deleted already). It could be that this case hasn't drawn attention due to our large backlog or it may be that the nomination page hasn't been listed correctly (so practically invisible to other users). It is hard to say which reason is more likely without the link. There is not much we can do about the backlog short of gaining the input from more volunteers (there is always more work than there are people here). From Hill To Shore (talk) 16:48, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
@From Hill To Shore: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Rijkswaterstaat logo.png. See also Commons:Deletion requests/File:Logo rijksoverheid.svg. TilmannR (talk) 17:04, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, that is indeed the discussion that I referred to. I didn't nominate it for speedy deletion, since there is difference of opinion regarding what copyright rule applies to it, so I think it didn't meet the criterion of 'obvious' copyright violation for speedy deletion, at least not when I nominated it. Nonetheless, I do feel quite certain that this case is a violation of the copyright of Dutch government on the government logo. KKoolstra (talk) 13:51, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Help needed from a license reviewer

File:Marcial Gómez Balsera.jpg used to be a free image extracted from a YouTube video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Marcial_G%C3%B3mez_Balsera.jpg&direction=prev&oldid=694624426. Since then it has been overwritten with a likely non-free image and the information template is broken. I'm unable to fix the situation as I'm not a license reviewer and therefore unable to revert to the previous state. Thanks for any help. Cryptic-waveform (talk) 21:54, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

  Done I just added a new {{License review}} tag. Cryptic-waveform (talk) 14:19, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Identify artwork by artist signature alone

Identify painted artwork by artist signature alone Muffinmanrd (talk) 20:06, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

I assume you are wanting help identifying an artist, but you'll need to tell us which artwork you are referring to. From Hill To Shore (talk) 21:23, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Deletion requests

The instructions for the "Delete" template refer to a "Mark for deletion" link in the "left menu". I can't see this anywhere. Which "left menu" is it talking about? ITookSomePhotos (talk) 22:11, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

There should be "Nominate for deletion" and "Report copyright violation" links on the left side of the screen under the "tools" section. Either one works. Really, the "report copyright violation" link could be phrased a little better to indicate clicking it will lead to the image either being speedy deleted or sent to DR by an administrator. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:43, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
OK, I see "Nominate for deletion" now, when I am on an image page. The reason I did not see it earlier seems to be that I was trying to nominate a category for deletion. When I am on a category page I do not see any "Nominate for deletion". Any particular reason for this, do you think? Also, someone should probably change "Mark for deletion" to "Nominate for deletion" at the "Delete" template (I don't have permission to edit this). ITookSomePhotos (talk) 23:05, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure why but there's no way to delete categories through the interface. You have to edit the category, blank the code, and add SD in brackets plus your reason to nominate it for speedy deletion. Otherwise, you can nominate it for discussion and just say you want it deleted. Other then that normal users can't just edit templates. I think you have to make a request for the change on the templates talk or something and someone with the privileges will make the edit. --Adamant1 (talk) 23:11, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
Normally, categories go through CfD rather than outright deletion (unless they are already empty) because there is more to be decided than a simple keep/delete. - Jmabel ! talk 04:48, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I see. In this case it was a trivial delete -- an empty category created by mistake and marked for deletion a few minutes later. ITookSomePhotos (talk) 23:10, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Create Template:WhittonNSWyear

Could Template:WhittonNSWyear template be created with the following code? {{en|1={{{1}}}{{{2}}} in [[Whitton, New South Wales]]}} {{sv|1={{{1}}}{{{2}}} i [[Whitton, New South Wales]]}}

{{Decade years navbox |header=<!--[[File:Flag of New South Wales.svg|25px]]--> [[:Category:Whitton, New South Wales in the {{{1|0}}}0s|Whitton, New South Wales in the {{{1|0}}}0s]]: |decade={{{1|0}}} |cat_prefix= |cat_suffix=in Whitton, New South Wales }}<includeonly>

[[Category:{{{1}}}{{{2}}} in New South Wales|Whitton]] [[Category:Whitton, New South Wales in the {{{1}}}0s | {{{1}}}{{{2}}}]] [[Category:Whitton, New South Wales by year | {{{1}}}{{{2}}}]]

</includeonly><noinclude> [[Category:Works-by-year templates|{{PAGENAME}}]] </noinclude> 119.18.0.15 23:43, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Special:CreateAccount.--RZuo (talk) 13:35, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
  This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --RZuo (talk) 13:35, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

@ Server-kitties - again groundhog-day-problem

Some WMF-server seems to need a reboot. Since yesterday a way much too high rate of file-deletion-commands are not performed, but – after a marked delay of time – yield (sort of) random error-messages, such as:

  • Fehler bei Datei-Löschung: In der Datenbank „local-swift-codfw“ ist ein unbekannter Fehler aufgetreten.
  • Fehler bei Datei-Löschung: In der Datenbank „local-swift-eqiad“ ist ein unbekannter Fehler aufgetreten.
  • Fehler bei Datei-Löschung: In der Datenbank „local-multiwrite“ ist ein unbekannter Fehler aufgetreten.
  • Fehler bei Datei-Löschung: Das Verzeichnis „mwstore://local-multiwrite/local-deleted/g/9/7“ konnte nicht angelegt werden.
  • Fehler bei Datei-Löschung: Die Datei „mwstore://local-multiwrite/local-public/1/14/Krada_Lab.png“ befindet sich, innerhalb des internen Datenbanksystems, in einem inkonsistenten Zustand
  • Fehler bei Datei-Löschung: Die Datei „mwstore://local-multiwrite/local-public/3/35/আলু_ডিমের_চপ_-_Aloo_O_Dimer_Spicy_Chop_-_Egg_Potato_Kebab.jpg“ befindet sich, innerhalb des internen Datenbanksystems, in einem inkonsistenten Zustand.

The problem affects both deletion-commands by user (admin) and by script, such as the duplicate-deletion-script. When the deletion-command is repeated, it is usually peformed normally, showing it’s a server-problem, not with the individual file. --Túrelio (talk) 08:30, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

i think i also got the error "local-swift-eqiad" while uploading a jpg using uploadwizard from my phone via home wifi. RZuo (talk) 08:33, 10 March 2023 (UTC)--RZuo (talk) 08:47, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
Ok, though I work from a desktop-computer with fiber optic internet connection. --Túrelio (talk) 08:36, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
As the attack-rate has reached 1:5 with the duplicate-script-deletions, I stop performing deletions for today. No need to waste my time. --Túrelio (talk) 10:00, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, I had that too when deleting files. --Rosenzweig τ 11:58, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
FYI I get this systematically for at least 3 days: phab:T328872. May be not related, but also the error message something mentioned "local-swift-eqiad". Yann (talk) 12:17, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Can't move images to new category

Hello. I was trying to move images of stereo cards from the category Category:Images from the New York Public Library into Category:Stereo cards from the New York Public Library, which is a sub category of the former. Apparently I can't do it though because apparently Category:Images from the New York Public Library is preset and can't be changed or removed from the files. At least not in any way that I can figure out. Even if I edit the file and delete all the categories it still doesn't remove Category:Images from the New York Public Library. So does anyone know how I can move the files and/or remove the original category? Adamant1 (talk) 06:30, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

That is because the category is added automatically by {{NYPL-image-full}}. It would require editing that (and maybe underlying) template(s) to remove the images from Category:Images from the New York Public Library. --HyperGaruda (talk) 11:11, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
@Adamant1: You're mixing up source categories and subject categories. You don't want to do that. Category:Images from the New York Public Library is a flat source category that should contain all the images provided by the NYPL and shouldn't contain any subcategories. It's easier to explain with paintings.
Category:Images from the Rijksmuseum are for images provided by the Rijksmuseum. As you can see it contains a lot of paintings. These paintings are categorized under Category:Paintings in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam together with images from other sources.
I see you also added Category:Stereo cards in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam to Category:Stereo cards by source. This is not correct. Just like with the paintings, the Rijksmuseum is the collection holder and doesn't have to be the source of the image. I would make or update a category tree structure by collection holder and not mix it with who provided the images. Multichill (talk) 14:34, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
You're mixing up source categories and subject categories..Category:Images from the New York Public Library is a flat source category that should contain all the images provided by the NYPL and shouldn't contain any subcategories. Not really. The category already contains plenty of subcategories. At the end of the day it shouldn't matter if the images are in "source category" or not as long as the subcategories have "from the New York Public Library" in their name. Like "Stereo cards from the New York Public Library‎" is a "source" category since it says where the images came from in the name. Otherwise you have instances where images are both in the main category and it's sub categories. Which not only goes against the guidelines about how to categorize images. Not to mention it's super obtuse. It also doesn't seem to be that way with any other "images from" categories. Like with images in Category:Photographs by University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections for instance I can put the images in subcategories and get rid of the main category from the images all day long if I want to. So what's so special about the New York Public Library? Also, why would it matter if the images go in subcategories or not when that's the policy and "from the New York Public Library" is still in name of the subcategory? --Adamant1 (talk) 20:49, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
BTW, the thing with Category:Stereo cards in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam being in Category:Stereo cards by source is a distinction without a purpose as far as I'm concerned and not relevant to the discussion anyway. Your free to create a better category for it if you want to or discuss it with me on my talk page, I could really care less. I'd appreciate it if we stuck to the topic at hand though. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:52, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

video2commons

Apparently video2commons hasn’t been working properly. At least I’m not the only one to note that.

Is there anyone else having similar problems? Does anyone have a clue on how to solve that? RodRabelo7 (talk) 04:51, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

@RodRabelo7 There are two ways to solve that: 1) You travel back in time about two weeks and vote in the technical wishlist survey for the project to repair video2commons. 2) you wait 11 months and vote in the next technical wishlist survey for the project to repair video2commons. C.Suthorn (talk) 09:58, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
If the devs can fix it as part of the technical wishlist, why don't they fix it now, then? I stopped using that list, as I felt like a beggar - a volunteer in the projects and still begging for some basic support. The disregard WMF gives to the technical needs of the community is disheartening. Darwin Ahoy! 23:10, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
There are 10000 thinks to fix by devs. v2c is not an official project, but was done by a volonteer, who left the project. In the tech wishlist survey v2c ended at place ~70 of ~180 entries. Maybe it will actually be fixed. But video obviously has a very low priority. Checking videos for copyright needs significant human ressources - something that is extremely scarse at Commons. Every video not uploaded helps. OTOH you could use Offroader a tool that is able to transcode videos to WEBM and upload files of up to 4GiB even with a feeble internet connection. C.Suthorn (talk) 11:40, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Arthur Szyk

Do you guys know which of his work is in the public domain and which isn't? He died over 70 years ago now. --Synotia (talk) 15:48, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Arthur Szyk (Q711673). It will depend on the circumstances in each case as he operated in several countries during his lifetime. Works first published in countries with copyright protection of up to life +70 years will now be PD in the source country. Works first published in the USA after 1928 will depend on if copyright rules were followed correctly and if the copyright was renewed. From Hill To Shore (talk) 16:40, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
I had more specifically in mind his series Visual History of Nations Synotia (talk) 16:43, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
If the 1945 date given at File:Arthur Szyk (1894-1951). Visual History of Nations, The United States of America (1945), New York.jpg is accurate, and that is a date of first publication, and that publication was in the U.S., then it is unlikely to be public domain, though it could be if the copyright was not renewed. I am very skeptical of the {{Cc-by-sa-4.0}} claimed on that page with no evidence provided. User:Allison.c.chang who uploaded this appears to have been active only for a few months in 2015, and done nothing but upload Szyk's work, claiming all of what she uploaded to be under that license. All of her uploads cite "www.szyk.org" as a source. That domain does not appear currently to exist, and going by archive.org it was hijacked for a gambling site for a while. Going back to 2015 versions, it seems to have belonged to the Arthur Szyk Society and to have contained a lot of his work. Offhand, I see nothing on the site supporting the claim of a CC license.
So, Pinging @Synotia, it would definitely be worth working out here what is public domain, changing the license templates on those to appropriate PD templates, and nominating the rest for deletion until such date as their copyrights expire. -- Jmabel ! talk 03:26, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
@Jmabel: I took a look at these earlier. Many of User:Allison.c.chang's uploads related to Arthur Szyk have an OTRS/VRT ticket. From related deletion discussions, it appears that an organisation related to Arthur Szyk released some of his work under CC licences before selling the rights to a university. An account claiming to represent the university requested deletion of some files on the basis that they now owned the copyright, so the previous CC licences were invalid. Those files were kept as CC licences granted by the copyright owner can't be revoked, even if the copyright ownership changes. If you have found some files without the VRT ticket, it may be worth asking a VRT member to check the case linked to the other files. From Hill To Shore (talk) 09:33, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
It would be cool if a person more familiar with that kind of stuff did it. Synotia (talk) 10:45, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
Here is the file for his Israel artwork uploaded by the same account, and you see there is some VRT ticket related to it. I wonder what the Szyk society had to say in it, but I ain't got access. Synotia (talk) 08:39, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

See Commons:Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard#Arthur Szyk. Someone can add more there, as may be appropriate. - Jmabel ! talk 17:45, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

HI all, I'm answering here. The permission was valid for Allison.c.chang's uploads like Arthur Szyk (1894-1951). Love for Man and Nature (1940), Ottawa.jpg. If there are other files that need permission, probably we should tag them, as the ticket, after the copyright statement, said: "We plan to upload many additional Szyk images in the future, including... [a long list of files]" --Ruthven (msg) 14:23, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
@Ruthven: I'm not sure what you mean on two counts.
  • "Like" is vague. "Like" in what manner? Are you just saying that the files uploaded by Allison and tagged with ticket 2015030210000935 are valid, or are you saying something broader?
  • "tag them" is equally vague. Are you saying someone not on the VRT should feel free to tag these as having that same ticket apply, or that you want us to tag them in some other manner so that someone from VRT can review? FWIW: Allison.c.chang uploaded nothing other than this Szyk material, so her uploads that are not yet tagged with the specific ticket are already trivially easy to find.
Jmabel ! talk 16:09, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
@Jmabel I rephrase. The permission was accepted for a series of similar uploads (check the files with that ticket number for a list). The {{PermissionTicket}} can be added to a file page by a VRT agent only. Consequently the ticket will be reopened with a note, pointing at this discussion, and the other uploads will be checked by a VRT volunteer. Thanks Ruthven (msg) 20:53, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Illustrations generated by AI

We intend to open an edit-athon in Vietnamese Wikibooks in which participants will use AI to generate illustrations for book pages, somewhat similar to WikiHow. Therefore, I would like to know about any existing policies regarding AI illustrations in Commons to check the copyright issues may have. Thank you!  A l p h a m a  Talk 17:03, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

The two main issues that AI images run into are copyright (mostly COM:DW) and COM:SCOPE.
  1. The question of whether AI works are copyrightable is currently a bit controversial, but the most common opinion is that it is OK as long as you do not refer to copyrighted entities (e.g. Mickey Mouse) in your prompt.
  2. Since the universe of possible AI images is theoretically infinite, we can't allow indiscriminate uploads of AI-generated works. However, per COM:SCOPE Commons is meant to be a neutral hosting site for all the projects, so as long as one project deems some set of images to be useful, no one else has the right to object.
King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:53, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
I think User:King of Hearts is conflating two issues in the first of his points here
  • There is serious question as to whether AI works are copyrightable. It is quite likely, from what I've seen in discussion so far, that AI works may be deemed to be public domain. I'd be very skeptical on anyone confidently claiming copyright on these works, and right now it isn't even clear that we have an appropriate license template for this situation.
  • What King of Hearts says is probably correct with respect to AI works infringing on someone else's copyright (with the caveat that in his specific example, the copyright status of Mickey Mouse is somewhat equivocal, though I wouldn't recommend taking the chance, given Disney's propensity to sue). - Jmabel ! talk 03:34, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
The folks from Craiyon write in their terms of services that any work you make with their tool is theirs. I have no idea if that is even valid, to me it's like a paintbrush manufacturer saying your work is theirs because you used their paintbrush. Synotia (talk) 10:43, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
Although it is unreasonable, I believe that they will put some pixels in the generated images to prove their copyright.  A l p h a m a  Talk 17:07, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
Thank you all for your information. @Đức Anh: Have a look and avoid some cases pointing out.  A l p h a m a  Talk 16:57, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
At this early moment of the evaluation of our stance towards AI-generated images, probably the most important thing is to clearly mark each of these types of images as "AI-generated". --Túrelio (talk) 20:43, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, I will take note of copyright issues. Đức Anh (talk) 04:04, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
Unless you are planning to make fan art of fictional characters there should not be any worries Trade (talk) 23:36, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Map categories from Gallica

Hi, Category:Maps from Gallica by name contains all categories that are also included in Category:Files from Gallica needing categories (maps)‎. This double-categorization is confusing, I suggest that we remove the first of the Categories from all entries that also contain the second. --Enyavar (talk) 10:52, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi, These have different purposes. The first is meant to be permanent while the second is meant to be a temporary category with files waiting to get more categories and subcategories. Yann (talk) 12:19, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
I've now added __HIDDENCAT__ to the latter, which should always be done on maintenance categories. - Jmabel ! talk 21:46, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

U.S. and non-U.S. law on the public domain

On the English Wikipedia, it says that – because the servers are in the U.S. – stuff in the public domain in the U.S. is by principle admissible, even if it is not in the country of origin.

Does it apply on Commons as well? Synotia (talk) 11:28, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

No, Commons requires content to either have a suitable licence or be in the public domain in both the source country and the US (see Commons:Licensing). If something was first published in the US, then only US copyright rules apply. There are a couple of exceptions though:
  1. If something was published simultaneously in more than one country and one of those was the US, then we treat the US as the source country. The file may still be in copyright in the other source countries but we should just include {{Simultaneous US publication}} on the file page.
  2. If a file is PD in its source country today, its US copyright may have been restored in the US by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (see Commons:URAA). The community is currently split on how to deal with cases with copyright restored solely through URAA. If a relevant file is nominated for deletion, some administrators will delete the file solely on the grounds of URAA, while other administrators will refuse and say that additional reasons are required beyond the URAA status. These two views are a result of interpreting legal advice (from the Wiki Media Foundation's legal team) in different ways. From Hill To Shore (talk) 11:44, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
At least URAA status should be proved, and not only suspected, and the proof is on the person proposing deletion. For example, if the date of publication is uncertain (especially around 95 years ago), the URAA status is also uncertain. Yann (talk) 12:23, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Wikimania 2023 Welcoming Program Submissions

 

Do you want to host an in-person or virtual session at Wikimania 2023? Maybe a hands-on workshop, a lively discussion, a fun performance, a catchy poster, or a memorable lightning talk? Submissions are open until March 28. The event will have dedicated hybrid blocks, so virtual submissions and pre-recorded content are also welcome. If you have any questions, please join us at an upcoming conversation on March 12 or 19, or reach out by email at wikimania@wikimedia.org or on Telegram. More information on-wiki.

– Wikimania Programming Sub-Committee

@CKoerner (WMF): Please sign your posts. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 02:36, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
Yep, my mistake with MassMessage. Added the signature that was dropped. CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 03:01, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

File:Roosevelt & Fall, 8-8-22 LOC npcc.06889.jpg

Can anyone tell who the person named "Fall" is next to theodore roosevelt? GeorgHH • talk   17:28, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

It's w:Albert B. Fall, who was the Secretary of Interior in 1922. Abzeronow (talk) 19:07, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
@Abzeronow: Thank you for the information, also for correcting the categories. GeorgHH • talk   22:27, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: GeorgHH • talk   22:27, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Files are not appearing.

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T331820

In Category:Media_needing_categories_as_of_26_February_2022 I experienced that the thumbnails of several images are not appearing. Usually a few reloads helps, but not in this case. Also when loading a file the image is not visible as with File:Peter J. Kim.jpg. If you view the image in a different resolution, the image will be displayed. I cropped the image into a new file for use in Wikidata. That went well, but the the image itself was not displayed there. Is this a temporary problem? Wouter (talk) 14:52, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

I can't replicate any of the issues you mentioned and they all look fine to me. I suspect either a temporary problem with the servers or a local problem with your cache or browser. If you are still having problems on your end, try clearing your cache or using a different browser to see if that fixes it. From Hill To Shore (talk) 15:31, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
The reason that you can't see it is probably that (for some unknown reason) different users have this same problem but with distinct files. For example, while others have display problems concerning Commons:Deletion requests/File:Karl Horstmann 2023.jpg, I haven't. Still I have this problem with lots of other files, categories, and WD infoboxes. --A.Savin 13:19, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
  • +1. This has been the problem for several days now. I have "white rectangles" instead of thumbnails of particular images on categories, galleries, user upload lists, Wikidata items. You can purge/refresh as many times as you want, doesn't help at all. --A.Savin 15:34, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
I'm experiencing some problems with files not displayed and broken thumbnails too, here are my screenshots:
In addition to this (not sure it is a related issue): in these days I'm experiencing also problems when uploading files, I have to try several times before I can complete the upload of all of them with Upload Wizard, an error message is shown.--Pạtạfisik 15:52, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
+1 Same as above (in searches and "my uploads" for example) -- Deadstar (msg) 17:41, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
+1 The thumbnails are not generated for new images. Also, some disappeared for older images. -- Jakubhal 18:37, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
Already tried a different browser (no change - this is not the local issue). Generation with thumb.php does not work either. -- Jakubhal 18:41, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
For some links to thumbnail, I got a commons error like this: Request from [redacted IP address] via cp3051 cp3051, Varnish XID 535444539 Upstream caches: cp3051 int Error: 404, Not Found at Tue, 14 Mar 2023 18:44:01 GMT -- Jakubhal 18:45, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I got that too, and I reported it to phab:T331820. BTW the screenshots above aren't useful to developers, but the message mentioned by Jakubhal is. Additionally the error in the console (developers' tools on Chrome) may provide more useful technical details. Yann (talk) 19:27, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
Also phab:T332019. RodRabelo7 (talk) 19:58, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I’ve been getting this too, in the last 36 h or so. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 02:35, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, I had and have it as well. Others too, compare Commons:Deletion requests/File:Karl Horstmann 2023.jpg. @Yann: Thank you for reporting it. --Rosenzweig τ 12:33, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion: NSFW tag

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T331250

I was looking for GIFs of people doing "the finger", and... well, try it for yourself. Thankfully, I was not in public. --Synotia (talk) 18:21, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

  • @Synotia: The problem is that there is no one clear line. There's been a lot of talk of how we might address this and allow one or more "safe" viewing modes, but it's really tough to do it in a way that isn't culture-specific. It would take an enormous investment of effort to tag for the dozens of different things that could be issues, in order to allow someone to build an adjustable filter. - Jmabel ! talk 20:57, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
    That is a bit tame. Wikipedia and Commons are international projects and the same Medium that is NSFW in one society can be completely Ok in another society with another medium the other way around. The image of a child with an automatic weapon may be ok in USA or Afghanistan but considered child abuse in Germany. And what is a NSFW tag considered to do? With the MW software as it is, readers would see the image, scroll down the file desription page and then see the NSFW tag. For other ways the software would need to be changed. But in what way? What should the tag do? Trigger age verification? Ask the user for them religious beliefs? Open a window with a red border: Caution. this is NSFW. Proceed at your own risk. While simustanly playing a voice recording: "Attention, your colleage at desk seven is about to view NSFW content" C.Suthorn (talk) 22:33, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
    What a bureaucratic answer. All this bla bla bla to say "no, don't change anything"
    Are you familiar with any websites outside of Wikipedia? Tumblr or Reddit are examples for NSFW warnings. Synotia (talk) 23:55, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
    Tumblr and Reddit aren't caring about being an encyclopedia. Do you want advertising here as well? It's an entirely different purpose for this website. Again, give more specifics on what you want. A block from searching? From displaying? From being used at all? Why not propose the deletion of those offensive images if you want to have a sanitized website? They will be overruled but feel free to try it. Ricky81682 (talk) 00:06, 6 March 2023 (UTC),
    • @Ricky81682: I, for one, don't want Commons censored in terms of what we can store, but I think it would be entirely appropriate to make it possible to filter out unwanted results in any given search. If we can work out a way to define what a certain person finds inappropriate, they should be able to filter all of their searches by saying, effectively, "but not this stuff". In any case: what Synotia links below is, at least, a pretty egregious search result. If I were searching for "finger" on a general educational website, even if I were specifically looking for GIFs, I would not expect to get a bunch of videos of women masturbating. I don't think anyone can defend that as good UX. - 02:21, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
  • On "the finger", at least the first 20 items I get are pretty innocuous. But I'm using the "old" search. - Jmabel ! talk 20:59, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
    There you go. Don't click on this if you're in public. Synotia (talk) 23:58, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
    • Looks more like a problem with the search tool. Those are clearly not the results any reasonable person would expect on that search query. Glad I'm still using the old search. - Jmabel ! talk 00:24, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose. We have a hard enough time policing things and what is offensive to one person's sensibilities is not to another's (the swimsuits section varies heavily on acceptability). Looking at Category:The finger (gesture) it starts off fairly tame. I question whether all the nude or partially nude people images are all that educational in purpose but that have been strongly kept for a while now. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:58, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
    My proposal is just for a measure similar to Tumblr or Reddit: extreme violence and hardcore porn should be, in search results, at least covered with a NSFW tag so that no kid looking for the innocuous term "finger" (no the!) will be greeted by this assortment. Synotia (talk) 00:00, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
    Do you think you are the first person in the decades of this website to find something offensive? There are governments who have banned the entire website because one page is offensive but please explain why "think of the children" is an acceptable discussion when we have entire categories like Category:Nude or partially nude people. Do you want a warning on each image? Should it only display on Commons? On every page that displays the image? On every website that displays the image not on Wikimedia? At least do a little more effort than "I find something offensive so I want a warning because I search public websites without a filter and I find things I don't like." Ricky81682 (talk) 00:04, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
Please explain why "think of the children" is an acceptable discussion The main purpose of this site is to be educational and to that end be used in an educational setting. Are you seriously going to argue that any school out there is going to advocate for their students using the platform at school if there's nude pictures on here that come up in search results when people aren't even looking for them? Come on. There's clearly a difference between a government censoring something just to be autocratic versus a website not allowing certain content because it undercuts their target market. There's zero legitimate reason anyone should have to see multiple gifs of a woman fingering herself when they do a search for someone giving the middle finger. That's not autocratic, it's just smart and shows the platform cares about it's users. Just like if someone does a search for "death" in Google search they don't get a bunch of websites and images about snuff films or bondage porn. Either way, there should be a basic expectation with any website that if someone does a search for "X" topic that the "X" shouldn't be pornographic unless it's specifically what they are looking for. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:21, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
I don't understand your point. Me, I don't want the pictures of all this clit-rubbing to be removed, I just want an option to hide such images for people not looking for them, so that this kind of stuff doesn't show up when in public.
You're mocking me with "think of the children", but I don't see what's unreasonable in my proposal. What's wrong with not wanting a child looking for a picture for his school presentation to encounter pics of clit rubbing and fisting? Synotia (talk) 10:57, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
"but please explain why "think of the children" is an acceptable discussion when we have entire categories like Category:Nude or partially nude people" - because ability to skip display of pornographic images is entirely desirable tool when doing something with a children. "think of the children" is often misused (and therefore mocked) exactly because in many contexts it is entirely valid Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 19:03, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
perhaps some folks have never used the internet in a public place? Synotia (talk) 16:19, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment This is obviously a problem given the educational nature of the platform and the fact that most users probably don't want to see pornographic images when doing otherwise innocuous searches. That said, it seems like the problem would be better solved by taking a clear stance against the platform hosting such images in the first place, which is way more doable then creating a filter would be. Although I agree that what is pornographic varies by culture and people's sensibilities, but so do most things. Including some types of images that Commons has clear guidelines against hosting. So I don't think that means it wouldn't be doable. That's not to say there wouldn't be edge cases, but so what? If nothing else it would at least stem the near constant flood of non-educational pics of random people's private parts that seem to be clogging up the DR process lately. It would be way more reasonable to just speedy delete all that crap as clearly out of scope then have the umpteenth conversation in a week of if the millionth "hard penis of man from X minority group" or whatever image serves an educational purpose or not. There's better ways to spend our time and there's no shortage of similar images out there on other sites. Either way, it's not our selling point, the purpose of the project, or a good usage of time to deal with. So at the end of day who cares? Just ban it. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:13, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
  • I've created a Phabricator ticket, linked at the top of this section. Please, Phabricator is not the place to discuss a proposal for censoring or filtering Commons, but it probably is the place to discuss an anomalous search result. @Synotia: if you have other examples of comparably egregious results, you might want to add them to that ticket. - Jmabel ! talk 02:15, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
    I agree. Searches should return what people are searching for. If you search for things most people wouldn't be searching for, it makes sense to have to use a bit less general search phrase, especially if the results may be shocking to many users. –LPfi (talk) 09:30, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
    My search returns the same collection of clit-rubbing and fisting and dildo-shoving with the term "finger". Is "finger" something unusual? Synotia (talk) 11:01, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
  • For the NSFW thing, WMF tried hard and the proposed solutions had too many problems to be workable. In addition to cultural differences, the main problem was that such taggs are prone to misuse and impossible to police in any reasonable manner. If you think you have some solution to that problem, first read at least a summary of that heated and mile-long debate. I think nobody who was here at the time wants to repeat the debate anytime soon. Any proposal that isn't very much better than what WMF could come up with will at best be ignored by most of the community and soon forgotten, otherwise the debate will be repeated with nothing accomplished but some contributors leaving and others wasting a lot of time and energy. –LPfi (talk) 09:33, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
    Haven't read it all, but perhaps some folks might be turned on by this, which would explain why they would argue against any change. Synotia (talk) 11:03, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
    I was there, and no, I do not want to have that discussion again. Still think there might be a solution if we approach the whole thing with a clear mind and from a different angle. El Grafo (talk) 11:33, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
  • As other have pointed out above, we can not decide what is NSFW or otherwise objectionable due to the vast variety of different views on this in different cultures. That's partially why a couple of years ago, the whole "Image Filters" idea of the WMF blew up spectacularly. Any discussion in that direction will inevitably drift off towards an emotional "freedom" vs. "but the children".
What we could do, however, is define a couple of "tags" in COM:SDC and have a place in the settings where users could opt out of seeing certain types of content (replace them with a "you chose not to see this image, click here to reveal" placeholder). For logged-out users, you could store those choices in a cookie. Sister projects could be allowed to set sensible defaults; default on Commons would probably be nothing being hidden per COM:CENSOR.
If you think about it for a moment, this could be about much more than penises: Archnophobes could opt out of seeing spiders, people with en:epilepsy could avoid flashing GIF's. Maybe dry alcoholics would like to avoid seeing images of alcoholic beverages? Of course we would not be able to guarantee that every single image will be tagged accordingly, but given how much we obsess about categorizing the tiniest detail, I think it could be at least mostly functional. To manage expectations, call the filter "try to hider spiders" rather than "do not show spiders". On the community side of things, we would probably want to have a process for determining what is worth making a filter tag for. --El Grafo (talk) 10:20, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
All this discussions about whether pictures of even numbers of flowers might be offensive to Ukrainian women etc etc etc are in my opinion just filibustering. I don't know what's their motive.
Might as well replace the front page by goatse. Synotia (talk) 11:07, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
And here we go, drifting off. I understand you're probably experiencing a variety of negative emotions right now. That's understandable, but they are not helping. You will not get what you want, for a number of (partially highly frustrating) reasons. I was trying to work towards a solution that might actually have a chance of succeeding. If you're not interested: fine, I'm out. El Grafo (talk) 11:29, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
@El Grafo: I totally agree with Synotia about the filibustering. Otherwise, I'd be interested to know exactly where in the world it's culturally acceptable to display images of women fisting themselves at work or in public place, because I can't think of any. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:18, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
It's not the blacks and the whites we need to talk about. No, we do not need to discuss numbers of flowers (where did that even come from?), but we do need to discuss where to draw the line between black and white on a long spectrum of shades of grey in-between. That is going to be a long and difficult discussion that requires discipline and the will to work together towards a solution every side can somehow live with. This is not a debate club situation where in the end one side can "win". This is not the place for polemics. Repeatedly yelling "CENSORSHIP!" and "PORN!" back and forth at each other is not going to help. El Grafo (talk) 08:53, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
SDC is the way to go. However there are currently 90 million files at commons and they all need to be accessed by a human. Commons has about 20000 active users. C.Suthorn (talk) 15:24, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
There is nothing magic about SDC vs. a tag in the Wikitext. The issue would be what the rules would be, not a technical detail of implementation. - Jmabel ! talk 16:37, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
Why not just let people make the filters themself? Trade (talk) 17:21, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
Why does it have to be either all or nothing? Trade (talk) 17:23, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
we absolutely can't have goatse on the front page, it's not properly licensed DS (talk) 03:27, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
  • I have run into it in another context - I wanted to tag in Commons Android app something as "Forest" and got unexpected dick pic. As I am not fan of unexpected dick pics I am no longer adding categories when uploading (except few that I remember adding without unwanted side effects). See https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons/issues/5138 I do not have a ready solution, but ability to skip photos where genitalia are primary focus would be nice. Maybe this Wikidata-powered tagging content of images can help? With data consumers able to filter out whatever they want? Someone may want to filter out genitalia, someone dead bodies, someone else images of spectacular gangrene. Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 19:00, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
Given that Commons is volunteer driven, I'm not sure how reliable SDC would be if it user-contributed data. (Having formal censors, would be completely unacceptable.)
The issue is what constitutes 'NSFW' content. The issue is a POLICY problem, not a technical one, and perhaps it's something the WMF needs to set out based on legal requirements in the US, and consultation with the Community in line with what is industry practice on other platforms.
ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 19:26, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
Bingo. That's exactly my stance. It's 100% a policy problem. Although you said it a lot more clearly then I did ;) But the suggestion by some people that we can't stop images of women fisting themselves from showing up in searches by not allowing for it to be uploaded in the first place because of cultural differences or whatever is just ludicrous. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:18, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
It's not a policy problem so much as there are too many people who absolutely enjoy uploading this nonsense and are probably putting in keywords so that their images go to the top for basic terms. We either need to get rid of those images/uploaders with a nonsense purpose or better figure out the keywords. You can put all the image blocks in place but the people who get a thrill out of this nonsense are always going to volunteer more time at it. It's the same reason categories like Category:Middle-aged men in 2022 are constantly filled and refilled with NSFW penis images no matter how much you remove that stuff. Ricky81682 (talk) 18:29, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
I don't think it's such a black and white thing as that, but your not wrong either. I just prefer a multiprong approach to solving the issue. Otherwise the solution/solutions are just going to be half backed and ineffective. --Adamant1 (talk) 05:11, 8 March 2023 (UTC)


Hier ist der Wunsch aufgebracht worden, bei der Suche nach dem gewünschten Thema "X", keine Medien des Themas "Y" gezeigt zu bekommen, obwohl das eingegebene Suchwort "Z" sowohl Medien "X" als auch Medien "Y" finden muss. Und das läßt sich umsetzen, indem die suchende Person individuell Filter bestimmt (in der Suche, in den Präferenzen oder durch Gedankenübertragung). Damit das funktionieren kann müssen allerdings alle (derzeit 90 Millionen, künftig mehr) Medien maschinenlesbar beschrieben sein. Dafür stellt MW ein Verfahren zur Verfügung: SDC-depicts. Damit kann eine Person, die eine (zB) Ukulelen-Phobie hat (oder irgendwelche Finger für NSFW hält) für sich sicherstellen, nie von SVGs belästigt zu werden, die das Wort Ukulele als Vektor-Pfad enthalten, oder Videos, wo in der 37ten Minute eine Ukulele durchs Bild fliegt, oder DJVUs die im Literaturverzeichnis das Bild einer Ukulele enthalten. SDC-depicts sind keine Wörter sondern Begriffe - also sprachneutral, was für ein internationales Projekt unabdingbar ist. Irgendwelche Tags wären im besten Fall eine Wiedererfindung von SDC - also eine Doppelstruktur, die doppelten Pflegeaufwand verursacht. Aber das Problem bleibt bestehen: Es gibt bereits 90 Millionen Dateien und mit 20000 Usern dauert es Jahrzehnte diese alle zu markieren. JEDE der 90 Millionen Dateien kann für einen User NSFW sein.

Die Alternative wäre, dass Synotia festlegt, was NSFW ist, und einen Tag NSFW in die 3000 animierten GIFs setzt, die Synotia aufgrund einer nicht-eindeutigen Suchanfrage findet.

--C.Suthorn (talk) 20:06, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

@Synotia: Please see meta:Image filter referendum/en, meta:Image filter referendum/Results/en, and meta:Image filter referendum/Sue's report to the board/en. Nosferattus (talk) 20:22, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
Ich verstehe was Sie meinen. Es ist ja schwerig retroskeptiv zu tun, aber warum nicht prospektiv für neue Files? Und ja, wäre es möglich gewesen, hätte ich sie markiert als NSFW, aber so etwas besteht nicht. Synotia (talk) 20:28, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
ANY of the 90 million files can be NSFW for a user. That's a ludicrous statement. Most images on here aren't NSFW and no one is acting like they are. This issue was raised because of specific images of women fisting and fingering themselves, which are clearly not safe for work. Especially if that work is being done in an educational setting. Why not address the actual issue instead of acting like people are just needlessly bitching about innocuous images of Category:Pie charts pie charts or some nonsense?
In the meantime I'm not really convinced that filtering out the images through search custom filters would work since the search shouldn't be providing people with images of penises when they search for ""Forests" in the first place. Just adding another level of obtusity on a broken search system isn't going to stop it from being broken. Also, it assume people would know about the search filters in the first place, which they likely wouldn't. Plus they would have to add filters for every possible term even slightly related to pornographic images for it to be effective. No one associates the term "forest" with penises though. So if you create a filter for "forest" that blocks images of penises great, but no one is going to use it. Sure, you could create a search filter for "penis" that filters out images of penises. That's not the issue here though. I shouldn't have to explicitly ask a search image to not give me images of penises by actively filtering them out when I'm looking for forests either. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:40, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
That is naive. Pie charts are extremely controversial, as they are used for propaganda and fake news. Someone typing "Forest" into the search box may very well looking for Category:Fuck for Forest. Fuck for Forest contains nudity. That there are until now no penises is a fault of Commons' lacking diversity and low number of contributors. And it is likely that someone omits the word "Fuck" from a search as other websites tend to censor the word. C.Suthorn (talk) 09:43, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

It might be time to seriously revisit this filtering issue in general. I'd suggest, though, that there is little to be gained by continuing what is becoming a repetitive discussion here on the Village pump. Just to be clear:

  • I've opened a Phabricator ticket about the anomalous search result. I'd suggest that if other people have concrete examples of equally bizarre search results, whether about NSFW issues or otherwise, they should add to that ticket.
  • Would someone like to start a new page to discuss possible technical approaches to a filtering system? It seems pretty clear at least where to start in a problem statement, Both from what I've observed in discussions over time and from User:Adamant1's links above) it seems that it remains a widely supported principle that Commons is not censored, and that anything we do should be more about providing people with a chance to be warned before seeing certain imagery, rather than preventing them from seeing that imagery if they so choose. There seems to be widespread concern about sexual imagery and violent imagery, with a lesser but parallel concern from those who would like the availability of other filters. I, for one, don't see anything objectionable in providing the option of such filters; the question is more a technical one, and about the amount of effort it would take to enable this. I'd also suggest that any useful discussion should take up the question of what percentage of false positives and/or false negatives would be acceptable, because in my experience the closer to perfection we would need this to be, the harder it would be to achieve. But, again, I don't think we are going to get much further in the present discussion. Either someone should take on driving a new page where this really can be usefully discussed (creating the page, laying out the basics of the issue, sticking around to make sure it doesn't just go stale), or we should just say, "yes, this problem has cropped up before; no, we still have no concrete idea how to solve it." - Jmabel ! talk 00:58, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for opening the Phabricator ticket at least. It will be interesting to how they deal with it and how much whatever the solution is helps things. Although I still think there should be a discussion about what exactly people should be allowed to upload or not when it comes images that are NSWF, but your probably right that this isn't the best venue or discussion for it. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:45, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
Technical approaches, won't solve the policy issue. The community here needs to set out clearly defined and enforceable guidelines on what constitutes unacceptable NSFW content beyond what it and the WMF is already legally required to remove. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 07:26, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
Mention has been made about explicit nudity, and religious iconography. To this I would suggest that consideration should be given as to the appropriateness of certain media which promotes outright disinformation ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 07:26, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
I don't know if I'd go as far as censoring disinformation since what constitutes disinformation clearly isn't a bright line and it can serve an educational purpose sometimes regardless. But anyone who is being at all good faithed about this has to agree that images of women masterbating are both pornographic and not educational. So I think the guidelines could slightly clarified to not allow for such images without running into any kind slippery slope or going to far in the direction of censorship. At least from what I've seen most even semi-pornographic images are deleted when someone does a DR for them anyway. So it's not like having it would be a drastic change in the current state of affairs or anything. We could just deal with those types of images more expediently and without having to get a consensus through the DR process first. Unless someone wants to argue videos of women masterbating are educational, which OK I guess they could be, but so could a lot of things that already aren't allowed. Even things that aren't even necessarily illegal like videos of beheadings. I don't really see what the difference is. --Adamant1 (talk) 07:46, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
Is that a clear indication that cultural issues will be difficult problem? Where I live, I would expect most people to agree that women's masturbation is an important thing to talk and educate about, and probably at least a significant minority would believe some such files are educationally very valuable. Ergo, discussing what is non-educational will quickly lead astray. I have much more to say on that theme, but let's keep this discussion focused on NSFW filtering.
Voluntary filtering has at least two main problems, in addition to the technical ones: the filters can be used by some authorities forcing a target group to use their filter settings (by imposing a proxy or by other means; think public libraries), and some may tag innocent images, to make them less visible. I assume a lot of borderline images would be tagged, like when Jimbo started deleting nude images, including old paintings.
The project Jmabel suggested should include a discussion on these and other issues and be humble about their judgement on what should be filtered.
–LPfi (talk) 16:41, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
Videos of women masturbating are educational, see for example Venus_Berlin_2018_148.webm It contains the personality rights template and is part of three categories that have the nudity warning template, which constitutes a NSFW tag, that could be used in searches or whereever you want. C.Suthorn (talk) 16:45, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
I'm getting really tired of the straw-man arguments. The issue here is that, normally, and especially in public, if someone searches for "finger" they should not see a bunch of videos of women masturbating. This is not a question of whether such photos, or photos of men masturbating, or whatever else, should be on Commons. It's a question of being able to avoid seeing such images when making a presumably innocuous search.
Either we can set up a place to talk about this seriously, or people can keep hitting each other with trout. - Jmabel ! talk 16:50, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
To my understanding the author of the thread was looking for something called a "Stinkefinger" (and obviously "the finger" in english?) but used a broad search term that could mean anything from depictions of the unix finger command (a stalking tool and clearly NSFW) to human fingers, a brand of ice cream (Flutschfinger), a high rise building, or whatever. C.Suthorn (talk) 17:03, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
I suppose we all agree on the search issue, that "finger" should primarily show result for human fingers, ideally suggesting more specific search terms for the unix command (which was very useful), icecream, masturbation and whatever. I hope WMF will not try to solve the issue by raising the bar for sexual content; if you search for masturbation you should get media on masturbation. For educational videos of masturbation, I don't understand how the linked one makes the mark. It might be an educational video on sex fairs, but that's it. –LPfi (talk) 17:20, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
Perhaps if the request were more specific, i.e., request "Middle Finger" rather than just finger. On the other hand, if you receive something you don't want, just ignore it and move on. As for stating that a search for finger should primarily show human finger, that would shut out the fingers of primates, or fingerling potatoes, or even chicken fingers. I promise, it's really not that hard to ignore something you don't want or didn't ask for. Now, I do understand that the search was made in public and there could be a certain amount of embarrassment associated with whatever popped up, especially in the US where people tend to be more on the prude side. The entire issue can be easily fixed with a simple, cheap screen saver.
"Kerkstraad Katze" Kerkstraad Katze (talk) 00:02, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
And what about a photo of a woman protesting against the Compulsory headscarf in Iran while climbing the Reichstag? Is it NSFW? in the US, in Germany, in Iran? C.Suthorn (talk) 16:58, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
Is topless women considered NSFW in the US? Trade (talk) 17:19, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
@Trade: depends where you work, and in many cases depends on other details of the photo, which is a perfect example of why this is not a matter of drawing a line somewhere but of providing the technical means for different filters to be created. - Jmabel ! talk 17:34, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
Is the issue censoring the image itself or what keywords pop that up? If I search for "headscarf" that image should not be anywhere in the top search result. Possibly related to the protests but the bigger problem is that people are definitely going out of their way to ensure that the images in something banal like Category:Young men in 2008 are not NSFW. Ricky81682 (talk) 18:32, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
The nude images shouldn't be directly in that category: there are more specific categories where people wont be surprised to find them. But this is a problem of curating the categories and about categories it is a fool's errand to curate. The category should include at least a substantive proportion of portrait photos taken that year, and arguably a lot of other files. Thousands of subcategories and thousands of individual files. –LPfi (talk) 19:09, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
Things like that are exactly why I said above that a broken search with filters is still a broken search. Cool, add filters. But it's doubtful people are going to even add them to images or use them if they aren't even curating basic things like what images go in which categories. So I think it's both a technical question and one about if the images should be on Commons in the first place. If technical things aren't going to be dealt with or used then it seems like the only option is not allowing for the images to be uploaded in the first place though. Personally, I say we wait and see what happens with the Phabricator issue and how effective whatever they implement (if anything) is and then go from there. It's pointless to discuss alternatives or other ways of dealing with the problem at this point though. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:48, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
Would you be in favour of a CSD for explicit images? Media that violates COM:NOPENIS is in effect speedy deleted on scope grounds already. Widening COM:NOPENIS is a policy debate that could be had.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:55, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
Sure. I don't have time to do it myself right now, but there's definitely an argument to be made that COM:NOPENIS should be widened to include fisting videos and the like. --Adamant1 (talk) 21:57, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
But it's doubtful people are going to even add them to images or use them if they aren't even curating basic things like what images go in which categories. - Original uploaders in most cases certainly won't. But the community is already obsessively categorizing pictures of nude or partially nude women planting flowers - just need to divert that energy. Of course that doesn't mean we shouldn't delete things that certainly shouldn't be here in the first place. Filtering (opt-in) would be for those files that are not entirely black nor white and could go beyond things like nudity and violence (arachnophobia, epilepsy, ..?). This is a complicated issue and there will not be a simple, single solution to it. El Grafo (talk) 08:27, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
I understand your concern but at the end of the day these are pictures of young men taken in the year of 2008. It's hard to argue they dont fit the category Trade (talk) 01:47, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
You can move them to subcategories but you will find more NSFW pictures specifically in the main category. I don't know who immediately thinks of "that's a young man" when seeing those photographs but people do. Ricky81682 (talk) 22:26, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
  • I also want to add the note that these files are on the top of the search results because they are so popular. More popular files are considered more relevant and become ranked higher in the search result. Category:Videos of penile-vaginal intercourse is with 180.000 views in the last month the most viewed category followed be some more sexuality related categories. --GPSLeo (talk) 07:13, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
    Which search are you talking about here? That may be true for external searches vie Google et al., but popularity or number of views is not mentioned as criterion for ranking search results at mw:Help:MediaSearch at all ... El Grafo (talk) 08:49, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
  • More effective deletion of low-quality penis images won't solve the NSFW issue. I suppose a high-quality penis or masturbation image will be more probable to show up in a search and can be used in chock vandalism as easily as a lower quality image. And I hope we all understand that covering both penises and female masturbation in our media is important for providing "all human knowledge", and for certain educational uses. More workforce and better tools help in categorising and reverting chock vandalism (and avoiding unexpected search results), but in the foreseeable future, Commons will probably remain NSFW. I don't see an effort of tagging or developing filters will help, and I see our coverage as more important than avoiding the risk of people getting embarrassed. –LPfi (talk) 10:52, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
    None of the proposed solutions will solve "the issue" because it is a complex of sub-issues that requires a complex of different approaches. Deleting some stuff can help. Tweaking the search function can help. Many other things can help. There's no silver bullet and there will always be something slipping through the meshes, but there's a lot we can do to improve the situation.
    As far as I can tell, MediaSearch only looks at 1) keywords in the wikitext and file name and 2) "depicts" statements in SDC. Image quality so far is not taken into consideration unless you actively filter for QI/FP. So one way to push the fingering away from the top of the search results is to make sure that pictures that actually show just fingers can be found easily (for example by adding finger (Q620207) to depicts (P180)). Part of the reason the search function sucks is that our meta data sucks. El Grafo (talk) 14:12, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
    Just for the records: Some of those NSFW pictures actually have "finger" as a depicts statement, even marked as "prominent". Seems to explain the search results.-- Herbert Ortner (talk) 14:58, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
    Yeah, it's not a solution either, but at least now you have to scroll down a bit before you hit the first unexpected fingering when you search for finger. (There are arguments to be made that those indeed feature fingers quite prominently. That brings us back to the unresolved problem of how to use depicts (P180). Let's not go there, we can not solve this now & here. Afaik, current status is that we're waiting for the MediaSearch people to get back to us on some essential questions). El Grafo (talk) 15:52, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
I think what can be done is marking "offending" files with a tag ("depicts masturbation", "depicts porn", "depicts nudity") and this tag would cause the pictures to not be filtered completely out out of the searches (that is soft-censoring, I'm opposed!), but to have them blurred and non-animated in the search results. They would still be entirely and normally visible when clicked upon, and people who want them directly accessible can opt-in by "disabling the blur-filter for search results". --Enyavar (talk) 14:11, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
That's pretty much the kind of behavior I'd like to have anywhere: not just in the search results, and user configurable wrt what to hide (e.g. spiders). El Grafo (talk) 14:18, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

A question about facsimiles

Hello, I'm not sure that the term "facsimile" in Hebrew (my natural language) is identical to the English meaning of the term, so I want to make sure: Are the files in Category:Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, Category:Julius Euting and Category:Mark Lidzbarski considered facsimiles, or is there more accurate term for them? פעמי-עליון (talk) 10:28, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

@פעמי: In English, a "facsimile" is a near-perfect reproduction, especially of something 2-dimensional. - Jmabel ! talk 16:12, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
So what is the right term for the pictures of the inscriptions that appear in Category:Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum? פעמי-עליון (talk) 16:35, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
@פעמי: These are just photographs of stone inscriptions, no? Almost anything on here, except computer-generated graphics is, at some level, a photograph, since you can't exactly put a stone inscription or an oil painting on line. - Jmabel ! talk 19:36, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
@פעמי-עליון: The ones that are on stones (I haven't checked to see if they're all on stone) could be in Category:Inscribed stones, or maybe Category:Sandstone inscriptions if they're on sandstone. If those don't fit, check other subcategories of Category:Inscriptions by surface or Category:Objects with inscriptions. -- Auntof6 (talk) 19:49, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
Jmabel, most of them are stone inscriptions, but not all... what I want is a category for pictures or reproductions of Phoenician inscriptions in books, but I don't know how to call it (in Hebrew they are simply called facsimiles).
Auntof6, I want it to be one category for all of the files as I described above.
Thank you both for your help, פעמי-עליון (talk) 14:48, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
@פעמי-עליון: are you looking for something like rubbing (Q7375860)? we have this concept in east asia. see the japanese or chinese wp for some examples.--RZuo (talk) 15:22, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
@RZuo: These don't look like rubbings to me, they look like photos of the inscriptions.
@פעמי: Again, as I said, "Almost anything on here… is, at some level, a photograph". We don't usually add a category for the fact that it is a photograph, though there is Category:Black and white photographs (and its subcats) if you want to use that. Categories normally describe what the photograph shows, which in this case is (for most of these) Category:Inscribed stones and probably some subcat of [[[:Category:Inscriptions by language]].
Why would there be one category for all of the files that are already in relevant categories like Category:Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum? What is the concept you want that category to express? - Jmabel ! talk 17:32, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
RZuo, thanks, some of them are indeed rubbings of inscriptions, but many other are not, so it doesn't solve the problem. I know this technic for a long time (we use it on coins we find for good luck, according to the trundition) so it's nice to know its name :)
Jmabel, you are right, the whole Phoenician inscriptions category is actually Phoenician inscriptions photographs category. what I want is to concentrate all of the imapes of pages with phoenician inscriptions in one category (they are now scattered between the categories by country etc.). Do you have an idea for a name for it? Or maybe I am wrong and this is an unnecessary category, I am open to this possibility... פעמי-עליון (talk) 20:05, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
i guess you can build a new cat for phoenician alphabet/language, just like Category:Ancient Egyptian inscriptions, Category:Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions... RZuo (talk) 20:54, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, but there already is Category:Phoenician alphabet and Category:Phoenician inscriptions פעמי-עליון (talk) 21:13, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
@פעמי: We don't tend to build "flat list" topical categories, and when we do they usually contain only other categories (e.g. Category:Ships by name (flat list)). Typically, when categories get to more than a few hundred images, we want to break them up. What problem exactly is it that you are trying to solve here, where you feel a flat category would be called for? There may be some other way to solve the problem. - Jmabel ! talk 21:43, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
I want the images as I described (images of pages with...) to be concentrated in one category (or maybe splitted into sub categories for every publication, like the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum and Mark Lidzbarski's), and to put the dozens of these images which are in Category:Phoenician inscriptions in a more specific category. פעמי-עליון (talk) 21:56, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
@פעמי: That doesn't answer my question at all. I'm not asking you to propose a category scheme. I'm asking what problem you are trying to solve. Is this something you want to do for your own use? For editors generally? For end users? And, whatever the answer to that is, what are you trying to achieve for that group? - Jmabel ! talk 02:05, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
It's for all of the users, and what I noted (the images of inscriptions from books are not concentrated but scattered between the sub categories) is the problem I want to solve. It will help people who want to see these pictures in one place, but not in the form of a book like in the Internet Archive (which is the source of these files). I hope it answers your question. פעמי-עליון (talk) 20:00, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
@פעמי: I know you won't like the first part of this answer, but please keep reading for the next paragraph. You seem to be saying that (at least in this case) you don't like the way Commons category system works, and would rather have something more like tags on Flickr. You are, of course, entitled to that opinion, but you are unlikely to overturn longstanding policies. You might want to read Commons:Categories if you want to understand the current policy and some of the rationale for it.
If you want to collect these images on one page so they can be viewed that way, the approved way to do this is a gallery page. That also lets you organize them in any appropriate manner (rather than have their sequence driven by filenames or sort keys) and to add notes and captions as appropriate. See, for example, what I did with Places of worship in Seattle. In that case I did not choose to be exhaustive -- instead, it's more of a "one of each" -- but you can do a page like this that is exhaustive, as you seem to desire. Also, possibly see Seattle and the Orient, another one I did; some of the ways parts of that page are organized might also be good for your purpose. And, of course, you can look around at other gallery pages and see if someone has taken an approach that meets your needs, or you can come up with something of your own. - Jmabel ! talk 23:41, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
Hi Jmabel, sorry for the delay. Thank you for the respectful response, I really appreciate it. I understand my Idea contradicts the policies in Commons, so I won't execute it. I will consider making agallery page, but I guess it will firce me to maintain it myself, because it doesn't appear stand out like a category, so I don't know if I will do it.
I really thank you for your patience and help! פעמי-עליון (talk) 18:35, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
@פעמי: FWIW, if you made a flat category, you would probably have to maintain that yourself as well, because it goes against the ways we usually do things. - Jmabel ! talk 19:43, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Photo challenge January results

Hospitals: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image      
Title Hospital corridor in the
“Marienhaus Klinikum Hetzelstift“		 Hospital corridor covered
with Namib sand in ghost
town Kolmanskop, Namibia		 Ny del av Haukeland Universitetssykehus
fra Møllendal gravplass i Bergen
Author F. Riedelio Mozzihh Odd Roar Aalborg
Score 16 14 11
Ice: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image      
Title A growler became a sculpture wind-blown rime ice found
on a summit cross		 jogger crossing the icy right barrier
gate of the Jahnwehr weir in Bamberg, Germany
Author Virtual-Pano Roy Egloff Ermell
Score 19 18 15

Congratulations to Virtual-Pano, Roy Egloff, Ermell, F. Riedelio, Mozzihh and Odd Roar Aalborg. Jarekt (talk) 02:11, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

What's wrong with the disambiguation categories?

They used to show all the available options in a kind of dropdown list, but that doesn't seem to be working for months or years, resulting in images being accumulated in these maintenance categories, as there's no way to see they are disambiguations rather than the proper thing. Random example: Category:Cocks ( was looking for a category for a rooster figure in a nativity scene figure 🙄).

What's broken with disambigs?-- Darwin Ahoy! 23:07, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

In a dropdown list where? Maybe this is related to the new skin? Ricky81682 (talk) 06:44, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
@Ricky81682 The former behaviour was that when I would pick a category, if it was a disambiguation, it would present me with a list of the available options stated in the disambiguation itself, which was very useful. It doesn't seem to be working anymore, for about an year at least... Eventually it was some gadget doing it, like HotCat, but it was very useful and it's sad it's not working anymore. Darwin Ahoy! 09:57, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
Indeed HotCat used to offer, for a selected disambiguation cat, a droplist of the cats linked in its page, the same way subcats of a normal cat are offered. This was a very handy behaviour, allowing for faster categorization and ensuring that disambiguation cats were not being filled up by mistake (at least not with HotCat); I seem to recall that Cat-a-Lot used to work like this, too.
This behaviour must be reinstated ASAP, as it’s way more important for Commons than the usual WMF makework, such as polls for pie-in-the-sky break-everything vaporware gadgetry, meatspace meetups for the previledged jetset who can afford international travel, or constant spam about some nonsense or other.
-- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 02:53, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
@DarwIn and Tuvalkin: You don't say what is the sort of URL you are looking at that doesn't offer you this, but my guess is that you have a URL with a query string. That is, for example you won't see the HotCat stuff on https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Mum, but you should on https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mum. - Jmabel ! talk 04:46, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
I have become more active on Commons about 20 months ago, and I never encountered that behaviour with HotCat. It does sound like a GREAT way to a lot of problems, I concur. It should be enabled automatically, too. --Enyavar (talk) 12:42, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
@Jmabel: Those two urls give me the same result: a text area to create the new page’s wikitext, with blank HotCat UI on top. I otherwise don’t understand your question:I might have derailed DarwIn’s original post, but I was only refering to how diambiguation cats are given faux subcats in HotCat and Cat-a-Lot, the url in question being any usual Commons category page http address — no queries included (no ?s nor &s in the url). -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 18:58, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
@Tuvalkin: (1) Interesting if you get HotCat in a situation where I don't, but so it goes. (2) On an image with no categories, what would you have expected other than a blank HotCat? (3) On the disambiguation thing, what you want seems reasonable, though I don't remember it ever working that way. - Jmabel ! talk 19:41, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
@Jmabel:
  1. Might be a matter of settings/preferences: I have mine set to show cats always on top.
  2. I didn’t expect anything different in that situation: editing a non-existing cat page.
  3. I’m positive that HotCat worked that way in the past; not sure about Cat-a-lot.
-- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 20:38, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
@Tuvalkin: (1) Me, too, more or less, though I have it below images on file pages. (3) I have them both on, but seldom use them. - Jmabel ! talk 21:43, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Cat for mixed use of different writing scripts？

is there already a cat for things like https://twitter.com/Zwitzerer/status/1431303037176397830 ? i dont seem to find one under Category:Writing systems.--RZuo (talk) 13:35, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

@RZuo: We have Category:Bilingual text and Category:Multilingual text, but probably no equivalent about mixing writing systems. - Jmabel ! talk 15:45, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
Category:Transliteration is close and should probably become of subcategory of the missing category. El Grafo (talk) 09:47, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
This is the Category:Romanian transitional alphabet, currently part of Category:Romanian alphabet and Category:Romanian Cyrillic alphabet. If you want, you could consider adding Category:Mixed scripts. --HyperGaruda (talk) 05:16, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

File:Dich vu apple.png

I think that File:Dich vu apple.png has copyright problems. While some elements are just geometrical, at least two others (second from right and left) are property of companies. I could be wrong but, do you think there is a base to propose a deletion? Thanks! B25es (talk) 08:29, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

All of these icons are already on Commons seperately. No issue here Trade (talk) 16:12, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
Ok then. Thanks! B25es (talk) 11:51, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

File:Cicely Mary Barker A Flower Fairy Alphabet; Blackie, 1934.jpg

Why this picture image (File:Cicely Mary Barker A Flower Fairy Alphabet; Blackie, 1934.jpg) is the own work by the uploader? Although the image was published in around 1934 (about 90 years ago), but the copyright of this image is not free, Frederic Warn may possess the copyright. --Flora fon Esth (talk) 16:15, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

@Gmihail: you uploaded this. It looks like you have been claiming a lot of copyrighted work as your own work. - Jmabel ! talk 17:59, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
Deletion request filed. Abzeronow (talk) 20:10, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Aldene?

Can someone find info on this photographer: File:Floyd Bennett.jpg --RAN (talk) 17:15, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

This site indicates there was an Aldene Studios in New York City in the 1920s and includes a newspaper or magazine advertisement. An actor's directory and stage manual from January 1926 confirms its existence at the same address. -- William Graham (talk) 21:01, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
Did some more research and found in the November 15, 1924 issue of The Billboard on page 18 under the headings "Business Records" "New Incorporations" "New York", it lists Aldene Theatrical Photographer of Manhattan. At the end of the listing three names are listed: G. Hoffberg, H. R. Zipkin, and C. Krauss. I assume those were the names of the founders. -- William Graham (talk) 22:09, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Naming conventions: Person qualifiers

Hi, I sometimes accidentally mismatch persons because they share very common names. And our biographical category tree is a total mess. My idea is that each person-category should include either a description (artist, writer, politician...) or even more preferably, the d-o-b/d-o-d, where possible. Examples would be: Hans Adler (ophthalmologist) and Hans Adler (lawyer) or John Smith (1580-1631), John Smith (1814-1853). Obviously this is already done where disambiguations are needed, but as I typed, I regularly encounter cases where no disambig exists already. Which means that I then have to create new disambiguations where I have to choose how this gets done - shall I let the existing category remain untouched, or move it as well? Which qualifier will I choose? Just let me tell you, this is not my forte and I imagine many other people also have problems with it. I would rather just stay lazy and don't give flying expletives about the miscategorizations - they are not really my problem after all. I typed in the name "George E. Norris", nothing gets found. "George Norris", one matching category! This must certainly be the disambiguation point where someone else will probably disentangle George A. Norris, George W. Norris and George E. Norris at some later point in the coming decades - right?

  • Question 1: Can we make the disambiguation-qualifiers 'mandatory' for every(**:see #3) person? This means that even categories like Peter Andre and Matteo Renzi would get a qualifier ("born 1973" / "singer" or "born 1975" / "politician") preemptively, because you never know when another "Peter Andre" or "Matteo Renzi" from the distant past or in the future comes up. Obviously this means that this solution is not quickly done because someone[TM] would have to go through some hundred thousand categories, but I argue that would be a good thing because most disambiguation pages are very poorly maintained anyway, or don't even exist (like Hans Adler and George Norris above).
  • Question 2: Which qualifier is preferable - job description (becomes a problem again whenever there are two "John Smith (artist)"), or the date-of-birth-date-of-death (becomes a problem when people don't know the correct dates, despite Wikidata). Right now we have a wild mix based on whoever thinks of whatever qualifier first; and of course even mixtures (three vocalists named Kim Dong-hyun). Even if we don't go with mandatory qualifiers, this is still a question I have each time I encounter the problem.
  • Question 3: (**) Exceptions?
    • Should people with a middle name or with a whole string of names (like this) get excluded from a rule to add qualifiers? Hans Georg Adler should still appear in the non-existent disambig-page together with the other Hans Adlers mentioned above, but he doesn't need a qualifier because of the middle name. This would mean if a person has a middle name, it should already get used for the category.
    • Really famous people only known under two names ("Bill Gates" and "Martin Luther") might also qualify for exceptions, although we then run into the definition problem of what "really famous" is. Is the explorer "John Smith" really famous enough to not get a "1580-1631" qualifier?
    • Sub-categories dealing with all the works or appearances of a person would not need a qualifier, I think.

Well, so far my thoughts. --Enyavar (talk) 12:38, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

One problem is that the user creating the category doesn't necessarily know what disambiguation to use. Perhaps they don't know the year of birth, perhaps the person was a nobleman better known as politician or the other way round, a musician doing their main carrier as scientist, whatever. Using middle names can also get confusing, if the middle name is known but not commonly used. I think sub-categories should use the same name as the main category, otherwise you'd get a tune composed by John Smith the explorer in the music by category of the composer John Smith, which would be hard to notice afterwards. We should probably look at what schemes the Wikipedias use, as they have the same problem. –LPfi (talk) 16:21, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
I don’t have easy answers for these questions, but I wanted to say I find that the way Enyavar presented the issue was very comprehensively outlined. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 18:50, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
My two cents: Q1 - pre-emptively creating disambiguations is creating a lot of work for what may be no reason. I've created lots of person categories. I create a non-ambiguated cat if I find that there is only one person named it (at time of creation). Once I find that there are more, I always disambiguate, regardless of how famous/well-known the person is as that is an objective measure. Q2 - job description. Add the occupation they're (most) famous for in brackets as this is easiest to understand. Second - if there are two people with the same occupation, add location (British politician) or year of birth. When there are a lot of people that can be confused (see Hans Caspar Hirzel...), use yob/yod. Q3 - Middle initials or names are often used to disambiguate but may be meaningless unless they're generally used for a person's name (like George W. Bush). It is clearer to say "John Smith (explorer)" and "John Smith (singer)" rather than "john b./bert smith" and "john e./elliot smith" to distinguish the two. -- Deadstar (msg) 14:40, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the 2 cents, @Deadstar: and @LPfi: ! My issue is that my actual interest is not in curating those kind of categories at all. I see my main purpose on Commons in meaningfully categorizing maps. Maps that have authors, or that may be included in old books (with authors). Authors have names, which I want to include in the categories. Red categories mostly, but providing a basis for later editors. The British Library sometimes provides the author's dob/dod, but it may not always be obvious what a 18th-century writer was most famous for. The Wikipedias may have very different solutions to disambiguate a certain name, as well. So, each time I need to suddenly create a disambiguation category means I have to familiarize myself with how to do it, then I have to research the life of several random people to find out what their job was, and then make a plan how to recategorize the whole stuff associated with them. Or, I just create a single new category, like last week when I created George E. Norris. George Norris was taken (first comers get non-disambiguations) and the creator of George W. Norris didn't care either about turning the original George Norris into a disambiguation category. And I fully understand that motive, this is a big hassle when dealing with unfamiliar formatting, templates and Wikidata.
I guess that creating preemptive disambiguation tags may not be the best idea, but may hope was to prevent miscategorizations. My point remains that person-categories should be maintained systematically, by people who like to do that (or a well-supervised AI/bot, no shame in using such for detecting/resolving naming issues). Otherwise, the best solution for me is to completely avoid name categories for the uncategorized files that I come across, or to not care about stuffing files into wrong categories. It makes categorization that much easier - there is a reason why the people I am doing a lot of work for, blindly use the category "Maps" to dump their stuff onto Commons. --Enyavar (talk) 11:01, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
@Enyavar: I guess I enjoy sorting through those person cats! I just disambiguated George Norris - I don't know anything about programming bots to do this (and there are many factors to consider + I also do a general search to find any other files/people named it). I'm happy to discuss a more thorough project approach to this with whoever is keen to pick this up. In the mean time, we could set up a "to be disambiguated" category for collecting those that you come across and I (and/or others) can look into them? -- Deadstar (msg) 13:04, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Taxonomy category redirects

I am not sure where the correct place is to bring this up, so apologies if I chose the wrong venue. There are currently two category redirect templates for incorrectly used taxonomic names: One is {{Synonym taxon category redirect}}, which is intended for use with taxonomic synonyms. This makes absolute sense. Then there is also {{Invalid taxon category redirect}}, which by this logic should really be used with nomina invalida, that is, taxonomic names that have never been validly published in the first place. However, this matches neither the description attached to the template, which refers to "deprecated/invalid names without exact synonymy (different content)", nor the actual use on category pages. This does not make sense from my understanding of taxonomic nomenclature, since any deprecated name will either be a taxonomic synonym or not validly published in the first place.

The reason I noticed this in the first place was that I wanted to move the category Category:Walsura trifolia to Walsura trifoliolata, since the former has not been validly published as a later orthographic variant with the same type (and the same author). Felix QW (talk) 11:24, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

@Felix QW: It's not uncommon for higher level taxa to be invalid or deprecated without being nomina invalida. While the taxon names might be completely valid, the taxons themselves may be paraphyletic, based on outdated concepts, or simply forgotten and unused, having been replaced by more modern taxonomies. Such taxons are sometimes synonymized and sometimes simply abandoned. This only applies to higher level taxa, though. Species taxa should ideally have some sort of definite resolution, even if it's just nomen dubium or nomin invalidum. Nosferattus (talk) 17:02, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
In my understanding (which comes from botany rather than zoology), if the circumscription of a higher level taxon would turn out to be paraphyletic, then it would either be recircumscribed (if it has priority) or synonymised (if it doesn't) based on its type species. In any case, at any particular point in time any validly published name would either be accepted or synonymised. If it were forgotten and abandoned, then it would usually be readopted when it is rediscovered as it would then have priority over newer names. Or do I understand this incorrectly? Felix QW (talk) 14:23, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
@Felix QW: Yes, in an ideal world at the end of time. In reality, there are at least six cases which are sometimes exceptions to this (for animals at least): (1) Pre-1931 taxa with no type species; (2) Taxons above the rank of superfamily (which aren't regulated by the ICZN); (3) Known paraphyletic taxons that no one has yet created replacements for; (4) Obscure senior taxon names that everyone agrees should be suppressed, but haven't been officially; (5) Taxonomic vandalism[7]; (6) Taxonomically complex groups where cladistics has largely replaced the use of Linnaean taxonomy (this often overlaps with case #3).
An example of #1: Back in the 1840s Hentz divided all the jumping spiders into 6 taxa: Ambulatoriae, Insidiosae, Luctatoriae, Metatoriae, Pugnatoriae, and Saltatoriae. These were based on which legs were the longest. No one else thought this taxonomy was sensible, so it was discarded and never mentioned again. No type species were designated so no one has felt the need to declare them as synonyms to other taxa. They've just been completely ignored for about 180 years despite being valid names that probably have seniority. Since it's a lot easier to continue ignoring them than to petition the ICZN to suppress the names (which they rarely do), they will probably be ignored forever.
An example of #3: The spider superfamily Thomisoidea is widely known to be paraphyletic and useless (as it just groups two families that aren't actually closely related), but no one has yet suggested a new superfamily to put Thomisidae (the type family) into instead. It will probably eventually be synonymized, but in the meantime it's effectively abandoned and might stay that way for decades (or forever if it turns into case #6).
An example of #4: Phidippus audax, one of the most well known jumping spider species in the world, has an obscure senior synonym: Salticus variegatus. Arachnologists have been petitioning to have the senior synonym officially suppressed by the ICZN since 1970, but with no luck. Regardless, there is complete consensus among arachnologists to continue using Phidippus audax and that's what we use on Commons.
I'm not sure if any of those cases are what the authors of {{Invalid taxon category redirect}} had in mind, but I could imagine it being used for any of them. Of course one could argue that Commons should strictly follow ICZN rules, but in some cases that would lead to significant divergence from the taxonomies actually used in the current scientific literature, and it would be ignoring the fact that taxonomy is, in practice, messy and incomplete (a lot like Commons). Nosferattus (talk) 22:29, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
So it seems like there are two templates for three cases:
That seems mildly confusing, especially since the template documentation does not clearly explian that. El Grafo (talk) 09:35, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
@Felix QW and El Grafo: After looking more closely at the template documentation for both of these and how they are being used, I agree with both of you that it doesn't really make sense. It seems that Liné1 intended {{Synonym taxon category redirect}} to be for objective synonyms and {{Invalid taxon category redirect}} to be for subjective synonyms (or something like that). I would favor merging {{Invalid taxon category redirect}} into {{Synonym taxon category redirect}} to simplify things and limit confusion. The weird edge cases (which hardly exist on Commons) aren't important enough to justify a separate template, IMO, and we definitely don't want to be handling different types of proper synonyms with different templates as that's just confusing. Nosferattus (talk) 17:11, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
@Nosferattus and El Grafo: Thank you very much for your input, and Nosferattus in particula for the insightful examples. Does anyone here know the procedure for initiating a template merge?
On enwiki there is a dedicated "merging procedure"; would it here just need an administrator to implement? Felix QW (talk) 20:20, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

David S. Soriano

I am unsure how notable this user is as an "AI artist" but 1.1k uploads of AI generated artworks onto Commons feels very excessive

He's very inconsistent whether or not he marks his uploads as AI generated so it's very difficult to determine if all the images in the category actually belongs there. Other users have inquire him about his lack of tagging of AI art so far but without any response. @David S. Soriano: --Trade (talk) 21:25, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Apart from the controversy around AI-generated art, I think not many of his files are even within scope (Artwork without obvious educational use, including non-educational artwork uploaded to showcase the artist's skills in particular). But there are just so many by now... --HyperGaruda (talk) 05:05, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
We had Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by David S. Soriano in August 2022 and it was kept. Absent a large number of one-by-one listing each image for deletion with a separate explanation that each one isn't within the scope enough to annoy him, I don't see what people expect him to do differently. Even that I don't think will do much since it's pretty easy to just come up with words for an AI to generate images and upload them. Ricky81682 (talk) 17:09, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Why this flickr import has a different size？

File:Former Jordan Marsh Flagship Store Omni Mall Downtown Miami.jpg is 4,032 × 3,024 here but flickr original is 3959 × 2969. anyone knows why? its upload record has the tag flickr which means it was directly imported by uploadwizard, so it was not uploader's action that caused the different size. RZuo (talk) 20:05, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

  • Flickr version is (visually) slightly more cropped compared to ours, so it's a matter of a different crop, not stretching. I'd guess they somehow uploaded a slightly different version to Flickr after the upload to Commons, except I don't know how you could do that and keep the same Flickr photo ID. Definitely strange. - Jmabel ! talk 20:21, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
    @Infrogmation: do you know what happened, since it seems you uploaded it here 8 min after flickr upload? we're just being curious. :) RZuo (talk) 08:44, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

GRIN links

Hello, Anybody knows wy on Category:Begonia sect. Solananthera, The GRIN link leeds to

instead of

--Begalma (talk) 17:10, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Dear Begalma,
This is because sections should use {{GRIN genus}} rather than {{GRIN species}}. I just fixed it, so it leads to the right place now. Felix QW (talk) 21:28, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Conflicting Copyright licensing on Flickr

Could experienced minds on copyright address this please? A Flickr user ( https://www.flickr.com/photos/daniel35690/ ), has uploaded photos stating 'All rights reserved', however, in the text description he states 'This work is made available under the terms of CC 4.0 International'. It's my understanding that once a CC attribution has been made, no reversion to 'all rights' can be made. He may of course be ignorant of this conflicting licensing. Advice please on whether or not we can transfer these often useful photos to Commons. Thanks. ̴̴ Acabashi (talk) 10:54, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Flickr has a license history. It does not mention that the file was at any time other than "all rights reserved". The license in the description has two problems: It will not pass the automated robot based flickr license review at commons. And the user can edit the description, leaving you without any prove of the cc license.
However the flickr user seems to be active, so you yould send them a message at flickr and ask them about the license issue. if it is a genuine error them might fix it. C.Suthorn (talk) 11:55, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
That's probably the best approach. Flickr is still providing the very outdated V.2 licenses only. They are discussing the introduction of V.4 licenses but that's going on for years now without any result. Some users may help themselves with hand written license statements like this one. -- Herbert Ortner (talk) 08:41, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
@Acabashi: I would say that these are obviously intended to be licensed under CC BY 4.0. Flickr doesn't allow users to choose CC BY 4.0, so the best a Flickr user who wants that licence can do is to choose "all rights reserved" and then grant a licence in prose. If you're worried about the user changing their mind later, you could ensure that the photo page on Flickr is archived by https://web.archive.org or similar. I don't know how our licence review system handles non-standard Flickr licences, but I'd hope that a manual licence review would sort it if necessary. --bjh21 (talk) 14:47, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Misspelling/wrong word in diagram

 

I left this message for User:Ternoc on their talk page about a wrong word/misspelled word in this diagram, but I notice that although they have been around a bit lately, it's sporadic, and in particular, they haven't responded at their TP since 2018. So, I thought I'd better link the discussion from here as well. In brief, the diagram of the French judiciary uses a neologism départatrice, which is triply problematic, because it's very jargony; is an unattested adjectival derivation of the verb départir, that if it did exist would be a noun, not an adj. as used in the diagram. Finally, if it did exist, according to the rules of French derivation would have to be spelled départitrice, and not the way it is in the diagram.

Note: an alternate version of this svg with translatable labels exists at File:Judiciary of France.svg, so that may be an easier route to fix the problem, but that approach would need someone to replace the existing uses of the original diagram at fr-wiki, and any other wikis where it may appear. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:50, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Quick remark: the previous version of File:Organisation juridictionnelle nationale fr.svg still has editable text, so one could use that to fix the issue and then convert text to paths again for better renderuing (if necessary). El Grafo (talk) 09:03, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, not sure how to do that, but before anyone does, I'm going to request the attention of previous editors @Céréales Killer and Hérisson grognon: at the diagram. Peux-tu examiner cette conversation (éventuellement ainsi celle liée ci-dessus sur la pdd de Ternoc) et donner ton avis ici ? Au minimum, la faute d'orthographe doit être corrigée, mais même l'orthographe correcte départitrice est extrèmement rare en tant qu'adjectif (malgré son utilisation a fr:Tribunal des conflits (France)), et serait probablement la version fem. du nom départiteur et non pas un adjectif, donc inapproprié pour être utilisé dans le diagramme. Un mot différent (et un adj., dans l'occurrence) serait un meilleur choix, à mon avis. Peux-tu en suggérer un ? Merci, Mathglot (talk) 18:49, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
Done. I have replaced “Juridiction départatrice” with “Tribunal départiteur”. Céréales Killer (talk) 19:13, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
Appreciated, User:Tueur de Corn Flakes en série.   Mathglot (talk) 09:16, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

New page for code review or getting interface administrators' attention

i just started Commons:Village pump/Technical/Code review in hopes that it can be a centralised page to draw qualified users' attention to new codes (in gadgets, scripts, templates, modules, etc.) and bump urgent Category:Commons protected edit requests for interface administrators.

please feel free to share your feedback about this page.--RZuo (talk) 10:09, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

The National Archives (UK) copyright policy

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/legal/copyright/creative-commons-and-photo-sharing/ mentions and links to commons, but...

Images from the collections of The National Archives posted on Wikimedia may also be downloaded and reused without permission in any format for purposes of research, private study or education (non-commercial use) only...

Images from the collections of The National Archives posted on Flickr and Wikimedia are for non-commercial use only.

🤔 RZuo (talk) 12:37, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

The following two paragraphs are also relevant:

There are no copyright restrictions on these images, either because they are Crown copyright and the copyright is waived, or the term of copyright has expired. When using the images, please credit ‘The National Archives’ and include the catalogue reference of the item to allow others to access the original image or document.

Note that these terms apply only to images posted on Wikimedia by The National Archives of the UK. Other users may have their own terms and conditions.

If Crown Copyright has expired then the files are in the public domain and the "non-commercial use" restriction is invalid. If Crown Copyright has been waived then there could be problems; if the waiver was conditional on non-commercial use, then the files can't be kept here.
If the files were released on the Open Government Licence[8] then commercial reuse is included by default.
The problem is therefore limited to files where UK Crown Copyright hasn't expired, the file hasn't been released under OGL and it is a situation where Crown Copyright was waived (rather than the usual method of releasing under OGL). From Hill To Shore (talk) 14:01, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

A24 (Stockholm) tram category

 

is put in the A24 (Stockholm) category. This category is dubious: Half of the vehicles have double windows and the other half a single front window. The number is 17, not 24. Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:38, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Number 17 is an A24 tram, also known as de:Ängbyvagn. But the A24 trams were modernized and some also rebuild in the 1980s. --Dannebrog Spy (talk) 13:22, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

PDFs with missing pages

Do we have a category or template for PDFs and other scans, with missing pages? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:16, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Slight issue with template acting up in image caption

See this discussion on the file page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noliscient (talk • contribs) 14:34, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 12:08, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

How do we sort the year 1900 in categories by decade+century

Hi, I can't see where this has been discussed before (but surely it was?): We have categories like Category:1900s maps of France. What do we do with Category:1900 maps of France? All templates are built in a way that requires that the category sits there among the 20th-century maps, instead of the 19th-century maps, so I always assumed that Commons does not use the strict construction but the popular definition of the century, for merely practical reasons. Otherwise we have overlapping duplicate categorization trees, where the 1900s need to be put into both the 19th century and the 20th century. --Enyavar (talk) 15:29, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

@Jmabel: Well, this has come up here. I wouldn't say it's a conflict, but maybe a misunderstanding based on JMCC1 only accepting the strict construction. We were sorting Category:17th-century maps of the Americas among others. --Enyavar (talk) 07:35, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Speaking of "Depicts"…

This seems wrong to me, but when I started trying to do it in a way that made more sense I encountered warnings and reverted myself. Does anyone have an idea how this should be done? It doesn't seem to me that a picture of a sawmill "depicts" a city and a year (especially not a specific year when the date is approximate). - Jmabel ! talk 18:13, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

I think depicts (P180) Seattle (Q5083) is technically correct, though it would be better to use a more precise location. In addition, a statement like location of creation (P1071) Seattle (Q5083) can also be added. For the date, I think inception (P571) 1910​ is the standard way to do it, perhaps with a qualifier sourcing circumstances (P1480) circa (Q5727902) to indicate it's an approximate date. --Stevenliuyi (talk) 00:31, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
That looks a lot saner than what was there. I'll edit accordingly. - Jmabel ! talk 01:29, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
@Jmabel, Stevenliuyi: How about using point in time (P585) as a qualifier to depicts (P180)? That could be particularly useful in cases where the creation date of the work is not the same as the depicted date (e.g. retrospective paintings/drawings/maps of historic events). El Grafo (talk) 09:02, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
There is actually date depicted (P2913) for handling such cases. Stevenliuyi (talk) 09:27, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
Ohh, nice, that's good to know! El Grafo (talk) 13:14, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

A way to mark all files in a category to automatically have a given set of Wikidata statements?

To clarify, I am aware that there are tools such as AC/DC which can be used to aid in adding statements to a large group of files. This, however, is still something you have to do manually. I'm envisioning something like a hatnote template you place in a category—let's just say "Category:Photographs of dogs"—which signals to a bot to mark all images in that category with "depicts: dog". Is there a way to make this happen? Currently it strikes me as odd that there's so little connectivity between the categories a file is in and the structure data it bears. Personally I think this or something like it would be a great idea to help with that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by OmegaFallon (talk • contribs) 15:58, 22 March 2023‎ (UTC)

We still have not agreed on how exactly to use depicts (P180). On the question "should we tag every image of a dog as such or can the system be smart enough to figure out that something tagged as depicting a Labradoodle by extension must depict a dog?", we're still waiting to hear back from the developers of the search function. Last year they said they wouldn't be able to get into that "before the end of the fiscal year" (whenever that is in the US). Maybe it's time to ask again. In any case, large scale editing of depicts statements does not make much sense at this point. El Grafo (talk) 16:26, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
Addition of precise depicts statements (e.g "Labradoodle") is good and should continue, whether done individually, or at scale. The mass addition of generic (high level) statements (e.g "dog") is harmful. I'm unclear why the developers of the search function would be deferred to on this matter; search is only one use case for this data. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:25, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
Replying to @El Grafo & @Pigsonthewing; to be fair "dog" is fairly generic. The actual reason why this came to mind for me is I've been working through category pages for cosplay, and I thought it would be convenient if I could somehow have that category automatically assign "depicts: [whichever character]". I feel like that, at least, is very much a specialized and non-general case in which nobody would really argue with the addition of that depicts statement. OmegaFallon (talk) 19:59, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
@OmegaFallon & Pigsonthewing no objection against adding precise statements! El Grafo (talk) 08:54, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
Would it be worth whipping up a little template to indicate these statements should be added, even if currently they don't do anything? I could do that pretty easily, especially considering I've recently been switching over cosplay categories to use templates. That means adding something like this to every category would be as easy as just modifying the category template. OmegaFallon (talk) 13:27, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
Template:ShouldHaveStatements is as far as I could get for a basic framework :P I'm not well versed in the whole SQL syntax or whatever it's called. Still, I think this could ultimately be a very good idea. OmegaFallon (talk) 13:36, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
@El Grafo I forgot to ping :P OmegaFallon (talk) 19:01, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

CommonsDelinker bot discussion

Hello, all. I have started a discussion at User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands/talk#Request for change in bot treatment of category redirects about (if you couldn't guess) how the bot handles category redirects. Please participate there if you are interested in the subject. --R'n'B (talk) 20:56, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Should I just move this category ?

There is presently a Commons Category for the beetle endemic to New Zealand: Scolopterus penicillatus The Wikipedia article en:Scolopterus penicillatus and the Wikidata item D:Q21299586 both use the spelling "penicillatus". However, the spelling of the Commons Category currently differs and is: Scolopterus penciliatus. The file names of the images in this category ALL use the spelling in Wikipedia/Wikidata.

Should I just move the Commons Category to fix this, or is there a protocol to follow first ? Marshelec (talk) 03:07, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, just move it, because Wikipedia and wikidata both give the correct latin spelling for beetle. There's no need for a re-direct even. Broichmore (talk) 09:39, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
  • Move it. If there is a fight, that's a separate issue but I don't think it's controversial. You could ask the person who created it but I wouldn't even bother for a misspelling. Much thanks for noticing something so minor though. :) -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:05, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Graphic lab icon

Hello, I would like to propose the change of the icon of the graphic lab. Here is the icon I propose :  . For comparison, here is the current icon:  . I think this addition will give a facelift to this page, but my proposal is also more readable and accessible than the current logo. What do you think of that ? Regards, manȷıro💬 19:05, 27 March 2023 (UTC) PS: I also put this message in the graphic lab chat

What is a hood?

 

Hi all,

I considered placing this image in Category:Automobiles with open hoods but not being a native English speaker I am unsure whether or not the term hood also applies to lids and hatches covering rear engines. If not so, what would be the correct term or description?

Depending on the answer the category may be renamed or split. Your thoughts? → bertux 17:21, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

file:1948 Tucker - 15715915860.jpg is the opposite: front lid covering no engine. Is it a hood or what? → bertux 17:29, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
Probably in the first image it would be the trunk lid. Although I just refer to it as the rear hood. I don't think it matters which one you use. Either works. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:08, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
If I want to create a category for rear engined cars with open engine covers what would be a suitable name? Just Rear engined cars with open engine covers? → bertux 18:48, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
Probably. Front engine is such a norm that I don't think there is any good common term for this. - Jmabel ! talk 19:11, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
"Rear engine cover" seems like a good safe compromise. Broichmore (talk) 19:54, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
Category:Cars with open rear engine hood covers would be an interesting category name to say the least. Especially once you get to down more fined grained sub-categorization. Category:2017 Red sports cars with open green rear engine hood covers in Los Angeles County, California anyone? Lol. Not that I know what a good alternative would be though. --Adamant1 (talk) 08:35, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
A good alternative would be to not create Categories that intersect subject x place x time at all, but I'm afraid that ship has sailed long ago. El Grafo (talk) 10:49, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
I totally agree with Adamant1 and El Grafo on the weirdness of the category system. Its fundamental flaw is that it is subtractive: if you just want a fine picture of a green left hand drive car you could probably find it in Category:Mercedes-Benz C197 if only you could. It should be replaced by an additive system with tags: #car #green #left hand drive would easily do the trick.
In Wikipedia the category system is totally useless and maintained by people who don't mind spending their life on a dead end but In Commons it still makes sense, mainly for lack of a viable alternative. Hopefully the depicts tags wil become user friendlier over time with decent interfaces for editors and searchers → bertux 12:59, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
Categories are useful as buckets that contain images of the same topic. It starts to break down once you get down to the more fine grained parts of an image though. I've seen instances where someone created a category with like 9 nested child categories that were all inside of each other like a Russian doll just so they have a category at the bottom of it for something in the image that was totally meaningless and would never allow for other images besides that one being put in the category. Which isn't really a sustainable way to do things. It's also just needless micro-categorization. I'm not sure if depicts will necessary solve things, but it is an improvement. At least I believe it will be one once it's more widely used and whatnot. Although the whole interface for adding Wikidata items kind of sucks, but whatever. There's always a catch somewhere with this stuff lol. --Adamant1 (talk) 13:28, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
It is not the Russian dolls which make it break down, they are just the symtoms. It starts to break down if you have over a million pictures. The system is simply not scalable. The only way to avoid Russian dolls is to have many cats with 1000+ pictures which isn't helpful either.
A tag system on the other hand scales quite naturally, surely someone will have proposed that before. Do you know of any discussions on this topic? → bertux 13:40, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
Why every discussion of “tags” presupposes that categories must be distroyed? Want tags?, create tags, then, and leave alone categories and editors interested in mantaining them. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 14:04, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
Any good and ergonomic tag system would strip the category system off its last sliver of usefulness → bertux 14:54, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
That’s your opinion; mine is the exact opposite. Why don’t you go play with your tags and leave categories to be maintained and used by those of us who see in them way more than a just a «sliver of usefulness»? I mean, you obviously feel superior to us and think our prefered workflow is childish and useless — but be asured that the feeling is mutual. The only difference is that we never say that tags are useless and impractical (although we know they are): we just want to live and let live and you should really do the same. Wikidata is right there to be used as a tag management system: It just needs to be populated; I suggest you go work on that instead of disparaging other editors’ prefered curation methods. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 23:56, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
Technically? Yes. In practice, probably not since Category:Bonnets is being used for the women's headgear and I don't think it would work to the category into a disambiguation page. Whereas there's already Category:Automobile hoods, but Category:Automobile bonnets doesn't seem to exist and rightly so IMO. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:17, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Category:Gray

The recent decision - apparently agreed by fewer than eight people - to rename the child categories of Category:Gray has been taken too far to the extreme; meaning we now have hundreds of cases of nonsense like Category:Grey doors in England renamed to Category:Gray doors in England, when "Grey" is the British spelling. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:36, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

It was an open discussion for four years. It seems like an overly broad close to me but I can't argue too much either. If you want to try again, we could maybe resolve it again by 2027. Ricky81682 (talk) 22:16, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
The only nonsense is to have two different spellings for the same word. I don’t care which gets to be used nor which is prefered in the UK or the US or wherever. I only want it to be the same word to be used in all situations: Pick one and stick with it.
If you are saying that the ideal situation is to have simultaneously both
well, now, that is nonsense: We need terminological stabiliy and coherence, and this is its Level 1, trivial to achieve. (And we’d still have to pick a primary default to be used in cat names pertaining to non-English speaking areas/times.) This has been under discussion for at least 8 years: Are we there yet? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 01:02, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Just remember to make redirect so nonative speakers will not be confused Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 18:18, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

"apparently agreed by fewer than eight people" - note how long discussion lasted. Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 18:19, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

As someone who didn't partake in the CfD, I am disappointed in how a "consensus" was reached by one account pinging all participants, and closing it when ONE participant agreed with support. Yes, they did wait 50+ hours for more responses which didn't come, but still. I didn't read everything, but noted that "Grey" is indeed the lemma of en-WP, which should have been binding for Commons as well - imho. I am fine with the opposite result as this is a grey area to me, but I concur that you MUST create proper redirects. Afaik, most schools in the world teach BE first, and "gray" isn't that popular a word in the global AE-dominated media. --Enyavar (talk) 22:36, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
While the name on Wikipedia and related discussions can be used to guide decisions here, I don't think we should let Wikipedia decide our category names. There should be redirects from the names chosen by Wikipedia, but I see no reason (nor any policy) to move category trees just to conform.
The other question here is that of the Universality principle: do we want Category:Lorries in the United Kingdom (now a redlink) and Category:Trucks in the United States? The discussion on grey vs gray wasn't the place to change policy. Should we change it? Redirects should solve most problems also on this issue.
–LPfi (talk) 10:02, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Report on Voter Feedback from Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) Enforcement Guidelines Ratification

Hello all,

The Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) project team has completed the analysis of the feedback accompanying the ratification vote on the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines.

Following the completion of the UCoC Enforcement Guidelines Draft in 2022, the guidelines were voted on by the Wikimedian community. Voters cast votes from 137 communities, with the top 9 communities being: English, German, French, Russian, Polish, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Italian Wikipedias, and Meta-wiki.

Those voting had the opportunity to provide comments on the contents of the Draft document. 658 participants left comments. 77% of the comments are written in English. Voters wrote comments in 24 languages with the largest numbers in English (508), German (34), Japanese (28), French (25), and Russian (12).

A report will be sent to the Revision Drafting Committee who will refine the enforcement guidelines based on the community feedback received from the recently concluded vote. A public version of the report is published on Meta-wiki here. The report is available in translated versions on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to your language

Again, we thank all who participated in the vote and discussions. We invite everyone to contribute during the next community discussions. More information about the Universal Code of Conduct and Enforcement Guidelines can be found on Meta-wiki.

On behalf of the Universal Code of Conduct project team

Zuz (WMF) (talk) 12:27, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Protected files needing some changes

  1. Needs to have Category:2023 Rolling Fork–Silver City tornado rather than Category:Tornado outbreak of March 24–27, 2023. This is protected after appearing on English Wiki ITN. The tornado category is a sub-category in the outbreak category.
  1. Needs to have Template:PD-USGov-NOAA instead of CC-Zero for the copyright license.
  2. This should also have the following updated description: “A duplex that was completely destroyed along Collette Avenue and Worthington Avenue in Rolling Fork, Mississippi. The National Weather Service rated this damage EF4 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, with winds estimated at 170 miles per hour.”

Fairly minor changes, but since the pages are administrator protected due to appearing on English Wiki ITN, I am unable to make those changes. Noted, I was told, by an admin, to post this here from a Talk:Main Page, which is where I was told to post it on the Discord server. Elijahandskip (talk) 12:47, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

  Done - Jmabel ! talk 15:37, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
Hey @Jmabel: , sorry to ping, but you added a “h}” at the end of the description of File:EF4 damage to a duplex in Rolling Fork.jpg. Just wanted to let you know since I’m guessing that is just an accidental typo. Also, thanks for fixing those things! Elijahandskip (talk) 15:46, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
OK, should be properly fixed now. - Jmabel ! talk 17:17, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

West Midlands Fire Service (England)

I notice that the West Midlands Fire Service website now has a Ts&Cs page saying:

Unless otherwise indicated, all imagery, video and other media created by West Midlands Fire Service is subject to a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

and a page footer saying :

Unless otherwise indicated, all incident imagery and media displayed by West Midlands Fire Service is subject to a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

seen, for example, on [9]. Do we need a dedicated template for this? if so, what would be a good example on which to model it? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:29, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Irregular rfa

i just noticed User:Kritzolina's Commons:Administrators/Requests/Kritzolina had an irregular closure by User:Jameslwoodward. it was closed 1 day earlier than expected and Jameslwoodward's comment was dated to 1 feb. :/ --RZuo (talk) 12:31, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

It seems very likely that I made the mistake of closing it one day early -- I very much apologize for the error. Given the overwhelming support for User:Kritzolina, I don't think that it could possibly have changed the result. Although, as User:RZuo notes, my closing comment is dated February 1, that's impossible and the page history shows that I closed it at 22:30 on March 2. .     Jim . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 14:19, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

V2C uploads from computer, any success？

has anyone succeeded in using v2c to upload videos (that must be converted to webm) from their computers or other devices? that is, any uploads not from an url? i checked recent changes and found none in last 30 days.

i've had this problem in march 2022, then i gave up and didnt try again until now. in march 2022 the problem was "Error: Something went wrong while uploading... try again?" https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons_talk:Video2commons&oldid=744093625#Is_this_software_still_maintained? . now the problem is "Error: An exception occurred: FileNotFoundError: b"[Errno 2] No such file or directory:..." https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons_talk:Video2commons&oldid=744093625#File_not_found .

i just want to know whether it's true that for now v2c cannot upload anything from local storage, then i wont try until a fix is done.--RZuo (talk) 22:02, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

overwriting pdf problem

I wanted to delete a duplicate page from File:Divar.pdf (page 94 and 95 are the same in the first version) but It doesn't work now. Hanooz 11:37, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

what tool did you use to delete that page?--RZuo (talk) 12:31, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
Adobe Acrobat Pro. Hanooz 14:22, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
that's a professional tool, which shouldnt make the pdf go wrong. i guess there might be a bug in wiki software, but there's also a small chance that it's adobe acrobat's bug. i can only suggest you write on phab:.--RZuo (talk) 22:02, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
  Done Hanooz 11:19, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Delete an old version according to uploader's wish

Is it possible to delete the old version of image in the same file according to the request/wish of the file uploader? I am talking about File:The constitutional names as well as the native names (in Eastern Nagari and Latin transliterations) of the 3 official languages of the Indian Republic that use the Eastern Nagari writing system as their official scripts.jpg. This file is used in multiple articles in various wikis. Unfortunately, in some articles, the old version image of the file is appearing instead of the new version. Haoreima (talk) 16:40, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

I only see the current version in all 5 articles. Have you tried emptying your browser cache? --Rosenzweig τ 17:09, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
@Rosenzweig: I did it but it appears to be of no change in my device. If possible, please delete it. This issue is happening from the time ever since the new version is re-uploaded. I really worry if my situation is happening in some others' screens or not. Haoreima (talk) 17:36, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
OK, I did. In general, you might want to try to delete the server cache in such cases (the * in the panel at the top of the page). --Rosenzweig τ 17:53, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
@Rosenzweig: It’s not working, just like last week: Thumbnails get created but wont be readily updated when the original file changes: For the past 2h, I’m experiencing the same issue with File:5×4clicksBeachKhoekhoe(TNR).png, which filepage is showing two outdated thumbnails (and zero current ones), each from a separate past version. One needs to click on the main thumbnail or on one of the «Other resolutions» to get the newest version. This matter needs urgent fix. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 14:19, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
I'm not having any issues like that (again). I've cleared the server cache to be sure, but beyond that, waiting is probably what will help. --Rosenzweig τ 14:56, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
@Haoreima, Rosenzweig, and Tuvalkin: Please see COM:PURGE, and also purge the pages where the file appears.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 14:23, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
<sarcasm>Oh, gee, thanks!, how didn’t I ever think of that?</sarcasm> (Incidentally, the mentioned File:5×4clicksBeachKhoekhoe(TNR).png has had finally today, one whole week later, its 600×600 px thumbnail rerendered; its 220×220 px thumbnail hasn’t yet, and nor for lack of refreshments, cache purges, or null edits.) -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 16:26, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Cat-a-lot + GalleryDetails not working

…as of just now. One moment I was selecting files based on their existing cats as shown with GalleryDetails and categorizing them with Cat-a-lot, the next I couldn’t anymore because it got somehow broken. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 19:39, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Looks like it’s fixed now. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 15:01, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

NoUploads, No-FOP templates, and categories of structures of no-FOP countries

I think we should have more concrete rules regarding the use of {{NoUploads}} and "No-FOP" templates. The documentation page claims the NoUploads is intended for categories and articles (resident galleries) of artists only. But since around 2020 (or so), several users like @A1Cafel: have been using it in categories of some public structures from countries with no freedom of panorama, like this.

Personally I disagree with such use as the content of NoUploads indicates it is only for categories of artists as well as resident galleries of artists. But I think we should have more crystal clear rules on the proper use of this template, because if we don't have such rules, the template can be used in places where is should not be used. @Ox1997cow: even suggested its use in a currency-related category, but this was promptly rejected.

Another thing, several categories of the same concerned structures are lately being attached with no-FOP templates that are meant for filespaces only. Examples: Category:Burj Khalifa, Category:Milad Tower, and Category:Lotte World Tower. If the no-FOP templates are not structured to be used in categories (unlike those of {{NoFoP-Japan}} and {{NoFoP-Philippines}}), are the likes of {{NoFoP-UAE}} for use in probably de minimis-eligible photos? The structure of no-FOP templates suggest these are intended for the purpose of tracking of erring files. If the structures' categories are to be retained, against the wishes of some users who said those categories should not exist in the first place (because additions of country-specific FOP/no-FOP templates only messes up categories), would it be wise to create a new general template for the intended purpose of being a warning banner on top of categories? That template should be good for all countries with no complete FOP, except the Philippines, in which a dual-purpose no-FOP template was made for temporal purposes (yes temporal since it will be taken down soon – upon my planned deletion request – once we have FOP maybe in the latter part of 2023 or early 2024, so there is no need to "beautify" that template). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 21:46, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

I think it's good to use NoFoP templates in categories of buildings and monuments located NoFoP countries. Many people often upload photos without knowing that there are no FoP in some countries, and this use is a great way to indicate that the country where the building or monument is located has no FoP. Ox1997cow (talk) 07:42, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
So, how about using FoP templates in categories of buildings and monuments located FoP countries like Category:One World Trade Center, Category:CN Tower and Category:The Shard? Ox1997cow (talk) 07:49, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
@Ox1997cow: I don't know if there has been some statistics if these no-FOP templates indeed warned uploaders or uploaders either ignore them or challenge our licensing policy (by purposely uploading photos testing if their photos or imports are going to be nominated). Regarding FOP templates, I once did that but eventually discontinued after one Wikipedian expressed reservation that such templates cause clutter in the structure of categories (see the link above I provided). Thus I stopped adding FOP templates to categories. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 08:10, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
In fact, I made the case for deleting {{FOP-buildings-category warning}} and replacing it with NoFoP templates in this deletion discussion. {{FOP-buildings-category warning}} is not suitable for use in categories of modern buildings or monuments, so I thought it would be nice to have NoFoP templates used in the category as well as the files. Ox1997cow (talk) 08:22, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
@Ox1997cow: the NoFOP templates, if not structured to be category-only templates (like {{NoFoP-Japan}}), were not meant for category namespaces. These were originally for keeping track of problematic photos so that problematic photos tagged as such can be sent for deletion. A general template good for structures and sculptures of all no-complete FOP countries (like France and UAE, but except the Philippines) might be more appropriate. Something that has wording like: "This is a category of a copyrighted architecture and/or artistic work in public space from a country that does not provide Wikimedia Commons-acceptable freedom of panorama (that permits free licensing of images of such works). Please do not upload more photographs or videos of such works, unless their presence is incidental or trivial to the overall image." Such template is applicable for categories from Category:Burj Khalifa to Category:Monument to the Motherland, Kyiv, provided that the indicated works are from countries that have no complete or no commercial FOP in totality. I cannot think of a good template title though. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 08:41, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
How about adding a variable to NoFoP templates and using them? It is indicated "image" in the file namespace and "category" in the category namespace. Ox1997cow (talk) 12:15, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
For Example:

(in the file namespace) -> (in the category namespace)

Copyright warning: A subject in this image is protected by copyright. -> Copyright warning: A subject in this category is protected by copyright.

This image features an architectural or artistic work, photographed from a public space in (country name). -> This category feature an architectural or artistic work, photographed from a public space in (country name).

If a copyrighted architectural or artistic work is contained in this image and it is a substantial reproduction, this photo cannot be licensed under a free license, and will be deleted. Framing this image to focus on the copyrighted work is also a copyright violation. -> If a copyrighted architectural or artistic work is contained in images in this category and it is a substantial reproduction, such photos cannot be licensed under a free license, and will be deleted. Framing images in this category to focus on the copyrighted work is also a copyright violation.

Before reusing this content, ensure that you have the right to do so. -> Before reusing contents in this category, ensure that you have the right to do so.

How about it? Ox1997cow (talk) 12:31, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
@Ox1997cow: too technical and you're only giving categories clutter, just like what Bidgee told me before (on usage of FOP templates in categories). My proposal is more simpler and does not consume too many category space. We are also warning uploaders, not end-users in this case. This may not eliminate all possible violations (as some uploaders may be "gaming or testing Commons' house rules on licensing policy"), but at least this reduces the amount of workload for image reviewers and admins, as there are many files with copyvios and improper licensing that need to deal with. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 23:08, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
@JWilz12345: I've been thinking about that in terms of being able to reuse an existing template, but it's too complicated for me to see. Creating a new template looks good. The new template is named {{NoFoP-category}}, replacing {{FOP-buildings-category warning}} with {{NoFoP-category}}. Ox1997cow (talk) 04:47, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
Then, how about make {{FoP-category}} for categories of buildings and monuments located FoP countries? Ox1997cow (talk) 04:50, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
@Ox1997cow simple common sense means we do not need to add such templates on categories of copyrighted structures from countries with relevant freedom of panorama legal rights, because anyone can freely upload photos of such works. We are just providing some warning to uploaders regarding works from countries without freedom of panorama. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 05:59, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
@JWilz12345: So, only {{NoFoP-category}} will be made. What would be good content? Ox1997cow (talk) 07:04, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
Then, why both {{NoUploadsStamps}} and {{UploadsStamps}} are exist? Ox1997cow (talk) 07:06, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
@Ox1997cow: the case of stamps are different from the case of physical structures like buildings and sculptures. Rules on stamps are rigid and unchanging, but rules on FOP are changeable depending the countries' tendencies to introduce or restrict/abolish FOP (like Belgium in the former and Vietnam in the latter). We have a map on FOP statuses so there are lesser chances of wrongful deletion nominations, so no need for superfluous FOP category template. Unlike in stamps, both templates are needed since wrongful nominations are greater. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 09:25, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
@JWilz12345: rules on U.S. stamps have changed within my lifetime. They used to be public domain. - Jmabel ! talk 15:38, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
@Jmabel: still I think there is no need to add category-header templates on top of categories of copyrighted structures from yes-FOP countries since, like what Bidgee told me before, unnecessary clutter is made. But for categories of copyrighted structures from no-FOP countries, a simpler category-header template is preferred over "no-FOP templates", which are meant for use in file description pages only. At least this is more lenient approach instead of Bidgee's suggestion that such categories should not exist in the first place just because they contain incidental photos. The use of templates for categories of stamps, as raised by Ox1997cow, is a totally different matter. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 00:23, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
@JWilz12345: I've been thinking a lot about {{NoFoP-category}}. First of all, the icon contains red copyright icon, the flag, and warning sign icon. Among these, the flag is a variable, and the flag varies depending on the country. (For example, South Korea, France, the UAE, etc.) What would be good about the content of {{NoFoP-category}}? --Ox1997cow (talk) 07:46, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
@Ox1997cow the suggested wording I gave above, plus the red copyright icon and the warning sign icon. No need for varied flag icon; the template is meant for general use as a warning template to uploaders. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 09:33, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
@JWilz12345: I see. Then, how about stop hand icon? Ox1997cow (talk) 10:13, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
And how about deleting {{FOP-buildings-category warning}} and replacing {{FOP-buildings-category warning}} with {{NoFoP-category}}? Ox1997cow (talk) 10:19, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
@Ox1997cow an exclamation point icon is sufficient, since stop hand icon is an overkill. For the existing FOP-buildings-category template, just redirect it to {{NoFOP-category}} of the new template now exists. Deletion does not help Wikimedia servers. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 11:58, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
@JWilz12345: I see. I will make a draft of {{NoFOP-category}} Ox1997cow (talk) 16:10, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
@JWilz12345: I made a draft of {{NoFoP-category}}. See it. If there is something to be edited, you can do so. Ox1997cow (talk) 03:45, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
@Ox1997cow done making some changes to the text as well as the layout. The layout must be identical to {{NoFoP-Japan}} since it is a category-handler template, not file-namespace template. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 04:46, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
Good. Ox1997cow (talk) 15:55, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Category:year maps of Austria-Hungary

To be divided into:

Category:year maps of Austria-Hungary shown

Category:year maps of Austria-Hungary made

--Io Herodotus (talk) 08:12, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

@Io Herodotus Did I get this right: you would like to distinguish between maps that show Austria-Hungary and maps that were made in Austria-Hungary? How to we usually handle that with other countries? El Grafo (talk) 13:53, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
We do not distinguish where a map has been made in any map category tree I am aware of. That idea should go nowhere, imho.
What we ARE doing is "maps by language" (Russian-language maps of China, Japanese-language maps of Korea...).
I think this proposal is not about the location the maps were made, but the time it was made: "old maps of..." amd its subcategories have a requirement to be contemporary to the shown content, for example "1886 maps of Austria-Hungary" must be made/published in that year (the publication cycle back then was long enough that I always advocate to use decades: "1880s maps of..."). Whether by year or decade: such category should never include later maps showing Austria-Hungary in 1886: Those maps belong into "Maps of the history of..." and may be sorted by key of the year shown. If there are enough maps of the history, they are to be sorted into "Maps of 18th-century France" vs. "Maps of 14th-century France". In fact, a map my be a "1880s map of 14th-century France", which needs three categories: "Maps of 14th-century France", "1880s maps of France" and "1880s maps showing history". Only for maps made in the 2000s onwards, we currently do not distinguish by the year the history maps were drawn. One contributor once pushed "Maps showing <year>", which I suppose could also be useful if more widespread, as long as this category is only applied to history maps. --Enyavar (talk) 15:01, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Category:year maps of Austria-Hungary would be poorly named. It be Category:Maps of Austria-Hungary by year; subcats would be [[:Category:<year> maps of Austria-Hungary]]. That might be what you meant, but I wanted to clarify.
Normally a map of a place made in one year but reflecting another year would be (for example) Category:1920 works (or a subcat of that) plus (again for example) Category:1914 maps of Austria-Hungary or (if the decade scheme is preferred) Category:1910s maps of Austria-Hungary- Jmabel ! talk 15:13, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

The origin of my question is simply that I was looking for a category showing the history of Austria-Hungary by year. --Io Herodotus (talk) 16:02, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

The point is that "made" isn't a proper split. Category:Maps by year shown does exist but isn't broken down further. Category:Maps by year created is very sparse but also doesn't break down into countries. Even though it isn't technically the same, we have Category:Maps of Austria by year and Category:Maps of Hungary by year but not broken down further. I have seen some people use a Category:year works in Austria-Hungary type category if there is a significant difference which I think is better than maps by year created. Ricky81682 (talk) 19:35, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Io Herodotus, I totally agree that the current structure of Category:Maps of Austria-Hungary is far from perfect. There are "Maps of A-H by year" which lists exactly the same categories we also find under "Old maps of A-H" except they are better organized there, by decades. Also, there are a lot of maps that aren't old maps, but history maps, and thus should be sorted directly into the "Maps of..." category (there is not "Maps of the history of...", because it is a former/historical country in the first place, so every new map is at the same time also history map).
In your place, I would start with creating only the following six categories at first: "Maps of A-H showing the 1860s/1870s/1880s/1890s/1900s/1910s". These categories would have the "1860s maps of A-H" as sub-categories, and "Maps showing the 1860s" and a new "Maps of A-H by decade" as the parent categories. You then categorize each and every "Map of A-H" which is not a contemporary map, into one of the six categories, and key them by year if possible. The old contemporary maps that aren't yet properly categorized, should be treated as well, to fill out the subcategories. Maps that are so general that you cannot pin them down to a decade (like most locator-maps etc), must be left out of the exercise.
As a result, you afterwards have cleanly organized "maps showing decade" with "maps made in that same decade" as a distinct subset. (For 'maps made in the 1940s showing A-H': now that is way too specific I think, but at least there is this cat here to help.)
if you then realize you have enough maps to warrant a further split into "Maps of A-H showing <1913>", I think you should proceed similarly, but with years, creating up to sixty more categories. I am strongly arguing to have at least ~10 files per category, so for "weakly populated" years, you should leave the stuff in the decade-cats, just as well as the maps that don't have a definite reference year. If you go for this whole idea, I volunteer to help with the navigational template if you don't know how to create it yourself.
In fact, it is a great idea to use A-H as the example country for this kind of experimental structure, because of its very limited time of existence from the 1860s to the 1910s. (France, Russia, Poland or Sweden would be vastly more difficult to implement, spanning many hundred potential year-categories). If this kind of experiment succeeds, I think nothing would speak against doing it again for the "Austrian Empire" that preceded "Austria-Hungary", and doing it again for "Austria" for all maps after 1919... And then begin to sort Ottoman Empire history maps that are currently only organized by centuries. --Enyavar (talk) 22:04, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Use the appropriate category for maps showing all or a large part of Austria-Hungary. See subcategories for smaller areas:
Where to categorize or find maps of Austria-Hungary
If the map shows Category to use
Austria-Hungary on a recently created map Category:Maps of Austria-Hungary or its subcategories
Austria-Hungary on a map created more than 70 years ago Category:Old maps of Austria-Hungary or its subcategories
the history of Austria-Hungary on a recently created map Category:Maps of the history of Austria-Hungary or its subcategories
the history of Austria-Hungary on a map created more than 70 years ago Category:Old maps of the history of Austria-Hungary or its subcategories
General principle: "Maps of X by year" categories are an abomination. They make it impossible to browse the range of maps over a particular period, nor to see the historical sweep of their development. Even "Maps of X by decade" are generally a bad idea. All such categories should be ruthlessly eradicated with fire. Here endeth the lesson. Jheald (talk) 22:58, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
cc @Io Herodotus, El Grafo, Enyavar, and Jmabel: . Also @AnRo0002: who first created most of these horrors. Jheald (talk) 23:08, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
A bad idea, that will result in total chaos. And by which year would you even sort them: File:Austria-Hungary by Ludó.png could be both sorted as 1914 and as 2023. You also contradict yourself when you posted the TFOMC template, because that one advises against your suggestion that all "Maps of A-H" belong into "Old maps of A-H".
Yes, a few misguided folks create categories with only a single map which is an abomination. NO, a category with 4500 maps in them is not easier to browse, it is simply another type of abomination. Once you get more than 200 maps in the same category, things start to become unwieldy instead of more browseable, and I'd argue that 100 maps are bad enough. It's not even as if such maps all show the same area, either. Also, I hardly ever see keys being used, unless I start to set them, and setting keys for a category of 400 maps is easier said than done. Give me 40 maps and I may set keys to order them. Give me 4000, and I'll be much more likely to create you a few appropriate sub-categories. For example, when some other misguided folks begin to create 30 detail cutouts per map - see for example here. Ugh, but that's another topic. I don't have a full count for A-H, but we have certainly several hundred old maps at least, so I'd argue a split by decade (made) is highly reasonable.
But that is not even the point: If I understood Io Herodotos correctly, they wanted to split/merge maps by the year made (which we have), and by the year shown (which we don't have). An SVG map made 2010 and a map created in 1880, can both show Austria-Hungary in the 1880s, which for that reason may fit into the same category. And so far, we simply don't facilitate that (strict division between old and history maps). Io asked how it can be done nevertheless. --Enyavar (talk) 05:33, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
If it helps, it's easy enough to write a bot script to set keys. (Cf Commons:Bots/Requests/JhealdBot (7), though with other projects having taken most of my focus since, I never got round to really running it).
TFOMC is quite clear: maps older than 70 years old, that depict A-H as it was at that time, belong into "Old maps of A-H".
Maps older than 70 years old, that depict A-H as it was at some previous time, belong into "Old maps of the history of A-H".
A category with up to, say, 400 maps shouldn't be a problem. That's nearer to the number of maps of A-H we actually have, not 4000.
'Cut-outs' should go into a category for the place they actually show, not a category for all of A-H. (Plus maybe a category specifically for the map they were cut out from, if 30 cut-outs have been made. Jheald (talk) 11:34, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Category:French-language surnames

I stumbled on this category today. Back in 2019 this category was created by Olybrius, apparently as a unilateral decision. Later that year :Surnames by ethnicity and/or nationality to Category:Surnames by ethnicity was performed. E4024 quite rightly queried this asking: Which ethnicity? What about Belgians, Swiss et al?

Today Arnout was moved by Abxbay out of Surnames to this category.

Surely, this is absolutely pointless and spurious. Surnames as a result of the mass diaspora are no longer pinned to any specific country, or language (if they ever were). I can see Chang existing in Surnames but the same name in Chinese characters also being in Chinese-language surnames. However that doesn't apply to French.

The surnames category was created in the first place for administrative universal filing identification reasons, it's no longer that, if its going to be separated out into the 6500 languages that exist in the world.

This whole system needs to be dismantled and reverted back to the simplicity of Category:Surnames as should all these other spurious categories (should they still exist). Broichmore (talk) 16:53, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Surnames are tightly connected to language. I’m sure you can come up with many exceptions, but those are… exceptions. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 14:06, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
If you really want a flat category for surnames, then go ahead and do create and populate Category:Surnames (flat list) — nothing against that. Any attempt at dismantling will be met with the same opposition as any other vandalism attempt would. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 14:10, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
@E4024: The United States which seems to dominate this project is full of people with French, Italian, and Spanish surnames, who cant speak those languages. So surnames are not tightly bound to language. As I hinted at earlier, that goes for Europe too, increasingly so. Must we be the slaves of too many cats whose only purpose is to satisfy OCD issues of people here with little or no imagination; at the expense of practicality.
Again, with respect, the surnames category was created in the first place for gathering in one place like surnames (labels) for identification of specific individuals, if its going to be separated out into different languages; then it's no longer going to do that. It needs to be functional.
What practical use, does French-language surnames serve, too someone who does not know that Duval is french? Broichmore (talk) 19:40, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
I once compared some Commons curation activity I dislike to OCD, too, and that was cause for me to be blocked for a few days. As soon as I find the relevant diffs, I’ll open a section with your name on it in AN/U. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 00:06, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Again, with all the respect you deserve, if you really want a flat category for surnames, then go ahead and do create and populate Category:Surnames (flat list). -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 00:07, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
No need to do that, the ‘’Surnames’’ cat is completely adequate already, understandable and efficient.
Abxbay has still not commented why Arnout cant be in both ‘’Surnames’’ and ‘’ French-language surnames’’. They need to look again at their edits and include for both. Broichmore (talk) 11:28, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
It’s due to COM:OVERCAT. Which, regardless of how one feels about it, is set policy and one of the very basics of categorization. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 21:55, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
Too me Surnames is a different thing to French-language surnames, it certainly has a different usage. If that's not the case then com:overcat needs to be redifined. This is a good example of where sub-dividing things too far has become destructive, rather than practical. Go back to an exemplar of Martin", having it in one category has to be preferable to it being in several -language surname cats. Having it in ‘’ French-language surnames’’ answers no question, of why it is necessary to have it, in such a category. It's of no use use to anyone. Broichmore (talk) 12:12, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
Ethnicity is an entirely different subject to surnames, which is complete in itself. Broichmore (talk) 12:06, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
Even if the U.S. and the future Europe you dream about were indeed a monolingual melting pot, most surnames would still retain an etymology (especially so when the quaint U.S. custom of incomplete anglicization is in use), and that warrants separate categorization to allow each by-language cat yo have its own different parent cats. Furthermore, that glottofagic hellscape of yours, even if it were to take place, would not apply to the whole globe and would not retroactively apply to past eras of more widespread translation/assimilation of “foreign” surnames — and Commons needs to cover those situations, too. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 00:31, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Category:Martin (surname) is a member of eleven different subcategories along with being in Category:Surnames. There is no English page nor any source for any of this and Wikidata only has English, French, German, and Spanish so I could start by removing Category:Italian-language surnames, Category:Surnames from Ireland, Category:Scottish surnames, Category:Swedish-language surnames, and leaving it to a fight about Category:Surnames from Spain (which is separate and distinct from Category:Spanish-language surnames), Category:English-language surnames, Category:French-language surnames (which is broken down into the individual department of France without any sources) and so on? How much ridiculous pointless time needs to be wasted policing guessing games about which department of France does the Martin surname come from, especially when it looked like this lunacy before the first round of "you can't made a category of every surname in Argentina" made sense? Ricky81682 (talk) 07:55, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Sure, but is this about surnames by language, as the section title suggests, or about surnames by country and subdivision thereof? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 09:45, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
I'm speaking about the general categorization point. Swedish-language isn't sourced and the sourcing is me hunting around on Wikidata since there is no Martin (surname) page on English or somewhere else where this is clear. The fact that this isn't something settled is why the Arnout fight above is going to become common and something that will require CFDs and discussions and the question is whether this is worth it in terms of the larger project. Ricky81682 (talk) 23:16, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
The Normans and their surnames invalidated that premise as far back as 1066. Their surnames are worldwide. Etymology as far as a databank is concerned is merely another label. We cover that already with a multitude of Country (origin) labels. The Martin surname just goes to reinforce that view, being a Norman name brought to England, that possibly may well have derived from Norse or Scandic roots; even the Romans lay some claims to its roots. Broichmore (talk) 11:47, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
Don't put words in my mouth. I'm not dismantling any useless system, that’s why I’ve brought up the issue, I‘m promoting the use of common sense, cats should serve a practical purpose. Broichmore (talk) 12:00, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
both current systems on wikidata and commons trying to group people with the same names together are jokes, because they only consider latin-alphabet scenarios.
Category:Yán (surname) corresponds to at least five different surnames 严、言、阎、闫、颜. they have the exact same pronunciation.
the same surname like 梁 have different pronunciations in different languages leading to different romanisations leung, liang, neo... which by its romanisation alone is considered different surnames in wd and commons systems because these systems only think in terms of latin.
then there is the problem about the names written with the same kanjis but have different pronunciations in japanese, because kanji have many ways of being pronounced in japanese. are they the same name because they have the same kanji or are they different because pronuncation is different?
then some names are written with the same kanji but in different languages (hence different pronunciations), like a chinese and a japanese both named 俊雄. an analogous problem is the english jean vs the french jean. are they the same name?
then there's naomi (hebrew) vs naomi (japanese), ben (short for benjamin) vs ben (本 or 奔 or 賁...), Robert E. Lee vs Ang Lee...
instead of OCD trying to assign ethnicity/nationality/language/gender to a name, how about just put everything in either "surnames" or "given names"? dismantling this whole system? that at least solves some of your problems, but still not the problems about names of different origins having the same romanisation.
(before you suggest creating kanji titled cats for kanji names, gentle reminder: there're 1000~3000 commonly used kanjis, and 30000~50000 occasionally used kanjis. often a kanji name consists of one or two kanjis but could be more. so 2-kanji permutations can easily go beyond 1000*1000=1 million, most of which would only contain a few or only one subcat. an analogous problem is whether Hailey, Hailee, Haleigh, Haley, Haylee, Hayleigh, Hayley, Haylie... these variants of a name are considered different names.) RZuo (talk) 20:29, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
@RZuo: on the Wikidata side of this: they need to model even a badly conflated category that is actually in use. There is nothing internal to Wikidata preventing modeling distinct kanji/ideographs for distinct names, and in fact they probably would want to. - Jmabel ! talk 21:47, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
Oh, a second use of OCD as an insult. Did the rules change ever since I was blocked for this same reason? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 21:53, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
"different items for romanizations" is a problem by itself.
are they the same surname? yes, a person with surname 張 romanised as zhang and another 張-person romanised as chang have the same surname, then why should they have a different item?
unless, wikidata wants to have a unique item for every romanisation of every non-latin name.--RZuo (talk) 11:58, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
On Wikidata, it is not a problem: a person named 張 in Chinese will be linked with item wikidata:Q804909 (張). If he is a Chinese-American known as Chang in English, he will also be linked with item wikidata:Q36931387 (Chang). Another person known as Zhang in English will be linked to wikidata:Q804909 (張) and wikidata:Q37263491 (Zhang). Again, look at the item Ang Lee. BrightRaven (talk) 14:02, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
It seems none of this relates to how Commons should handle these. If someone wants to propose the elimination or reorganization of these language surnames, they should start that. The main point is that this information/discussion is better suited for an English or any other language encyclopedia page rather than perhaps Wikidata and definitely rather than Commons which in theory should only care if these two pictures of someone with the last name Chang are the same person or related or just have the same last name so you can find the person you want to find media about. Ricky81682 (talk) 19:05, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
I would just like to stress the fact that the surname items of Wikidata are unambiguous and script-specific, so it would be possible to create a Commons category for each surname item. These categories would solve some of the problems picked out by RZuo. BrightRaven (talk) 11:13, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
@BrightRaven Yes, I can see that point. We have a separate discussion elsewhere about whether English-language is appropriate for categories but I could see an argument for separate pages for each script here. In either case, different projects have different capabilities. Ricky81682 (talk) 19:46, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
Bear in mind there are good reasons why the standard of English for the wiki was agreed at the outset of the project. Drifting away from a basal standard like this will only lead to confusion, and loss of knowledge. What other wikis do is immaterial, as long as they link to the main wiki (here). The main wiki provides continuity and linkage. Broichmore (talk) 10:10, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Surname categories are a completely different animal to a Surname by language cat. They can co-exist, if someone wants to waste their time, making language by categories, let them! It's a waste of time, because surnames by language is appropriate for a list, in say Wikipedia. Its is not a defining characteristic of surnames, anymore (if it ever was), whereas it is for an individual. Sacha Baron Cohen, is British for now, and may become American in the future. Cohen is attached to multiple languages and locations, its just not defining. Broichmore (talk) 10:05, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2023/03&oldid=773168515"