Wikimedia Commons

Commons:Village pump/Archive/2024/02

< Commons:Village pump‎ | Archive

Ordering of files in categories

Hi all, how do the files get ordered for display in e.g. Category:Military uniforms of Russia by Nicholas I by Vinkhuijzen collection?

On the first page, the sequence 'Russia, 1826 (NYPL b14896507-441385).tiff' to 'Russia, 1826 (NYPL b14896507-441397).tiff' is interrupted by 'Russia, 1828 (NYPL b14896507-441478).jpg' followed by 'Russia, 1826 (NYPL b14896507-441398).tiff' and then 'Russia, 1828 (NYPL b14896507-441479).jpg'

To summarise, ...385 to ...397 is followed by ...478, ...398 and ...479.

I've just realised that the .jpg files interrupt the numerical sequence of .tiffs although they all use exactly the same numbering scheme. Is there a reason for this? Can the files be displayed in strict alpha-numerical order?

Also, the category name is a poor translation of the Russian Униформа русской армии при Николае I в коллекции Винкёйзена. I suggest it should be re-named as 'Uniforms of the Russian Army under Nicholas I in the Vinkhuijzen collection'. I imagine there are many more like these. I normally edit on English WP. MinorProphet (talk) 09:04, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Regular sorting for these files has been overridden by setting a DEFAULTSORT consisting of the letters "NYPL" + the "NYPL catalog ID" plus the "Image ID" – which for this category in turn has been overridden by just the two IDs with a colon in-between:
{{DEFAULTSORT:NYPLb14896507.27197}}
[[Category:Images uploaded by Fæ|NYPLb14896507.27197]]
[[Category:Military uniforms of Russia by Nicholas I by Vinkhuijzen collection|b14896507.27197]]
Whoever did that probably had a reason for that – whether that was a good reason is another question. To just have them sorted by file name, you would have to remove the {{DEFAULTSORT:NYPLb14896507.27197}} as well as the |b14896507.27197. --El Grafo (talk) 10:09, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
Thanks very much for your helpful reply. However, if I edit Category:Military uniforms of Russia by Nicholas I by Vinkhuijzen collection all I see is
{{ru|1=Униформа русской армии при Николае I в коллекции Винкёйзена.}}
[[Category:Vinkhuijzen:Russia]]
[[Category:Military uniforms of Russia by Nicholas I]]
What am I missing? Where is the Defaultsort etc. which you kindly pointed out? Thanks, MinorProphet (talk) 15:39, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
@MinorProphet: In the descriptions of the individual files. So if you go to File:Russia, 1826 (NYPL b14896507-441385).tiff and choose "Edit", the bottom of the editable text is what El Grafo quoted above. --bjh21 (talk) 16:41, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
Argh, there's only 931 of them in this category alone. I imagine it could be automated, but I fear I'm just not that fussed. Anyway, now I know how it works, and thanks all for your swift and knowledgeable assistance. MinorProphet (talk) 17:40, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Commons Gazette 2024-02

Volunteer staff changes

In January 2024, 1 sysop was elected. Currently, there are 187 sysops.

Other news

The Toolforge Grid Engine platform is scheduled to be stopped on 14 February. All tools running on it, such as Commons:CropTool, will stop.

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) 12:47, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Voting in Technical needs survey

Hi!

I would like to remind you of participating in the voting for proposals in the Technical needs survey. Happy voting! --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 17:20, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Notification of DMCA takedown demand — Fireworks at Land's End

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

The takedown can be read here.

Affected file(s):

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#Fireworks at Land's End . Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 23:36, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Notification of DMCA takedown demand — 2010 Winter Olympics Canada clebrating hockey gold medal

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

The takedown can be read here.

Affected file(s):

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#2010 Winter Olympics Canada clebrating hockey gold medal. Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 23:51, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

{{Self}} has been updated

{{Self}} has been revised today, but there seems to be a minor disorder when using with {{Cc-zero}}. See File:栗之浦ドック 第二工場.jpg. --トトト (talk) 02:50, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Looks fine to me, what is the "minor disorder"? - Jmabel ! talk 20:37, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
Fixed by Jarekt (1). Cheers. --トトト (talk) 11:17, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

File:1cm. cartesian.svg

 

Hello, I left a message on the bistro francophone and was advised to talk about it here.

In the footer of this file it says "papergraph.com, CC by-sa-nc 3.0 ...". The file seems to have been uploaded by its owner but the licence on the image (CC by-sa-nc 3.0) is not consistent with the licence indicated by the template (CC by-sa 3.0), probably because Commons does not allow files to be uploaded under a CC by-sa-nc licence. So, should we delete this file because it's not free, or is the pattern so simple that it's considered to be in the public domain? Pamputt (talk) 08:55, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Not copyrightable. But also possibly not worth keeping? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:28, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
Probably worth keeping, certainly not copyrightable. - Jmabel ! talk 20:36, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
Actually, the other files from this user also have this copyright footer. So I think the decision should apply to all these files. Pamputt (talk) 23:07, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Curly apostrophe and COM:FR#FR6

I have just declined the rename request of File:Electronic Core Module of NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter.png.

Dawnseeker2000’s rationale was “Title contains curly apostrophe which has been broken by semi-automated tools on Ingenuity (helicopter) four times in the last month by several editors”. (See Ingenuity (helicopter))

Now I’m wondering if should have renamed it. Indeed, COM:FR#FR6 ignores curly apostrophes. Any thoughts? RodRabelo7 (talk) 08:52, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

@RodRabelo7: I'd go for creating a redirect at the straight-apostrophe name. That way it won't matter which one the article uses. --bjh21 (talk) 11:18, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
Or mayme users like Trappist the monk should stop running sloppy scripts? (diff) --Watchduck (quack) 14:25, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Folklore 2024 has started, Join us!

 

Hello Village pump/Archive/2024/02, Greetings from the Wiki Loves Folklore International Team!

Wiki Loves Folklore is an international photography contest hosted on Wikimedia Commons to document folklore and intangible cultural heritage from around the world, such as folk festivals, folk dances, folk music, folk activities, folk games, folk cuisine, folk wear, folktales, folk games, folk religion, mythology, and many more.

The campaign invites participants to document photographs, videos, and audios linked to folk culture and fit within the contest's theme. Through this campaign, you may become a part of a community dedicated to preserving our intangible culture, which has been brought and passed down for thousands of years.

How can I Contribute?

The dates for the submission in the photography contest on Wikimedia Commons are from 1 February 2024 through 31 March 2024. Probably you are wondering how you can take part. It’s simple: grab a camera, record an image, video or audio under the folklore theme and start uploading or Click on Upload Now Icon which is available on right side of Wiki Loves Folklore 2024. To learn more about the rules, check out our Project page on Wikimedia Commons.

Here are the exciting prizes which you can win internationally.

International Prizes

  • 1st prize: 400 USD
  • 2nd prize: 300 USD
  • 3rd prize: 100 USD
  • Top 10 consolation prizes: 40 USD (each)
  • Best Video prize and best Audio prize: 50 USD (each)
  • Top uploader prize for images: First Prize: 300 USD, Second prize: 150 USD
  • Wiki Loves Folklore Postcards to top 100 Uploaders
  • Certificates and postcards to Local Organizers.

(Disclaimer : The above prizes will only be disbursed in the form of gift card or voucher format only) You can win both International prizes and your local Prizes simultaneously !

If you are interested in participating in the photography campaign, start photographing and collecting media of your local culture and get ready for the photo campaign happening on Wikimedia Commons. For more information about rules and prizes of the contest, refer here. For any questions, email us or join our telegram group here

Warm regards,

Gaurav and Issac

#WeTogether

Wiki Loves Folklore International Team.

Rockpeterson (talk) 08:22, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

What to do about wrong arrow heads in SVG?

 

Arrow heads created in Inkscape have a tendency to look wrong, when the image is rendered as PNG. (Inkscape itself exports a correct PNG, but Commons does it wrong. So does my Ubuntu.) See the image on the right. The heads of the red arrows show three problems: Wrong direction, wrong fill color, and wrong size. (In the SVG both have the same size, but in the PNG the upper one is smaller.) Is there some non-tedious thing I can do to fix this? After all, there is nothing wrong with the other arrows. (Compare this old example with simple code.) Greetings, Watchduck (quack) 14:15, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I see at least two bad arrows (path17 near "city" and path32 near "port city"). Both use marker-end ConcaveTriangle or a clone of it.
Commons supports SVG 1.1, but the file uses 
orient="auto-start-reverse"
which is SVG 2.0. An SVG 1.1 renderer will not understand the keyword, so it will not do the expected rotation.
I changed the keyword to "auto" (which is SVG 1.1).
Glrx (talk) 16:39, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
@Glrx: Thanks. So Inkscape generates inconsistent code. Unfortunately I can not just find all "auto-start-reverse" and replace them by "auto", because that would invert the heads at the other end, as seen here. Do you know a safe find-and-replace solution? BTW, I had to replace fill:context-stroke; by the actual color. Is that also too new for SVG 1.1? --Watchduck (quack) 17:52, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
@Watchduck:
No, I do not know a safe solution. I got lucky with the replacement because it was for marker-end rather than marker-start.
Yes, fill:context-stroke is new for SVG 2.0.
Glrx (talk) 03:07, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Commons:Editor's index to Commons

I recently made some updates and additions to Commons:Editor's index to Commons (a.k.a. COM:Glossary). I suspect there is a lot more undocumented jargon, outdated info (until just now, it still talked about "OTRS" instead of "VRT"), etc. There are also some ill-formed anchors, etc. It would probably be quite useful for a few other people to have a go at it. - Jmabel ! talk 19:52, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Victorian Turkish baths

If you ave either knowledge of or interest in Victorian Turkish baths (or would just like to put in some time helping a user who seems expert on their topic, but not on Commons) your help would be very much appreciated at Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/02/Category:Victorian Turkish baths. We seem to have a user who is a legitimate subject matter expert, but with very little knowledge of Commons. We need someone who can either guide him through properly setting up this category (and possibly subcategories) or just take over and do it themself (or somewhere between the two). I noticed the problematic category in the midst of doing a broad cleanup of parentless categories, but I don't think I bring more to this than a random knowledgeable Commons user. Thanks in advance. - Jmabel ! talk 19:57, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Dust Storm in Rolla, Kansas

Hi, What's the date of this picture? Some sources date it from April 14, 1935, and others date it from May 6, i.e. [1], [2], [3]. I wonder if there isn't a confusion with this famous picture. Thanks, Yann (talk) 16:17, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

@Yann: I've figured it out.
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/collections/franklin/index.php?p=digitallibrary/digitalcontent&id=3054
The caption is a LETTER written May 6, but the PHOTO was taken April 14. The FULL caption read
"Rolla Kansas, May 6-35. Mr. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Washington DC. Dear Mr. Roosevelt, we are mailing you a picture of the dust storm which came April 14-35. This was a northeast wind and darkness came. When this hit us the sun was shining bright and darkness was coming on at 3 o'clock in the evening. Taken from the water tower one hundred feet high. Yours truly, Chas. P. Williams. Rolla Kansas."
But because the caption was abridged, there's confusion. Adam Cuerden (talk) 07:18, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Timed Text from automatic speech recognition

Hi Commons, is it generally desirable to have timed text (closed captions) for time based media (Video, Audio) generated from automatic speech recognition (ASR) like OpenAI's Whisper? Is there a way to mark such timed texts as machine-generated? Thanks in advance. Rillke(q?) 10:25, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

When transcribing a video, for example, is there any way to generate the time (like 00:02:16,612 --> 00:02:19,376), instead of having to synchronize it manually? 2804:14D:5C32:4673:C7BD:4252:668A:7518 20:08, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
I use OpenAI's Whisper locally to provide me with a basic synchroniszed transcript (srt/vtt/...) and then correct some mistakes. In YouTube, when I tested that 3y ago, I could also feed a transcript and YouTube did the timing for me. -- Rillke(q?) 08:09, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
If the video is on youtube you can download the subtitle file using yt-dlp or youtube-dl (or if its your own video on youtube you can directly download it). I think the command is youtube-dl --write-sub --sub-lang en --skip-download URL (where you replace URL). You can also download all subtitles using --all-subs instead of --sub-lang en and the command is probably the same for yt-dlp except for the first word. To download auto-generated subtitles use --write-auto-sub instead of that / --sub-lang en.
-
@Rillke It would be very useful to have that and I have mentioned that elsewhere. It would massively boost multilingualism and contributor productivity (time they could use for more contributions or more transcriptions). A way to mark them would be setting categories like Category:Videos with machine-generated captions to check which then, once they have been checked & edited, move to categories like Category:Videos by Terra X with Esperanto subtitle file that then could also be narrated (redubbed) by humans and machines. One issue there is that there aren't that many useful videos with voice such as explanatory videos and documentaries on WMC, but I still think there are enough to make this very much needed. Another issue is that in the video the CC button only displays the language but not that it's auto-generated which could be useful once more people add such transcripts. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:41, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Any way to browse the data namespace?

Hi there, I'm toying with geojson, and would like to see some prior art to help me understand how to use geojson on Wikipedia. However, I haven't seen any structured way to see what's in the Data namespace that's used to store the geojson files, and how files in there are being used. There doesn't appear to be a category structure that I can use. Is there a way to browse that environment? Milliped (talk) 14:33, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

@Milliped: Hi, and welcome. You can start with special:prefixindex/data:.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 14:59, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Category merge request

Hello, could someone assist me by merging Category:Banyan robes into Category:Banyans (clothing)? Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by ThePinkShoes (talk • contribs) 16:39, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I'll do this. Trivial with Cat-a-lot, which you might want to look into. - Jmabel ! talk 19:39, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Jmabel ! talk 20:49, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Delete image (<7 days) unused content

I recently uploaded a logo and would like it deleted promptly <7 days. Should I use the {speedydelete|G7} template on the file description page for deletion?" (double curly brackets of course). Accuracy-searcher (talk) 22:06, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Commons:Criteria for speedy deletion
G7. Author or uploader request deletion
Original author or uploader requests deletion of recently created (<7 days) unused content.
I not sure where to add the template to the image for the deletion. Accuracy-searcher (talk) 22:23, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
@Accuracy-searcher: Add it literally anywhere on the file page. Adding at the top is customary, but not important. As long as the file is not in use anywhere, it will almost certainly be deleted within a day. - Jmabel ! talk 22:49, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
@Jmabel: Done! thank you! Accuracy-searcher (talk) 22:53, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
@Accuracy-searcher: For this particular criterion, we have a shortcut {{G7}}.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 12:14, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
I suggest you to add this code (see) to your common.js. RodRabelo7 (talk) 15:18, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

replace files > 100 MB

The file File:Decline_and_Fall_of_the_Roman_Empire_vol_2_(1896).djvu has two pages (viii and ix) missing and has about 112 MB. I want to upload a patched version that has these 2 pages but the upload interface does not allow this because it refuses to take files larger than 100 MB. How do I get this done? - R. J. Mathar (talk) 15:20, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

@R. J. Mathar User talk:Rillke/bigChunkedUpload.js#Overwriting an existing file. RZuo (talk) 15:56, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
Yes. Adding these two scripts worked and replaced the big file. R. J. Mathar (talk) 18:02, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

importScript replacement

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=insource%3AimportScript+-intitle%3AArchive+-intitle%3A%22users+namespace%22&ns4=1&ns12=1

because importScript was deprecated, all mentions of it on help pages should be replaced with mw.loader. see mw:ResourceLoader/Migration_guide_(users)/en#How_to_migrate. RZuo (talk) 18:20, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Is there any examples of DMCA takedowns being undeleted?

I could not find any--Trade (talk) 20:58, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

@Trade: e.g. Commons:Office actions/DMCA notices/2021#Update: Content restored. SCP-2000 03:36, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Danish rail construction sites

These pictures where taken around june 2002, likely around kobenhagen. It could be a metro or rail line.

Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:32, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

@Smiley.toerist That's the metro line somewhere near Category:Bella Center station. Hjart (talk) 23:56, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
I created two new categories for the in between station images: Category:Copenhagen metro line 1 and Category:Copenhagen metro line 1 & 2 Rename file names necessary as this is not a rail construction site, but building and road works. Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:53, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

SVG Translate Tool

It seems, SVG Translate Tool is out of service. So again translating files manually. So sad ... Manlleus (talk) 16:51, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Back online Manlleus (talk) 01:53, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Double Vienna tram category

Category:Vienna tram type A. There seems to be two types A. The modern version and the historic version. I wanted to add Category:Trams with entrance gates, but this only applies to the old type tram. Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:05, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

It’s better to split it, no doubt. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 11:40, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
Moved modern trams to Category:Vienna tram type ULF A. Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:59, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

File:Dust jacket, Lawrence, The Rainbow, Methuen, 1915.jpg

Hi, This file was on English Wikipedia with "from the painting by artist Frank Wright (1868-1924)", but I can't find any artist with these dates. There is a Category:Frank Wright (painter) (1860-1923). Is he the same person? Yann (talk) 12:17, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

At least the artist's signature in File:Frank Wright - Waitakeres - Sarjeant Gallery.jpg (lower left) looks quite similar. --Rosenzweig τ 14:06, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

HotCat notice

The edit notice on MediaWiki talk:Gadget-HotCat.js includes:

Talk pages in this namespace are generally not watched by many users. If you add a discussion here and are not using {{Edit request}}, please announce it at an appropriate location, such as Commons:Village pump.

This seems odd, but nonetheless please see: MediaWiki talk:Gadget-HotCat.js#Feature request: Ignore square brackets. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:10, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

AI drawings of specific people or logos that are unable to be uploaded

Is there a policy on creating ai drawings of people for which there do not exist any public domain images to be hosted here? For a long time this File:Kim Jong-Un Photorealistic-Sketch.jpg image was used for Kim Jong Un, and I imagine a lot more articles about people could have images if we did this. But it also risks being misleading or being disliked by users. I imagine the same could be done for logos but that would also run into issues of being misleading. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 19:35, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@Immanuelle: the issues here are almost exactly the same as for original, non-photographic art by our own contributors. For people, it's hard to have something that is both reasonably accurate and not derivative of copyrighted work. (For logos, I think it is literally impossible.) For people, I don't think there is any clear consensus here. I personally would not encourage adding any large number such works until we hash out more of a consensus, but I'm also fully aware that the only way we will hash out a consensus is through the uploading of at least a small number of such works. - Jmabel ! talk 20:54, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Batch of wrong locations

Checking the location of a picture in the Ephesus region I found it was at a wrong spot. Then I found that probably all pictures of a set by one photographer, imported from Flickr, had the same location. At https://wikimap.toolforge.org/?wp=false&cluster=false&zoom=16&lat=037.920367&lon=0027.287292 one can find 128 of them. I would hope someone can delete them (the location, not the pictures, they are rather good and informative) in one fell swoop. Dosseman (talk) 19:53, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Can someone help with this deletion request

I made this deletion page Commons:Deletion requests/File:Dead Stream Swamp MI.jpg and I pasted the requested code in, but it still says something went wrong with the subpage.

The template says "Here is the full syntax again, in case you misplaced it:" which sounds like it should be giving the syntax to make the page, but apparently it is not doing so. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 19:59, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

You erroneously inserted {{Delete}} template into the request page. This template should be inserted into the image page. Ruslik (talk) 20:19, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
In the future, I strongly recommend using the "Nominate for deletion" tool rather than doing this by hand. - Jmabel ! talk 20:56, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Transparency gone after resizing

Why is the transparency gone when using a downsized transparent png file? Is this always the case and is there any way to avoid it? I noticed this with this file. Original size has transparency, the smaller one linked under "other resolutions" does not. Thanks! Emberwit (talk) 18:32, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

That’s unexpected, yes. I would just grab the original image, though, and resize it offline myself. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 23:29, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
Which sizes have the issue? When i looked it seemed like the smaller sizes were appropriately transparent Bawolff (talk) 08:46, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
Seems resolved by now indeed, not sure what the issue was exactly. Thanks for your replies!--Emberwit (talk) 11:36, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
  This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --Emberwit (talk) 11:36, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Analog gradients

 

I'm trying to come up with an appropriate category for the printing technique at File:Helix, v.1, no.3.5, May 4, 1967 - DPLA - c5473574c42f7978da5186b4964c5fdd (back and front).jpg. Category:Color gradient is specifically under Category:Color in computer graphics, and the parent categories of Category:Gradient fields suggest a precise calculation. This file shows the use of applying a continuous shading of ink to some sort of printing press (probably offset) in 1967. (I've also seen it done with silk screening, but they wouldn't have silk-screened several thousand copies of a low-budget newspaper.) It's definitely a printing technique we should have an example of, and I wouldn't be surprised if we have others. - Jmabel ! talk 23:37, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel: You could make a new cat, perhaps "Category:Analog color gradient". The progression BIVROYGBIVR is very interesting. The color does seem somewhat offset in some places. There are defects in coloring the snakes behind Medusa's head. Presumably, the Seattle Public Library would have more examples from Helix on file. Sadly, artist Gary Eagle is no longer with us so we can't ask him.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 11:30, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
We have the full run of the Helix, minus a few pages that had clear copyright notices on some content (if it was less than a page, I've just redacted the relevant part, e.g. File:Helix, v.1, no.6, Jun. 23, 1967 - DPLA - 961d05f5a48a886514e066f36ac49228 (page 5).jpg).
As for SPL: they don't necessarily know more than I do on this, but I am in touch with Paul Dorpat (who, sadly, is sliding into dementia but often can remember some relevant facts, but he's the one who gave SPL a complete run of the Helix), Art Chantry, and several other relevant people. On Gary Eagle, there's a fair chance that anything you found about him comes from me writing it, but maybe not; turns out he has a public-facing Facebook page down to the end, so that helped me track things down. - Jmabel ! talk 20:39, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
@Jmabel This is called "rainbow roll". Counterfeit Purses (talk) 17:03, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
And the English Wikipedia has a related-looking article at en:Split-fount inking. Omphalographer (talk) 19:16, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
@Counterfeit Purses and Omphalographer: thanks so much! - Jmabel ! talk 20:39, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
Looks like the Helix used this a lot. I've been able to place a bunch of examples in the newly created Category:Split-fount inking just from going through their 1967 issues. A few combine this in interesting ways with other printing techniques, or make other unusual, clever use of it:
Jmabel ! talk 21:28, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
I once worked for a printer who occasionally used the technique on a Multi duplicator, but I never heard a name for it. He had to pause and wash up every few hundred impressions or else the gradients would diffuse into a murky mixture. The effect would probably be easier to manage on a press proper, with a wider fountain and better inking control.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 07:18, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
By the way, this now makes sense for me of the name of the (definitive) book on the Seattle poster art of this period, Split Fountain Hieroglyphics. - Jmabel ! talk 19:35, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
  • There is that 1970s psychedelic hippie font again. We tried last time to come up with a name for the font so we could add a category. Can anyone suggest a temporary name, so we can have a category? --RAN (talk) 00:20, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
    • It's not really a "font", it's a style of lettering. Even on just the letter "e" there are a crazy number of variants between artists, and often even within the work of a single artist. - Jmabel ! talk 07:06, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Photoshopped image (Singdrossel.jpg)

Just came across File:Singdrossel.jpg, which looks rather odd. It has no information about how it was created (other than file metadata). What to do about it? Tag it? Delete it? --Njardarlogar (talk) 11:03, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

There seems to be quite a lot of information in the meta-data and I don't see why we should doubt the authorship. The only thing I find suspicious is that it lists "Software used: Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", but this is not uncommon for photographers. My guess is that they simply blurred the background and make it black and white because the subject (the bird) was deemed more important than the background and they wanted to emphasise it, this is no different than the people who completely remove backgrounds from images. Personally, I would've preferred for them to have uploaded the original and then the edited file, but as this was uploaded in March 2006 I somehow doubt that user "@William~commonswiki: " still has the original photograph. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 18:34, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
I don't doubt the authorship, it is just that we cannot tell what modifications have been made to the picture; and it looks strange. If you look at the lower body of the bird, you can see that there are two traces where two grass blades could have continued (the bird's feathers take on a green hue here). Perhaps the simplest explanation is that the bird has been selectively brightened and some of the grass cloned out. Yet it also looks like the bird could have been superimposed on the background. --Njardarlogar (talk) 20:32, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
@Njardarlogar: I've added a {{Retouched picture}} tag since it obviously applies. I don't think there's any cause to delete the file, especially since it's in use on several other projects. --bjh21 (talk) 20:56, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Signature help

 

Can anyone make out the signature on the bottom panel of File:Helix, v.5, no.9, Dec. 12, 1968 - DPLA - b4b749b194d7f45676e4a241a7cce198 (page 20).jpg? "M. [something] 1968". Might even be someone pretty well known, because the one at upper left is by Gilbert Shelton, signing only as "Gilbert". PD because of lack of notice. - Jmabel ! talk 20:32, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

M. Jonson I think. --Rosenzweig τ 17:07, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
Also see File:Helix, v.5, no.2, Oct. 24, 1968 - DPLA - adb7324343eb8cf6bd8c018d9b7e6fe7 (page 23).jpg (lower left). --Rosenzweig τ 17:13, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
@Rosenzweig: Thanks. Could be "Jonson", "Torson", or "Turson", but at least that eliminates some other possibilities like "Foxson". - Jmabel ! talk 20:43, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Wikimedia blog on flickypedia

https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/02/09/introducing-flickypedia-a-better-way-to-get-flickr-images-on-wikimedia-commons/ —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 11:09, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I think this is premature. There are a number of unresolved issues discussed at Commons talk:Flickypedia. The statement "This flow has a little more friction than some other Flickr uploading tools, which is by design." underplays one of those issues, in that titles and captions must be entered manually, and are not prefilled from values in Flickr. Furthermore, it is not possible to copy the title from the first image in a set to the rest, with sequential number suffixes; and not possible to use the tool to copy the caption from the first image in a set to the rest (and then modify it in each case, if required). It is not even possible to sift+click to select a range of images - each must be clicked on individually (I'm currently trying to import a set of 91 pictures, and my RSI is bad enough as it is, thanks!). Colleagues will be aware that this functionality is present in our own upload wizard; and that such bulk selection and bulk population of caption/ description is also possible in the existing Flckr2Commons tool. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:10, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
+1 to Andy. For the common use case of copying over your own content from Flickr, the inability to easily copy titles and descriptions feels like a deliberately built-in defect. Ditto for bringing in materials like the ones I routinely copy from the Seattle Municipal Archives. - Jmabel ! talk 20:48, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Sensual Image

Hello, I want to ask, is it allowed to upload sensual images of humans? As uploaded by User:Srakatundra? Thanks. Kuramochi Akihiko (talk) 08:47, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

These all are obvious copyright violations from some porn sites and should be deleted. -- Herbert Ortner (talk) 09:41, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
  Done User warned, all files deleted. Please post on COM:ANU next time. Yann (talk) 09:55, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
@Yann: They then uploaded File:Its my scandal 14.jpg and tagged it {{Db-g7}}.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 15:02, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
  Done Blocked indef. as VOA. It can't be said we didn't give a chance. Yann (talk) 16:18, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
Thank you to all of you. Kuramochi Akihiko (talk) 16:52, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Query media by category?

Hello,

In short I want to see all the videos in a category sorted by length longest to shortest. I remember there was a tool similar to PetScan (but older looking) that allowed you to do this, but I can't remember what it was. The results were tabular and it wasn't quickstatements, any of the commons.wikimedia search interfaces. Does anyone know what it was called or if I can do this with another tool? Edit: I've asked on Request a Query Carlinmack (talk) 15:52, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Solved! https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Request_a_query#Commons_Query_-_sort_videos_by_longest_to_shortest Carlinmack (talk) 18:46, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

FYI: 2024: announcing the year of the OpenStreetMap vector maps

https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2024/02/11/2024-announcing-the-year-of-the-openstreetmap-vector-maps/

Huge news. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:17, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Wrong wikidata link to category

d:Q78093890 is a painting and does not match the locality of Category:Castle Place, Belfast. Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:19, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

It looks like a false match with an automated edit on Wikidata a few years ago. Because the name of the painting on Wikidata is the same as the geographical category on Commons (and the image of the painting is in the same category) a bot linked the painting to the geographical category. I'll clean this up when I get access to a PC later if another editor doesn't do it first (I'm on mobile at the moment and the Wikidata interface doesn't like mobile editing). From Hill To Shore (talk) 10:32, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
@Smiley.toerist and From Hill To Shore:   Done in these edits and creation of d:Q124512332.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 11:09, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Announcing the results of the UCoC Coordinating Committee Charter ratification vote

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

Dear all,

Thank you everyone for following the progress of the Universal Code of Conduct. I am writing to you today to announce the outcome of the ratification vote on the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee Charter. 1746 contributors voted in this ratification vote with 1249 voters supporting the Charter and 420 voters not. The ratification vote process allowed for voters to provide comments about the Charter.

A report of voting statistics and a summary of voter comments will be published on Meta-wiki in the coming weeks.

Please look forward to hearing about the next steps soon.

On behalf of the UCoC Project team,

RamzyM (WMF) 18:23, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Final reminder on the technical needs survey

One last reminder that the voting on the Technical needs survey runs until the 15th of February. GPSLeo (talk) 18:39, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

What's going on with Commons:Deletion requests/mobile tracking?

A number of automated deletion scripts automatically add deletions of files uploaded by the mobile app to a list on this page. This page used to be archived weekly by User:CommonsMaintenanceBot, but it stopped doing so in September 2021. As a result, the page is now gigantic; it fails to render properly due to template inclusion limits, and editing it (e.g. when running those deletion scripts) can be slow.

Does this page still need to be kept around? Given that no one else seems to have noticed the rendering issues, it probably isn't serving any useful purpose. Failing that, can we get something set up to archive it again?

Omphalographer (talk) 20:34, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Pinging @Rillke as bot operator.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 21:15, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Duplicate media

Hi, not sure if there is a better place to note this but:

Are the same media, one being Media of the Day and one being featured on enwiki. It would be good to merge them and keep both attributes. Many thanks Carlinmack (talk) 12:25, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

@Carlinmack: I've added links between them in the "other versions" section. They're different crops: you can see that at 2:10 where the "1926" version has quite a lot more of the picture on the left. That means they're not duplicates in terms of COM:DUPE. The "1927" version is possibly redundant, but a full deletion request would be required to remove it. --bjh21 (talk) 20:46, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

IIIF Manifests and bulk imports

Do we have a tool that will import a set of images with an IIIF Manifest, for example the 275 PD broadsides at [4]? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:11, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Can these media be uploaded here if they have watermarks

These photos are some of the only ones I have found of this particular type of dance. They come from 1949 so they are not protected by copyright in China, but they also have a watermark on them. So are they not allowed to be uploaded due to the watermarks? https://web.archive.org/web/20221014133012/https://k.sina.com.cn/article_5898468734_15f937d7e01901taf5.html#/ Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 23:42, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@Immanuelle: watermarks are discouraged but not forbidden. In this case they could easily be cropped out without affecting the main subject at all, so scarcely impair the images’ usability. But are the photos also copyright-free in the USA? I believe they would have to have been free in China by 1995.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 07:29, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
There is no need to resort to cropping off watermarks, there are plenty of free tools on the internet for erasing them. Broichmore (talk) 07:04, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
I think you could find better sources where these photographs have no watermarks like: https://foto-history.livejournal.com/11923093.html 源義信 (talk) 00:24, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Cat-a-lot

Is it only me or is cat-a-lot also broken for anybody else? I can select the files/categories to move, but when I want to execute the move, the counter hangs at 1... --Reinhard Müller (talk) 11:40, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

i also got stuck sometimes a few days ago when i used it. i was adding a category to category pages (from special:Search results). i looked at the pages' wikitexts that probably got me stuck but didnt seem to see anything unusual. RZuo (talk) 17:20, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
Meanwhile I also found out that it is limited to some categories and works for others. Please consider this case closed :-) --Reinhard Müller (talk) 08:43, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
To what categories is it limited? JopkeB (talk) 13:17, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
now today i'm trying again. moving subcats of Category:American diaspora to "american diaspora by country" gets me stuck. this must be a bug. RZuo (talk) 13:25, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
I reported it this morning, see Commons:Village_pump/Technical#Cat-a-log_does_not_work_for_categories. JopkeB (talk) 13:26, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
I'll continue there. Thanks for the pointer. --Reinhard Müller (talk) 14:47, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Another photo is hidden within revisions of one

In this file File:IlyaLazarenko.jpg I saw that there is actually another photo of the same guy as a different version of the file https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/a/ac/20170114201410%21IlyaLazarenko.jpg can we reupload this as a separate file? I am concerned a bit with the licensing of that version though. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 20:05, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

{{Split}} is the tag requesting different versions at the filename be split into separate filenames. But if there is no valid license for the intermediate file, then that revision should instead be rev-deleted. DMacks (talk) 20:25, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
I have hidden the intermediate file as it seems like a copyvio. Abzeronow (talk) 20:47, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Problems with category page.

Today I created Category:Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve entrance signs. At the top of the category, there is a template with links to corresponding categories in other national parks. Why does the national park I created the new category for (Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve) not appear in the list at the top? Also, why is "United States national parks" redlinked? Jeffrey Beall (talk) 01:29, 17 February 2024 (UTC).

@Jeffrey Beall: Hi, and welcome. Nobody bothered to add Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve to {{US national parks}} or create Category:National parks of the United States entrance signs.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 01:50, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
Great Sand Dunes is in the template. I think the reason it isn't showing up is because the new category includes "National Park and Preserve entrance signs" while the other categories include "National Park entrance signs." The mismatch prevents the template from functioning correctly. From Hill To Shore (talk) 02:23, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

SVG animations and animateMotion

Hello! Recently I created Elliptic orbit.svg. If you look at the file history, you will notice that there are two versions of the file. I normally use Firefox, and so only after submitting the first version I noticed that the animation does not work in Chrome. Afterwards I did find a solution to make it work in Chrome (i.e. the current version), however my solution made it no longer work in Firefox. Does anyone know how to make the animation work in every browser? --Grufo (talk) 08:33, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Use CSS animations. The only possible option. Users123tps (talk) 13:28, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
I would have no idea how to simulate the acceleration/deceleration using CSS… --Grufo (talk) 17:53, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Retrieving Image Author and Submission Date for Wiki Loves Monuments UK

Hello Wikimedia Commons Community!

Background

I'm currently working on a project to visualize data from the Wiki Loves Monuments UK contest. My aim is to display the contributions of participants, focusing on the image author and the submission date of each entry from the years 2013 to 2023.

I am reaching out to seek your advice on whether I am retrieving the image author and submission date correctly and if there's a more efficient or accurate method to get all the image submission items for the competition.

Current Method

I have been using the Wikimedia Commons API to retrieve the image author and submission date. For each image URL obtained from Wikidata, I query the Commons API to extract the artist (image author) and dateTimeOriginal (submission date). Here is a simplified version of my approach:

  1. Query Wikidata for image submissions tagged with specific heritage designations relevant to the Wiki Loves Monuments contest.
  2. For each image URL retrieved, perform a query to the Wikimedia Commons API to fetch metadata, including the image author and submission date.
  3. Filter the images submitted during September of each year from 2013 to 2023, aligning with the contest period.

Below is the code for fetching the image author and submission date for the image item. 

import requests
from urllib.parse import unquote
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import html

def get_wikimedia_commons_data(file_url):
    # Extracting the file name from the URL
    file_name = unquote(file_url.split('/')[-1])

    # Wikimedia Commons API endpoint for fetching file information
    commons_api_url = "https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php"
    params = {
        "action": "query",
        "titles": f"File:{file_name}",
        "prop": "imageinfo",
        "iiprop": "extmetadata",
        "format": "json"
    }

    response = requests.get(commons_api_url, params=params)
    if response.status_code == 200:
        data = response.json()
        page = next(iter(data["query"]["pages"].values()))
        if "imageinfo" in page:
            imageinfo = page["imageinfo"][0]["extmetadata"]
            author_html = imageinfo.get("Artist", {}).get("value", "N/A")
            date = imageinfo.get("DateTimeOriginal", {}).get("value", "N/A")
            # Unescaping HTML entities
            author_html = html.unescape(author_html)
            # Using BeautifulSoup to parse HTML and extract text
            soup = BeautifulSoup(author_html, 'html.parser')
            author = soup.get_text()

            return author, date
        
    return "N/A", "N/A"

Challenges

While I have been able to retrieve a significant amount of data, I am concerned about the accuracy and completeness of the information, especially considering the large scale of submissions to the contest.

Questions

So my questions are:

  1. Is there a more direct or reliable method to query for image submissions specifically tied to the Wiki Loves Monuments UK contest?
  2. Are there any best practices or tools recommended by the community for handling such data retrieval efficiently?

I would greatly appreciate any insights, suggestions, or examples of how others have approached similar tasks. Your expertise could significantly enhance the accuracy and impact of this project.

Thank you for your time and assistance! — Preceding unsigned comment added by UnChampignon (talk • contribs) 10:49, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

--UnChampignon (talk) 10:49, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

As WLM only has own works uploaded you can simply use ["imageinfo"]["user"]. This parameter will always give the uploader as a string. You therefore do not need any html parsing. Only if you also want the attribution name and not only the account name you need the "extmetadata" property. If you want the attribution name you could use the ["imageinfo"]["user"] as a fallback if there is no "Artist" property for the file. For a single run on all files in the WLM UK category this should be fast enough with a dedicated request for every file. If you want to speed this up you can request the data for up to 50 pages at once. If you want to do this you have to concatenate the stings of the file names with a pipe | between the files. In the results you will get a list with an entry for every requested page. Maybe you are already aware of this but I can try everything at Special:ApiSandbox. GPSLeo (talk) 15:03, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Youtube removed CC attributions in Sept 2021 - how to handle verification

According to Youtube documentation https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797468 the Creative Commons Licesnes were discontinued September 2021 and required updates to video descriptions to indicate copyright if I read this correctly. This seems to imply that inaction would mean CC released videos would no longer have a CC license without the video owner updating their video description. Thus in cases where screenshots for images of individuals like File:Peter_Lawson_Jones_2017-02-09.jpg uploaded before these licenses were revoked may be compliant, but it is unclear since any structured verification was removed. How are the legacy images sourced via Youtube being verified to the licenses applied when they were uploaded? Should these all be marked {{subst:Npd}} or otherwise categorized in some way for a review for evidence of the license being accurate? Or what other considerations and indications should be done with these? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wolfgang8741 (talk • contribs) 15:13, 14 February 2024‎ (UTC)

You're misreading that page. Nothing has changed with regards to video licensing; videos can still be uploaded with a CC-BY license, and that license appears below the video description.
What was removed was an attributions page which was used by the YouTube video editor to automatically provide attribution for videos created from excerpts of other CC videos. This removal has already taken place, and YouTube now recommends that video authors now provide attribution in the description of a video, rather than using this separate page. Omphalographer (talk) 20:58, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
Correct, I was able to license my videos with CC still --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 13:29, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

File overwriting not allowed

I tried to upload an improved version of a file uploaded by another user. This used to be possible; I have done this many times. Now I get the message that this is nor allowed; I need to "request an exception". Commons:Overwriting existing files § Minor improvements says: " [OK] As a general rule, use the link "Upload a new version of this file" only for relatively minor improvements." This is not helpful if one also has to request exceptions in all cases, including minor improvements.  --Lambiam 08:26, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Sadly there were too many people overwriting files that didn't meet the guidelines. You can also apply for the Autopatrol user right, which circumvents the limit. Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 09:06, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
Thx, will do.  --Lambiam 09:10, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Is https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ OK to upload

This licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ is applied to this picture [5]. I know I should know/understand the answer to this question, but is it OK to upload a picture here with this licence? I have to be absolutely sure I have this correct. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:24, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes. See COMM:LICENSE. (At least, yes the license is okay, it also needs to meet the rest of our scope, etc.) —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:03, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
Here is the link about files being within "scope " here on Commons: COM:Scope --Ooligan (talk) 16:54, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Can someone merge these two templates per discussion?

{{PD-CCTV}} should be merged into {{PD-automated}} per this discussion. Thanks! PARAKANYAA (talk) 13:35, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Deleting redirects

Hello, I had a few redirects made due to files being renamed. These redirects provide no usefulness as there are no pages linking to these. I would like to have them deleted. Is there any speedy deletion tags for useless redirects? Thank you. Jerium (talk) 23:35, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

How long did those files exist under their old names? If they were licensed under Creative Commons, any external users will be obliged to include a link to them. Redirects are a cheap way to maintain the validity of external reusers' content. From Hill To Shore (talk) 23:41, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
All I upload are barnstars for the English Wikipedia. Sometimes, their name will change depending on the criteria changing. Many barnstars the I've made have not been used yet. Jerium (talk) 23:46, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
Commons:Criteria for speedy deletion criterion G2. - Jmabel ! talk 23:54, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
@Jerium: File renamers follow "When in doubt, leave a redirect." per the COM:FR#Leaving redirects guideline.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 12:10, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

RfC {{User Mentorship}}

See also Category:Userbox ability templates (statistics), Category:Mentorship, etc.
 This user mentors Univòc64 .
 This user is mentored by Yug.

Hello all, I noticed the lack of identifiable structure for onboarding, mentorship, apprenticeship on Commons. We do have declarative Category:Userbox ability templates, but the space seemed empty for declarative mentorship (I may have missed existing elements). Also, I would like to announce the creation of {{User Mentorship}}, a template to announce mentorship relationships. This template has been created yesterday and needs community ideas, on proper English (I'm non-native), wording, translations, code, design, merging with existing similar template (?), etc. It allows to declare your mentor or your apprentice (parameter mentoree?). As the template is currently just used twice, every things including name, parameters, can be changed if necessary. Also, with this Request for Comments we welcome your reviews. :) Yug (talk) 08:16, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Why doesn't commons have a mass message sender user right?

On enwiki, there is a user right that allows people to use Special:MassMessage. I've used it to send invitations to Wikimedia New York City events, for example. I'm curious why it doesn't exist on Commons (the massmessage function is restricted to admins)? — Rhododendrites talk |  19:15, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

The tool is not used that often that asking an admin for every time it is needed was a problem in the past. GPSLeo (talk) 20:00, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Max upload size has increased to 5 GiB

Just a heads up, the maximum upload size is now 5 GiB. This only applies to server side upload and chunked upload including UploadWizard and scripts like User:Rillke/bigChunkedUpload.js. Chunked upload has a reputation for being flaky for very large uploads, so your mileage may vary if trying to upload a very large file. It does not affect uploads done via Special:Upload which still has a max size of 100MB. Technically the change also applies to upload by url, but I suspect uploads of this size would hit a timeout when using that method. Happy uploading. Bawolff (talk) 08:44, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

And for context on the limits. 4GB was a MediaWiki technical limitation that is now solved. 5GB is a storage layer technical limitation which we cannot surpass without significant reworking of the storage layer, which isn't likely to happen any time soon. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:46, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
Thanks to both of you for this update. --Ooligan (talk) 17:02, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
Ever for 2GB its just not working. Im very tired of upload wizard, years with the same situation --Wilfredor (talk) 21:56, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
Indeed. Chunked upload has been very flaky for large files since basically when it was introduced. I can understand how its pretty frustrating. I've been trying to investigate what's going wrong with it, but no promises. Server side uploads can be an option if you absolutely can't get normal uploads to work. Bawolff (talk) 07:01, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
@Wilfredor We just deployed a fix that we are hopeful might fix the "The file mwstore://local-swift-codfw/local-temp/... does not exist." errors. [Edit: Looks like i spoke too soon, we are still working on it...] There could still be other errors (Or we might be wrong about the cause of this one), but if you want, consider trying uploading some large files to see if it works better now, and let me know the result. Bawolff (talk) 22:45, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

TIFF size on LoC

Hi, Does anyone know why the TIFF size on the Library of Congress doesn't always match, i.e. [6] and [7]. The announced size is 237 kB, while the real size is 122.88 MB, i.e. File:Yonkers, New York. Mrs. Garrity hanging the wash LCCN2017833878.tif and here. It would be good to know if higher resolution is available. Yann (talk) 11:03, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

@Yann: You could ask a librarian here.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 15:29, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
Thanks, done. Yann (talk) 17:51, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
Interestingly, the old version of File:Yonkers,_New_York._Mrs._Garrity_hanging_the_wash_LCCN2017833878.tif is exactly 237kb. If i were to guess, maybe they originally had a smaller version, and then updated it to a newer higher resolution version, but failed to update the metadata. Bawolff (talk) 07:07, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
Yes, that's it. I already got an answer. Wow! They are fast! The LoC is in process of "re-scanning images so that those files that actually have the <1MB TIFs will be replaced with large TIFs". Very well! Yann (talk) 15:33, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Rename request declined

I requested renaming of File:Logo of Kyrgyz Latin Wikipedia SVG.svg but User:Rachmat04 has reverted because does not comply with renaming guidelines. What guideline I broke? Let me know and understand, please! 2001:B07:6442:8903:915:811E:D744:DF76 11:35, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi, and welcome. You did not provide a rationale number (in {{Rename}} required parameter 2, see Template:Rename/doc). Pinging @Rachmat04 as declining renamer, who could have indicated that.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 15:26, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
You've now cited criterion 4, which applies in two cases: when there is a complex template or external site that requires a particular naming convention, and when the file is part of a larger work that should appear together in lists and categories. It's not obvious how either of those applies to this file, so it would help if you could expand the request to indicate why there's a requirement for this file to have its name harmonized with others. --bjh21 (talk) 18:35, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
Pinging @Bjh21 if you watch Category:SVG Localized Wikipedia globe logos (2010) you can notice that the standard name is Wikipedia-logo-v2-[language].svg. What else is there to do more than that? 2001:B07:6442:8903:59DC:599A:8D5B:FACB 11:06, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
As the footnote COM:FR#cite_note-4 says: "Just because images share a category does not mean that they are part of a set." So you need to demonstrate why it's necessary for the file to have a particular name. Though actually in this case I notice it's quite a recent upload so maybe the uploader Sm faysal would like to ask for renaming under the much more lenient criterion 1? --bjh21 (talk) 19:04, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
@Bjh21: https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal:Wikimedia_trademarks//Word_mark_creation
At section “Preparing files for upload” near the end of page it is wrote: “Name your file like this: "Wikipedia-logo-v2-" + language Code”. I think this should be enough… 95.74.56.170 19:40, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
Strictly that only appears in the instructions for making a PNG version, not an SVG version. But I think that combined with its being a very recent upload makes me inclined to move it. --bjh21 (talk) 20:13, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
Moved. --bjh21 (talk) 20:16, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
@Bjh21 I have no issue if it is renamed. Thanks Sm faysal (talk) 01:39, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Scammers using military pics from Wikipedia to scam women out of their money

There's various men or maybe it's the same one and they are using US military men photos of this website and then creating FB profiles impersonating various generals from this site. I did a Google lens search and it brought me here from the pic the guys were using on FB when trying to contact women on FB hoping to establish a friendship/relationship using these men's military profiles from this site. — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 104.157.160.175 (talk) 00:50, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

That is a sad story, but scammers can be very crafty. By the way, we pull US military photos from US military websites where they are aviable for everybody, so the scammers could be getting them from there, but they might be easier to find here. --Jarekt (talk) 04:48, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
You could ask FaceBook to check, if profile pictures of Facebook profiles are images that have been published online at Flickr, the NASA archives, US Government sites, or thousends of other sites that offer free images. In fact Facebook has downloaded all the files when Facebook created its Llama LLM. And Facebook could then block these profiles. C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm - p7.ee/p) (talk) 04:45, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Photo challenge December results

Fossil fuel: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image      
Title Gewinnung und Verbrennung Lusatian lignite briquette of the
Rekord brand from the former GDR		 Feuerraum einer Dampflokomotive.
Топка паровоза IMG 5655WI
Author Mensch01 Lusi Lindwurm Kora27
Score 22 16 13
In a box: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image      
Title Sweet collection in a box Escape artist Blown out quail eggs
in a cardboard box
Author Hgrobe Горбунова М.С. Ermell
Score 12 9 8

Congratulations to Mensch01, Lusi Lindwurm, Kora27, Hgrobe, Горбунова М.С. and Ermell. -- Jarekt (talk) 03:58, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

As an aside, I love fossil fuels as a sort of out of the box challenge category. Concrete enough that the photos are thematically linked, but with enough flexibility that the category can be interpreted in different ways. Bawolff (talk) 07:04, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
Templates disabled (see Commons:Photo challenge/2023 - December - Fossil fuel/Winners & Commons:Photo challenge/2023 - December - In a box/Winners). Please find a way to display images (a gallery tag, perhaps) without introducing horizontal scrolling. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:37, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Update Wikimedia Commons' default markup for 'Use this image'

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T299064

Nothing has happened with the above ticket, in over a year. How do we get changes made to Commons' default markup for 'Use this image?

Bu way of explanation, the default markup provided by the "Use this file" link on the toolbar, for File:Aris’s_Birmingham_Gazette - 1771-11-11 - p1.jpg for example, is:

[[File:Aris’s Birmingham Gazette - 1771-11-11 - p1.jpg|thumb|Aris’s Birmingham Gazette - 1771-11-11 - p1]]

The right hand part of this ("|Aris’s Birmingham Gazette - 1771-11-11 - p1]]") repeats the filename. It should instead (where available) use the caption from the file's structured data, in the user's preferred language:

[[File:Aris’s Birmingham Gazette - 1771-11-11 - p1.jpg|thumb|front page masthead of Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 11 November 1771 edition]]

This applies to all the applicable markup snippets under each of the "Use this file" links on a file page; for example the non-thumbnail wiki markup and the alt attribute under "Embed this file". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:30, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

I've replied to the discussion on MediaWiki talk:Gadget-Stockphoto.js#Default markup for 'Use this image' is suboptimal. --bjh21 (talk) 18:58, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Fusion

Is is possible to merge File:Capital punishment in the world Zim.svg with File:Capital punishment in the world.svg ? Io Herodotus (talk) 15:26, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Prize book plates

 
1889 prize bookplate

Category:Book plates redirects to Category:Ex libris, so how would we categorize plates like the above, which are for prizes? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:36, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Prize giving labels as far as I know. Broichmore (talk) 06:21, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
Probably Prize-giving labels would be more correct. Or Prize-giving book plates. - Jmabel ! talk 17:07, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
They are still labels, the plate prints the labels. So what we have here is a label Broichmore (talk) 01:19, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, both. Category:Prize-giving book plates created. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:59, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:59, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Large but corrupted vs small but good

File:Front facade of the Academy of Athens.jpg has a larger resolution but is corrupted.

File:Front Facade of the Academy of Athens.jpg is smaller but no glitch.

what to do? delete the big one? or crop the big one to remove the glitch and then delete the small one? RZuo (talk) 11:03, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

In what way is it corrupted? Both files appear the same (except available resolutions) on my device. From Hill To Shore (talk) 14:13, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
@From Hill To Shore: The larger one suffers from significant jpg compression when expanded to full size. Considering the warning label that was applied in 2019, unless someone objects I'll process as CSD:F7. — Huntster (t @ c) 14:27, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
I think you mean distorted instead of corrupted. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:12, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
it's corrupted due to https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T266903 . RZuo (talk) 08:26, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

The way to upload images via Flickr is completely broken

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T358414

At present, all methods of uploading images through Flickr have been completely damaged, and video content from Flickr cannot be uploaded through V2C, and errors have been reported.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Fumikas Sagisavas (talk • contribs) 06:31, 22 February 2024‎ (UTC)

Did you try Flickypedia? Pyb en résidence (talk) 08:38, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
Flickypedia works for me, but Special:UploadWizard has been failing all day for Flickr uploads, just getting stuck on the Submitting details… spinner with no error message or timeout. Belbury (talk) 15:52, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
I've used Flickr2Commons within the last 36 hours or so. Is that now failing? - Jmabel ! talk 23:15, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
Flickr2Commons works fine for me, Special:UploadWizard is still failing. Belbury (talk) 18:01, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
I've opened phab:T358414. Sam Wilson 02:28, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Template:NKC

It looks like we have exactly one file that uses Template:NKC. I would think it is something that should be used either far more widely or not at all, but I don't know which. - Jmabel ! talk 04:13, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

That seems like an inappropriately vague license statement. (More of a non-statement, really.) If we can confirm that this photo is PD-US, we should say so; if we can't, we shouldn't be hosting it. Omphalographer (talk) 07:42, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
I agree. I have made the template emit Category:No known copyright, for now. Note some prior discussion, at Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2022/08, in the (unlinkable?) section {{NKC}} template for review. Pinging @Dominic, Jarekt, and Beireke1: , who were involved in that discussion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:00, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Bulk category renames

Hello friends! I have been active on Wikipedia Commons for several years. My activity mainly revolves around Category:Noble families of Poland and concerns taking care of the aesthetics of this category, appropriately placing files in subcategories, etc. Before I started dealing with this category, many names were written in a random form, so for aesthetic reasons I chose the form "XYZ family" in the category naming (example: Category:Ankwicz family).

After some time, I realized that it was my mistake and I shouldn't have named these categories that way. People notoriously confuse families of noble descent with regular families with the same surname and mix up files related to the different types of families with the same surname.

Since changing these categories manually will take me a lot of time, I am writing here to ask for help. Could someone help me with changing the category names from the form "XYZ family" to the form "House of XYZ" (example: Category:Ankwicz family reduced to Category:House of Ankwicz)?

Category:Noble families of Russia has been using the "House of XYZ" provisions for a long time and in my opinion this is the best possible option to achieve order and aesthetics.

Thank you for understanding and for help! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Heroldicas (talk • contribs) 10:48, 24 February 2024‎ (UTC)

@Heroldicas: Didn't we already have this discussion elsewhere? And I told you how to do it on a semi-automated basis? - Jmabel ! talk 17:28, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/User_problems#Technical_Wishes. Please don't ask the same question multiple places, especially without indicating you are doing so. - Jmabel ! talk 17:36, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
I followed your suggestions. I wrote a request in the place you indicated, but the admin deleted it. That's why I'm writing here. Heroldicas (talk) 00:41, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
I tried again. Maybe this time it will work. Heroldicas (talk) 20:33, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

In other countries it has been "Category:XYZ noble family" See: Category:Cronman noble family. --RAN (talk) 02:48, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

This name isn't bad either. However, it seems to me that due to the specification of the names of Polish categories and their length, it might not be appropriate. Heroldicas (talk) 11:38, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Car identification?

Hi, Any idea what are these cars? Thanks, Yann (talk) 12:30, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Ford's it says so on their radiator Oxyman (talk) 14:39, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
They look like variations of the Ford Model T. See Category:Ford Model T trucks for some similar looking configurations. From Hill To Shore (talk) 15:53, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Trains that run on roads

 

How to categorize this train-like vehicle that runs on paths like Road vehicles? Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 15:34, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Category:Trackless trains Oxyman (talk) 15:57, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
Thank you. I've categorized the image under Trackless trains in India. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 16:00, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Can I make categories for characters in my own art, or similar

I am an ai artist and I want to upload a lot of my art here. I uploaded one already see here but I would like to categorize all my ai art into a category, and categorize all my andromeda pics into one category. Am I allowed to do this? Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 18:16, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Please dont. This is not a free AI art repository Trade (talk) 19:37, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
+1 to what Trade said. Even if Commons was a free AI art repository its not the best place for it anyway. You should really give Flickr a try if you haven't already though. They are super friendly to AI artwork and you'd have better control over your own images anyway. Plus its cool to have stats and groups specifically for AI artwork. That's where I host my AI artwork at and it has a lot of advantage to Commons. --Adamant1 (talk) 13:59, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Local knowledge of Bradford?

I uploaded two pictures, yesterday, the first is a view of Bradford here, and shortly after it another view here, before I realized they are in fact the same view, with one flipped.

Obviously the one from ArtUK is probably the correct view, but it's not a given. Can someone, with local knowledge clarify this. So I can flip the erroneous image?

What would be nice is to sort out the landmark spires in the picture and the map co-ordinates of the view too. Broichmore (talk) 19:31, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

@Broichmore: I'm not local to Bradford but one of the churches resembles this one built in 1815. It has since been demolished but (according to this YouTube video (at 1:14)) it stood on Rawson Square. From Hill To Shore (talk) 19:49, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
@Broichmore: this 360° view of the painting's museum indicates that the ArtUK version is indeed the correct one. --HyperGaruda (talk) 06:58, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Renaming

Hi, can an admin look at this rename? I can't rename it to the requested name. First someone else changed it to 'side view', but the extension was bad ".jpg .jpg" (double). The uploader is not happy with that (side view) and now wants it to be renamed to the normal name, but I can't do it, an admin is needed to remove a file. Thanks in advance. See: File:13-06-27-gouda-by-RalfR-008 side view.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yug (talk • contribs) 13:03, 27 February 2024‎ (UTC) - Not Yug, I forgot to sign. - Richardkiwi (talk) (talk) 20:37, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

{{Do not translate}} ?

Hello all,
I look for a template to tell other contributors to « Wait / pause, do NOT translate this wikipage yet ». Is there something else than {{Draft}} ? Draft is de facto not perceived as a Stop translation message : contributors are still translating the Draft-status template anyway. This template will be revamped, so good will translators are wasting their time. Is there a template to stop good will translators ? Yug (talk) 13:03, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Diana Sperling paintings

If someone in the UK can give a better idea of the subject/location of these Diana Sperling paintings I would be very grateful. According to the Bonhams auction description the book had sketches of "The Druids Temple, Holyhead; Tickford Park House; Hedingham Castle; The obelisk near Wellington; Charmout Church, Dorset, and others."

ThePinkShoes (talk) 14:50, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Disappearing of sound in video files

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T358429

In the last few days, newly uploaded videos lack sound (an example). It appears only if you set "source" in the player settings. This does not concern files, uploaded in previous times (an example). The same bug concerns files, uploaded in ru-wiki (topic). Sneeuwschaap (talk) 19:46, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

The bug was fixed by Phabricator users. Sneeuwschaap (talk) 02:01, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
  This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --RZuo (talk) 20:55, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Author name that is not username

Hi, is there still some way to use an author name other than your username that’s less cumbersome than manually editing it? It used to be that there was a field in the upload wizard to enter your name, but this has been removed. I want my works to be attributed to my real name, not my username. On a related note, would it be possible to automate changing the author name on my uploaded works where it’s my username? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theanswertolifetheuniverseandeverything (talk • contribs) 10:25, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

@Anselm Schüler: I changed author name for you on three files. Please sign your posts.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 10:35, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
Sorry, I'm used to the rich editor that auto-adds it. Thank you for the help. But is there a way to avoid this in the future? Theanswertolifetheuniverseandeverything (talk) 11:52, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
@Theanswertolifetheuniverseandeverything: Preferences (top right of the page) → Upload Wizard. Here you can add an author's name instead of the default username. --HyperGaruda (talk) 19:56, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
Thanks Theanswertolifetheuniverseandeverything (talk) 21:04, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Designing a new Wishlist: Meet Jack, the new Lead Community Tech Manager

Hello community, I want to introduce Jack Wheeler, who has recently joined the Wikimedia Foundation as the Lead Community Tech Manager and is responsible for the Future of the Wishlist.

Jack would like to have a conversation with the community to get input for the design of the new Wishlist Survey, starting with how to define a "Wish."

Community Tech would appreciate you chatting with him; your input will be invaluable.

You can check out Jack's first message to the community where you can find a link to proceed to book time to talk to him, or share your ideas.

Best regards,

On behalf of the Community Tech team, STei (WMF) (talk) 11:03, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Categorization in the Data-namespace

Hi there, I asked some time ago about ways to browse the data-namespace. It turns out at this moment in time there's little in the way of categorization. There have been some efforts to use a naming convention (e.g. this seems to work, but it is cumbersome to navigate and very inconsistent, most files are put directly in the root of the namespace, and this doesn't quite help navigating. Also, there are different file types (geojson .map files, tabular data .tab files etc.). I discussed this with @Romaine who pointed out that there have been some efforts for categorization, where the category actally lives on the talk page (as putting a category on a file corrupts the structure of the actual data file) such as here. This results in categories like this one, which I think would be a very acceptable way to navigate the environment. Any ideas on a concerted effort to make the entire namespace more accessible like this? Milliped (talk) 14:14, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Disappearing pages from pdf, a bug or a hack???

Hello, is this a bug or a hack??? File:Gezelle, Rijmsnoer om en om het jaar (1897).pdf was correctly uploaded on commons and all pages had the corect texts. But a strange thing happened with pdf-page 212 : during the transcription on wikisource at s:nl:Pagina:Gezelle, Rijmsnoer om en om het jaar (1897).pdf/212, the page 212 of the pdf turned blanc!!! I downloaded the pdf from commons to my computer, and on my computer the page 212 had still his text... I prepared and uploaded a new and complete pdf, all seemed oke again. But now in transcribing pdf-page 313 (the transcription is done correctly) the pdf-page 313 turns blanc also s:nl:Pagina:Gezelle, Rijmsnoer om en om het jaar (1897).pdf/313 !!! How is that possible? A bug, a hack??? --Havang(nl) (talk) 12:27, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Prolly just some vague anomaly in the original file. pdf gets pretty complicated, so there are some situations where mediawiki/thumbnailer gets incorrect information. You can file a bugreport about it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:34, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
@User:TheDJ Where to file the bug report? --Havang(nl) (talk) 13:59, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
@Havang(nl): Ultimately on phab:, but you should probably read mw:How to report a bug to work out where to go. --bjh21 (talk) 16:19, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Create redirect for Genderqueer → Category:Genderqueer

Pansexuality is a redirect to Category:Pansexuality. I think that Genderqueer should be the same. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Okterakt (talk • contribs) 23:26, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Okterakt (talk) 23:26, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 16:37, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Monuments in Italy: new note on authorizations liability

Hi, I have been following the discussion on the deletion of some images uploaded during Wiki Loves Monuments in Italy.

Wikimedia Italia asked Deborah De Angelis, a lawyer with specific expertise on copyright issues and Creative Commons licenses, to write a note on the liability of the authorizations used within the contest. You will find in the note two specific case studies, which I hope will help clarifying whether we should keep or not many images on Wikimedia Commons.

Please note that this memo is not legal advice to any person reading it and that I am not a lawyer and I am just sharing this document to facilitate a further discussion and informed decisions on this matter.

According to this memo written by De Angelis, who is also the drafter of the most recent authorization letter used by Wikimedia Italia, there would be no liability to host the images in question since these would be properly CC licensed.

Just as importantly, it suggests that the images are appropriately licensed and as a result, they would also be "free" for downstream re-users in the same way any other Creative Commons licensed material would be.

Since other platforms don't have this kind of blanket authorization from the government copyright holder, hosting these images on Commons presents a unique opportunity to "free" these images for all reusers on the Internet since once they are hosted on Wikimedia Commons with the authorization, the memo suggests that they are properly licensed as Creative Commons.

I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that if the Commons community did reconsider the policy and allow images with authorizations, it could open up opportunities to "free" works in other jurisdictions, not just in Italy. That could be a great opportunity to make Commons a place where many images restricted by panorama laws could be freed.

Paolo Casagrande (WMIT) (talk) 09:53, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

@Paolo Casagrande (WMIT) are the authorizations also valid under U.S. law? Note that unlike in Italy, the U.S. does not automatically treat commissioned monuments as under PD-USgov. Many public memorials there are still under sculptors' copyrights. As Italy does not have formal FoP, any copyrighted sculptures there are also at mercy of U.S. law, which is much stricter. Commons recognizes the validity of Uruguay Round Agreements Act that restored U.S. copyrights to eligible foreign works. Not sure if U.S. courts will recognize the agreements between Wikimedia Italia and the Italian cities (communes), if ever one sculptor (or his heir) changes his mind and begins a lawsuit against Wikimedia using U.S. law and not Italian law. U.S. courts tend to side with sculptors than end-users. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 03:07, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
Also, regarding "if the Commons community did reconsider the policy and allow images with authorizations, it could open up opportunities to free works in other jurisdictions, not just in Italy..." easy said than done. At least in two countries (Australia and Sweden), FoP exceptions for public monuments are under danger of being restricted to non-commercial (ping @Eric Luth (WMSE): for the Swedish situation). In Australia, the aborigine groups and some artists' societies are calling for Australian FoP for monuments to be revoked or restricted to non-commercial. Wikimedians in Estonia are having a hard time convincing their parliament to open up their public places to global reusers because their authors (mainly sculptors) are against public use of Estonian public spaces. Therefore, the Italian situation may not be the same as those in other countries, even in two countries where FoP for monuments are still recognized as of now.
Luckily, a radical proposal to ignore all other countries' laws and only follow U.S law just to finally allow unfree architecture (Burj Khalifa, Louvre Pyramod etc., since the U.S. law allows architectural FoP anyway) was thumbed down by a representative of Wikimedia Foundation itself, and instead the representative will call the foundation to prioritize on FoP movements. Should that proposal pushed through, then perhaps all of Italian monuments allowed here under WMIT-city government agreements are deleted en masse, since these might be binding under Italian law but not under U.S. law. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 03:19, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
@JWilz12345 The sculptor cannot "change its mind" IMO, since the copyright in this cases is of the public administration... When we don't have a waiver, for the works for which the URAA is relevant (post 1976), the term is 95 years and not 70pma... Otherwise with your line of reasoning we should always assume that in the US the copyright is of the author even when the customer has it, which seems a really awkward interpretation to me (that would mean that a foreign society or entity could not legally have a copyright in the US!)... Friniate (talk) 10:42, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
This legal guide for example explicitly talks about foreign works made for hire. It's only circumstantial, ok, but if it would be impossible in the US for a foreign society or entity to have a copyright on something, then the legal guide shouldn't take that possibility into account at all... Friniate (talk) 11:31, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
@Friniate your reasoning is only valid in the Italian context. I doubt that would hold water in U.S. courts. The Commons already experienced the brunt of the 2012 Oldenburg DMCA take downs, in which even images of sculptures in countries where FoP covers monuments were also deleted by WMF, using the U.S. law as the basis. The agreements are legal in the Italian law, but I doubt U.S. courts will honor such should sculptors file copyright claims. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 11:32, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
I've looked further into the matter finding this. It seems that the agreements between the author and the buyer are indeed valid for the US law, but only for 35 years, after which the author can exercise his rights and have the copyright reverting back to him. An exception are of course works for hire in the US meaning (that means if the author was an employee, etc). What I'm wondering though is: what if (as it's the case with the WMI waivers) the society or the entity has renounced to its rights before the 35-y threshold (that means, in the period in which they are for sure the rightful copyright holder)? Isn't there a rule also in the US law that says that once in CC-BY-SA a work cannot have the copyright restored?
Note in any case that this entire matter wouldn't cover pre-1976 works for which the URAA doesn't apply (they were already in PD under the italian law at the URAA date), that are the vast majority of the works currently tagged with PD-ItalyGov, so please let's not talk about massive deletions for all these images or for the template itself. Friniate (talk) 12:23, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
Moreover, correct me if I'm wrong, but the commons policy now despite the Oldenburg case allows to upload images of statues in the countries with FoP for scupltures like Germany, isn'it? So the WMF takes them down only if it comes a notice, but in the other cases not, am I wrong? EDIT: I see that we have even a template for this very category, Template:Not-free-US-FOP, currently used by 2031 images XD I think that we could create a similar template also for images of italian buildings built between 1976 and 1989 and that are covered by WLM-waivers Friniate (talk) 12:39, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
@JWilz12345: The authorizations are valid under U.S. law exactly as an authorization written by the copyright holder is. So, the answer is "yes", otherwise all permission written to COM:VRT wouldn't be acceptable.
The issue here is different. @Paolo Casagrande: WML is organized in this case by an external organization, acting outside from Commons' community. And, because of that, it encountered all the problems we well know. First of all, the permissions are not verifiable because the templates do not link to the relative text but to a general database. For me, these permissions are only acceptable if a link to the URL with the relative document is available for all images, and if this permission is verified by a trusted user, e.g. using {{Licensereview}}. Otherwise it stays something external of our project, verified by some unknown WMIT member with no connection whatsoever to Commons' community. There are other issues, due to the fact that the text of the permission wasn't double checked by community trusted users, i.e. Commons' admins or VRT agents; for me, the permission for the photos mustn't be restricted to the month of September only. Note: I trust Deborah De Angelis, but it's again a proof that WMIT considers itself outside of Commons' community, using our platform rather than contributing to it searching for a good understanding between the two communities. --Ruthven (msg) 20:12, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
Thank you @Ruthven for answering to @JWilz12345 doubts and thanks also to @Friniate for participating in the discussion. Although I can't speak on behalf of Wikimedia Italia on the whole, I think it is a strong statement to say that Wikimedia Italia wants to use Commons rather than contribute to it. Anyway, @Ruthven together with the team of Wikimedia Italia we will take into consideration your remarks on the process used in the past, in order to improve in the future. Thanks again for sharing your concerns. Paolo Casagrande (WMIT) (talk) 11:42, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
@Paolo Casagrande (WMIT)@Friniate@Ruthven perhaps in Italy, it seems relatively easy to obtain permissions, because the copyright holders are the Italian cities (as well as churches) themselves. This does not mean there is de facto FoP; it is an optimal measure to create templates that are not part of FoP template family and are directed towards the existence of authorizations, like two templates that i suggested in a past discussion ({{Italy-comune-authorization}} and {{Italy-diocesan-authorization}}). This filters the files into separate categories.
The seemingly-permissive situation in Italy does not mean it is applicable in other no-FoP countries. In most countries, copyright can only be transferred to the government by written stipulations, especially if the works are government-commissioned but the artists are not from the governments. Such Italy-like licensing arrangements are most likely to fail in France and Greece (two countries that opposed Wikimedia's FoP movement during the 2015 discussion at the EU Parliament). Perhaps there is a small share of successful VRTS contacts with artists or their heirs for a few monuments in Estonia and the United States, but majority of the copyrighted monuments in both countries are less likely to be hosted here within the lifetimes of many senior Commons admins here. There is substantial opposition in Estonia to Wikimedia movement, even if the government stakeholders there are in favor of a liberal FoP, since the authors' groups are against exposure of their monuments to Wikimedia Commons under free-culture licenses. Do not expect the same for Japan too: their non-commercial FoP for public monuments is likely to stay around, as there is some legal literature there stating that the public should not freely use things found in public, due to possible harm to sculptors' royalty rights (see Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Godzilla hibiya japan 2006 9.jpg). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 12:02, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
I didn't want to imply that Italy has a de-facto FoP, I only wanted to stress that in other situations that are unchartered waters in terms of legal precedents and in which there is only an hypothetical claim by the author (hypothetical because the author may, or may not since there is no actual legal precedent on this specific issue, have the right to claim the copyright back to him in the US after 35 years, and he could exercise this right, but he could also not exercise it), we keep the images unless it comes a DMCA notice. By the way, according to the legal guide that I posted before, this hypothetical interpretation of the US copyright law may even be in contrast with the international treaties on copyright signed by the US. And letting aside the fact that AFAIK there is no legal precedent also on the possibility to revoke a CC-BY-SA license given by the (in that moment) rightful copyright holder.
I'm in favor of creating these templates, if they can clarify the issue. They should be used only for monuments built after 1976 (URAA-20y) though, since before that date all these images fall under Template:PD-ItalyGov. Friniate (talk) 12:30, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
@JWilz12345 it is true that in most countries copyright can only be transferred to the government by written stipulations, but it is also true that in most countries the artist automatically transfers the copyright for works made for hire. This is the case for these permissions coming from Comuni, Diocesi, and Italian "enti" in general. Ruthven (msg) 15:42, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Huge amount of problematic name categories

The user @JuTa seems to have created dozens upon dozens of name categories for names that are not actual names, for example there are tons of categories for "compound" names which are really just a string of given names used by a single person ever, like Category:Johan Marie Jacques Hubert (given name) (and in some cases a couple of given names + a surname treated as a given name such as Category:Marie Therese Nordsletta (given name)), as well as creating surname categories for surnames + initials like Category:Y Goud (surname), and in the case of Category:Yashki(surname) (which I moved to Category:Yashki (surname) 3 years after it was created) I'm not even sure the person who wears it has it as a family name (I'm not overly familiar with how Indian names work). It seems to me like JaTu doesn't understand naming conventions of different cultures and many of the categories they have created are really problematic, but I don't know how to take care of all of them. StarTrekker (talk) 22:39, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

years-old open discussion: Commons:Categories for discussion/2016/08/Category:Robert Falcon (given name). RZuo (talk) 08:23, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
RZuo said that «It seems to me like JaTu doesn't understand naming conventions of different cultures», and indeed is so; I would add that it’s not just JuTa, it’s most people who worked on the matter in Commons and whoever designed the Wikidata module that deals with anthroponyms. And while JuTa is not active anymore, the others are alive and kicking and I just gave up trying to fix the nonsense that plagues our categorization of Portuguese-language onomastics because every time I fixed one, 10 more would spring up. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 16:42, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
It’s not only Portuguese, of course: That’s just the one I am most familiar with and on which my “expert” opinion is valued in a CdF. But it’s also Spanish, because it’s the similar to Portuguese, just the other way around plus the whole "y" business — which is the same as Catalan "i", except when it’s not. And all the patronymics — both Slavic and Icelandic, similar but not identical, each needing specific modelling. And the “swapped” anthroponyms with surname first: Hungarian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese…: Not really an oddball case that could be ignored. And yet it is ignored — indeed, anything that doesn’t follow the anglocentric Givenname+Surname paradigm (with the occasional nod to “middle initial”) gets completely confused in our categorization, thanks to clumsy editing and to Wikidata. (Oh, isn’t this a matter for U4C?…) -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 16:52, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
Yupp. I've wanted to bring up this issue many times on Wikidata but honestly I expect it will be met with a "but that is way too much work to fix!" response.StarTrekker (talk) 13:57, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2024/02&oldid=863231666"