Commons:Village pump/Archive/2006/08

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August 3

Catalan claims

I have a disagreement with User:Martorell about category names. In spite of this rule, this user wants categories with catalan names and reverts some of my last changes ( example : http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Cities_and_villages_in_the_Land_of_Valencia&action=history ).

See the talks on my page and his page.

I think that Martorell is a catalan activist and desorganizes the project with partisan claims (he classifies Catalonia categories under french ones!). What do you think about this ? --Juiced lemon 20:15, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Chauvinism claims

The only one difference that I see between rules applied to articles and rules applied to categories, is that "others" must be in English. In the rest of the case, I consider it's the same rules applied to articles. Am I wrong?. It's not desorganized, it's organized with other criteria. The actually desorganization is that you don't asked anyone before to do very wide changes, first to put template purposes and to talk in the discussion page. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 20:17, 3 August 2006 (UTC) PD: I'm not a Catalan activist, I'm a Valencian Wikimedian.

I don't need your permission to make changes, i. e. create more specific categories in order to classify haphazardly arranged images. You didn't ask me, and you have reverted my changes and put again images in imprecise categories (example : Girls in historical Valencian costumes.jpg (diff)). --Juiced lemon 22:27, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

It isn't about permission, it is about consensus. You came to a work already done that anyone found it any problem for a long time. Why do exist templates such {{Move-category}} or {{Move}} specially indicated for very populated categories? These aren't ornamental. Haphazardly arranged images were very few images, the category Category:País Valencià was organized well enough altough it was needed to do some improvings, specially in typos, and you done it, ok, very good for you. But you fell in cultural arrogance with me. There are a lot of toponyms in native form in categories. Here exist Category:Sevilla and not Category:Seville. The same matter for Category:Mallorca and not Category:Majorca. Or Category:A Coruña and not Category:Corunna. Or Category:Granada and not Category:Grenade. And anyone see it as a trouble, only you. Only in the case of non-English sentences it was seen as a problem, such as Category:Escuts de Suècia being moved to Category:Coats of arms of Sweden. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 22:54, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

PD: And what about moving[1] Alacant - Alicante to Alicante? It isn't a category, it's an article. According to language police it says specifically to respect native form. Another exemple is Bruxelles - Brussel and Brussels as a redirection. Your reasons against me are lacking in truth. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 23:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

As far as I understand, (and anyone knowing different please correct me), you can do as you please On article pages. Regarding Category names the two main bits of guidance are-

• use Ascii characters in category names
• use english language cat names (for now)

So to the point of this dispute- What about proper nouns? I came across the same issue regarding which place name to use when working on the By location category scheme. I don't know that there is a broad standard for this. Maybe that is wrong. I considerred the following approaches

• Choose the version used the most on the net (with the greatest search hits on google).-
  • advantages- uses the term that most users are most likely to use when searching for something.
  • disadvantages- It's majoritarianism, and if imposed broadly means that minority cultures are at an extreme disadvantage since the terminology of the majority will always squelch the minority.
• Choose the version on some online authority that allows input. This could be any of the wikis or even a nonwiki source, but since english was chosen for the category language, it makes sense that English WP be the authority.
  • advantages- Minority views have a chance because motivated individuals can get the title accepted on EN:WP by being persistent.
  • disadvantages- People may not be able to find the item since they are unfamiliar with the alternate spelling of the proper name. By insisting on local terms, the general public has a more difficult time finding information on the local places and culture that the advocate presumably is attempting to assist. Their actions have the opposite affect.

I chose option 2- go with EN:Wikipedia, and folks on that scheme went along with it. To be honest, there weren't a lot of folks there to argue with so I don't know how representative that decision is. Really, I could have gone along with the google scheme too, but I strongly prefer inclusiveness of minority views. Let the people fight it out there, and whoever wins, and whenever it flip flops, fine- we can rename the cats here. As far as Commons search goes, it doesn't matter, because for example you can make catalonia and catalunya go to the same place. That's what I wrote in the policy.

Any educated person knows that its Wien, Firenze, Venessia or Catalunya. Personally, "Catalonia" hurts my eyes and my ears, but that's what it is in En:WP, so tough break for me. If I felt strongly- I would argue the case on En:Wiki. -Mak 23:50, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

It's Commons, it isn't Wikipedia in English. It's a multilingual project. I'm agree that categories must be in English for sentences in order to a standard language. But, I suppose it's an eventual solution until a tech improvement multilingualism in categories. And, in adding, if we would read en:Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not we were noticed that Wikipedia doesn't considers as a dictionary itself. Specifically it's telling that "Wikipedia is not in the business of saying how words, idioms, etc. should be used", so it shouldn't be the authority.

But proper nouns belongs to persons and their culture, and some persons aren't English-speakers. Would do you translate "Don Quijote" as "Sir Quixot"? Or "José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero" to "John Louis Rodericks Shoemakers"? I think it should be respected in native form, and using the {{Category redirect}} template for alternative categories.

Anyway, all the characters you find in "País Valencià" used are ASCII, as Category:José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Aren't these? --Joanot Martorell ✉ 23:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Right. You mean the place would be called New York, not ca:Nova York. Heh heh. Small joke- I get your point and my personal opinion agrees with yours. If Chicago were translated from the Native American Potawatomi language, we would call it in English "Skunk Cabbage". Personally, I much prefer Chicago, and that people be faithful to to how things are named and pronounced locally.

We are making progress here on Commons. But in the meantime we will have to endure some of the absurd transformations that people make of local pronunciations and spellings. As I said- everyone is guilty- the catalunyan wiki names for "Venice" and "Florence" are just as awful as the english names. And you think catalunya is treated badly- Consider the awful approximations that non slavs make of slavic language names. "Khruixtxov" doesn't come anywhere close to the correct pronunciation- even though all of the sounds necessary are regularly made by speakers in catalunya. Even take the easy names- how about the capital city of Russia. Moscou? There should be a v sound in there (transcrit Moskvà)... Why not spell it the way it sounds. Nevermind- hard to break habits, unfamiliar consonant combinations, lazy mouths and all that I know.

In regards to Commons, we do not yet have a multilingual category translation but it is not unlikely that we will see it one day. In the meantime we have to pick one language for internally encoding the lookup names. What the display names are will be handled at display time- but natively, the database has to have a single encoding form. It so happens that our only display form is identical to the encoding form. But that will change. While we are only able to use english, to determine the encoding for proper names we must use some authority, and you must admit that using en:wiki is better than google as an authority. You are absolutely correct that en:wiki is not a dictionary but the wiki dictionaries currently have insufficient coverage- of course it will change but today, it just doesn't. I personally believe that an evolution of the wiki dictionary solve much of the single language user interface problem so that everyone can interact and display Commons category space in their own language.

For the time being we need to have a single language to map to, and there are much worse choices than english.

Regarding Ascii- you are confusing ascii with Ansi or Extended_ASCII. Ascii is the character set that is on everyone's keyboards and has no accented characters. The diacritics common in the north of europe will not be found on keyboards in the south, and vice versa, so using diacritics though faithful to the local language and pronuciation makes Commons less accessible to people that can't type them. It's true that most knowlegable people know how to input characters on their keyboards, (cyrillic is commonly used on mine) but we want grandmothers to be able to use the wikis.

I know it is an undesirable situation, but I firmly believe it shall not be permanent.

-Mak 02:05, 4 August 2006 (UTC) -Ammended because my wikitext about ca:Nova York was not visible. -Mak 16:33, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok, you're in right about the using of ASCII. I've mistaken in it, and I would have no problem to change "País Valencià" to "Land of Valencia", but... what about a lot of proper names with accentuated vowels as the exemple I showed in my former intervention, Category:José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero?. Should it be Category:Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero without "é" (e accute) and "í" (i accute) accents?. Sure?. Or in categories such Category:San Sebastián, a basque city, should it be Category:San Sebastian, without "á"?. I'm not sure at all. Why not to adopt Extended ASCII? Sure there are also scandinavian and germanic diacritics. Perhaps, the most important is about using Latin alphabet, and all diacritics used for Latin alphabet should be welcome.

Also I see another problem, I understand that here should use Florence instead of Firenze, Catalonia instead of Catalunya, but because these are traditional names in English (exonyms), and because these are very widely known places in the world. But I think we shouldn't follow all the names used in EN Wikipedia, because some of Valencian toponyms are in Spanish form and among others are in Catalan form, there are no form in English for most of these. You may find, by exemple, in en:w Alicante. Is it in English? I don't see as it, it's in Spanish, instead of "Alacant" in Catalan. Also you may find Elx in en:w, in Catalan instead of "Elche", in Spanish. Or bilingual Catalan-Spanish form such Alcoi/Alcoy. But Juiced lemon insists badly that "Alicante" is in English, and I'm disagrees him.

In order to decide wich form to use for Valencian toponyms in Commons, here was decided a lot of time among the users who are working classifing in Valencian toponym categories to follow the linguistic predominance stated legally for each municipality. As it, some of these are declared as Spanish ("Castillian"), and among others in Catalan ("Valencian"). According this criteria, we use Category:Torrevieja (in Spanish) instead of ca:Torrevella (in Catalan), because this municipality is officialy Castillian-speaker native. But we use Category:Alacant instead of Category:Alicante, because it's officialy Valencian-speaker native. In the article name, we use the official form, it's Alacant - Alicante, such Bruxelles - Brussel, because both forms are official.

I also want to note that I wouldn't like to suspect cultural arrogance, ethnocentrism for Juiced lemon, because the fact he moved article Alacant - Alicante to Alicante with no reason (it isn't a category). --Joanot Martorell ✉ 08:22, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

PD: I've noticed that below the edit box there is a table of different characters with diacritics used by some languages. So everyone can select Catalan, Spanish, French, etc. and click over a accentuated vowel. In this case, it shouldn't be any problem to input accentuated vowels for scandinavian or germanic keyboards. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 10:34, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a decided opinion about this, but some things to think about. Mak said that Any educated person knows that its Wien, Firenze, Venessia or Catalunya. Well, until I looked it up just then, I didn't know Firenze was Florence. Whether that's because I'm uneducated or not European or some other reason, who knows. Commons should still be usable by """non-educated""" users in any case. :P

For place names. Make sure you think your argument all the way through. Should we have category:中国? OK, no problem... then should we have Category:People of 中国? Or Category:中国人? (Ignoring the possibility of category:中國, (traditional) and the like...). And for countries with multiple official/native languages, multiple representations in multiple scripts and all equally accepted and prominent? pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:52, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, for those languages usually there are latin transcryption systems, such the romanji for Japanese script. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 08:51, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Just a small note, it's not that simple. For a start Chinese characters are recognised for 8 major Chinese dialects/languages, a transcription system is only for one. Secondly the transcription system is more like a crutch for learners than the true language in characters. This is my impression. I imagine it is very similar for all non-latin scripts - Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Arabic, Sinhalese, Russian, ... .... using a transcription system is not a great solution. pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:41, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I can just emphasise your point. There is no point for Koreans to learn one of the korean romanisations, as they have an alphabet themselves. Other example: We have a dispute on german wikipedia which romanisation to use for cantonese, if any as there is no accepted standard. The only solution for me seems to be a category in the native language, though I don't know how mediawiki will work with that. Commons is a bit arrogant as it asks ppl to learn english or at least the latin alphabet. You can see my dislike for the current status on language support a bit higher on this page. Anyway, all we can do is: try to work with the current system given as good as possible. --Chrislb 20:06, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I have moved just now Category:País Valencià to Category:Land of Valencia. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 09:32, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I am not arrogant: I just try to proceed with method. When I edit a image file, I manage to correct all the categories at the same time. So, the categories Catalunya and País Valencià were moved during a general sorting process.

You criticized me for moving Alacant - Alicante to Alicante “without reason”. Of course, I had a reason: “Alacant - Alicante” is not the name of a town. There is no rule about article titles, only a proposal for native name of places. It means that you have to keep a single name for the place. IMHO, composite titles must be prohibited, because you can always choose the first item of the list as the single name.

I choosed “Alicante” as the native name, because it seemed to me that most of the population were castillan speaking people. If I was wrong, you can rename this article as “Alacant” : no problem. --Juiced lemon 10:50, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, most of people speaks Spanish in Alicante, it's true. But it isn't a reason to avoid "Alacant" in article title nor the categories. When we use linguistic majority criteria, so let change all in Chinese, the most spoken language in the world... _' It was largely discussed in Category Talk:País Valencià about the names, and all users who participated there are agree to an criteria for those subjects. But no problem, your work checking categories into Category:Land of Valencia is good, in general overview, only there were some biasing or, at least, should discussed first. If you say you aren't arrogant, ok, I believe you, I give you a chance once more. Cheers. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 11:25, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Just a datapoint- there is no standard for "extended ascii"/"8 bit ascii"/"ansi". I think you mean to propose that "Latin-1" become the symbol set for categories. But it still doesn't address the keyboard problem. How do people type stuff into the search box for example if it is accented. I agree unaccented characters are very strange because they are completely different pronunciations and indeed are different (mostly non existent) words. The impact is bad for browsing categories. One thought was that for categories that had interwiki links to catalunyan or russian wiki article, the engine could display the correct local name at the top. The better solution is to make reference to a version of the Wiki dictionary that had good coverage. This would not work for many low end browsers without support for CSS and Javascript. The problem with making it server side due to the expansion of the cache to cover every version of the pages for every language. Not a pretty choice, but I vote for client side polymorphism to solve it. But I am not interested in working on that project and rather unfamiliar with the machinations on this subject so it is really up to the developers who are. I suppose there is some value for interested parties expressing how valuable this would be for commons so that developers understand the relative priority. Does someone have a link to the bugzilla entries for this feature?

In any case, the situation at commons in my view is temporary, so really you guys might as well not waste your time over it. When Commons comes out with the feature I described (or some functional equivalent) Castilians will view it one way, the Catalunyans another. Personally, I would think the most interesting struggle is getting the "authentic" names into the lingua franca versions- eg EN, FR and what have you. But of course the place to fight that struggle would be on other Wikis. (Not that I am attempting to send you elsewhere. Commons needs people which strong interlanguage skills.) -Mak 17:17, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

In general terms, I'm agree with your thoughts. I want only to point once more about the diacritics: I'm not sure at all, but I'm supposed that if you input in search box a word such "telepopmusik", the search engine would treat all accentuated vowels as not accentuated, and there would show you "télépomusik", "télepopmusik", "telépopmüsik", etc... as hits if those exists. Am I wrong?. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 19:04, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

You're rigth Joanot. And I'm not Valentian. It may be useful to explain that just as English is spoken in EU, CA, UK and AU, Catalan is spoken in France, Andorra, Italy and Spain. Where is the political or cultural bias then? We're in Commons aren't we? Or may we see this as the English Commons?--Friviere 17:43, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

List of the disputed categories

(no exhaustive list)

Category names		Wikipedia references
according to Martorell	according to the WC rules
Alacant	Alicante	w:Alicante
Cities and villages in the province of Alacant	Cities and villages in the province of Alicante	w:Alicante (province)
Comarques de Catalunya	Comarques of Catalonia	w:Comarques of Catalonia
Perpinyà	Perpignan	w:Perpignan
Province of Alacant	Province of Alicante	w:Alicante (province)
Province of Castelló	Province of Castellón	w:Castellón (province)
Province of València	Province of Valencia	w:Valencia (province)
Rosselló	Roussillon	w:Roussillon

updated (comarcas/comarques). --Juiced lemon 00:47, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Martorell have reverted my edits to restore most of the incorrect categories. --Juiced lemon 16:58, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Those forms aren't only mine, but also for a several users that showed their disappoint with you. And those proper names aren't English... all are Spanish or French, and their criteria is clearly following linguistic majority. The "linguistic majority" is for chauvinism thinkings as you have, not for a multilingual project such Commons. These arent Commons rules, these are YOUR rules. I will request a checkuser on your user account, I've my suspects of sockpuppeeting. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 18:56, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

My rules are the Wikimedia Commons community rules. If you don't like these rules, that's YOUR business. But, you cannot impose YOUR rules over YOUR categories. I have added references to the table (tell me if I made mistakes). --Juiced lemon 00:33, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

These aren't English names (aren't traditional exonyms), so a criteria was managed already since now for these cases. That's all. If you want to change this criteria, let's go to discuss it but, please, don't overpass with an non-existent rule about to follow en:w (Commons:Language policy).

If you're so interested to change toponyms of Spain into traditional names in English, perhaps you should start for actually English names such Seville, Grenade, Majorca, Corunna, Minorca, etc... and keep waiting to see the reaction of users who were working in these categories. The list you show here, any of these are in English, and in each article you refer from en:w: it's mentioned in starting both names used, and specifically it's telling forms in Spanish, French or Catalan, but not in English.

Your problem aren't the rules on Commons. Your bussiness are cultural bias, and political reasons, in special for those french subjects (Perpignan, Northern Catalonia, etc...), as you're French person. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 00:53, 5 August 2006 (UTC) PD: Notice that I'm from Alacant, as my user page tells...

PD2: If you are so interested to follow en:WP... why don't you accept the following from en:Perpignan: "Perpignan was the capital of the former province and county of Roussillon (French Catalonia or Northern Catalonia). It is also capital of the historical Catalonian comarca of Rosselló. You want to follow in some subjects, but you're avoiding in another subjects that aren't in your interest. Is it political reason or not?. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 01:10, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

We can see continuous war editions about this theme. Pasqual (ca) 09:07, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I can't add more words, potilical matter is the evident reason of this fight. I subscribe all that Martorell wrote. Pasqual (ca) 18:20, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

About Northern Catalonia

The disagreement is not only about category names, is also about Northern Catalonia. Commons is a multicultural project, and people of Northern Catalonia have right to be represented here. The official website of the Conséil Général des Pyrénées Orientales recognizes the Catalanity of this territory. Before making big changes, we should ask for them and talk about it. If not, can be considered vandalism for some administrators Pmmollet ^talk  07:28, 4 August 2006 (UTC).

Northern Catalonia is not a existing region, but part of cultural identity claims. Northern Catalonia people and Northern Catalonia places don't exist, as Catalonia don't belong currently to the islamic world (see ).

You have no right to mess up the Wikimedia commons classification system with political claims. For near everybody in the world, the Catalonia category concerns a autonomous community of Spain, not an old region. So, architecture of Catalonia concerns only spanish buildings, and is not part of architecture of France, and so on for other Catalonia categories. --Juiced lemon 11:58, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Northern Catalonia is not only a political claim, but also it's a cultural claim. There's the same culture, architecture, language and gastronomy in Spanish Catalonia and Northern Catalonia. If Wikimedia Commons it's a place where anybody can storage culture, why not to put both Catalonia together in a Category, when most of people from Pyrenées Orientales feel la catalanitat or la catalanité (in french)? --Pepetps 13:10, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I support this proposal. --Juiced lemon 13:21, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Well... Juiced lemon, you said: "Northern Catalonia places don't exist, as Catalonia don't belong currently to the islamic world (see )". Wow! Are you saying that Catalan origin are arabic roots? I'm sorry to telling that you're bad informed. Please, read first en:History of Catalonia, en:Principality of Catalonia and en:Northern Catalonia. Once it's done by you, you would be able to discuss with right aknowledgement. Administrative borders aren't the unique reality. Cheers. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 13:16, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

My opinion remains unchanged : we cannot make ambitious plans based on hypothetic future events. --Juiced lemon 13:32, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

It isn't about future, it's about present-day. It is not about borders only, it's about culture. You aren't unchanged, you are moving into editwars, and it's no consensus. I've blocked you for two hours because of ongoing editwar crussade, I'm very sorry because you aren't willing to reach mutual understanding. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 14:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

That is an abuse of your administrator abilities. Your “concensus” sums up in your own opinion. You have allready blocked another user for the same reasons (impose your viewpoint) : see [2]. --Juiced lemon 18:30, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I have had to stop your editwars. I'm not the only person you're struggling, also with pmmollet and pepetps. User Joan Puigbarcell had the same problems as you show here: arrogance, overpass works of other users with too widely changes, editwars, linguistic and cultural biasing, political thinkings, etc... This user was worried only to "delete" very correct information, and we want to add more information. We don't want hide anything, but you want hide that in France there is Northern Catalonia. The same attitude, the same motivation... same user? I will request checkuser on your account. Cheers. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 19:10, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I just intend to follow the rules : I have no bias. You act as an extremist : you don't respect any rule (except of yours) and anyone. I assume that we (I and Joan Puigbarcell) are not your first victims. --Juiced lemon 20:00, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Arbitration?

OK... obviously this isn't going anywhere productive. I suggest that you both accept a third party to arbitrate. They will listen to what both of you have to say and make a comment about what future behaviour from both of you should be. It will only work if you both agree to accept the arbitrator's conclusions, even if they disagree with you. Obviously you cannot both be right. Will you agree?

In the meantime please stop ALL edits related to this in any way whatsoever - even if you are leaving things in the 'wrong' way just please STOP, it won't help. --pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:14, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I would accept. But, hoy many users is it involved in arbitration?. Can we choose any person to belong to arbitration?. Or, at least, can we refuse any person?. Must I repeat the arguments, altough here are a lot of it?. Can't I continue to tagging un classified images related to Category:Land of Valencia?. It isn't about a specific category, it's about our way of work. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 08:10, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

A neutral third party will be welcome! I agree to stop any edits related to this until resolution. --Juiced lemon 08:38, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

To Martorell: I guess all involved parties can have input, but obviously the main two parties would be you and User:Juiced lemon. Can you find some other unrelated images to tag? I think we have a lot to choose from in that regard. :)

Thanks to you both for agreeing. I will try to find someone suitable for arbitration (that is - someone who doesn't have a strong opinion on Catalan politics etc) and I hope you will both accept them. (BTW I'm just making this up as I go. :)) I'll keep looking for an arbitrator now. cheers, pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:03, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I will try to find someone genuinely neutral. And I trust that you are both users acting in good faith, who will not refuse someone who is neutral. So far this trust has not been destroyed, I hope we can keep it intact. pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:28, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

August 4

Chemical structural formulas PD-ineligible?

I have found that many, even quite simple, structural formulas are marked as being without license or without source information. I wonder, however, if most of these could be considered {{PD-ineligible}}. See for example [3], [4], and [5]. They way to draw them is quite standard and not much creativity can be used, so I'd say yes and even the more complex ones can really only be drawn in one way [6].

Still, I do ask myseld where to draw the line. Coloured and 3D: [7], [8]? IMHO, PD-ineligible, as even the colours are standard.

This beauty, imho, is over the treshold of originality: Image:Tumour_suppressor_p53-DNA_complex.jpg. -Samulili 16:48, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Image watermarks

On English Wikipedia, there is a clause in the image use policy against adding watermarks on user-created images and there is a template (Template:Imagewatermark) for images with watermarks on them. Are the images with watermarks (from what I noticed, most of them are copyright notices and a few titles/descriptions of the image) allowed in here or should we import that template from en.wiki ? Bogdan 20:14, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Please see #Watermarks_on_images slightly above. NielsF 20:26, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

{{No source since}}

Images Rainbow4.jpg, Rainbow3.jpg, Rainbow2.jpg, and Rainbow.jpg, are all tagged with the no source since. The tag sates: image can be speedy deleted seven days after this template was added and the uploader was notified. The meta-data clearly defines the source of these images; a FinePix A210 , FUJIFILM camera, used in the same day, same time for the four pics, by the user Anthony, I don't think that he will make it back here in time; Anthonys latest contribution here dates back to 05:23, 5 October 2005. He posted the four pics back on 2004, and he used the same camera in almost all of his other pics. This is not about the four pics, this is about the procedure used. The way No source since tag is used should be evaluate carefully. --Tarawneh 04:31, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

If you want, change the tag to {{Own work}}. But the fact is, no source (author) information was provided. We are not allowed to guess. We can only work with the information people give us. pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:07, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

On top of his discussion page he links to his en wiki account. en:User talk:Anthony DiPierro --Denniss 00:06, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Weird nature

As I managed to categorize numberous images, pages or categories, I found some incoherence in the category names. In particular, there is some confusion in the categories related to environment (nature) ; so I made a list of wrong subcategories in this talk page.

According to w:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories), here there are 77 wrong subcategories for a total number of 172 subcategories. What do you think about this ? Do you agree with my proposals ? --Juiced lemon 13:56, 5 August 2006 (UTC) updated. --Juiced lemon 15:02, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

We don't follow en.wp to the letter. Their policies are not Commons policies. pfctdayelise (translate?) 23:53, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Commons policies are often ignored, and that's why I made this work. I didn't choose Commons:By location category scheme as a reference, because this document is ambiguous. For the listed cases, it seemed to me that en.wp policies were identical to Commons policies. Please, review my list and identify the differences (if any). --Juiced lemon 15:02, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Huh. Commons documents are ignored and flawed, therefore everyone should ignore them and make up new ones? I note you made no contribution to the talk page of Commons:By location category scheme. I am not sure why conformance to peculiar patterns of preposition use is important, but hey I know there are some who didn't see what was wrong with adjectival placenames. Anyway, if you make your case and if there are enough folks that agree, more power to you. Personally though, the only thing I feel strongly about the prepositions is that they ought to be predictable.

Perhaps to some category folks, it is intuitively obvious that parks, sunsets, and zoos are in countries, while caves, landscapes and forests are of' countries. I am a native speaker and I certainly don't understand why having multiple patterns should be propagated that deliver no clear benefit. If Commons is to be used by substantial numbers of non english speakers, how do we expect to explain these odd rules. They simply aren't predictable. But maybe we should really be having this conversation on the by locations schemes page. -Mak 02:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Picture of a "false" document

In 1943, Belgian resistance published a false "Le Soir". In these days, the Soir had been "stolen" by Germans and journalists of the Soir were traitors. I made an article about the false Soir and I am about to aquire an original (at 70 euros, it's a bargain for a piece of history people died for) (a copy of the Soir and of a facsimile can be found here).

I was wondering whether I could put pictures of this "Soir" in Commons, but I am highly uncertain. The false Soir was published by a resistance organisation during war time. I am at lost. What do you think? Fair use in fr:WP is the easy solution, but is there a way to put this in Commons?Bradipus 21:18, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

2006-1943=63 years, I am afraid you will have to wait 7 more years. I can only assume that the copyright laws still apply, despite the nature of the publication being illegal at the time of publication TeunSpaans 07:21, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Thumbnails not working

[[Image:Parts of OS Edition 1 1880 25in Derbyshire Sheet 50.png|thumb|Example of not working thumbnail.]] Last night I uploaded Image:Parts of OS Edition 1 1880 25in Derbyshire Sheet 50.png, however non of the thumbnails work. You can view the full size version. Lcarsdata ^{Talk | E-mail | My Contribs} 10:34, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

There is a recent bug report which could well relate to this. See http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6316 William Avery 20:19, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Wow. Not only does that thumbnail not work, but it totally b0rks my firefox every time it tries to load this page from my uni Unix machine. (I had to turn off image loading all together.)

[2:57] X Error of failed request:  BadAlloc (insufficient resources for operation)
 Major opcode of failed request:  53 (X_CreatePixmap)
 Serial number of failed request:  854578
 Current serial number in output stream:  854580

nasty. Sorry, but I'm nowiki'ing the image in case other people have this problem, too! pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:07, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

There's a limit of 12 megapixels for thumbnailing PNG files - larger PNGs will be served to the browser unchanged and are then scaled on your computer. Scaling large PNG files takes a lot of memory and CPU, which may bog down your system and/or crash your browser. This high demand is exactly the reason for the limit: scaling such images would bog down the servers. Note that the hard pixel based limit applies to PNG only - for scaling/rendering JPG, SVG, etc, there are time and memory limits in effect. If they are hit, the effect is different - no picture is served to the browser at all.

A workaround for this problem is to upload a scaled version directly after uploading the full scale image (which should be available for reference). I'll go ahead and do it for Image:Parts of OS Edition 1 1880 25in Derbyshire Sheet 50.png.

While I think such limits are necessary, they could be implemented more smartly. For PNG, it could be detected on upload if thumbnailing of that image will be possible - and a warning could be shown if not. Also, it would probably be a better idea to show an error message than to server the full sized image, which is likely to break the browser. Also, rendering errors for JPG or SVG files should be made obvious to the user - just serving nothing is quite confusing. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 10:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Articles or Categories

Is there any guideline on when to create an article and when to make a category? There seem to be quite a few photos that are uncategorized and just relying on a categorized article linking to them to give them their context. Personally I'd rather there were no articles at all on commons, just progressively narrower categories. I would be interested to know the justification for any conventions used here. --Cfp 14:59, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Categories cannot be easily renamed, and if you do it, you lose the history. It's the main obstacle to a general use of categories. --Juiced lemon 15:34, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

So for things like Latin species names where this isn't an issue (latin names very rarely change) is using categories all the way to the "leaf" acceptable (i.e. placing images rather than articles in categories)? --Cfp 18:44, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I think there should be something in the FAQ about this (if there is already I certainly didn't see it), because I've just had some hostile reverts of images I had placed in a category with no justification what so ever in the comment. If it is decided against putting images directly in categories (which I truly hope it isn't, particularly in the case of latin names), then "The Commonist" tool should be changed to add images to galleries rather than to categories. (It already adds images to your personal gallery as it's final step, so I can't imagine the change would be too hard.) --Cfp 21:38, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

For animal and plant pictures, we have some specific guidelines at Commons:WikiProject Tree of Life. Stan Shebs 01:32, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

SPAM filter

I have a problem with this page : Image:Pommesgabel.jpg. I want to modify its category, but my changes are blocked by the SPAM filter, though I didn't add any URL. What must I do ? --Juiced lemon 15:45, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I've created a workaround for the image description page. Given that it is a website of GFDL photographs, we may want to revisit whether it belongs on the blacklist or not. Jkelly 17:54, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Pointless edit war

There is a difference of opinion on the the name of a category. As a solution to the controversy, the other party has decided not to discuss the issue and instead redirect the category to their prefered category name without moving the images in the unpreferred category.

The reason I favor the particular category name I do is that the alternative is regarded as an insulting term by the people to who the term applies. I myself was surprized to learn that "Anasazi" is perjorative, but this has been thoroughly discussed on the wiki which corresponds to the greatest number of interested parties on the subject, and the concensus opinion was to change the name. I have explained that NPOV is a commons policy and for this reason the insulting term should not be in the category structure.

At this point the discussion was deleted from the person's talk page. It has instead been moved to the talk page of the new category Category talk:Ancient pueblo people. I am perfectly happy to continue reverting (it takes me about 2 seconds to initiate it). However after 22 edits, it is my feeling that enough is enough and I am seeking arbitration or any other solution to the issue. -Mak 16:25, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm totally ignorant of what would be right here so I've protected the categories in their status quo. It's the wrong version of course, but someone with more knowledge of this situation should look into it. I hope for now this stops the editwar a bit. NielsF 16:33, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

NielsF- ok, but I request a prompt decision one way or the other. The bulk of our holdings on anasazi/ancient pueblo people is invisible in this state. ... Oops nevermind- I see you changed it from a hard redirect. -Mak 17:03, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

“So far, Categories are in English” does not mean “a Commons category name is always the title of the wp.en matching article”.

IMHO, “Ancient Pueblo peoples” is clearly a wp.en eccentricity. We have not to follow it. Anasazi is a widely used (by english speaking people) term, therefore the Category:Anasazi is “in english”, as specified. So, I don't find any reason for a editwar, except a too zealous user (it's not a matter of urgency). --Juiced lemon 19:08, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

That is true. There is no policy that says en:WP is the authority on names. And I am not at all sure that that is the best solution either. But there are much worse authorities. For example, "frequency of usage" has problems too. Sure, by Google hits, "Nigger" has 4 times as many hits as "Black person". So is that the authority we should use? Does that override NPOV policy? The problem is this class of problem is potentially large because the terms that many groups have historically used for their neighbors were frequently hostile and nearly always unflattering. Depending on who a western explorer talked to first, one of the terms become known to the outside world, and the rest of the world is unaware of the insult. Should we care? Are majoritarianism views more important than respect for local cultures? While I am the kind of guys that refers to the postman rather than the "mail carrier", I think it is proper to determine whether the dominant term truly violates NPOV and if so, change it according to some external authority. Ideally, in the case of proper names that have to do with cultural identity, I think it fair to allow the group concerned be able to decide the names. I don't know if we can support that kind of procedure in the short term due to lack of manpower.

The specifics of this particular category naming dispute can be discussed on the talk page referenced above, but this is exactly the situation here. So the explorers talked to the enemies of the anasazi first and so that is the name that stuck. The broader question is whether we want to arbitrate every one of these silly naming battles here on Commons. As with the debate over catalunya which Juiced Lemon is currently involved with, I really think Commons should decide on some general external authority to settle such disputes or we will only see this sort of conflict become more and more common.

Which Venue? The anasazi groups ancestors speak english as a primary language, the region occupied by the anasazi is in the present day US, and so it makes sense that the venue for settling the naming dispute should be En:WP. If not there, we should name some other well populated venue that allows consideration of all points of view where folks can hammer out a concensus opinion. The EN:WP has done so and in deference to their opinion I named it the way I did. A week ago, I had no opinion on the subject.

If en:Wiki is the wrong venue for people to hammer out concensus, we should name some other venue or criteria for deciding names. Whatever it is, I think the wrong answer is to name Commons as the venue because the population is just too low to get a fair cross section of interested parties on particular subjects, and there are much more important things that admins need to be doing.

-Mak 21:43, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey! I don't want to fall out with you ! There was only my opinion (I continue in the Category talk:Anasazi page). Recently, I created the Category:Jaw harp, in spite of the en.wp article title (w:Jew's harp) : I choosed a self-explanatory name which don't needlessly mention Jews. What do you think about this ? --Juiced lemon 09:50, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that Jew's harp was a pejorative term so I don't know what bearing you thought this had on the current conversation. Understand- this is not about politically correct speech, but terms that significant percentages of the affected party's population feel is insulting. -Mak 17:40, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if Jew's harp is a pejorative term, but this musical instrument has no connection with Jews, and I didn't find this mention in other languages (see w:de:Maultrommel for a list of various names about this instrument). In english, the term “jaw harp” is a serious alternative to “Jew's harp” (cf Google), so I prefered it as a more international term. This example was intended to show that we have not to be always in line with en.wp. --Juiced lemon 09:31, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I quite agree with your point, Mak. When the dispute has nothing to do with how the media is organised, I don't see any reason we shouldn't adopt en.wp terminology. I think that's a good way to offload our own disputes ;). Commons:Language policy (which effectively acts as our naming policy, as well, perhaps that should be separated) could do with some improvement. BTW - this is not about politically correct speech, but terms that significant percentages of the affected party's population feel is insulting. - I know some people that would still say they're the same thing ;) pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Poor wording on my part. I should have said, it is not about all classes of politically correct speech. The shift from accepted use of the term "colored" to alternate terms was an exercise in what we now call "politically correct" speech. It is a change most people agree with. So I happen to be one of the people who agree that this anasazi- pueblo peoples thing is politically correct speech as is some of the other disputes. The dispute that are a priority to confront are those having to do with violation of NPOV.

The measure I proposed is two fold. It is insufficient for someone to claim they feel insulted. I happen to count some radical feminists as my friends and they sincerely feel slighted if they are not referred to as womyn. They are in the extreme minority so don't think they have standing until they show that anything but a group of extremist individuals feel this way. Personally I think enough is politicized without politicizing language as well. The opposing point is that language is a political tool of cultural suppression which actually has some truth to it. I wouldn't use the strident terminology to express that concept, but anyway, I just don't want to see a lot of these silly disputes sucking up the time of Commons admins.

As for english WP, I can see a case for setting the venue elsewhere. It would be nice if we didn't do everthing on a case by case basis, and had a clear general rule on determining what the external authority is but on the other hand I hate huge sets of rules delineating byzantine bureaucratic processes. EG: The authority for determining names shall be EN:WP extcept in the following cases: 1) where a term is disputed as it appears in the EN:WP applies to a specific group, and is considered pejorative by a substantial percentage the population of that group. In that case if there is a foundation wikipedia that corresponds to the group, then the authority shall be that wikipedia, so long as the resulting name is expressed in Ascii equivalent.

Hopefully we will not have to require such a rule, but if the volume of these becomes measurable, then I would advocate something like this text. It will be interesting to watch the Catalunya arbitration. I suppose it could set some precedents for future disputes. -Mak 21:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Luke Ford's photos

Hello. The user Gildemax (now away for a long time) wants to delete the images I took from Luke Ford's website, because he can't verify the authorization here (see my talk page). There is already a lot of pictures from that website on Commons, they are not deleted and the English Wikipedia (here) even advise to upload images from here. Can someone do something about this? Thank you. (and sorry for my approximative english) --Delias 20:39, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Sysop status request

Hi there,

I've been lurking around and contributing to commons since a few monthes. I now think that my current experience of sysop on fr: may be of some help here...
I saw that there are comments about the overwhelmed admins here so if you think I can be of some help to them, for example by deleting old speedy deletions, you can vote here.
Best regards to all,
-- AlNo (talk) 16:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Preview

Hallo,

I didn't found another page for questions, therefore I ask here:

How can I modify (in the monobook.css ?) the width of the preview-thumbs on the category-pages ? The value in "preferences" does not work in that case. Augiasstallputzer 16:02, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you can. I have a feeling that's hardcoded into MediaWiki. I guess a codegeek will correct me here if I'm wrong... --pfctdayelise (translate?) 01:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Guide to taking pictures

We have a lot of pro photographers here, which is great, but we also have a lot of people with point-and-shoot cameras who can take pictures of things that the pros don't have access to. I think we need a simple guide page like How to take pictures for Wikipedia, in the same style as w:Wikipedia:How to create graphs for Wikipedia articles, as part of w:Wikipedia:Graphics tutorials or a Commons page, for us amateurs. For instance, in taking macro closeups of objects, I've discovered some things:

• Use macro mode, but zoom in all the way, too - puts more of the object in focus and increases resolution
• Tearing a plain paper folder apart makes a nice floor and backdrop for the object, it's easier and the crease is subtler than trying to tape pieces of paper together
• Putting other white paper on the opposite side of the object from the lamp helps diffuse the shadows and make the lighting more even
• Using the Levels... tool in the GIMP helps get that nice pure white background

It might fit into Category:Graphics abilities, too, which I just now discovered.

See w:Talk:XLR_connector#XLR-LNE. That's a pretty rare connector, but the first image was pretty poor quality. — Omegatron 19:47, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe a simple "how to" for amateurs should be produced- but focusing as the others do- not so much as a primer on the entire subject of photography, but focusing in on the commone errors people make on images intended for a wiki. Is there really not one in Wikipedia?

The document Commons:Quality images guidelines is a place where some of these sorts of tips are recorded for people who are motivated to see that their images achieve a "Quality Image" status. Note Commons:Quality Images are different than Commons:Featured pictures- Featured images has to with the extraordinary merit of the image as a whole. The "Quality Image" label is achieved simply if your image ticks all the checklist of technical items for the image- such as focus, not under/over exposed, no motion blur and what not. -Mak 22:10, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, not a general guide to all forms of photography, but guidelines on how to take high-quality, informational images for articles. Stark contrast and shadow would be good for general photography, but not for an encyclopedic matter-of-fact picture of a paperclip, for instance. — Omegatron 23:07, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Stop writing all your tips on the Village pump! Just create a page and get writing! :) Connecting it up with Commons:Quality Images would be a good idea IMO. pfctdayelise (translate?) 01:47, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. 38.99.151.202

Name?

I was browsing comments when I came across a person that wondered how we should be called? Because wikipedia has wikipedians, etc. I hope the awnswer isn't commoners.--Mac Wanter 02:58, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually I introduce myself precisely that way on other wikis.... -Mak 07:08, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, we do. :) 'Commoner - one of the common people'. I didn't like it at first, but it's grown on me. Very egalitarian. :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:17, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, well. I guess it's worth it if you think about the files here.--Mac Wanter ^Talk 03:21, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

This came up during Wikimania - we need to stop thinking of ourselves as just Wikipedians, Wikinewsies, Wikitionarians etc. and start thinking of ourselves as Wikimedians. I still think of myself as a Wikipedian (my "wikipedia" hostmask on IRC reinforces that), but just as multilingualism becomes more natural to us, so will multiprojectalism... Alphax (talk) 09:42, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

August 10

Upload

When I try to upload an image, I get an 'invalid language code'. Am I the only one? TeunSpaans 09:08, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Problem solved, error message no longer appears. TeunSpaans 10:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Image problem with Image:Miami Florida city flag.svg

Image:Miami Florida city flag.svg is stated as having a source of itself. Circular source reference? Interesting :) More problematic; the licensing claims that a user of ours releases it into the public domain. I doubt the user has rights to release the image. With respect to city flags, there's an open ended issue; we assume flags are PD but we (to my knowledge) haven't shown anywhere where this is supported by law. I started a related discussion at Commons_talk:Licensing#Capitulating_clarification_of_copyright_status. This image needs to be fixed, both in source and in licensing. --Durin-en 12:58, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

It lists en.wp as the source. Of course, there is no image at en.wp under this name now, so the Commons copy comes through. Generally this means the image was originally uploaded to en.wp, has been transferred here, and deleted there because it's available here. From the logs I think this is the case here, too.

There are two problems here. One is that of flags. Flags cannot be assumed to be PD. Aside from that, there's the problem of whether creating a representation of a flag actually creates copyright (so you can pd-self flags you create), or whether such an act doesn't trigger any copyright and therefore any representations have the same copyright status as the flag itself, ie PD (we hope). I find it problematic... and the problem is not treated uniformly here. Some say PD-old, many say PD-self or even GFDL|etc. Apparently the laws may even differ from country to country about this.

I would like to see us adopt a rule that any PD design (such as flag, COA) must also be tagged as PD-(old, whatever, not self), *even if* the creator could potentially claim copyright. But it's a murky area.

Secondly is of using website-wide templates. These are also are frequently problematic, even for US govt websites. They need a lot of scrutiny. But they are so popular that I guess we won't stop using them, even though it's an incredible hassle when we find out one is actually not free after all. D'oh. pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:11, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

GPL v3 and screenshot

GPL does not cover screenshot. You are left with fair use or obtaining permission from developers of software, as far as I understand. The key in the license is "the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does." in Section 0 (quote from Free Software Foundation's GPL page.) This means that the screenshots are not under the free license, but just plain copyrighted.

GPL is now being upgraded to the next version (version 3). There has been the second public draft for anyne to comment. After reading the draft, I came to the conlusion that the issue is still not addressed.

I personally think that screenshot of GPL'd software should be usable freely, even in jurisdictions without general fair use like provision (Japan does not have one). Joint copyright cannot be exercised without the concensus of the all parties (i.e. one person cannot give permission without consulting with others). This will help Commons.

Comments can be filed here: http://gplv3.fsf.org/comments/gplv3-draft-2.html

Tomos 18:41, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Um... hmm. If that's true, it's kind of a worry, since we have been assuming that screenshots of OSS are in fact free. See {{Free screenshot}}. Can we get a retrospective amendment...? pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:22, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

To me this reads differently. To repeat the quote: "the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.": to me this means that output that is generated as a direct result of the program code falls under the GPL (in my mind, this includes GUI elements and icons that come with the program - unless they are third party and non-GPL, in which case they shouldn't be shiped with a GPL program anyway). If the program however is used to show someone elses work (like a web page in Konqueror, or a text you typed in OpenOffice, or a graphic you opened in GIMP), the programmer obviously has no rights to it, and it's thus not covered by the GPL. If you take a screenshot and want to publish it, you need permission of the creator of that work.

So, I don't really see a problem in the spirit of the license. However, if I take a screenshot of, say, a Wikipedia page shown in Konqueror, then the program components would be GPL, but the page content would be GFDL, and it may also show some CC-BY-SA picture on the page. In such a case, what license would be correct for the resulting screenshot? As far as I know, none legally, because the licenses are legally incompatible, even if they are congruent in spirit.

A practical solution is to identify the licenses of the individual parts of the screenshot. That should usually be satisfactory for everyone, but i'm afrais it's not legally sound. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 10:02, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not particularly experienced with GPL, and I'm not a native English speaker, but let me try to convince you. Would you take a look at the definition and explanation of what "work based on the Program" means? To quote the key part,

" a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in the term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you". "

(Again taken from FSF's GPL.)

From this definition and explanation, I took that GPL's intended definition of a work based on the Program is something that changes a source code, and not something that is created by running a program. Screenshot certainly falls into the latter category, and therefore outside of the scope of GPL.

But let's assume that I am wrong (not a bold assumption indeed), and screenshot is covered by GPL. The situation is not at all better in my opinion. The reason is that if covered by GPL, it is subject to the requirements of Sections 1 and 2. Requirements include "conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty."

I suppose some requirements, such as conspicuously placing a disclaimer warranty may be okay to ignore - that might result in the creater (uploader) of the screenshot warranting the quality of the screenshot, and that is not perhaps a disaster because screenshot will not do much harm as far as I know. But some may argue it is still a license violation technically/strictly speaking.

So perhaps we can agree that GPL does not handle screenshot issue very well, even if we may have some different interepretations of how it applies or does not apply to a screenshot.

And may I suggest that we should let the GPL v3 drafters to know about this?

Besides, I agree with you, Duesentrieb, the license complication issue you mentioned. Tomos 11:44, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I personally would disagree that in the absence of explicit license language the copyright of a screenshot defaults to the authors of the code. Either the graphic elements of the program are licensed under the program's license OR the copyright is owned by the owner of the computer which has generated the image, IMO.

That part of the image which can be said to be a derivative work of the original program code consists of things like icons and other copyrightable graphical items. These are clearly GPL licensed.

Those parts that are NOT GPL licensed would be owned by the creator of the work - which, if you're taking a screenshot of the program on a computer you own, is YOU.

IMO, I see no way in which a screenshot of a GPLed program is not a combination of (a) GPLed graphical image elements, and (b) elements created by running the program that do not contain GPLed elements, and are thus owned and copyrighted by the screenshot creator/computer owner.

Licensing the resulting mess under the GPL is, I believe, fully in compliance with copyright law and common sense. We don't have to play the game of trying to twist licenses in ways they shouldn't be twisted to see what falls out. Morven 08:46, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Licence check

Could someone who speaks Spanish (better than me, I'm afraid I only know enough to get into trouble and not enough to get out of it) check all uploads by User:Rbb l181. The licensing doesn't seem right, but rather than tagging all of the images it would be preferable if someone could check the site they've been copied from with regards to the licensing on publicity photos there. Cnyborg 19:14, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't find any licensing information... there was just a generic copyright notice on the bottom. Anyways, publicity photos are rarely (if ever) free use. ~MDD4696 20:46, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

That's what I'm thinking; probably {{Copyvio}} for the whole lot, then. Cnyborg 22:24, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Complain about User:Gildemax and User:Zirland

I am writing to complain about these two fucking idiots. They deleted a whole cat of images properly described and tagged under the PD-Mexico-NIP template. Every single image was in the public domain (it was confirmed by us in writing in W:ES [9]).

I spent countless hours describing them, cropping them, filling every single detail (all the way down to the photographer's name) and on July 22, 2006 Gildemax requested a speedy delete because he visited the Mexican Presidency website and saw a GENERAL DISCLAIMER stating that UNLESS IT WAS STATED OTHERWISE, the material offered by the presidency was available under a restrive "Creative Commons México By-Nc-Nd 2.5." license [10]. But THOSE PICS HAD BEEN RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN PREVIOUSLY!!!! Once they are on the PD they stay on the PD!!!!

We had their confirmation in writing and it was clearly stated in the template. However, this moron thought it was too funcking hard to confirm the e-mail and he got rid of them. They were used heavily by most Wikipedias covering Mexican bios.

If there's a way to bring them back pelase do it.

Ruiz 22:55, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Your incivility will do you no favours! Do you have an example image (so I can see the deletion log). Thanks/wangi 23:06, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I wonder if Zirland or Gildemax were aware of that e-mail. Are they users in es-wiki, did anyone tell them about that message? {{PD-Mexico-NIP}} is also deleted, but the discussion page has related, allbeit vague, information. Six weeks ago someone asked to contact "Noticias e Información de la Presidencia". Why didn't anyone who was interested in keeping the images contact them?

Furthermore, I wonder if Mexican law permits "releasing to PD"? Because of such ambiguous messages, Commons:Email templates should be used. -Samulili 23:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I am restoring the images until this is resolved. Obviously you are quite angry, but please remember not to make personal attacks. We will sort it out. pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:52, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I just restored all the images (~120). Here's some points which some people might think were obvious, but apparently not everyone:

• Established templates should never be speedied. Put them through COM:DEL.
• If someone well-meaning tags them as speedy nonetheless, retag/untag and take the long route. Admins should never follow speedy tags like robots. People make mistakes. But if you don't pay attention and just delete everything blindly, you make it YOUR mistake.
• These were deleted on the 28 July. es.wp (where I presume they were used the most) has a CommonsTicker. What is this project's policy for monitoring it? Why did it take two weeks to notice this?

--pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:17, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

First of all, I apologize for being so rude but you might realize how I felt when I saw more than a hundred clearly-tagged pics, a rather explanatory template, and many categories written in several languages deleted in speedy mode by a rather careless admin who didn't hesitate to erase them without verifying one single bit. I spent way too many hours cropping them, classifying them, explaining why they were on public domain, filling up every single technical detail in the pic and suddenly this guy comes up during the holidays and gets rid of them!

Furthermore, when I first tried to contact Zirland I couldn't help but notice his first message, where where User:dbenbenn wrote down (welcoming him as an Admin, barely 2 months ago): “Congratulations! Just remember that images cannot be undeleted, so please be careful when deleting them”. I just couldn't believe it!

Now that they are back, I can answer some of your questions:

• To Samuili: The template has a rather obvious link to the e-mail, the Mexican law allows all sorts of works to be released to the PD (every bit of the third chapter of the Ley Federal de Derechos de Autor is dedicated to the PD) and Commons:Email templates wasn't used because the e-mail was received in 2004 (apparenlty 2 years before that template was created in the first place).
• I don't know why wikipedians at W:ES didn't noticed the Commons Ticker. Most students in Latin America (which are the bulk of the Spanish-speaking wikipedians) were/are still on summer holidays, so that may explain it.

Thanks a lot to User:Pfctdayelise for bringing most of them back. I'll contact the presidency so they can fill up the new e-mail template. However, I still think some admins out there should be way more careful and think it twice before deleting 120 pix clearly tagged, sourced and showing evidence of their status as PD.

Ruiz 23:08, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Please add a notice to this template explaining that the CC tags on the websites are not valid (because...?). Any admin that notices a contradiction between a licence tag's claim and a website's claim will always believe the source (website) unless they have specific reason not to. Too many people lie about licenses to do otherwise. pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:50, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

• Todavia no creo que as imagenes son PD. Yo hablo e leyo Español pero escribo mui, mui malo. He lido el e-mail, pero no pudo verificar en el web site, que informa una otra coisa ([Commons México By-Nc-Nd 2.5.]). @ Ruiz: A me no me gusta la palavra moron and do not call me fucking idiot.

Still I do not believe that this imagenes are PD (see bottom of http://www.presidencia.gob.mx/). I can speak an read Spanish on an advanced level but my writing is very, very bad. I did not find on the web site any information that the imagenes are PD also this license tag {{PD-Mexico-NIP}} for me is not official tag as I did not find it on Commons:Image_copyright_tags_visual. I do not feel bad that I have flagged this unknown license tag as on the web site is written something very different ([Commons México By-Nc-Nd 2.5.]). @ Ruiz: User:Zirland is not a moron and do not call me fucking idiot.

I propose that a neutral nativ Spanish speaking admin writes to the PRESIDENCIA DE LA REPÚBLICA of MÉXICO and ask if the imagens are really PD. Maybe Ruiz is correct, the circumstance do not speak for him --gildemax 17:35, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Folders

We need to have an option to upload complete folders to the commons.--Mac Wanter ^Talk 03:24, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

We have some user-created tools that allow easy mass-upload, such as Commons:Tools/Commonist. The ability to upload more than one file at a time is bugzilla:488. It would probably not be that hard to implement, but for social reasons there are definite advantages to not having it enabled. :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:21, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary: as far as I know, it's impossible to implement in a reliable way. I have added a comment to the bug report. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 09:51, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

What are the social advantages?--Mac Wanter ^Talk 16:25, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

IMO: people already upload a lot of crap, which takes a lot longer to get rid of than to put here in the first place. This is not assuming bad faith... this is reality. Allowing them to do it en masse doesn't sound like my idea of fun.

If there was a flag we could give to trusted users to let them, that would be cool. I didn't know it was difficult as Duesentrieb described. But anyway, I really recommend using Commonist or the Perl script. pfctdayelise (translate?) 16:42, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Download Commons (sic!) for a school image bank

Hi!

I need to been able to download the Commons's image database to create an easy image bank for a school board. At least, i would like to download public domain pictures.

Do you have any way????

Or what is the easiest way to give access to the database??? For the french wikipedia, I install a Google box. Does it posssible to do it with Google Image and Commons??? A details: I need to find a easy way: some students are as young as 6 years old.

Thank you VERY MUCH for your help!

ho yeah... Please answer at: my talking page on french wikipedia

Bestter Discussion 12:48, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Your question is not quite clear:

• what does "install a google box" mean?
• do you really want to have all the images locally? That's a lot of data, and not very useful by itself.
• do you want just the images, or all their meta data (destriptions, galleries, categorization) too?

A few notes:

• Google image search does not support searching specific sites, and it does not seem to work very well with mediawiki.
• Since recently, the "normal" google search picks up image pages on commons, though: this search for example works well, but you don't see thumbnails in the search result.
• I have written a media search for commons, but it's pretty slow, especially for "broad" search terms, and the advanced options don't quite work yet.
• I believe that the best way to find images on commons is navigating the [category structure]

regards -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 10:54, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

below is a copy from my talk page -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 12:28, 18 August 2006 (UTC) Hi!!

Few weeks ago, I post a question about downloading the commons pictures and you begun to answer me...

i will be more clear

I'm a computer technician for a school board, in Quebec. The system (a portal) I'm working on will soon have the possibility for kids (and teacher) to easilly insert images in their documents, through the portal database. It's very easy. I need to find image bank, ideally free. Majority of image company will charge us (a lots!) for their image database. And i think that the commmons database is beautiful!

In fact, i need the easiest way to give students and teachers access to the commons database. And the mediawiki search engine is not good, i think.

Do you know how could I resolve this problem?

thank you very much!

Bestter Discussion 01:26, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok now...

• As far as I know, there's currently now bundle of all media availabel for download. It would be very large (more than 310 GB) - it's impractical for download. Downloads of meta-date is available here: [11]
• When using media from Commons, you must follow the license terms for each file. This mainly means you have to mention the license and attributing creator and source, but the exect terms depend on the individual licenses.
• We currently have no really good way to search for images by keywords. As I mentioned above, the best way to find images is to navigate the category structure. You can also try to use google, but you'll get text-only results.
• There is a proposal called InstantCommons that would allow other wikis to use Commons media seamlessly. It basically means automatically copying media from commons on demand. You could implement somethign similar for your portal - I can provide you with scripts for downloading files as well as the necessary meta-date for any given file name (I currently use this for the picture of the day).

So, there's no ready-to-go solution for your problem. It can be made to work, but it requires some amount of programming on your side. You could also post to a mailing list and ask for cooperation - Commons-l and and Wikitech-l may be worth a try. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 12:28, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

That's not good. I can't understand why the commons developer didn't an easy and powerful search engines. Cause why put a huge database if people can't access the data???? My problem is very simple: How can 6 years old kids can use an image bank easilly????? Did someone can help me???? I can't buy a commercial image bank!!! And many image on commons are open and copyleft.... But it's too complicated to search! I'm really stuck!!!!! SOMEONE, Please help me if you could!!! a poor computer technician that need help Bestter Discussion 03:49, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Brion made a tar with all images used on the italian? wikipedia because they needed it for a quite-offline wikipedia showing. But keep in mind that commons repository is much larger (several gigas). If your children are english speakers, they could follow our category structure, though the integratoin may be difficult (set a hook to he images? drag&drop?). Note that some contents may not be adequate for your 6 year old pupils, like some contents of Category:Sex. Platonides 18:34, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

About Jery Sandoval's photos and its possible deletion. Please, don't take any decision without read it first.

Hello to everybody here.

These pictures should not be deleted because they belong to a fan web page that I belong too (see main article Jery Sandoval in Wikipedia.

These photos were uploaded by other fans and they asked me to upload them in Wikipedia. The photos don't specify if got or not got copyright (because many of them are scanned or taken from other pages. I guess fans knew it) ; then I supposed that had copyright but they can be used freely.

If I made something wrong I apologise but I'd like you don't delete the photos. The Jery Sandoval's fans and me we're proud on her and an article of her in our Wikipedia (because I'm wikipedist too)will be a "present" (spanish: homenaje)for her.

Thanks for your precious time.

--S.V.B.E.E.V. 16:42, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

No copyright notice doesn't mean that the images are free. In this case, however, there is a copyright notice on the site http://groups.msn.com/JeriSandoval where they were taken from; at the bottom it says "Todos los Derechos Reservados Jeri Sandoval 2006". Cnyborg 18:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Corrupted images?

I've noticed a number of images like this one: Image:HurricaneWilma19Oct2005.jpg (its ~3.5 MB). If I download the file and view it locally I get the big jpg. If it is used in another project, like Wikinews n:de:Vierter schwerer Hurrikan in US-Saison ist der stärkste aller Zeiten, the thumbnail works. However, when viewing the Image on Commons (or the image description page on any project) or the thumb here in a Category or gallery it seems corrupt. What's going on here?--Nilfanion 17:11, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh and I can make a thumbnail here. The question is why is the image page not displaying the image correctly? Its not the size; Image:Typhoon_saomai_060807.jpg is similar image that is higher-res and bigger, yet displays fine.--Nilfanion 18:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Try doing a hard refresh (CTRL+F5 in the most popular browsers) or dumping your cache. ¦ Reisio 18:59, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

That doesn't work for me, I tried purging the server too. I'm really puzzled by it.--Nilfanion 19:04, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I have the same issue. Is it rendering correctly for you, Reisio? Jkelly 20:14, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

It's very big - rendering probably fails to a memory or time limit. In such a case, upload a scaled version (max 3000x4000 pixels or something) over the original (but always upload full scale first). Note btw that large jpegs generally work, because jpeg is designed to allow scaling without loading the entire image at once. But this does not work for jpegs stored in "progressive mode", like this one. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 00:50, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually I the size is an irrelevancy. I uploaded a new (and higher res) version of Image:HurricaneWilma20Oct2005.jpg over a similarly dodgy image and it works now. It might be a "progressive mode" setting or something else comparable to that. Actually I'm concerned that this problem might be leading us to delete many images from commons that shouldn't be. I saw this deletion request with deletion reason being "not .jpg" I downloaded the old version of Image:Imagine.jpg, ran it through GIMP and reuploaded. The new version is functional and has a smaller file size... That smaller image might be a better example of this problem: If you download this [12] old version of it you get the file. However, if you open the webpage you get a non-image (tested in IE 6 and Firefox). There's something funny going on, and it could be costing us good images, being "corrupt" speedied when theres a bug.--Nilfanion 01:12, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Size is relevant - although it's usually not a problem for non-progressive jpegs. There's nothing magic going on - thumbnailing fails if it takes too much resources. The original version of Image:HurricaneWilma20Oct2005.jpg is big and in progressive mode - so the servers refuse to scale it. The original version [13] works fine in my browser (FF on Linux), btw, it just takes very long to load and completely bogs down the box when Firefox tries to scale it - which is precisely the reason the thumbnails don't work.

This is nothing new or surprising. But as I have said before, it would be nice to get some feedback from mediawiki when thumbnailing fails.

Regaring Image:Imagine.jpg: the original version is simply corrupt, or use some strange variant of jpg. When I try to open it locally after downloading, Firefox says the image is corrupt, and KDE's kuickshow reports "Application transferred too few scanlines". ImageMagick, eog, Opera and Konqueror can handle the image, however. The full scale image on the server is not touched by MediaWiki - it's not even served by MediaWiki but directly by Apache (or lighttp or whatever). If there's a problem with a full scale file, it's not a MediaWiki problem. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 10:39, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Yea, I agree its not a MediaWiki problem; its a problem with the images. I've also seen a similar problem occur with a png (it was speedied as corrupt). These files seem to have a common issue, which is their dimensions and filesize are bigger than they should be for no apparent reason. There is a tweak that could help though. Perhaps the category/gallery images could be implemented in the same way as the thumbnails? The Oct 19 Wilma pic is odd and doesn't display in a cat/gallery but it does in a thumbnail (at least for me). A possible workaround for this problem could be for sysops to download apparently corrupt files and check them before deleting. If it can be fixed and doesn't meet any other speedy criteria then the fixed image should be uploaded - possibly after deleting the original corrupt image (I'm not sure if the GFDL would allow that).--Nilfanion 11:28, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Hm, I kinda think it's the uploader's responsibility to not upload corrupt files! If you want to patrol COM:DEL for reasons such as "corrupt" and fix them yourself, I'm sure they'll be saved from deletion. But I sure don't think fixing them myself is part of my admin duty. pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:54, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with this. The first image of Hurricane Wilma - I downloaded the version directly from the NASA site and uploaded it. That file was identical to the apparently broken one, so it was broken. There's no way the admins should have to suffer that kind of effort, though it might be worth bearing in mind with small images. So now that file has two dodgy files in their history and the working version. Do we really need the 2 old versions; after all its a PD image.--Nilfanion 22:49, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

• Found another one: Image:Tropical Storm Wukong 2006-08-12 lrg.jpg. Any one of you mind using your pixie dust to fix it? I have no clue how to do it, but it is related to this thread. Titoxd^(?!?) 07:00, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Picture of the Day

How can Commons Picture of the Day be displayed on other wikis? --Tarawneh 01:20, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

So far, technically, it can't. pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:44, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

How do I become a "not new" user?

I just created an account in order to upload an improved version of an image already on commons. The system wouldn't let me 'cos I'm too new here. What do I have to do to be "not new"? (I know I could upload the image under a different name, but that seems counter productive and likely to lose the history. -- SGBailey 07:02, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I belive you just have to wait a few days... --Stefan-Xp 08:20, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Wait 4 days from the moment when your account was created. If you don't want to wait, you could upload the improved version and ask someone else to move it for you, such requests are common at COM:HD... NielsF 13:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Transport/transportation

We have Category:Transportation in Saxony, while in Dresden, that is Category:Transport.

I thought that "transportation" was the US term for “transport”. Can you explain me the subtlety above ? --Juiced lemon 10:40, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

To me they are the same. And on en.wp w:transportation RDRs to w:transport. I think it is just people getting carried away with creating nouns. :)

Unfortunately there is no standard usage here. :( --pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:37, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer. Do you suggest that the term “transport” should be used (as en.wp does), in particular when a new category is created ? --Juiced lemon 22:16, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Probably easiest, for cross-wiki linking if nothing else. Also, more international.

James F. (talk) 22:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

To Juiced lemon: Yes I do, because it's shorter and 'transportation' conveys no extra information. Creating the equivalent 'transportation' cat and making it a RDR is maybe not a bad idea. pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:41, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you. Unfortunately, Category:Transport is currently a redirect to Category:Transportation, and therefore I have already created several “transportation in” categories. If the consensus converges on the term Transport, the first action should be an inversion of this redirection. --Juiced lemon 18:12, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Rider Waite Smith Tarot deck

Someone uploaded the entire deck of these unfree images. I managed to get a few done...[14] but I can't get to the entire set. The color version of these images are held by the US Games company, who managed to color them and get a copyright for them in the 1970s. These are not public domain, like this.

Thanks. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 19:55, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Has this been done? The only one I can find is Image:The Magician.png. Jkelly 21:08, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks done... Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 02:17, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Fair use

I know Commons policy on fair use images is none at all, ever. I'm not disputing that or intending to by bringing this up. However, it might be useful if there was a template here on commons along with a standard image which says "There is a fair use image with this filename on en.wikipedia". This would serve two possible purposes: It would discourage someone from uploading a free image to the commons filename equivalent of a en.wiki FU image, which would stop its use on en.wiki. The second is that it would enable the FU images to be categorised with appropriate images on Commons, when a certain topic has its free images hosted on commons, the fair use images become isolated from related images. Does this sound like a good idea?--Nilfanion 00:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Filenames are pretty meaningless. It can be worthwhile to add your local "media available at Commons" templates to pages. Jkelly 01:17, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if there is even an easy way to check, at upload time, if there is a file with the same name on en.wp, let alone checking if it's tagged as fair use. I suspect the dev's might have something to say about it.

Secondly... it wouldn't work. If an image exists with a certain name at a local project, it always calls that image. The Commons image can never be used. The real problem is people uploading fair use images to use on other wikis.

Regarding this: it would enable the FU images to be categorised with appropriate images on Commons, when a certain topic has its free images hosted on commons, the fair use images become isolated from related images. ... I'm not really sure what you're talking about. Categorisation, OK. I thought categorisation of fair use images was discouraged. If not, surely it should be, because it shows the images out of the context of our fair use claim. Which is the whole reason the magic word was introduced - for fair use categories of images on en.wp. pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

There is a marginal benefit for some sort of change to the upload code so that the user gets warned when uploading to commons that there is a image of the same filename hosted on another wikimedia project. If the uploader got a warning similar to what is currently given when uploading to a file which already exists on commons it might be beneficial. On the categorisation thing, thats what I get for posting to the VP when half-asleep :) There's no point to categorising FU images with the free ones, as fair use images should only be used in a very limited number of articles, their existence in those articles is categorisation enough (that plus the FU in... cat).--Nilfanion 12:28, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually that would be a mediawiki change wouldn't it? If you upload to en.wiki an image that is already on commons, would you get a warning?--Nilfanion 12:30, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes. In fact, you can't do it, unless you're an admin. You have to choose a different name.

Typically people upload stuff to Commons because they want to use it in a particular wiki. If they do this and then find their wiki already has an image with this name, and thus they can't use the Commons image, I guess they will upload it here again with a more distinctive name. So it's kind of self-correcting. There are like 200 wikis... checking them all for a marginal benefit -- hmm. I'm not really convinced. :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

11 August

Removal of category tags because image is in a gallery?

Dear fellow commons users, recently on two occasions a user has deleted catorisaties from images in the belief that adding images to an article gallery is sufficient and adequate. When I reverted the revert, it was reverted again. Because I hate edit wars I decided to stop being involved in it for now and try to get some input on the matter. The other user states "We had several time this discussion; plese try to consdier other point of view. We're otganizing italian cat this way. There is a page with the same title and the same cat. No loose of info...but more rationa. Thnaks for your comprehnesion.".

Several questions arise to me:

• Is there any general policy on this?
• Do categorisation and inclusion in a gallery exclude each other?
• Is there 'an Italian way' to do things? If so, where has this been decided with community support?
• How to resolve this?

Thank you for your insight. Siebrand 14:01, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

There is no general policy on this. General policy is that at least one is needed. Common sense should say, neither should be removed if it leads to a loss of overall info. But if the gallery and cat represent the same info, that seems to be a matter of personal preference. They don't exclude each other, especially if the cat is large or the article well-organised and informative (actually, they're both reasons to keep the article, rather than the category...).

Is there a category scheme for Italian-related topics? That could be a good idea, if there is not one already. It is a good way of resolving disputes IMO. pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:22, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I've had the same discussion and I've found that there is an "Italia way" :) Whether it is correct to impose that way on other people, I don't know. -Samulili 14:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Any image can be added then removed from a gallery : that is unverifiable. So, you have not to take care of galleries to categorize images. Removal of category tags in that case is a loose of info, and has no connection with rationality. --Juiced lemon 09:20, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree. Still I've come across at least 3 users in the past day for whom this is obviously common practice. I see only those cases where i have previously edited image data, so that it is on my watchlist. Should be maybe create a template message to explain that categorisation and galleries van co-exist and that if an image has been added to a gallery, no categories should be removed as categories are direct image properties and being part of a gallery is not? Siebrand 09:51, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I think (or hope) this is mainly a problem with relatively small categories, where every image is on the gallery page. And in these cases I can understand how having a cat of 12 images, and then a gallery with the same 12 images, is kinda stupid. But different domains have different approaches. For example with species (plants/animals), I frequently observe that 'family' levels are categories and the species are as galleries. It seems to work very well, from an organisational perspective. So I think making any broad pronouncements will not please the pro-gallery folks and again I urge people to develop a category scheme, with these kinds of recommendations, together. pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:58, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

From Commons:First steps/Sorting: "…it is crucial to add your media files to specific gallery articles on Commons and/or adding it to a specific category…" (emphasis mine). This, to me, suggests that it is perfectly fine for files to belong to both a gallery and a category, and I can't help by wondering why it wouldn't be. —LX (talk, contribs) 19:31, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

An article is an information digest, while the category is the image catalogue. An uncategorized image is outside the catalogue, and will be harder to find and use. --Juiced lemon 09:02, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Well who are the users who disagree? Let's hear from them. Who has reverted your changes? Us all sitting around agreeing with one another is a very limited form of consensus. ;) pfctdayelise (translate?) 10:02, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Isn't that the definition of consensus? (As opposed to the WikiMedia usage of the term). :P--Nilfanion 10:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

If you refer to my images changed by user mac, I know, I just file under the category of the Italian city, just to be quick, then he moves to the appropriate page and remove the category. Otherwise we would now have a category like category:Firenze with more than 1000 images... It is ok without the category, then :) --Sailko 18:34, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Today I found a, at least in my opinion, well respected and valuable contributor to the Commons (TeunSpaans) was also removing categories from images because they were part of a gallery. He specialises in plants and his main motivation is that removing an image from a category gives (him) more insight in which images have been exactly determined and which not.

I have reverted 10-or-so category removals and asked him on his talk page to stop removing categories in favour of gallery membership and to have the two systems co-exist.

I'm getting a bit hesitant on reverting these types of changes, because of a lack of clarity (to me?) in policy - revert wars are just around the corner. In my opinion the removal of categories from an image is the destruction of previous work and valuable information, others obviously think differently.

Is there a way to solve this issue, at least for a while, either by trying to reach consensus or by putting the usage of categories and galleries to a vote? Siebrand 21:21, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

In the bio-sector, the tradition has grown that families are categories, images are in articles/galeries. Genus can be either article or category, or both, depending on the size of the gallery. Many people upload a pic and just add a family cat. For most families, this gives very chaotic and unmanageable large categories. If all pix of for example category:rhododendron would be put into the genus directly, this category would hold thousands of pix - the genus has over a 1000 species. And as many people upload species in their own language, the category has no longer any use to find a pic. Therefore, imho opinion articles/galleries are needed besides categories. The current system, where pix are labeled with a category on the family or (large) genus level only if its exact determination is impossible, it is easy to see which pix have been uploaded anew since the last cleanup of the category. For example, I did a cleanup of category:campanulaceae somewhere this spring. When i look today at the category, it is easy to sort through them because there are just some 20 of them. The other images are in the 60 or so species articles. Easy to find, and easy to link to from the wikipedias - most wikies have articles on the species level, and need an article to link to. But if all (200?) images were in the family category, it would be lot more work to work through all 200 of them and create new articles for those species for which new pix have been uploaded.

Let me also make clear that removing this category from the image does not remove any information: the image is liested in an article, and the article is categorized in the family.

To summarize:

• It is commons practice for plants and animals not to put images into family or (large) genus directly
• It works more efficient this way the when everything is dumped into the family category
• Family categories and large genus categories become to large to be useful when all images are listed into them directly. They loose their usefulness.

I think the categories are usefull the way they are used now. I know people tend to love to have images in galleries, but the concensus is to have them limited - see Commons talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Categorizing Pages and Commons talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Categories/Articles

I suggest that if you really want to have every image also listed in a category, you create smaller categories, for example at the section or subsection level. But frankly, I see little or no additional value in listing the image also directly in a category.

TeunSpaans 04:49, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I see the value: I personally use in general only categories as the articles are usually badly written and not comprehensive. Furthermore it is much quicker to add an image to a category than to an article. Which makes categories much easier to use especially for the upload. --ALE! ¿…? 07:06, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree, when uploading pictures, categories are more practical. So feel free to only use the category. However, in the specific case of Tree of Life images, the categories are for higher levels, so the images will have to be sorted into galleries. And it is much easier to see which images have to be sorted when they are the only images in the category; so that is why they are removed from the cat after sorting. It makes maintenance much easier. Eugene van der Pijll 12:12, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I encounted similar problems when I first started uploading images, and I was met with very hostile reverts. Their is it appears a clear convention on WP about these things (at least for images in the Tree of Life project), but this convention is not written down anywhere visible. As I stated on Commons talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Categories/Articles it is imperative that we add this to the FAQ or we will continue to lose potential contributors who become disheartened by these kinds of needless edit wars. --Cfp 12:48, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

In practice it's proved very useful to have the larger categories be the "don't know" place for animal and plant images - images that are precisely identified as to species are quite valuable, while images where we can only guess at the family are nearly pointless. But "every image is sacred" :-) so we continue to keep them I guess. Stan Shebs 12:59, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I have also noticed this practice in the species categories. It seems to work pretty well, usually. It's a pretty special case, though - the divisions are mostly well defined, not like other topic areas where they are almost ad-hoc. pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:17, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I just added some flamebait to the project page :-) , formalizing what we've been gradually converging on for ToL. Stan Shebs 13:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Thinking again about my suggestion above to have category galleries at the section level, I no longer believe this is a good idea. The main reason is that some of the present genera may have to be split up in the future into sections.
Instead, if someone wants to have picture galleries in categories besides those in the articles (i still dont understand why, i havent seen any argument yet from Siebrand), they can all go into a category "familyname_pix" instead of into category:"familyname". I doubt that we want that, as I read that a category page requires about 1000 times as much cpu as an ordinary article. Even with the new hardware, we'll soon hit the maximum of its power again. There is no need to waste it onto the needles expansion of category pages, or on the creation of very large and thus demanding picture categories. TeunSpaans 21:20, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Siebrand, it's two weeks ago that you asked me to explain my actions here. I have temporarely halted my actions pending this discussion, and I feel disappointed that you have not given any reaction to the explanations and suggestions I have made. May I assume that you agree with my remarks? If not, I'd like to hear your suggestions. And if you do agree, I'd like to know that too, so I can resume my normal activitities. TeunSpaans 03:50, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Teun (e.a.). Please let me start by stating that I did not ask you to justify your actions, I asked you to become involved in the/this thread, as you and others are far more knowledgeable in this categorisation and determination fields than I am. I'm just a humble maintainer. Either outcome of the matter under discussion is OK with me, just as long as it leads to policy. So far I still see two differing opinions, neither having a large majority. My question to you and others remains, while categorisation information is still being 'destroyed', pending this discussion:

• How to resolve this?

Siebrand 19:34, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

late comment. Well I just saw this thread. I want to share my own view. The more ways images are organized the better. Some people prefer using categories, some people prefer using galleries. I recall once adding categories to images that were already in galleries, and got wrist slapped because of it, (under the argument it was causing duplciation). I just don't understand it however, it's not like it's harmful to have 2 pages where images are listed (gallery and category page), as I said, the more ways to locate images, the better. Drini 17:23, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Siebrand, thx for your reaction. How to resolve: what about your reaction to the suggestions I made above? What about an argment FOR duplication of info - I havent read any yet, you just put the ball on my able. TeunSpaans 08:17, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Drine, thx for your participation: In don't see any advantage in duplicating the information, as you say. On the contrary: it does harm: large categories require much, much more cpu power than pages (article pages are cached in the webserver, categories must be generated every time a visitor requests them), and worse: In ToL the genera and family categories have developed into a "dont know" container. Adding all pix in a family or genus to the category would make it impossible to see which pix have already been assigned to a species and which are not. For example, Category:rhododendron has about a 1000 species. Botanists working on articles for, say rhododendron impetus on a wiki, are not interested in sorting through 5000 images (5 pix per species is not unusual), they want to go to the article and see what pix are available. So articles are needed any way. They are not interested in wading thorugh Labrador_Tea_Flower.jpg, Omas_azalea01.jpg, Kibitujinja5164.JPG and the 4997 others to see which are Rhododendron indicum. The current structure as described on Commons:WikiProject Tree of Life#Images provides just the functionality botany writers need. I have given an example from plants, but for insects, fungi it works just the same. I havent read any arguments why it should change. TeunSpaans 08:17, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

That is true for TOL categories, but for general cats (eg locations), I don't see it is true. I also don't buy any argument that is based on extra load to the server. If there is any problem with the way we use the software, the dev's will either improve the software or stop us from doing it that way. We worry about the organisation - they worry about the server load. pfctdayelise (translate?) 09:16, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree fully with TeunSpaans; pics should be at one location, preferably a species article page. One problem with having them in two locations (both an article and a category) is that newbies add a photo, and put it in just one of them, not knowing it should be in both - and then some wikis will have link {commons|Xxxxx} while others will have a link {commonscat|Xxxxx}, and neither will give a full display of all the pics. Another problem with listing by cat is that the cats list the pics alphabetically by filename, which may give a jumbled mix of sci names and common names in multiple languages; in an article, they can be sorted to list in order of e.g. whole trees, bark, leaves, flowers, fruit. Finally, despite the best will in the world, many pics are wrongly titled, as re-naming a pic filename is such a tedious operation of downloading the pic, re-uploading with a new name, and listing the old one for deletion (I know of numerous mistitled pics which could/should be renamed, but there aren't 72 hours in a day!). Such pics are more confusing in a category listed by filename, than in an article listed by pic caption (much easier to correct errors) - MPF 09:24, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for a late reaction, I've just bumped into this discussion just now, but have been wondering about it for a while too. I understand Teun's problem with large categories, but the simple solution for that would be to create a sub-category at the species level as soon as this problem occurs. The article with the same species name is also moved to that category and all is well. If the article is linked as {commons|Xxxxx} I get a nicely sorted page directly that gives me more info (foreign names, captions telling male/female etc), but maybe not all the pictures (as some new ones may have been put in the cat, but not the gallery) and if I want to look at all the pictures I click the category link at the bottom of the page. If linked as {commonscat|Xxxxx} I get an unsorted overview of pictures, but the category also lists the article at the top, so just one click and I get the organised version. What's the problem?

Unidentified new pictures can still be tossed into the family category and that can be sorted from time to time into species cats and articles.

It is even possible to have the 'flat model' too. There is no rule that would deny the possibilty of having an article at the family level too, that lists the species with some selected pictures to visualize the differences and link the section headers to the specialized articles in the species subcats?

What am I missing? Pudding4brains 01:22, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

First summary.

1. Usage of Category/Article differs in the plant/animal kingdoms from the rest of commons.
2. While it is conceptually the same to sort pictures for species in galleries that are part of articles vs. categories, there are definite advantages/disadvantages to either approach:

• Having a mixed article/category strategy. Pro: Easier to link from other pages to article, easier to 'hit' the article with search engine, easier to move articles together with version history. Con: Photos have to be moved into the species article, as most people only drop them somewhere.
• Having categories only. Pro: One could write it like an article, then append the line 'Unsorted:' at the bottom, appears the best of both worlds. Con: People have to write 'Category:' with every link and engine search. Moving the version history is impossible. Photos have to be moved into the species category, as most people only drop them somewhere. Redirect? Ha.

Comments? -- Ayacop 18:29, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I think that your assertions are wrong :

1. I didn't notice special usage in the plant/animal kingdoms in Commons. I only noticed a small group of users who removes information from image files. See Commons:Deletion requests/2006/09/12#Category:Betula nigra
2. We have no reasons to oppose categories vs articles, because there is no connection between categorization and different uses of an image file in pages or categories. The waste of space argument is fallacious, because space consumption is insignificant. I still wait for a serious argument to remove the category when the image is used in a gallery.

Categories (for an image) are image properties, and you cannot separate them without loss of information. More, when you remove accurate categories from an image file, you discourage the uploaders to give this information, and this can be very harmful. --Juiced lemon 17:15, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I've seen this, too. It's very harmful. I don't care if you put images in galleries, but please don't remove them from categories. Destroying information like this should be prohibited.

The consensus of the vote Commons:Images on normal pages or categories:Vote was:

• In the future, the software will be changed so that categories and gallery pages will be the same thing.
• For now, use both.
• Don't destroy information! — Omegatron 17:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

There is no information destroyed. Have you never heard about set theory? If A is in B, and B in C, then A is in C. If I remove the info that A is in C, it can still be inferred from its inclusion in B. Now there is this old vote people are pointing to. Assume it is implemented and the abovementioned disadvantages of categories are removed. You are faced with the following problem: project maintainers want to find all pictures in a family that have not been categorized into species, to create new species categories etc. But, when all pictures are keeping the family category tag, how will they find those pics that are in a family, and that are not categorized into species? Impossible! -- Ayacop 07:26, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Maybe there is a solution (as was hinted at in this thread): please participate in the thread: Commons_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#name_of_family_picture_category? -- Ayacop 17:15, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

images being removed from categories and being placed in article galleries

I've read the discussions above and on other talk page, I'm confused why are articles being created and images being removed from categories when the upload page, commons welcome message and other pages specifically state "please categorise your images" Gnangarra 01:49, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Hello, you asked "why have you deleted Category:XYZ from my photos?" Answer: Take, for example, Image:ABC.JPG. Your photo is now part of the article FOO, together with other fine photos. You can see this on your photo page down near the bottom where there is "Links" and "The following pages link to this file:". Now, the article FOO has the category:XYZ, so your photo is still in this category. Explanation: we have to clean up family categories from time to time, and put all the images into species articles. Although it is not said in the documentation, the plant and animal categories differ in the handling somewhat from other parts of Commons. Hope this helps. Greetings. -- Ayacop 06:31, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I can only speak for plant families. In case you're pointing to that old stale vote which is still not implemented: please explain to me

• how people will link from the WP to the set of images of a species if they're not categorized (or articled) and sitting all in the family;
• how people are going to find all pictures in a family that have not been categorized or articled into species, when all pictures are keeping the family category tag (take care, that's a hard one!);
• why, with the current status quo, you will explain to new users why there are species categories and articles.
• why you are not able to simply follow the scheme that exists in a plant/animal family?

I cannot expect you to answer these questions, as people have ignored them before, but please at least think a bit about the boldfaced one. Thanks -- Ayacop 07:09, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

You asked :

• “how people will link from the WP to the set of images of a species if they're not categorized (or articled) and sitting all in the family”
  This question is based on a wrong assertion (categorization in the family) and is irrelevant.
• “how people are going to find all pictures in a family that have not been categorized or articled into species, when all pictures are keeping the family category tag”
  “People” are not children, but article writers; so they can make an adult choice between looking at unsorted images and accessing to articles/subcategories.
• “why, with the current status quo, you will explain to new users why there are species categories and articles”
  There is not a special case for species; we have to explain that for every subject.
• “why you are not able to simply follow the scheme that exists in a plant/animal family”
  Because you speak about a thing which doesn't exist. Your deletions lead to an unmanageable system and cannot be tolerated any more. --Juiced lemon 09:29, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

You ignored the question again: Suppose I'm a maintainer of the tree of life project, and there are 100 new photos in the category Asteraceae which are mixed with 700 other photos that already have a species category. How am I supposed to find out which are the new photos? As long as you cannot answer that you better keep in the background on this subject. Since you are not willing to tolerate my viewpoint you cannot expect better from me. -- Ayacop 14:19, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

But maybe there is a solution (as was hinted at in the previous thread): please participate in the thread: Commons_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#name_of_family_picture_category? -- Ayacop 17:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

from what I understood there was recently an update that enable viewing of category trees while its not frequent I have uploaded groups of 15 to 20 images for a subject. To do this I used Commonist those images where of Banksia flowers 8 different species plus 3 that needed an id which was possible through the en wikiproject Banksia. When setting commonist up I was able tag the various required categories as well as a group category for the botanical gardens where I took the images. To this by added individual images to articles would be extremely time consuming but as most them where first time images for the species all I had to do was link the new categories back to the banksia category. It would have taken days to sort the images, create new articles and galleries, this is easy for a plant genus. I also have provided series of images from two museums in perth I'm still finding categoriews where they should also be listed. We have this technology and its continuing to evolve if theres flaws that using categories has then lets identify them and get them fixed. Gnangarra 11:18, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

An example: Orchis militaris - in a category you can´t give additional information to each picture, you can´t put them in a specific order.--BerndH 12:21, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry User:BerndH, you can. Just look at Category:Ayacop/Test. I would even favour using Categories for that if they hadn't some bad disadvantages. That's what the mentioned vote was for, which is still not implemented. -- Ayacop 14:22, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

You can of course place pictures in a category using <gallery></gallery> but that´s not the purpose of a category. A picture with [[Category:Whatever]] in it can´t be given additional information in the category. --BerndH 14:44, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

• So what we've found its that categories can have gallaries, but what we'd like is the ability to sort, tag images in categories. So why doesnt this just put forward to the developers of wikimedia. Gnangarra 00:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Please read everything people are referring to (see above). This old stale vote which is still not implemented contains everything that is to be said here. Please read, then argument further. -- Ayacop 07:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I have read that there was no consensus there was even a question asked about what and where to find the policy that has been unanswered. Gnangarra

I'll say again why are people implementing something that isnt a policy, why (i just found out) are items being deleted claiming that this is what the policy and that when nominating they havent even advised the creators that it being nominated. Gnangarra 09:40, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

You have to read everything. The vote result is the current policy now. Meanwhile, other people found solutions to your problem. They will be implemented. Be patient. -- Ayacop 14:12, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I have read everthing there isnt a policy conclusion from the discussion there is a proposal thats has yet to implemented and there is still an unanswered question also looking for the policy. Duesentrieb Proposal is sufficiently similar to what we used anyway that nearest to ab=ny result was a wiat and see until software changes had occured as to whether this proposal is possible. Gnangarra 14:43, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Right. In the case of plants both 'articles as species' and categories as species' should be tolerated. This is the policy until there is something like a 'category-for-everything' (that also lacks all current category disadvantages) implemented --- the mixed policy got the most votes. In the meantime, the Tree of Life Project will probably stop deleting category tags from photos in a few weeks. See Commons_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#Bot_proposal -- Ayacop 15:15, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

This comment from Gnangarra mystifies me a bit - "It would have taken days to sort the images, create new articles and galleries". Creating a new species gallery takes me about 30 seconds at most, I often do it while waiting for uploads to finish, which can be a minute or two (or more if servers bogged down). I wonder if people's perception of what's reasonable is colored by their workflow - for me the most time-consuming part of plant picture work is double-checking species ids (even in a botanical garden one can get labels and specimens mixed up), followed by cropping and lighting fixup. The mechanics of uploading and indexing go pretty fast by comparison. Stan Shebs 17:45, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I dont manually upload I use available technology ie Commonist, I do all the id work on that, it creates categories while uploading it doesnt create articles and galleries, I'm familar with working in article/galleries I spend time maintaining Commons:Quality Images and notifying the nominators/photographers of the status of their image. I have also taken the time to read the Commons help pages heres a couple of quotes.

• example:
  • Adding images and other kinds of media files to categories is preferred over galleries as the former associate the media files with their relevant metadata information, which the galleries, while apparently prettier looking, do not do ... from Commons:First steps/Sorting
• Further reading:
  • The category structure is the primary way to organize and find files on the Commons. It is essential that every file can be found by browsing the category structure. ... from Commons:Categories ...Gnangarra 05:31, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I just been reading http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Category it says that sorting, and latest changes to the category list can be done. Suggest that people take some time and read these help files as the reason behind these suggested use of articles already exist for categories its just that nobody has taken the time to implement them. Gnangarra 05:45, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Since the first text snippet contradicts the conclusion of the mentioned vote, it is wrong, and I remove it in the meantime. Thanks for bringing this to this audience. The second is correct if you read further: To allow this, each file must be put into a category directly, and/or put on a gallery page which is categorized. -- Ayacop 07:29, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

The gallery-only scheme seems rather reasonable to me for the Tree of life project, because there is (apparently) only one way to classify a picture related to the project. I believe the problem is different with pictures of a more "transverse" nature. My own problem lies with museum categories such as Category:Galleria degli Uffizi or Category:Musei Capitolini about which I've had a clash with User:Mac9, who supports the so-called "Italian way" (gallery-only, categories redirected to relevant articles).

Quite fortunately, Commons has got a good number of pictures about artworks from important museums. Therefore, a single gallery or category is often not enough, and more galleries and/or categories have to be created. Quite often, museums on Commons have an article about them, with a selection of major/most famous works, and a aborescence of categories, such as Category:Louvre, which contains for instance Category:Paintings in the Louvre, which itself contains Category:Dutch paintings in the Louvre, Category:Italian paintings in the Louvre and so on. In the Italian way, you have a set of articles such as Uffizi - Vasari, Giorgio. In the case of the Uffizi, you have about 60 articles, which in most cases contain *one* picture—and there is not always hope to see the gallery grow, because it's quite possible the Uffizi only have one Guide Reni. But why choose a classification by author? What if we want a per-artistic media (sculpture, paintings, drawings, etc.) classification? Would we have to create other galleries? In the end, what is the advantage over a more classical arborescence of categories?

Maybe I'm single-minded because I've worked a lot to maintain Category:Louvre, which relies heavily on categories (and whose organization is not devoid of drawbacks, I known). But I'd really like to know why the "Italian way" is better for museum categories and why we can't keep *both* articles and categories, even if the information is redundant. And any thought about it from anyone not involved in the clash would be welcome. Jastrow

Hello, I only came here because I was frustrated with a longstanding argument at "my" project (german Wikinews) and had been told that the commons is a good place to cool down, because everybody is very relaxed here :D. And than first place I come wanting to ask if anybody is in need of specific Fotos from South Korea (I guess the 'pedia is the better place to ask for that) I read this :). However, even reading this argument, I have to say: what I have been told is true: This is quite a laid back place. Everybody has kept a cool head, and tried to keep things calm. So big thumbs up to you :D !

Anyway, enough bla bla: I have (as someone not involved :D , and probably not having understood a lot of the arguments) have had two thoughts.

1. If a number of users find Categorys absolutely necessary (and I agree), and another load find gallerys necessary (and I also find them advantageos) I see only two possibilitys: both must be kept (as seems to be standard in most of the project), or for me the much more attractive alternative, merge them, with the galleries in the article space of the categories (I find the disadvantages are negligable: I can't see how not retaining the history during moves is a problem for galleries. And instead of manually changing all the category names a bot can be used for large categories). But thats not news.

However both of these alternatives lead to a problem some users seem to have: finding new pictures in big categories can be difficult.

This leads me to :

2. I think the solution for this is technical, but much simpler than the one proposed by Azacop (forgive me if I err): I'm not sure if your familiar with them, but Dynamic Page Lists (DPL) are the automagic solution you are looking for. I'll give you a short lowdown: You can make a list of articles (or Pictures I'll wager) that have a certain combination of categories you specify, for example: Sunrise and Hawai, would give me all pictures with sunrise and Hawai as categories (amongst others). Now the clever thing is, I can also make Lists that only show me articles without a certain category. Thus, if decided as policy (or implemented in the Tree of Life branch of the project), you could simply add a "category:sorted" to all pictures that have been sorted (let a bot do the dirty work for the start), and then on each category page have a DP-list (should be a matter of simple copy+paste) that shows all pics (and articles) with the category:*thiscategory* and without category:sorted. Bingo ! Alternatively, you could have all newly uploaded pics have the category:unsorted, and then have your lists show: category:*thiscategory* + category:unsorted. I will now go to work on making you those lists and some examples :D. Many regards and hoping to be able to help: Sean Heron 15:08, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

P.S. on reading this, I see that alot may be hard to understand. Please ask away !

Damn! For some reason this piece of automagic, meta:DynamicPageList, has only been installed on the wikinews so far ( I'm so used to it that thought had never occurred to me...). But I think that shouldn't be the problem. Who around here can get Mediawiki extensions installed ? Regards Sean Heron 15:28, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, here is the promised example: Category:Orchis. Not very spectacular on the outside, but have a look at the workings. Regards Sean Heron 16:00, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

The discussion is continued further down this page. Regards Sean Heron 23:11, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

If you agree, please move this discussion to Commons talk:First steps/Sorting. Siebrand 14:53, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Similar discussions: Commons_talk:Categories#Article_or_category.3F, Commons_talk:First_steps/Sorting#.27images_should_be_categorized.27

I propose creating Talk:Categories and galleries and moving all of these discussions there. — Omegatron 19:00, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

August 15, 2006

Caricature ordered by the user

I'm considering uploading a picture of mine to Commons and displaying it in my user page. It is a caricature I ordered to someone else. I'd like to ask:

• If uploading the picture would configurate a copyright infringement (I don't think so, because it's a picture of mine and made by request); and
• How to I tag it: I'm not the author but I would license it by myself, in opposition to a situation when a user uploads an image someone else licensed under the GFDL/CC.

—Leonardo Ferreira Fontenelle 02:06, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

The author still holds copyright, unless you have some written agreement where they transferred all copyrights to you. Even if it's of you, it makes no difference. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:48, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain, in the United States at least, if the subject of the characature purchased the image, the subject normally retains the rights of the image; unless different arrangements have been made with the artist. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 13:26, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

It's called the "work for hire" provision of copyright law... AnonMoos 04:08, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

That's what I understood when I read the Brazilian law. How should I tag the image: "GFDL/CC" or "self GFDL/CC"? —Leonardo Ferreira Fontenelle 11:31, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Please note that while this might apply to some countries, such as the United States and Brazil, but not to all. I found that Norwegian law specifies that the author of an ordered portrait (which is not clearly defines but probably includes both photos and drawings) holds the rights, but must have permission from the subject to publish it expect when displaying it in his workplace as an example of his work. Cnyborg 16:41, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

• I'd be interested in knowing the result of this discussion. --Evrik 14:30, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

The image was uploaded and I tagged it as self, because it seamed the only way to multilicense it. Leonardo Ferreira Fontenelle 03:44, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Tech update

Special:Imagelist has been revamped. (I don't know what it used to look like, but I hope there's a few more improvements to come! :o)

Also, meta: has enabled email notification. This means users can choose, via Special:Preferences, to receive email notifications when various things happen, such as their user/talk page being edited, something on their watchlist edited, etc.

I recommend we request the dev's to implement the following:

• Enable email notification on Commons (for user's talk page only, if nothing else).
• Require confirmed email address for new users.
• Have as default, users are emailed when their talk page is edited.

Or if people reckon that's too harsh, at least the first one - enable email notification for talk page changes. Until single login happens, that's a great way to stop complaints about not being notified of Commons image deletions. I mean... I don't know why we didn't do this before!!

Agree, disagree?

--pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:43, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Don't know, It seems too much. Maybe if this is limited to uploaders only. No upload until email confirmation. --Tarawneh 01:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm opposed to requiereing confirmed email for anyone but admins. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 17:11, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

InstantCommons update

The implementation of m:InstantCommons has finally been authorized by the Wikimedia Foundation, and development will commence in the first week of September.--Eloquence 18:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

That is great news. I am really looking forward to the implementation. Longbow4u 23:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Hanclarta

This user is continuing to upload pictures of TV stills and publicity shots to do with 'Friends' even after talk page warnings and deletions. Seems to have learnt to tag them PD-self. See the upload log. William Avery 21:23, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I have deleted all of them. Can somebody who speak Spanish give him a {{Warning}} and tell him to stop uploading copyright violations and tag them as PD-self? Tell him that he will be blocked if he continues. --Kjetil_r 21:34, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I have been considering an Administrators' Noticeboard for these kinds of requests to administrators. What do you think, is this a good idea? / Fred Chess 13:21, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure. Black list of policy violators will be useful too, so their future contributions could be reviewed (and not forgotten :-). --EugeneZelenko 14:44, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I posted him a warning in Spanish. --Nethac DIU 12:20, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Personal promo OK?

Please take a look into Image:Sunset_may_2006_panorama.jpg. Is it really OK to use the community webplace for personal promotion and soliciting? 192.18.42.10 21:57, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that there is anything wrong with Template:Fir0002 17 and its like. Jkelly 22:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

ACK, it's fine. The image description page is the one place people can spruik their wares. Better to have a big template there than a watermark or image credit in the caption! pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:44, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the part about "contact me to negotiate terms for commercial use" is compatible with the GFDL license. If it is GFDL it can be used for commercial purposes, with no further negotiates (except for high quality images, but the one here IS an hq image...)--Jollyroger 22:25, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

The copyright holder is allowed to multi-license his works. That's why people can upload their images under both the GFDL and a CC license. If Fir wants to sell a license to use his images under a non-GFDL license, he is perfectly able to do so. For example, if someone wants to use one of his images without mentioning its source, Fir can sell that individual a license to do so. ~MDD4696 00:15, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

August 16

Rethinking COM:DEL

Hello, I have posted a message on the mailing list about the need to brainstorm for improvements to the current deletion system, or management of it rather. Replies and ideas here and there welcome. pfctdayelise (translate?) 06:16, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Splitting the template into multiple sections could certainly help, I'm not sure what ratios the types of requests are in but almost 500K in one template seems too much to me. If the main template is split into several others it could help, perhaps these: Media, superseded and near-duplicates, photographs, other individual images, problem user contributions, Template/Categories (for the mass deletion requests) and everything else. A by-date split wouldn't be effective seeing how some debates hang on for ages and others get speedied almost instantly. One bigger change which might make things simpler could be a en:WP:PROD-like system for suspected copyvios and suspicious free licenses and the like. Then the closing admin could delete them if they are sure and listing it at COM:DEL if they are not.--Nilfanion 09:13, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

• Actually a question. Why is the deletion requests page in Template space at all? To my mind the logical structure would be to have COM:DEL explain the policy, have the subpage Commons:Deletion requests/Current (or similar) for the active requests and Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Foo.jpg for the individual images. Certainly I see no reason for the template to be transcluded onto COM:DEL, if you just see how to request a deletion, why should you have to download all the current debates too?--Nilfanion 11:18, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Hm, I don't know about PROD for uncertain ones, the current NSD/NLD 7-days works pretty well IMO. Good ideas for some splits -- especially "problem users", and other "mass deletion requests" such as templates/categories (since they should get a lot more eyeballs than uninteresting copyvios).

If you read my post, you will see I explain why it's in the template namespace. You always have to keep in mind translation. pfctdayelise (translate?) 11:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, NSD/NLD is pretty similar to PROD. You made a mistake in your follow-up post, subpages are enabled in template space Template:Featured pictures candidates/Image:Foret.JPG for example - that would probably work wouldn't it?--Nilfanion 12:28, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

A by-date split would actually be possible, but only if they are not on the same page. The template:deletion request would then only give links to different date-templates. The only disadvantage is that it is difficult for people just "dropping by" and voting, but IMO those votes are more disturbing than useful. / Fred Chess 13:17, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

To Nilfanion: Look at that template. There is no "parent link" back to Template:Featured pictures candidates. Subpages are not enabled in the template namespace. pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:46, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

To Fred:We need those drop-by voters to get more eyeballs on votes. I don't think we should make it hard to drop-by voters. At the moment I think splitting by type of request, rather than date, is probably best. pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:46, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to put my current preferences for which way we should move with this, on my user page. pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:24, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I've also started some tests on my user page. -- AlNo (talk) 10:35, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

For the suggestion to split into sections based on the type of deletion, suggested by pfctdayelise, there is at the moment not a functioning backbone. It would lead to redesign of the deletion-template and of the quick-delete javascript, in ways I can't imagine right now.

For the suggestion of making each deletion on a template, suggested by AlNo -- first of all I don't understand this method, and secondly it would require great changes in the way Deletion Requests work: writing a template for each nomination, and then adding it to another page, is not a simple procedure for those people who don't understand it, and I have never seen this implemented in such a high-traffic site as the Deletion Request.

I'll expand on my own suggestion at Template_talk:Deletion requests. Do me and Commons a favour by commenting.

Fred Chess 15:57, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be much easier to handle this in two ways. One we can either go one template per deletion way (like it is on en) or go the one template per day way. Or perhaps both. En.wiki way is much easier to manage and bots can actualy take care of most of the maintanance that way.

One thing for sure the current system is not working anymore.

--Cool Cat^Talk|@ 21:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Please continue the debate in one location, Template talk:Deletion requests. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 11:44, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Is this picture acceptable?

After uploading Image:HOBisgaard1.jpg I have become unsure as to whether this is acceptable or not. I have been told that if an image focuses on persons then one must get written permission to declare the image free use. That is not the case here. Should the image be deleted then? --Lhademmor 08:42, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

The people on the image are making an appearance on stage. Afaik their consent to publication can be assumed. Note that in the case of people performing on stage, they may hold a copyright to any pictures taken - but that doesn't appear to be the case here. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 11:56, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Uluru - use of GFDL and CC may not be possible

Uluru

All the images of Uluru in this gallery/article may be in breach of Australian law a discussion is currently taking place at w:Talk:Uluru. Photographs of the rock for non commercial use are allowed but commercial use is by permit only, GFDL allows unrestricted commercial use. Based on the discussion taking place the photographer could be prosecuted for releasing images for commercial use without aquiring the appropriate permits. Gnangarra 10:19, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

http://www.deh.gov.au/parks/uluru/vis-info/pubs/guidelines.pdf the guidelines about photography at Uluru, these are enforced using the Enviroment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and Enviroment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Regulations 2000 this act allows for fines and/or imprisonment for offenses under the Act. Gnangarra 10:37, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Is it retrospective???! pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:02, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

law changed 1999, commercial permits are issued for 3 year periods only. It would be unenforcable as retrospective as a photographer in the 1970s could not be expected to know what the law will be in 20years. --Gnangarra 01:17, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Attack page

Please see Brianna Laugher, this page needs attention from an administrator here. I believe it's an attack page, created by a vandal. Thanks. --86.139.111.146 10:57, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Also done. pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:01, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

It's back AGAIN! --86.139.111.146 12:33, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Public user account

Please block Seinhorn (talk · contribs) - the account has publicised its password! --86.139.111.146 11:17, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. pfctdayelise (translate?) 11:37, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Essjay imposter

There's an imposter of Essjay going around vandalising userpages [15] - name is %CE%95ssjay.--Nilfanion 16:46, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

There's been some nonsense, obviously related to somthing on en. Let us know if you see any more. Jkelly 17:11, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

August 17

Willy on Wheels

An image related to the infamous vandal Willy on Wheels has been uploaded here, at Image:Willy banner.PNG. It might be intended to illustrate an article, but could also be intended for mass vandalism across projects. Admins should be aware of this in case it needs to be speedily deleted. Cnyborg 00:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

As it seems to be completely outside of project scope, I've deleted it. NielsF 00:51, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Image link list

Hi. Is it possible to generate a list of all uploaded files by a user, including the link to the large version of the image? E.g. similar to Special:Log, but not only with the link to e.g. Image:CapsuleHotel.jpg but a link to the full image http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/CapsuleHotel.jpg. Alternatively, is there a template or special message that can do that based on the image link? Many thanks -- Chris 73 00:46, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes there is a special syntax: Media:CapsuleHotel.jpg. pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:47, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks! -- Chris 73 00:52, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Translation of toolboxes

I've set my language to Hebrew, but some of the links on the left aren't translated (while some are translated). How can that be changed? (I'm willing to translate them myself, I just need to know how.) Tamuz 13:47, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Please prepare translations for MediaWiki messages mentioned in MediaWiki:Sidebar (like MediaWiki:Welcome and etc.) here. One of admins will move them to MediaWiki namespace (like MediaWiki:Welcome/he). --EugeneZelenko 14:08, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Most of these pages don't yet exist in Hebrew. What do I write if I want a link there to appear as "שער הקהילה", go to Commons:Community Portal and have a tooltip text of "אודות המיזם, איך תוכלו לעזור, איפה למצוא דברים"? Tamuz 14:24, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Post them here and an admin will move them into the MediaWiki namespace. See also MediaWiki_talk:Sidebar#Don.27t_translate_this.3B_translate_these_instead.... Hm for tooltip texts possibly you have to update Languages.php ..... ? pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:27, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Comments on new template

Hi all. I'd like to get some basic feedback on a new template I created, Template:Series. I couldn't find any other similar templates, but if anybody knows of some, please let me know. I'm just looking for ideas or general comments people have... there's still a lot that could be added. Discuss at Template talk:Series, thanks! ~MDD4696 21:37, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. Please try and find a graphical icon to represent 'previous' and 'next', to make it free of the need to translate. pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:45, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Good idea.

I don't know if this will be useful, but you wanted a similar template, and here is: Template:Succession. --Nethac DIU 12:34, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Problem with .gif image

The Commons image MIHAN_masterplan.gif‎ does not appear on the Nagpur article. How do I fix this? Thanks! Danianjan 03:08, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Using photos of people shot in public places

I've read here (in archive 33, Voyeur photos) about Jimbo's statement that it will be better when all people on photos gave their confirmation for putting their photos on Wikipedia.

Can anybody give me a link where were these Jimbo's words? --Jaroslavleff 06:53, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Template:BadGIF

I've been copying over a hefty number of images from en.wp which are GIFs, generally because the source image is a GIF too, for example Image:Chris1988rain.gif. However, I find the phrasing of the BadGIF template confusing. It currently says to tag the image with both {{Duplicate}} and {{Delete}} and then list on COM:DEL. However, different filetypes are explicitly mentioned as not being duplicates on Commons:Deletion guidelines. Something needs clarifying...--Nilfanion 07:44, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I have changed the template to comply to current policy. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 14:13, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

What's the right way to dispute license tags?

Hi, I'd like to dispute the license information on two images: Image:Gyurcsany Ferenc.jpg and Image:Turanm40.jpg but I find the {{Disputed}} tag confusing.

I don't want to delete these and they both have sources (kind of). I only want to dispute the given rational for their PD tags.

What's the right way to do it?

Thanks, nyenyec ☎ 12:46, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

For the first one: try contacting the uploader. It's a good first step. :P

Also check COM:L, country-specific PD laws like this usually have their own templates. If this assertion is correct, one should be made for Hungary. If not, the image should be deleted. It's also worth checking en.wp which has some very detailed tags. If you don't want to/can't find anything, nominate it for deletion. (Don't worry, this is far from an automatic, or even timely, process. :)) The onus is on the uploader to show the image can be used freely.

For the second: it is a simple "mark as {{subst:nsd}}". Other projects are not a valid source. pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:48, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Wait, you can speak Hungarian. hu.wp should have some clear advice about whether this is true or not. That's the best place to check. pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:51, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, for the first one I contacted the uploader previously in EnWiki (and also left a note on the image talk page). I just wanted to mark the page with a warning, so that commons users are aware of the disputed status and found no easy way to do that.

The second one I'll nominate for deletion. -- nyenyec ☎ 15:31, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Problem with Image:Kile_1.7.1.png

Seems there's an issue with Image:Kile_1.7.1.png. On the description page it is a blank image. On the w:Kile page it's fine, and when you click on the image to view full size it's fine. My account was too new to try re-uploading it, but another user did it for me and the problem remains.—the preceding unsigned comment is by Ktdreyer (talk • contribs)

I cannot reproduce this problem. It renders correctly for me. Did you purge your browser cache after the reupload? Jkelly 01:23, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and just now I've tried it on a different computer as well. I'm using Windows XP, and with both IE and Firefox I get a solid blue image. Before posting here, I asked about it in #wikipedia and a few users there experienced the same problem. For example, User:Geni, an admin on en wikipedia, saw the problem and tried reuploading it to no avail. Thanks for your attention :) --Ktdreyer 05:16, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Please, attention: abuse of power

My English isn't so good, sorry, but I will try explain:

The user User:Erin Silversmith isn't respecting my original uploads. It's important to me, for sentimental and historical question. He "renemed" my original picture at Image:2349439843978243 014.jpg to Image:Closeup of part of flag of Brazil.jpg without my permission and he uploaded again. He speed delete my Image:SLoriginal.png work under all requirements of Commons, only because he made a bad copy-version of this at Image:Tear system.svg. He make a war edit in [16] on PT.WP and he will be blocked on this project by sysops. Please, this case need attention of community and more respect on my works that I spend a lot of my time working specially to this wonderful project. Please, I'm waiting for providences. Thank you very much. FML ^hi 03:13, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Look! He delet it (Image:SLoriginal.png) again and protect the page. And look that isn't the same original GIF version, without transparent background. He can do it? It isn't "speed delection", it is "furious delection". I upload the image again in Image:SLoriginal2.png and I hope respect in this time. FML ^hi 03:19, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

First of all, the user you refer to is a "she". The first part of what you mention (the renaming) is absolutely no problem, because you didn't upload the image with a clear name before, furthermore all of your statements etc. were kept, so that's an improvement in my eyes. No one should require permission for this sort of action, although a note to the uploader would've been nice, but not requested.

For the second part about the image I think there's a difference of opinion (and yes, I've contributed to that deletion request, and disagree with you) about what's a good enough (replacement of an) image. I agree with you that the deletion isn't completely according to what I think is right, therefore I've restored the original and reopened the deletion request. Please be constructive as well in the discussion and not behave as though you own the image. NielsF 03:44, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

NielsF, what is the policy about names? It's new policy? Because it is a international project and the name must be irrelevant. The description yes, it's very relevant, and just need translated. If I send with particular name, it's because a reason and it's a signature of my work. FML ^hi 04:20, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Files should be uploaded using descriptive names - that the project is international does not change that. Numerical-only names aren't really all that helpful. Morven 08:20, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

FML is normally a good user, but he doesn't seem to understand that he gave up his rights over his images when he uploaded them to Commons. He believes that people have to ask permission before editing work released by him under GFDL/CC licences. I call on him to calm down and read some policy. — Erin (talk) 04:03, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Well Erin, I think you are a good user too, but it isn't in game. The problem isn't in you made any derivad version of my works, it's very good! But the problem is on delete the my original image. If you are envolve on this problem, will be nice if you don't delete by yourself until this question is solved. Please, it's very unrespect with my work. Make any derivad version you want, but let the original version in peace. FML ^hi 04:20, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

You are of course free to argue this (that your file should stay), but when the consensus in a listing is to delete, then you must abide by that. Do you understand? — Erin (talk) 04:35, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Erin, two votes against isn't consensus, beggining undestand that. You cannot delete only because you "think" is better. FML ^hi 04:57, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I repeat: you are the only person who wanted to keep the GIF. Everyone either believed it had already been superseded, or that it would be superseded as soon as an SVG with Portuguese labels was uploaded. Since you have now acted in very bad faith and uploaded a redundant copy to PT.WP, there is even less reason to keep the image on Commons. — Erin (talk) 05:03, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Please, take a look again: [17] me and es:Usuario:Taragui. FML ^hi 05:08, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

See below. — Erin (talk) 05:24, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Edit war on Portuguese Wikipedia to delete a image here

User:Erin Silversmith has made on Portuguese Wikipedia a edit war to keep your personal view and get a image deleted here. Please, see http://pt.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sistema_lacrimal&action=history, http://pt.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Especial:Contributions&target=Erin%26David and http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:Schematic_diagram_of_the_human_eye.png. 555 04:04, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

User FML keeps on inserting a deleted image into pt:Sistema lacrimal. I'm just dealing with borderlin vandalism. End of story. — Erin (talk) 04:19, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

End of what story? You say "end of story" and "all us live happy forever"? No, no... Please, review your concepts. FML ^hi 04:22, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Erin, you has made a 3RR violation. 555 04:24, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I am not aware of pt having a 3RR rule and frankly I don't care or see how it applies. They could have a rule against left-handed editors for all I care. If an image in an article is a red link, it should always be corrected. If some crazy admin on pt blocks me for that, then he's a fool. — Erin (talk) 04:30, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Beyond disrespecting my work, still you disrespects the serious administrators of our project? Please, you are acting as crazy now. Please, reviews yours concepts. FML ^hi 04:35, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

And because you don't find anything related to 3RR in Portuguese Wikipedia you has made a edit war? Interesting... Commons have a ArbCom? 555 04:34, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

What? Let me repeat: if I find red-link images, vandalism, or anything else that indisputably must not be tolerated on any project, then I just correct it immediately, without reading through local policy. Any sensible person does the same. The threats that you have posted on my pt user talk page do not scare me. — Erin (talk) 04:40, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Red link that exists only because a edit war, remember to fulfill the story. One more time, Commons have a ArbCom or not? 555 04:42, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it an edit war. An image was deleted by due process, and a rogue user continued to reupload it, forcing an admin to speedy it, as per policy. — Erin (talk) 04:47, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

This is the point. To obey a commons policy, you has a made a edit war with FML in Portuguese Wikipedia. You has made vandalism acting with good faith in Portuguese Wikipedia and FML has made vandalism here with good faith. You and FML are vandals with good faith... Is possible to request a mediation here in Commons? 555 04:57, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Erin, when I make the edition, it isn't in a red-link. You delete the image here, but NielsF put the question open again, because you was the "nominator" and the "deletator" too. It's bad, anti-ethic. FML ^hi 04:50, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

You are talking nonsense there. — Erin (talk) 05:00, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

This reply is for me or for FML? 555 05:02, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

You too Erin. FML ^hi 05:08, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Look, at this point I believe you are just getting off on the attention. I'm not going to indulge you any more. The final point is this: behave in line with policy. If you do, we'll have no problems. — Erin (talk) 05:24, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Quoth Erik Möller (citing revised Commons policy): "'Obsolete' images should indeed no longer be deleted except where they're orphaned and there's clearly no opposition." (diff) —Lifeisunfair 06:01, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I think you got the point, and I would like to underline it there is a clear opposition. Glum 22:51, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

In general, administrators won't delete free-licensed images if there is any reasonable opposition against deleting them. There's just not any reason to, we're not running out of space. Secondly, we should not dictate what images the Wikimedia projects should use -- Commons is a media repository for Wikimedia projects, not a stand-alone file server.

This is what we're working in accordance with. It has been outlined in all project scopes I've seen. Anyone who doesn't agree, might thus reconsider his/her part in the project. / Fred Chess 23:24, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Nope, that's silly. Redundant, duplicate and superseded images should go. If there is any reason to keep an old image, the reason should be put forward at the deletion debate, and if the community considers it is valid, then the image stays. Emotional attachment to the old version cannot be considered a valid reason.

"Reconsider his/her part in the project" is just an underhand way of saying "fuck off if you don't agree", and I don't appreciate that sort of attitude. — Erin (talk) 00:25, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The whole pt:wikipedia discussion above is useless, behaviour on other projects is the "problem" of other projects. The issue this is about, which I "helped" to create, is that I think that admins shouldn't close their own deletion requests, whether it's silly or not. It's just logical to me that anything that isn't a copyvio or is total gibberish or nonsense at least passes two sets of eyes. That's why I acted in the way I acted yesterday. "Redundant, duplicate and superseded images should go" is a statement which I partially agree to, however if someone disagrees, even if he/she's the original uploader, a bit of care should be used. As most users who upload stuff here are active members of local projects and in good faith try to help making stuff available to other projects, it's not very helpful to dismiss their claims as emotional attachment and just delete their images. The very existence of such a Commons-centred vision is the reason I became more active here to try and diminish that. NielsF 01:34, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Need I remind you, Erin, that deletion debates are not majority votes? A bunch of people might write, "delete, redundant," but that only means that these individuals don't wish to use the image. Unless and until someone can explain how keeping a "superseded" file harms the project(s), the desire of even one person to use it (provided that there are no quality or copyright concerns) should prevail.

The situation described above (where a conflict spilled over to the Portuguese Wikipedia) is precisely the sort of issue that I warned would manifest if Commons sysops persisted in deleting "superseded" images that sister projects wish to use. As I commented before, if this sort of behavior continues, people will lose all trust in the Commons and resort to storing their important images locally (as FML was forced to do in this instance) instead of uploading them here. —Lifeisunfair 04:08, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I think Erin should review the rules and goals of the project. I would also like to thank NielsF, Lifeisunfair and Fred Chess for their role as mediators. Mschlindwein 16:58, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The problem is the lack of rules and goal for this project; I think that you should review that fact. Niels, Lifeisunfair and Fred are mediators? No, they are participants in the discussion. — Erin (talk) 00:25, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Wanted on Commons

Anyone out there with PD versions of Holst's Mercury, Saturn & Neptune from the Planets Suite, could you please upload copies to Category:Gustav_Holst on here? Wikicast would like to include the suite in its broadcasts, but part of it is missing. Regards, Tmalmjursson 12:37, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

WikiCast : Content Request...

Hi,

WikiCast is a net-radio project with the aim of using 'free' and Wiki content for broadcasting. (WikiCast is very much under development, and is not yet an offical project.)

Alongside material directly produced for WikiCast in [[Category:WikiCast material]], it would be much appreciated if efforts could be made to find other 'free' recordings that might be suitable for broadcast use, for example 'free' recordings of musical works now in the public domain.

The ideas ScratchPad for WikiCast is at : http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/WikiCast, with #WikiCast on Freenode being the IRC disscusion channel.

Feedback (or even content contributions) are welcome.

ShakespeareFan00 62.56.68.159 12:50, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

August 20

Wikialbum - proposal for new project

Hi. Before I submit it at meta, I want do discuss about it here. Commons is a repository of files, but for users better will be project such as Wikialbum, when picters will be bigger and description will be larger (in their language only). So look for example at Częstochowa - a lot of pictures, good work with sections but photos are very small and describtion is week. When I want to look for Jasna Góra monastery, I look for category Category:Jasna Góra. So, without description. I can make new page in main for Jasna Góra only, but it will be something like Częstochowa.

But look here: User:Przykuta/Album:Jasna Góra. Black background, large description, only in pl (good for pl users), big photos, only good quality... (not all at that example are Quality Images, but I think exactly about QI. We can use these images (QI) to make Wikialbum - as a new page space in commons or as a new Wikimedia Foundation project). With regards Przykuta 11:08, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Indywidual preferences - background (white, black or other), text - normal or italic... Przykuta 11:47, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

This over laps wikipedia articles, but some form of wikialbum where the images are the subject of the article is an interesting idea. --Gnangarra 13:56, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I have to say I don't see why this can't be part of Commons. Can we not host pages like this as well as more traditional galleries? pfctdayelise (translate?) 15:13, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think we need a new project. How about any of the following:

1. If you want the polish version, you could use mediawiki.org's language template and place a polish version on Category:Jasna Góra/pl.
2. If you want a subalbum, you could propose subalbums in the <language-code>.wikimedia.org domain, which in your case would be http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Kategoria:Jasna_Góra.
3. If you want the format changed (black background) you may only have to convince the polish community at whereever you place your album. As far as I'm concerned, if you guys want the background black that's fine, as long as non-Icelandic speakers won't meedle when we Icelanders deceide to make ours pink and neon-green. ;-)

--Swift 17:23, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Ad 1 & 2. Yes, I think about it, but not about category - rather about main Jasna Góra/pl Ad. 3 not only for pl community (this is global problem) and my POV maybe, but I think, that black background is better for galleries of photos. So, it's secondary problem.

More important problem is composition of galleries. Code <gallery> give galleries with small boxes only. When I ilustrate articles, I choise always 200-250px, but for albums/galleries made for watching images I think about big photos 400-600 px.

Gnangarra - heh, sometimes Wikipedia laps Commons, but some users don't want large galleries in wiki, cause encyclopedia is not an album...

I think about animal atlas, plain atlas, historical atlas, cities, minerals, food... or animal album... (I don't know wchich name is better). Maybe Wikialbum/Wikiatlas is better idea as Wikibook's project? Przykuta 21:18, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why the album concept doesn't fit into the commons article concept - we have plenty of articles that categorise and explain pictures better than merely using categories. While many of them use gallery tags - so still small images, they give more info and there is no reason why articles have to use galleries as opposed to larger formatted thumbnails.--AYArktos 22:29, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

So. look for w:Bear - link to commons and in commons Category:Ursidae with accidental pictures without descriptions. But look for ru:Москва link to commons and Москва - desriptions only in en or in ru or none, cause nobody care about it. Desriptions in not very good - I, as a user want to watch and read about it, what I watch. What is it Dormition Cathedral, Ivan the Great Bell Tower, Lenin's Tomb. Yes, I can do link to Wikipedia (ru Wikipedia, en Wikipedia?, all Wikipedias). Even, when I will make Москва/ru, it give effect - large description in small boxes (bad to read - breaking of text line). Links to Wikipedia give effect, that I must enjoy surfing :) Commons is only repository for other projects and we can't demand good, large desriptions from other users.

Rhetorical question: Do you like wikigalleries in articles in Wikipedia or big pictures with large descriptions? No offence, but what do you think about it: pl:Kraków - album ? Przykuta 05:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm a bit ambivalent - or rather, I like the idea but can't really fit it in. I believe we have enough trouble with the gallery vs. category issue - adding another form factor would only make this worse. Also, I'd discurage language-specific pages on commons - they require a lot of rendundant work to maintain. A selection of the best pictures could always be shown in the wikipedia article - but there, images shouldn't be that big, and are generally sourounded by text, which distracts from the images themselves.

For an extensive collection of images, like an atlas or a "coffee-table book", a wikibook would be the right thing, IMHO. But i'm not sure what the best place for ad hoc collections of a dozent or so images would be... perhaps commons after all? -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 09:48, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

COM:AN

Commons now has an administrators' noticeboard. Please post notices about vandalism, and requests for admin intervention, at this noticeboard instead of the Village pump. Requests for help that don't require admin intervention can, as usual, be posted at the COM:HD Help desk. --pfctdayelise (translate?) 15:41, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Delete

I'm the author of these image and i want to delete because of mistakes in the numbers. Omar86 20:38, 20 August 2006 (UTC) [18]

Why not upload a new version with the correct numbers? pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:42, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

A bad name. --Juiced lemon 08:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Edit war continues

The edit war mentioned two weeks ago in Commons:Village_pump#Pointless_edit_war was halted due to a lock on both categories. After the one week cooling off period, one of the opposing parties declines to discuss the matter, enter into arbitration, and persists in creating a split category

• I am one of the parties involved, and will accept any process and outcome for resolving this problem.

• Already there have been notes from confused users who cannot find Commons materials due to the split.

• The solution could be as simple as a lock after restoration of the unsplit status. I am willing to move all materials to whichever category is judged the correct one. Details and links to the controversy may be found in the Topic cited above

• Any admin care to wade into this dispute?

-Mak 23:51, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

There will be no more edit war. Congratulations to all apple-polishers. I will not spend any more work here because its unsure when the next decision taken in en:WP will pop up on commons and destroy all the work spent here. Farewell and thanks for the fish. --Huebi 06:14, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know why you are bailing out. No one has taken any sides on this issue so there is no reason to assume that you would not prevail with whatever arguements you might have. Also it is not clear to me what you asserting is being destroyed, or what grave uncertainty this introduces. This is just a lousy category name, big deal. After all, a rose by any other name still has the same beauty. All the pictures and articles of the Anasazi are there, anyone linking to the category Anasazi will get to the new location.... The only difference is the particular ascii characters you favour are not on the page heading. If this was such a big disruption to your work at commons, it is unfortunate that you never mentioned what the nature of that disruption was. Finally, I think you utterly misunderstand what I was proposing for the process on this sort of issue. If this had to do with a French ethnic group then the EN:WP would be irrelevant, and the appropriate venue would be the FR:WP. This has nothing to do with the temporary hegemony of one particular language- I am sure we shall all be complaining about Chinese in not too many years. In any case, my proposal is not the policy of commons, nor in fact do I know of anyone who supports this particular proposal other than a few that agree that Commons not the best place to settle such disputes. -Mak 07:07, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

August 21

Automated video uploads

My company develops video editing and publishing tools, and we are adding Ogg video output format for compatibility with Wikimedia Commons. The current system hosts the published video, which plays back cross platform in a Java player without needing any installation or configuration or upload of the material after publishing, and I would appreciate the same level of simplicity here. Does anyone know of a simple way to automatically upload published videos directly from Forbidden's servers to the servers here without having to download to a local machine and then upload over a slow internet uplink? Stephen B Streater 12:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

In a nutshell - no. Sorry.

BTW does your company produce open-source software? pfctdayelise (translate?) 15:41, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

We contribute free software from time to time. I'm more interested in helping people create new free video content at the moment. The proliferation of camera phones means that Wikimedia has a great opportunity to attract free content before all the rights get signed away. Stephen B Streater 12:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

For a set of trusted sites, a direct upload could be written. It would be necessary to have trusted information about authors and license of each file in a machin readable format. If there is a repository with a substantial amount of free video content, and people there are interested in collaboration with commons, this would be excellent - in that case, this should be discussed in more depth on one of the appropriate mailing lists (see http://mail.wikimedia.org). -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 00:03, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks - I've joined one list (WikiEN-l). I'm too busy with work to read all of them! Stephen B Streater 12:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Artistic interpretation of copyrighted coins

The design of British coins are the copyright of the Royal Mint (Crown copyright is 50 years) (see Category:Coins of the United Kingdom), however this photo is not a straight capture of the coin design — it is an artistic interpretation... Would other editors agree with my interpretation of this, and agree [[:

Thanks in advance/wangi 13:14, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The act of non-artistic ("mechanical") reproduction of a non-copyrighted work is insufficient, per Bridgeman, to create copyright in the US. Specificially, the act of creating a mechanical reproduction affords no copyright - but the underlying copyright from which the new item is derivative is not cancelled out by this action. This means that mechanical reproductions of PD images are still PD, but mechanical reproductions of any random image is of the same copyright as the underlying, base item. Note, BTW, that this particular (and perculiar) facet of US copyright law is very much not the case pretty much anywhere else on Earth - certainly, not in the EU, nor in any other "Western" country, to my knowledge.

In this case, yes, there is a very good argument that, had the image been created in the United States, the image's creation was in and of itself a copyright-worthy act. However, that does not mean that it ceases to be a derivate work of the original, which is under Crown Copyright. Also, the image was almost certainly created in the UK, so the Bridgeman ruling is of, erm, unsure status w.r.t. Berne. ;-)

In sum: sadly, it (and all like it) will have to go. There can be no free images of the 2 Pound Sterling coin for another 45 or so years, I'm afraid. One would have to upload it under Fair Use... but I doubt that there is an applicable reasoning line there.

James F. (talk) 17:08, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

As I understand it Bridgeman only applies to two-dimensional images. However, this photo is still a derivative work—that it is an "artistic interpretation" does not change that (in fact, my non-legal understanding of copyright law is that a non-artistic interpretation would be considered a copy and not a derivative work, as a derivative work requires some creativity on the part of the person making it). So, per Commons:Derivative works the original Crown copyright still applies. —JeremyA 19:32, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

However, some Commons users would support the image, since it does not infringe any copyrighted item per se. The copyrighted item is the front and back design of the coin, which cannot be seen -- a coin per se cannot be copyrighted. / Fred Chess 09:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. I need to go back over that IP course I done in Uni! Fred, I see your point — the actual design of the coin isn't obvious in the photo. Thanks/wangi 16:14, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Photo collection from a national park

I have been recently taking photos at New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park and have an almost complete collection of photos of each of the information stands found in the park. These are permanently installed stands that are owned by the National Park Service and contain tons of information on them about the park and the history of the city. I was wondering whether or not I was allowed to upload all of these photos, despite the fact that they are not all likely to be used in articles about the park and the city. Also, I have many other photos of the city and would like to know if they can also be uploaded despite the likelihood that they may be used as supliments to the articles (through a link to the appropriate categories) rather than part of them. -- LGagnon 23:27, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

About these stands... I guess your photos are cropped to just show the info display, not the stand itself, right? If so, they may or may not be copyrighted, depending on who exactly they were produced by. There are copyright exemptions for works produced by some US federal departments, as I understand it.

Copyright aside, how do you foresee them being useful? Why not keep them yourself and convert them into brilliant prose for the corresponding article(s)?

For other topics, yes it is OK to upload pictures here even though you think they will probably not (all) be used on articles. Just use your better judgement; generally, upload the best single photo of each significant thing - not every photo you took that day. I suggest you put them in a gallery and write nice captions, thus justifying their existence more explicitly. Perhaps in the future there might be a wikibook or similar focused on attractions in your city. Then that would be fine. Photos of your neighbour's fence, not so much. Think you've got it? --pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:00, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The photos of the stands are not cropped; they show most of the stand, only omitting the very bottom of the legs. Each is a high resolution photo in which you can read them clearly. Each has a note in the upper right-hand corner saying "National Park Service - US Department of the Interior". Some mention photo sources, most (if not all) of which are places found within the park itself which are owned by the government (the city library, the national park's museum, etc). There are no copyright warnings whatsoever.

I would rather upload the photos than retype the writing, as they each contain pictures that help illustrate their points. Many of these pictures are very old photos and paintings which are very likely to be in the public domain (much of the content involves history from over 100 years ago). Those that are in the public domain (which, as far as I can tell, is all of them) should become part of this project, if only through these stands. The info should go into the articles too, though I'm not sure how to cite an info-stand from a national park as a source.

The other photos are mostly landmarks (statues, historic buildings, memorials, etc). I have some photos of long-time staple businesses in the city too, though I don't know if those belong or not. -- LGagnon 02:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

August 22

How can I update the "Links" section for my images?

Almost all my images are listed as "orphan!". When I run Duesentrieb's "Checkusage" it performs as expected, and list all the articles using the images. However - nothing is updated. The images are still listed as "Orphan!" after running this program. How do I get the usage status updated? - Gisle 13:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Orphan means orphan on Commons. Please add the images to categories and/or galleries, so that other Commons users will be able to find them. :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:22, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand. When I review my gallery at Commons, all images except "Georg johannesen gh.jpg" is listed as "Orphan!". However, the image named "Pc-connector gh.jpg" is used in the Wikipedia article on flash synchronization. So why is it tagged as an "Orphan!"? Basically, what I want is to have the "Links" section in the gallery updated so that there is links to all articles my images appear in. How do I do this? - Gisle 17:59, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The tool you are using to check for orphans only counts the usage here at Commons. It isn't going to tell you if that image is used at other projects; use CheckUsage for that. Image:Pc-connector gh.jpg is not an orphan, as it is used in Photography. Jkelly 18:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The tool I use is CheckUsage, and it tells me it is not an orphan. I know it is not an orphan. But my gallery page says that it is an orphan. I want the "Links" section on the image page and the "Usage" column on my gallery page to reflect its actual usage status. How do I do this? - Gisle 18:36, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Take note of the text in red on that page - the information isn't off the "live" database – it's over an hour (just now) out-of-date. So since you added the image to Photography less than an hour ago it's still listed as an orphan. Thanks/wangi 18:57, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Gisle, it's a godd thing that your images are being used in X wikipedia. But if i am seeking a image like yours for Y wikipedia, i search in commons... And i don't find, as i'd need to go through all the wikis until find an article limnking to yours... :S {{Please link images}} Platonides 17:09, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Hannover Reincarnation Parade

I spent a lovely weekend in Hannover, and got back to Bremen with hundreds of photos and video clips from the reincarnation parade. But I am not sure if these photos are suitable for commons;

1. People faces are recognizable, specially people dancing in the trucks.
2. Some people were really young (less than 18 yrs,....I guess less than 16)

Is it OK to upload such images . --Tarawneh 20:01, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Tarawneh, what is the reincarnation parade? If it's a simple fête, I wouldn't have any hesitation about allowing your images—we don't have any specific model release rules at the Commons as far as I know. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 00:09, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I would not call it a fête. It is a mini version of Berlin love parade. sample1, sample2, Website. Some are clearly younger that 18. I do not have images for young people in specific, but you would expect to find them between the crowds. --Tarawneh 00:57, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Woo! I wanna go! Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 02:01, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

LOL, hard luck, maybe next year. Just in case I will try to skip the photos that contain nudity, or possible illegal age. Still, am I allowed to post images of other people participating. --Tarawneh 02:45, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Photos of people participating in a public parade are allowable by US law, I don't know EU. -- Infrogmation 04:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Why?

What is the use of any of the pictures in Category:Reincarnation Parade 2006. Is this just abusing WikiCommons as a personal web album? Rmhermen 21:04, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

:) It is a major event that takes place in Hannover every year. People come from all over Europe to see it and be a part of it. Some performers came from Japan and the states. We are not talking about a private backyard barbeque party here. We are providing free images of an event that costs a lot of money, and months of preparations. People spends lots of money just to fly to Hannover and see it.--Tarawneh 21:46, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I understand, but aren't there rather a lot of pictures of this single event now on Commons? I would think that for encyclopedial purposes just a handful would suffice. How does the Hannover event differ from comparable ones in Berlin, Zuerich, Rotterdam, etcetera? I would thing that this is a case of "des Guten zuviel" (hope my German is roughly correct). MartinD 11:46, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Your German is better than mine; I can understand it a bit, but sadly not much. Back to the photos. How much is a lot? 10 , 100, 1000? Thanks to the 9.99 euro 1GB SDs; I have more than 2300 photos from that event. My understanding of commons is a wiki not serving the needs of other wikis but a stand alone encyclopedia that serves the need of people to comprehend and understand events, items and objects, by means of free images that explain these items. Take a dancer for example, the more shots you give the more the people understand the dance it self, not just the fact that there was a dancer. I have uploaded 21 images for a 40 by 30 cm plate; this plate is one of a 20 (40 by 30 cm) plates on one of the doors in one of the churches in Bremen. Is that a lot? I feel that the more images you have the better the feeling you get. Some times when I see an image, I say to my self: Why isn't there a shot taken from another angle. If we have a space shortage on commons then I would reduce the number of images I am uploading, but we did not get to that point, ( I think ). There is no policy on the number of images for a certain object or event. There is always the RfD for any image ( I would not mind really ) . I uploaded most of the 91 images of Category:Weser in Bremen, and I feel it needs more to show people the weser. I have uploaded 89 images for Category:Rathaus-Hamburg, is that too much? Every photo gives a different angle, different part or section of the rathaus. I have more than 1800 images in my Hamburg-Rathaus collection, I did not put them all ;) --Tarawneh 04:05, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

August 23

Does Wikicommons host avi animation files?

I have ~2.8MB avi animation file that I would like to access at Wikiversity for a lesson. Does Wikicommons host avi files? If not is there a list of acceptable animation file formats somewhere and/or free tools to do the conversion to the required file format? Wikiversity v:user:mirwin

See Commons:File types and Commons:Software. Is AVI a free (open) format? If so, we could ask for it to be added to the list of acceptable file types. pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Forget about AVI- it is a container format that could could contain streams in any number of unfree formats.

I suggest you use en:VLC media player to convert the file to an Ogg file containing a Theora video stream. That is supported by Commons. -Mak 06:53, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I have downloaded the player, it plays well but how can i use it to convert a movie? TeunSpaans 07:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

See Help:Converting video, and if anyone has any tips or suggestions not listed on that page, please add them.pfctdayelise (translate?) 09:27, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

TeunSpaans, VLC is actually much more than a player. Besides transcodes, it can also be used as a server for streaming video. Pretty cool, so I usually suggest it over more specialized trancoding tools many of which are also very good at what they do. Anyhow, Transcoding using VLC article has a pointer to the VLC manual that describes the details of what you need to know. Regardless whether you use VLC or not to do your transcode from AVI to Ogg, if you have an animation that requires perfect synchronization of audio, you might be unlucky and run into some odd problems. The set of the most common issues have nothing to do with Ogg/Theora and more to do with the way that PCs (linux, Mac and Windoze) can all be misconfigured in ways that subtly affect transcodes. There is a huge number of things that can make converting video extremely problematic for civilians to manipulate, and defy concise description in a guide such as the help on converting video. Others are lucky on their machines and wonder what the fuss is about. Many such problems are platform dependent and extremely odd glitches- eg- installing certain games on Windoze platforms can introduce subtle timing differences that throw off the Synq. If VLC doesn't do what you want right away, I would take a look at the set of tools that Pfctdayelise pointed you to and choose one that fits your platform, and has a support community where you can get questions for you platform answerred. Good luck with your animation.-Mak 04:10, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

St Pancras Station Concourse

Does anyone know when the longest champagne bar in Europe opens on St Pancras Station concourse? --Clairew 08:52, 23 August 2006 (UTC) --Clairew 08:52, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Image:Seattle flag.png

This image appears with two totally different licenses:

-Commons: Image:Seattle flag.png → ({{PD-USGov}})

-en.wiki: en:Image:Seattle flag.png & en:Image:Flag of Seattle.svg → {{Symbol}}, copyrighted.

Is it acceptable? --Lmbuga ^{gl, pt, es: contacta comigo} 10:35, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks for noticing. I tagged it with no source tag. The PD-tag is wrong. / Fred Chess 17:43, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I think source is [19] & this gif. A call for the flag was made July 16, 1990. I doubt it to be on PD. Platonides 17:14, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Language Tagalog

We need a shortcut for descriptions with the language Tagalog. If i used the short syntax tl (the same as in the interwiki) then it was interpreted as a template.

Example:

{{tl|Si '''Arnold Franz Walter Schoenberg''', (ginawang anyong Ingles ang Schönberg—Schoenberg nang naging opisyal na mamamayang Amerikano siya) (Setyembre 13, 1874 – Hulyo 13, 1951) ay isang Austriyano-Amerikanong kompositor.}}

Result:

{{Si '''Arnold Franz Walter Schoenberg''', (ginawang anyong Ingles ang Schönberg—Schoenberg nang naging opisyal na mamamayang Amerikano siya) (Setyembre 13, 1874 – Hulyo 13, 1951) ay isang Austriyano-Amerikanong kompositor.}}

--GeorgHH 20:07, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I realised this some time ago. Do this: {{description|tl|text goes here}}. pfctdayelise (translate?) 01:13, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for help. But for the future and other users we should install a normal working shortcut as {{de|...}} or {{en|...}}. --GeorgHH 11:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

But we precisely can't, because "tl" is being used as a template link. It's a very established usage on all wikis I know of and to change it would require thousands of bot edits and unnecessarily confuse all other users who came here expecting to use it that way.

You can create one called {{Tagalog}} if you like, though. pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:28, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

spam ?

Turkish speakers? Please look at this: Category:Gazeteler and article Erciyes Gazetesi. i think it´s spam, but i have a turkish level of 0.--GeorgHH 21:17, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

August 24

Peer review

Is there anything like Wikipedia's Peer Review process for Commons? I'd like thoughts on Image:Music Map of the United States.png. It's a start at a more detailed replacement for Image:USmusicmap.png. I have a couple questions:

1. Where did that gray grid come from? I converted it to png from xcf because Commons:Image formats seems to recommend it. But the png on my computer is totally messed up - the uploaded version is better, but has that gray grid. I uploaded the xcf original at Image:Music_Map_of_the_United_States.xcf.
2. I know it's somewhat messy at the moment. I wanted to get feedback before I put a lot of work into cleaning it up (or finishing it) so I'd know what direction to take it. I will be cleaning up the colored areas (e.g. Utah) so that the county lines aren't visible. Also, I think I'll move the captions (e.g. explaining what each dot means) off the image itself and put it on the image page. (like Image:Map of USA showing Latin music.png does now)
3. Does anybody know of a free blank county map? I couldn't find one, but I did find a free county map showing counties with high Icelandic populations. This was only a few counties, so I colored them white... I was hoping this would be covered up by the map's content. It may be when I'm done, but a nice blank map would be best. (I need a county map because it makes it much easier to color in distinct areas)
4. Is it too noisy and difficult to understand? Keep in mind that there will be at least triple the information in the final version.
5. Any suggestions on how to decide what to include? For example, "hardcore punk" is clearly notable in association with DC and (somewhat debateably) a few other cities, but I placed a "hardcore punk dot" anywhere a source describes the local scene as important. This makes for a lot of little dots, which has its benefits, but also its drawbacks. Should I cite sources on the image page? If you express an opinion on this issue, please also consider how to apply that opinion to something like Native American music (I could add tribal names in the appropriate spot, but that would be a lot of clutter with little value. Maybe color in reservations only, but NA music is important off rez too, and much of modern Native America has the same musical tastes as non-Natives, so coloring in reservations may not be so informative and could be perceived as biased; still Native American traditions are an important part of US music, and shouldn't be ignored)
6. As you can see, my initial goal to create a nice music map of the US has grown more complicated. I could use other thoughts, even if you don't have a firm conclusion. Tuf-Kat 02:21, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Image:Music Map of the United States.png renders properly for me. I don't see a "grey grid", unless you mean a kind of streakiness in Canada. Image:Music_Map_of_the_United_States.xcf is practically unreadable due to a checkboard pattern that does not look like it belongs to the image. Commons:Quality Images is probably the closest analogy to en:Wikipedia:Peer review. Jkelly 02:28, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

The "grey grid" on Image:Music Map of the United States.png shows you which bits are transparent, rather than white (rather too much, at the moment). And I see weird streaky lines in Canada. The image is not readable even at the large size! There's no point having text if you can't read it.

What you want to include really depends on how you intend to use the map. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:46, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. The streakiness in Canada was in the original (presumably for a reason, but it's lost on me), but I think I can make it go away.

Commons:Quality Images is interesting, I'll leave a note on the that talk page about this.

So, is converting to png a good thing in this case or not? The png on my computer is totally messed up (large swaths of it are black, for example), but uploading it to the commons made all those problems go away, replacing it with the gray grid. You (Jkelly) note that the xcf file has a checkboard pattern, which I don't see... That's rather infuriating! It sounds like maybe what I see on the png. Why isn't the xcf version visible on the image page?

It is readable for me at large size, with some difficulty (maybe because I already know what the words say). I was hoping that the large size would be larger - the file I used is quite readable with more zooming than the Commons allows. It's very frustrating that the image on the Commons is not the same as the image I uploaded.

The point of the image was to illustrate musics that have had a regionally important role in American culture. Maybe that's too broad, but I'm not sure of a better aim.

Tuf-Kat 01:45, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you should use this map as a base: Image:Map of USA with county outlines.png. It's very clear, and a good size too.

XCF is the file type for the GIMP, right? It won't show automatically because browsers don't support that file type.

I don't know why you'd want to upload the XCF... unless you think a lot of other users will want to edit the image. I doubt it.

Also, it would be a good idea to keep the key/legend out of the image, and put it in the caption/description page. Then the text will always be readable. It is easy to make the colours match up using a simple table if you use RGB-defined colours. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:03, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Arrgh! Image:Map of USA with county outlines.png is exactly what I was looking for. It was hiding from me! I'll take all this into consideration and see if I can come up with something better. Tuf-Kat 00:23, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Fair Use WP reloads

Some images up for deletion are there because they are not totally free, but use by non commercial entities are permitted without restriction.

Are there tags on other WPs for reloading such images. Fair use is way wrong- there is no need to degrade them or restrict them solely to articles that discuss the specific content of the images. Is there a page with notes about such tags on the various WPs?

-Mak 19:43, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

People sell WP on DVD, lots of random commercial websites are picking up WP content, and I keep getting calls from people wanting to use my pictures in published books, so we're already "commercial". So the "non-commercial only" bit isn't going to work anymore. Stan Shebs 13:08, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

{{Non-commercial}} on en.wp has already been depreciated, and probably in other wikis too. So it's basically free or fair use, they're your only choices. pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:42, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Mac is referring to the deleted images from Vigeland Sculpture Park. I would find it interesting to investigate, if these images are really copyright protected worldwide? / Fred Chess 20:22, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

If they are fitting for German Panorama freedom (works at public places) they are not protected in Germany (and Austria and Switzerland) --Historiograf 21:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

August 26

Quality of smaller versions of images

There have probably been more discussions about the quality of the smaller version(s) of photos that the wikipedia software creates from the large uploaded version. If you don't know what I am talking about, then compare these two version 375x500 versions of the same uploaded larger photo.

• photo on the wikipedia
• photo on flickr

The point is that the smaller versions are used in articles.

Questions:

1. Is there a place where this has been discussed before (where)?
2. Is there something I can do (except for writing software) to improve the quality of the images as shown in articles?
3. Are there plans to improve the wikipedia software?

Taka 11:10, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

My understanding is that the thumbnails are sometimes suboptimal because of the quality setting we send to the thumbnailer (whether that's Imagemagick or the php graphics library). So we could improve the quality today, just by changing that quality parameter; the reason the devs don't is that higher quality thumbnails require disproportionately more processor time to generate. -- Finlay McWalter 11:25, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Making the thumbnail look a little nicer also makes the file a lot bigger - loading thumbnails make up an considerable amount of the bandwidth used by wikipedia, changing the setting just a little may cause bandwidth use to jump up by 20 or 30% from one minute to the next. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 11:40, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

That is not completely true. Using the original of the Usnea photo I use as an example above, I resized the original with Irfanview to 375x500 pixels, and the result is 50k, just like the wikipedia thumbnail, but it looks considerably better. After using the "sharpen" function of irfanview, the size increased from 50k to 54k, but that gave another considerable increase in quality. The size of the image does not have to be an issue. Taka 12:07, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Yep, I know what you mean (compare this smaller version with the original). In my case, there are strange compression artifacts. I'd like to know if a pattern in the original pictures causes this effect in the smaller ones. Jastrow 11:31, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

There is a partial solution, in that you can write this: [[Image:Hi-res file.jpg|thumb=Good quality thumb.jpg]] if the auto-generated thumb is particularly bad, you can upload a better one and manually specify it. This would also be good for super-hi res maps and the like, where the thumb could be a "zoomed in" section. pfctdayelise (translate?) 16:12, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

EXIF inaccuracies

In the section Telephone_booth#Sweden one of the images is taken in the winter with snow. This makes me wonder if we should have categories for seasons or kinds of weather, in addition to categories for place and kinds of objects, but at least the seasons and time of day could be automatically extracted from the timestamp of the photo, not when it was uploaded but from the EXIF data embedded in the JPEG image. However, in the case of this image, the upload comment says it was shot in November 2004 (yes, snow in Stockholm is likely) but the EXIF infobox says August 2006 (when snow in Stockholm very unlikely). It is possible that the internal clock in this camera was wrong. Should we try to "edit" the EXIF data of such images? Should we identify other images from the same camera to see if the error is systematic? --LA2 19:11, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

The graphics editors can also edit EXIF data or add it. You can't know is camera or some program added or removed or edit it. So your idea is good, but I think it's impossible. You show to yourself examples how and why. :) – linnea (talk 20:53, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

You can manually put such images in Category:Winter or one of its subcategories if you wish, but I definitely wouldn't do it automatically. pfctdayelise (translate?) 01:12, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I put some EXIF statistics on my user page. --LA2 02:19, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

This Flickr image of Credit River has GPS latitude and longitude in the EXIF data, and when the same image gets uploaded to Wikimedia Commons GPSLatitudeRef (North or South) and GPSLongitudeRef (East or West) are stored in the img_metadata field in the database, but not GPSLatitude and GPSLongitude. That's sad. Imagine we could have automatic geocoding here when Flickr users have done the job. --LA2 03:15, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Probably those fields were unknown to the dev which made it. Feel free to fill a bug - Platonides 17:19, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

August 27

Blank maps of the USA

I know there are thousands of maps highlighting individual counties in the US. However, is there a blank map of the US showing all the counties (without highlighting). Svg preferably...--Nilfanion 13:11, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Is this what you're looking for? It is a png, though. Jkelly 04:22, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

That should be OK for testing things out. However, I'd really like an svg version, anyone? Reason is I would like to be able to combine these FEMA images showing disaster declarations after Katrina: LA, MS, AL and FL; and for many other disaster declarations (it would be useful to have a blank from which we can label individual counties). Using the png produces this, an svg base map would clearly be advantageous.--Nilfanion 10:17, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Re: Using photos of people shot in public places

Comments, please I've read here (in archive 33, Voyeur photos) about Jimbo's statement that it will be better when all people on photos gave their confirmation for putting their photos on Wikipedia.

Can anybody give me a link where were these Jimbo's words? --Jaroslavleff 18:11, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

August 29

How to categorize series

Hi all. I've created Template:Series which allows users to squentially browse a series of numerically indexed files more easily. I added a feature that automatically categorizes the files into [[Category:Files in the xyz series]], but what I can't figure out is what the parent category would be for that new category. Would it be somewhere in Category:Commons? It's not really maintenance, but it doesn't fall nicely into the other categories.

How would we categorize series of files? Is this even an appropriate categorization scheme? ~MDD4696 05:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

They should be categorized by topic. We could have an additional category just for serieses, but i don't see how that would be useful. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 08:27, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

It would be a way to quickly view thumbnails of all of the files in a series. If an uploader does not manually categorize a series of images, and does not create a gallery page for that series of images, there is no way to view a page of thumbnails of all those images at once. A category is an automatic method of providing this capability. Gallery pages might be more useful, but they also require more work. ~MDD4696 21:20, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

you misunderstood - i think a category per series is quite ok. But that category should be categorized by topic, not just as "a series category". I.e. a series about wooden shoes should be under, well, shoes i guess. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 10:13, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought it worked on the basis of the filenames, why does it need a category at all? pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:15, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I presume Mdd4696 suggested a category so that users could find such tours easily.

1. I would suggest having a jumping off article, and categorizing just that page. EG, page="Tourist sights of Barcelona", with some highlights of the Trail eg Sagrada Familia
2. There are other such browse sequences/ aka Vannevar Bush "Trails"("mesh of associative trails running through [pages]")/ aka "web rings"- so it need not be constrained to users of this particular Template and naming convention. EG: 30 cal Browning is one of my stabs at a browse sequence. BTW- Series and Browse sequences/ lists are technically correct, but I suppose a more user friendly term is something like "Tours".
3. My intention is to generate these by evaluating editor created category set expressions, extracting the list, and generating the wikitext for each page. EG. Editor declares they want a browse list on the page which is of the set of images that are tagged as Category:Battleships and Category: World War I ships. Catscan might be used in concert with a bot to do such a thing, although my inclination is not to walk up the category tree in a first version.
4. It would be really nice to be able to declare a list in one place and be able to switch between them using your internet browser, but the user would have to install some code on the client side to enable doing that sort of thing.
5. The problem of multiple browse sequences could be solved using the above template, but it would be kind of ugly. Each tour would require a new set of pages with redirects to the real image. That's a heck of a lot of nearly empty pages per each browse sequence.
6. Technically, it is possible to search a list from a Template, but it is nasty- depending on Template:For. The really cool thing is that it is dynamically updated- when a new image is added to the list, or an image is deleted, it can automatically adjust. The really lame thing is that is is dynamically updated when a new image is added- every time you touch the list, the server has to toil away updating all the pages using that list. Also, if the list is long, the For loop can easily time out on the server. I have had that happen on some fairly modest sets of tasks.
7. At this point, I am sticking with statically generated lists with wikitext hardcoded onto each page. The downside is that they have to be updated by Bot. The upside is that they can be composed of arbitrarily named files, and if one of the files becomes missing for any reason, the bot can regenerate the sequence periodically. eg. the file after Image:050529 Barcelona 047.jpg is missing, so the next button is greyed. No problem, you can jump ahead by two then back up, but you know if we are going totally pro, such maintenance issues have to be addressed.

-Mak 22:21, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah, ok. I understand now Duesentrieb :). pfctdayelise, the template does work by filename, but I thought it would be useful to have a category with all of the files in that particular series. I'm thinking now that it would be good to have a maintenance category of all series, so that editors like myself can easily find the all of the series if something technical needs to be changed. However, as Duesentrieb said, the series category should also be placed in a topical category, so people looking for content can find the series. Thanks guys!

Mak, you've got some good ideas, but we have to be careful we don't overdo it! Perhaps the "jumping off" page could be the category I was discussing? ~MDD4696 16:14, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Bush wrote "as we may think" in the 40's. 60 years later, we are still waiting. Let's get a little more bold. Here is a stab at a Category of jumping off locations for such tours. Category:Tours. This illustrates what I was thinking of in terms of jumping off pages and the category that references them. -Mak 23:55, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Corrupt thumbnails?

I'd appreciate if somebody could have a look at my recent image uploads and tell me a) if they are also seeing some images as having no or corrupt thumbnails and b) what the problem is if there is any and how to solve it. --Melanom 22:03, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, some of the previews/thumbnails were missing. Sometimes this happens with the Mediawiki/ImageMagick software, although I'm not sure why. To fix the problem, click the "Edit" tab and change the url action to be "purge" instead of edit. For example, to purge the image description page and all thumbnails for Image:O-mikoshi_197152715_97ad5f8823_o.jpg, you would go to http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:O-mikoshi_197152715_97ad5f8823_o.jpg&action=purge. This would force all of the thumbnails to be regenerated. You might have to do this more than once. Make sure you force a refresh of your browsers cache as well. ~MDD4696 23:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I think I have run into this several times. Good to know it's probably just a cache problem. --Melanom 07:54, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Military Insignia license references

The template "Military Insignia" states "International law requires for combatant identification and copyrighting rank insignias violates international law, hence this image cannot be copyrighted and belongs to public domain. This applies worldwide". Does anyone knows where can I find the reference/source for this statement? Thanks. Borgx 05:40, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I did some basic Google searches and the first thing I came up with was someone asking User:Cool Cat about it. He didn't really give a specific response, but the Geneva Convention he referenced might've been the Geneva Conventions Act 1957 - Sect 15. I'm not sure that it says anything about copyright. Another search turned up a rather random link to Cameroon's copyright law, which states that "coats of arms, decorations, currency marks and other official insignia" may not be copyrighted.

Also, there is apparently a U.S. Army Institute of Heraldry which does a lot with insignias. I didn't turn up much there, but I did find the section of the U.S. code which deals with insignias. Mostly it seems to deal with people using the insignias to mislead or deceive.

I dunno... this is complicated. It's too bad that the guy who created the template in the first place is no longer around on enwiki, and never answered a question about the template. ~MDD4696 06:55, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

D'oh! I should've just gone to the Heraldry Institute's website in the first place! It says:

"PLEASE NOTE: The images of all badges, insignia, decorations and medals on this web site are protected by Title 18, United States Code, Section 704 and the Code of Federal Regulations (32 CFR, Part 507). Permission to use these images for commercial purposes must be obtained from The Institute of Heraldry prior to their use."

So... does that apply to any image of the insignia, or just the images on the website? ~MDD4696 06:59, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey- the law is written in english, and it is on the net. Who knows- maybe the text is intelligible, so why not take a twirl and figure it out. What does the cited law (Title18, Section 704 say)? -Mak 20:15, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

August 30

Picture of the day and Flickr

The current picture of the day is awesome. But once again the license on Commons isn't the same as that on Flickr. Maybe the uploader made a mistake or maybe the author changed the license, who knows?

What on earth can we do about this?

• Delete images on Commons assuming that it's always uploaders who make mistakes (except when they use FlickrLickr)?
• Set up a confirmation system where the licenses are checked by more than one person when an image is from Flickr?
• Ask Flickr to create some kind of diff history of license changes?
• Keep images on Commons assuming that Flickr users act chage licenses?
• Toss the coin?

-Samulili 12:41, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

As far as I remember somebody (User:Dbenbenn?) tried to contact Flickr and ask them to make license irrevocable (as it must be), so change in licensing should affect new images only. I think we should contact Flickr again. Is any person with good legal/licensing background available? --EugeneZelenko 14:48, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

IMO the picute is horrible HDR kytch, but that's not the question :)

What would solve it and generally would be great function: if FlickrLickr had interface for requests for robotic transfer. It would be convinient also, as filing the info by hand is annoying. --Wikimol 16:37, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Flickr users undoubtedly change licenses, the foo's, but Commons users also make mistakes. Until Flickr introduces a 'history' tab on the license, I think we have no choice but the first - delete the images. User:Rtc has some violent disagreement about allowing copyright holders to change their mind, and it is true that they have no legal right to do so. But unless it's FlickrLickr, we simply cannot know the truth. When in [legal] doubt, delete. pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:24, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Note, I did move October 2's picture to its place. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 03:31, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Just a short note for those who want to read further: [20], [21] --Überraschungsbilder 23:13, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Help needed with uploading some pictures

Anyone wants to help me with uploading pictures related to Columbine High School shooting from this address: [22] and puting them in nice order here Diagrams of events at Columbine High School

They are all FBI diagrams and therefore public domain

I have done the first 20 but this is such a tedious job I decided I need some help... :) --Robek 16:46, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Where does it say the diagrams were prepared by the FBI? I could not find the source/copyright status mentioned anywhere. I also looked on the FBI's website... couldn't find the diagrams there. As far as I can tell, that entire site was prepared by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, not the FBI, and would not necessarily be considered public domain. ~MDD4696 17:03, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't say anywhere on the website that it was made by JCSO either ;) Website is hosted on cnn server but does it mean that those diagrams were prepered by cnn? They are also avalible on a website put together by New Criminologist http://www.newcriminologist.co.uk/restricted.asp?id=101222555 and they don't seem to be the authors... on the other hand FBI's website http://www.fbi.gov//hq/lab/org/ipgu.htm explicitly say that Investigative and Prosecutive Graphic Unit provides charts, maps, diagrams, link-analyses, flow and check kite chartings, time lines, and technical renderings. and among samples of their work shows one of the diagrams in question http://www.fbi.gov//hq/lab/org/images/chs.jpg and a close up http://www.fbi.gov//hq/lab/org/images/chslibry.jpg.

Sketches provided by FBI were used not only by JCSO investigators but also in releted investigations in El Paso http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/columbine/columbine41702shrfrpt.pdf.

If you would like to get them in better quality they are avalible JCSO as their website says: FBI Crime Scene Processing Team reports and sketches (Released September 5, 2001). Contact Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, Records Section, 200 Jefferson County Parkway, Golden, CO 80439. Make checks payable to Jefferson County for $25. Additional shipping cost: $2.50. Complete and enclose Application for Criminal Justice Records (.PDF file). --Robek 21:48, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Nicer quality images would be nice... but I'm not paying :)! ~MDD4696 01:44, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Table of Contents showing up in Convert to SVG template

I'm not sure why this is happening or how to fix it, but I wanted to point out that the page for Image:1 Ceres (0).png renders with a table of contents in the middle of the Convert to SVG template. Weird. --Starwiz 04:29, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Caused by vandalism at Template:Convert to SVG/lang. Fixed. — Erin (talk) (FAQ) 05:03, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Discussions for user blockades

Is there any page where I can request a user to be blocked? Best regards, --Flominator 06:12, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Here will do. Whom did you have in mind? — Erin (talk) (FAQ) 07:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Or you can visit the newly created Commons:Administrators' noticeboard. / Fred Chess 08:37, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Martina Nolte for this. (suggested by Historiograf)--Flominator 08:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can see, we are talking in that case about only 16 images, and (again, as far as I see) Ms. Nolte has behaved exemplary once she had understood her error. A block (an an indefinite one, as Histo had called for) is IMO not warranted at all. Unrepenting copyright violators should be blocked, but not someone who even tries to get his own error corrected. That's completely out of proportion. Lupo 10:30, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Can you please tell him? We still have to place to discuss the blockades. --Flominator 12:33, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

If we take no hard position it would be a sport for photographers saying Ooops I didn't know that I have given rights I cannot give. They have the promotion of WP/Commons but not the duties. There is a large financial risk for all who want to use such pictures assuming in good faith the validity of the CC licenses. Ms Nolte has agreed that the blocking would be appropriate. I think a simple copyvio in a few cases is less dangerous than Ms. Nolte's behaviour. --Historiograf 23:56, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

But she won't make the same mistake again, I would think. At least on en:, there is the norm that blocks should not be punitive. You block to prevent harm, not as a punishment. (As any norm, there may be exceptions to this one, too :-) The harm's already been done and is being corrected, and she knows the problem now and is not likely to cause more harm. Therefore, a block would be simply unnecessary. Furthermore, her photos were good. If she had other pictures on which she had not given away the economic rights (i.e., granted an exclusive license to someone else) and wanted to upload those, she would be most welcome to do so. Or am I missing something? Lupo 06:28, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

There is no way for her to give pictures for free - except she is abandoning the contract with the Verwertungsgesellschaft Bild-Kunst and thus reducing her income. What she - I am sure - definitively not will do. The Wahrnehmungsberechtigungsvertrag (sorry for not knowing the English words) is referring to all works she creates. There are discussions between CC and the Verwertungsgesellschaften to allow artists CC licenses. --Historiograf 17:55, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Hello!

First I must say that I am very surprised to find here, just by coincidence (a google search on a totally different matter), an official banning discussion about me without being informed by anyone.

I was and still am ashamed because I caused so much trouble and work to others. But nevertheless I want to say some words to Historiografs arguments against my person.

it would be a sport for photographers saying "Ooops I didn't know" ... They have the promotion of WP/Commons... -- I don't know where the sense of this "sport" should be for a photographer or where a promotion advantage should be, when the photos are then deleted. May I remind you, Historiograf, that the whole deletion discussion was initiated by myself. I "admitted" the copyvio as soon as Rtc had given me on my german user page some general informations (Merkblatt) about possible licence conflicts. There I found, for the first time, a quite short hint on VG Bild-Kunst and so the story took its way until deletion.

In the upload instructions on German Wikipedia and on Commons this conflict with VG Bild-Kunst isn't mentioned at all.

My first two photos on Commons were moved here from German Wikipedia by de-User and (as I know) admin Factumquintus. After deletion I became a link from Paddy to Commons:Village_pump and found out in the archive here, that my photos also had not been allowed on Commons because they all contained a copyright watermark in the exifs. Even Factumquintus obviously didn't realize this conflict in my photos. This second conflict was also not realized by the licence specialists that were involved in the deletion discussion. I give this not as an excuse for my mistakes but as an example about how clear and obvious Wikimedia upload rules are (or not).

I suggest, for future uploaders, to put at least one sentence about copyright conflicts with Verwertungsgesellschaften (VG Bild-Kunst) in the upload instructions, like Rtc is spreading it in his Merkblatt linked above.

Historiograf is partly right in one point: I will not give up my contract with the VG Bild-Kunst just like this and mainly: without having more informations. As, in the beginning, I wasn't aware of this licence conflict at all and, still now, nobody could explane me ALL consequences of this contract regarding Wikimedia and Wikipedia projects, I will try to get further informations (does the VG already charge Wikipedia projects as "secondary usage"? would they charge only usages which I announce them or do they act independently? which usage exactly would be charged? would I have the right to outtake WM and WPs and other non-commercial usages?) by the VG itself, before I ever upload pictures on Commons again. In this point I learned my lessons well now.

Ms Nolte has agreed that the blocking would be appropriate. -- This is shortened. In the deletion discussion (now here) I first rejected your accusation as not beeing appropriate and wrote exactly: "But under the given conditions (VG Bild-Kunst) I cannot upload photos here any more, so that here on Commons I would agree being banned." If now negotiations with "VG Bild-Kunst" really lead to allowing CC licences on Wikimedia projects we'll see further. Greetings -- Martina Nolte17:14, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Personal free license

I am thinking of releasing my non-derivative work on the Wikimedia Commons under the following license, which I wrote myself:

This work may be used for any purpose provided that:

1. Attribution must be given to me. If the work is a derivative, an exact copy of the original or a link thereto must be included.
2. This work cannot be used for advertising.
3. This work cannot be included in any product to which Digital Rights Management technology is applied.
4. If a derivative of this work is published, it must be released under a license that does not forbid any use, other than advertising, that would not be forbidden by any version of the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License, GNU Free Documentation License or GNU General Public License.
5. The conditions in this list numbered 2, 4 and 5 (the latter having "enough of this work" changed to either "enough of the work located at [original URL]" or "enough of this work and/or the work located at [original URL]", and the text in these parentheses removed in the former case) must be imposed on any derivative works that contain enough of this work to be covered by the same copyright. The condition in this list numbered 3 must be applied to all derivatives that descend from this work.

The penultimate point is an attempt at a flexible copyleft. The idea behind the last is that if, through a long series of derivatives, my work is completely eliminated from a descendant, then the descendant doesn't have to be copyleft or suffer the advertising restriction if the intervening authors don't want it to. (I'm not allowing the DRM clause to disappear in the same way because I so hate DRM's legal protection under the DMCA.

My questions are:

• Will the advertising restriction make the license unfree by generally accepted standards? (This does not prevent commercial use altogether; the work can still be put in a product that is sold.)
• Is this license actually forward-compatible with GFDL, GPL and cc-by-sa? Seahen 13:55, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Your terms of use are not compatible with Commons:Licensing and {{GFDL}}, {{GPL}}, {{Cc-by-sa}}. Please change your mind or don't upload your images on Commons. --EugeneZelenko 14:55, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

What in the licensing policy, and in the terms of the other licenses, makes them incompatible? Seahen 19:35, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Forbidding advertise is against the Commons spirit of All material on the Commons must be licensed under a free license that allows anyone to use the material for any purpose (Commons:Licensing#Acceptable_licenses first line). The against DRM clause may also collide as i remember there was some discussion on an anti-DRM license.

Seeing your intentions, i'd recomend you to license under the GFDL:

1. It's a well-known license. It's been legally strong. Your home-made license could have legal faults or contradictions.
2. It allows your work to be combined with a lot more GFDL works already available (the sharealike stuff).
3. Having to print the three pages text license will scary any advertiser ;)
4. If it were combined with other DRM protected work, all of them would (need to) be GFDL. While DRM could be applied to your work, a DRM free copy must be available so adding DRM would be quite pointless.

Platonides 21:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

August 31

Broken 'File history' links in wikipedia

When looking at an image description page on wikipedia, for an image which is actually hosted here in commons. There is a broken link at the top of the page. The 'file history' link (in the bar at the top). It tries to jump you down to a #filehistory section which (in the case of commons images) is not there on the page. A wikipedia bug? -- Harry Wood 15:17, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Please file bug report on bugzilla:. --EugeneZelenko 15:43, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

If you do not know how to do it, just let me know. I can file it for you if you like. ~MDD4696 16:12, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

OK I created bugzilla bug 7190 -- Harry Wood 13:24, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Portals, WikiProjects, etc.

How can I find discussion boards, WikiProjects, Portals, or the like on the Commons? I know this seems like a really newbie sort of question, but I really do not see the answer anywhere. Thank you. LordAmeth 15:37, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

See Category:Commons projects. --EugeneZelenko 15:44, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I am astonished to not see any Commons projects devoted to periods, styles, or types of art. I suppose I shall have to start one...

One more question. What is the standard regarding names? I have noticed many Japanese artists listed in Western name order "givenname surname". Worse, I have noticed many being listed as "givenname, surname". For example, Katsukawa Shunsho is listed as "Shunsho Katsukawa". Should it be "Katsukawa Shunsho", or "Katsukawa, Shunsho"? Shunsho Katsukawa and "Shunsho, Katsukawa" are both definitively wrong. I know these naming discussions can get complex, what with repeating the same thing many times just in different orders. I hope you follow my meaning. LordAmeth 16:05, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Um...Galleries should be at the Japanese name, with English RDRs (you can make as many as you can think of). Categories, I guess, should follow en.wp convention. pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:21, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Speedy criteria

I'm not talking about media here, but everything else. Commons:Deletion guidelines does give some criteria for them, but it seems substantially shorter than the en.wp CSD. That isn't just because of non-relevant ones (CSD I9) but some potentially useful ones, CSD G7 "Author requests deletion" for example, have no apparent analogy on Commons. Now that could be oversight on Commons or a deliberate community decision, how is anyone supposed to know? This makes me think Commons:Criteria for speedy deletion should exist so admins familiar with one projects speedy rules are less likely to speedy something which is a valid speedy on their "home" project but should go through the full deletion process on Commons. Also as an additional benefit "CSD I1 copyvio" would be more useful in the deletion log than just "copyvio", as it gives a link to the relevant policy and would make more sense to non-English speakers.--Nilfanion 23:03, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Of course author-requested mistakes are still speedyable, we just don't have a formal category for them. People can certainly put {{speedy|made a mistake, misspelling}} on whatever they want. More detailed guidelines might be appropriate. But I'm probably not the only one would would discourage names like "CSD I1" to develop. These are convenient for admins but frustratingly obtuse for everyone else. Especially because it would soon just be "CSD I1", not "CSD I1 copyvio", in the deletion logs. pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:09, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah true on the logs. Just don't want to make mistakes with process :P--Nilfanion 07:05, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Kolor Klash!!!

Hi all.

For the folks who enjoied in the brutal fight about the italian flag colors a few weeks ago, we have a sequel!

What is the color of that damn'd AZURE jersey?

Coming soon: edit war about the color of Napoleon's white horse! --Jollyroger 23:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

LOL. Can't wait for the one on the invisible pink unicorn, or perhaps 4′33″? pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:14, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Qualification of commercial use

Forgive me if this has been already discussed and point me to the discussions. I understand that the creative commons license without the addition of the non-commercial use only was done along the lines of the OSS/GNU/Linux evolution with the primary purpose of allowing the creation of services and product offerings. If this was the primary aim, would it not be possible to qualify the commercial use to specifics where the commercial activity is not on the contribution in itself but in the way it is being delivered or the added value alone.

When it comes to images I find that most people read the idea of allowing use for 'any purposes including commercial ones' as one in which they see their image as being sold by someone. I think this is what prevents a lot of contributors and there would be considerably greater participation if there was a specific qualification of the commercial use to allow only fair usage.

Perhaps there is a possibility of adding a few other licensing options that would enrich the media at least for usage on wikipedia.

Shyamal 03:50, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Please see Commons talk:Licensing/Explaining why Derivative Work and Commercial Use must be allowed. pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:20, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I think this pretty much covers my understanding of why commercial use is allowed. But can this be qualified. Can the margins be legally specified rather than allowing 'competition' and free-market rules to decide on what a reasonable commercial value is ? I still believe that there should be a finer definition of what would be allowed commercial use. Shyamal 06:14, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

No, it can't be qualified. This is how free we are and how free we've always been. It's a self-imposed restriction that we, as a community/organisation choose to live with. Did you know you could print out a Wikipedia article and sell it? Or any Wikimedia project's work? If you are willing to accept these terms, we welcome your contributions. If you can't, then please don't.

If you want to restrict the likelihood that in all reality, anyone would want to sell your work, license solely under the GFDL. It requires that a copy of the license accompany each copy of the work. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:07, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

That is pretty thin wishful thinking I am afraid. The practicalities are that the GFDL is useless if you don't have the money to defend your rights. So if you are working on software, chances are that the linux community will find the cash to hunt down violators. The case is much different for the individual semi-pro photographer uploading his work. Publishers know this, and look for information they can shovel on disks and cheaply printed books from sources unlikely to enforce restrictions. I am not just talking about big publishers of content in China. If you take a look on Ebay, there are tons of CD of compilations of photos and historical documents. Even if you knew the names of these individual producers you would have to file countless suits in countless jurisdictions for what? A settlement of $100 here and $50 there? It is insane- it is exceptionally difficult to find these violations, much less be able to get legal redress because it would cost a fortune. The fact is that in practical terms, once you upload your image in any form on the internet, you effectively have given it away no matter how restrictive you have made your copyright notices. For individuals, these restrictions are a fig leaf.

Reduction in the economic value of copyrighted material due to the wide availability of free material undercuts the contribution that so called "green" information economies can make. At a national scale, this means that those whose economies excel at the production of extremely inexpensive physical publications (books and CDs) are at a greater advantage because the raw materials to fill up those publications are free. And those particular economies are not exactly exemplars of excellent environmental, child labor, and work safety policies.

Counterbalancing this phenomenon, the reduction in the friction of dissemination of information has a much higher, overriding value. In my opinion, dispelling ignorance is fundamental to addressing these other downstream issues. It does mean that Western economies suffer, but in the grand scheme of things, we in the West have had it pretty good and we can afford to tighten our belts a bit. So yes Virginia, there is no such thing as a free lunch, but knowing these hidden costs of "free" information, we still embrace the movement. -Mak 16:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)