Commons:Village pump

Shortcut: COM:VP

• Community portal
  • introduction
• Help desk
• Village pump
  • copyright
  • proposals
  • technical
• Administrators' noticeboard
  • vandalism
  • user problems
  • blocks and protections

↓ Skip to table of contents ↓       ↓ Skip to discussions ↓       ↓ Skip to the last discussion ↓

COMMONS DISCUSSION PAGES (index) Commons Help desk Village pump (general discussion) Copyright Proposals Technical Graphics and photography discussion Photography critiques Image improvement Illustration workshop Map workshop Photography workshop Video and sound workshop Categories for discussion Undeletion requests Deletion requests Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard Translators' noticeboard Work requests for bots Contact administrators Vandalism User problems (Dispute resolution) Blocks and protections Bureaucrats' noticeboard CheckUser requests Oversight requests Telegram IRC webchat Commons mailing list (archive) Commons' bugs on Phabricator Welcome to the Village pump This page is used for discussions of the operations, technical issues, and policies of Wikimedia Commons. Recent sections with no replies for 7 days and sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=--~~~~}} may be archived; for old discussions, see the archives; the latest archive is Commons:Village pump/Archive/2023/03. Please note: If you want to ask why unfree/non-commercial material is not allowed at Wikimedia Commons or if you want to suggest that allowing it would be a good thing, please do not comment here. It is probably pointless. One of Wikimedia Commons’ core principles is: "Only free content is allowed." This is a basic rule of the place, as inherent as the NPOV requirement on all Wikipedias. Have you read our FAQ? For changing the name of a file, see Commons:File renaming. Any answers you receive here are not legal advice and the responder cannot be held liable for them. If you have legal questions, we can try to help but our answers cannot replace those of a qualified professional (i.e. a lawyer). Your question will be answered here; please check back regularly. Please do not leave your email address or other contact information, as this page is widely visible across the internet and you are liable to receive spam. Purposes which do not meet the scope of this page: Please do not make deletion requests here: use the relevant process for it instead. For technical support and graphics talks (PNG, SVG, GIF, etc.), please post on the Graphics village pump. To ask for image improvement, see: Graphic Lab/Photography workshop for photographs. Graphic Lab/Map workshop for maps. Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop for other illustrations. To ask for video or audio improvement, see Commons:Graphic Lab/Video and sound workshop. For translation requests, please post at Commons:Requests for translation. For media requests, please post at Commons:File requests. Search archives:       Start a new discussion

Legend
In the last hour
In the last day
In the last week
In the last month
More than one month
Manual settings
When exceptions occur, please check the setting first.

The last town pump to be in use in Saint Helier, Jersey, until early 20th century [add]

Centralized discussion See also: Village pump/Proposals   ■ Archive Should Commons opt-in to global abuse filters, or opt-out from them? (22 March 2023) Merging all history from imported files (12 December 2022) Overhaul of categories by period (5 December 2022) Tolerate users to upload pre-1949 Chinese books (13 November 2022) Version of Saudi flag to use (11 July 2022) Concern regarding revocability of KOGL licenses (22 December 2021) Should deleting content from your own talk page be forbidden? (11 November 2021) Revise the COM:FOP Sweden section (1 February 2021) Indonesian laws on copyright (21 August 2020) Template: View   ■ Discuss    ■ Edit   ■ Watch

	SpBot archives all sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=~~~~}} after 1 day and sections whose most recent comment is older than 7 days.

January 07

Slight issue with template acting up in image caption

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

March 16

Naming conventions: Person qualifiers

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

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

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

One problem is that the user creating the category doesn't necessarily know what disambiguation to use. Perhaps they don't know the year of birth, perhaps the person was a nobleman better known as politician or the other way round, a musician doing their main carrier as scientist, whatever. Using middle names can also get confusing, if the middle name is known but not commonly used. I think sub-categories should use the same name as the main category, otherwise you'd get a tune composed by John Smith the explorer in the music by category of the composer John Smith, which would be hard to notice afterwards. We should probably look at what schemes the Wikipedias use, as they have the same problem. –LPfi (talk) 16:21, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I don’t have easy answers for these questions, but I wanted to say I find that the way Enyavar presented the issue was very comprehensively outlined. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 18:50, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

My two cents: Q1 - pre-emptively creating disambiguations is creating a lot of work for what may be no reason. I've created lots of person categories. I create a non-ambiguated cat if I find that there is only one person named it (at time of creation). Once I find that there are more, I always disambiguate, regardless of how famous/well-known the person is as that is an objective measure. Q2 - job description. Add the occupation they're (most) famous for in brackets as this is easiest to understand. Second - if there are two people with the same occupation, add location (British politician) or year of birth. When there are a lot of people that can be confused (see Hans Caspar Hirzel...), use yob/yod. Q3 - Middle initials or names are often used to disambiguate but may be meaningless unless they're generally used for a person's name (like George W. Bush). It is clearer to say "John Smith (explorer)" and "John Smith (singer)" rather than "john b./bert smith" and "john e./elliot smith" to distinguish the two. -- Deadstar (msg) 14:40, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the 2 cents, @Deadstar: and @LPfi: ! My issue is that my actual interest is not in curating those kind of categories at all. I see my main purpose on Commons in meaningfully categorizing maps. Maps that have authors, or that may be included in old books (with authors). Authors have names, which I want to include in the categories. Red categories mostly, but providing a basis for later editors. The British Library sometimes provides the author's dob/dod, but it may not always be obvious what a 18th-century writer was most famous for. The Wikipedias may have very different solutions to disambiguate a certain name, as well. So, each time I need to suddenly create a disambiguation category means I have to familiarize myself with how to do it, then I have to research the life of several random people to find out what their job was, and then make a plan how to recategorize the whole stuff associated with them. Or, I just create a single new category, like last week when I created George E. Norris. George Norris was taken (first comers get non-disambiguations) and the creator of George W. Norris didn't care either about turning the original George Norris into a disambiguation category. And I fully understand that motive, this is a big hassle when dealing with unfamiliar formatting, templates and Wikidata.

I guess that creating preemptive disambiguation tags may not be the best idea, but may hope was to prevent miscategorizations. My point remains that person-categories should be maintained systematically, by people who like to do that (or a well-supervised AI/bot, no shame in using such for detecting/resolving naming issues). Otherwise, the best solution for me is to completely avoid name categories for the uncategorized files that I come across, or to not care about stuffing files into wrong categories. It makes categorization that much easier - there is a reason why the people I am doing a lot of work for, blindly use the category "Maps" to dump their stuff onto Commons. --Enyavar (talk) 11:01, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

@Enyavar: I guess I enjoy sorting through those person cats! I just disambiguated George Norris - I don't know anything about programming bots to do this (and there are many factors to consider + I also do a general search to find any other files/people named it). I'm happy to discuss a more thorough project approach to this with whoever is keen to pick this up. In the mean time, we could set up a "to be disambiguated" category for collecting those that you come across and I (and/or others) can look into them? -- Deadstar (msg) 13:04, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

March 18

Taxonomy category redirects

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

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

@Felix QW: It's not uncommon for higher level taxa to be invalid or deprecated without being nomina invalida. While the taxon names might be completely valid, the taxons themselves may be paraphyletic, based on outdated concepts, or simply forgotten and unused, having been replaced by more modern taxonomies. Such taxons are sometimes synonymized and sometimes simply abandoned. This only applies to higher level taxa, though. Species taxa should ideally have some sort of definite resolution, even if it's just nomen dubium or nomin invalidum. Nosferattus (talk) 17:02, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

In my understanding (which comes from botany rather than zoology), if the circumscription of a higher level taxon would turn out to be paraphyletic, then it would either be recircumscribed (if it has priority) or synonymised (if it doesn't) based on its type species. In any case, at any particular point in time any validly published name would either be accepted or synonymised. If it were forgotten and abandoned, then it would usually be readopted when it is rediscovered as it would then have priority over newer names. Or do I understand this incorrectly? Felix QW (talk) 14:23, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

@Felix QW: Yes, in an ideal world at the end of time. In reality, there are at least six cases which are sometimes exceptions to this (for animals at least): (1) Pre-1931 taxa with no type species; (2) Taxons above the rank of superfamily (which aren't regulated by the ICZN); (3) Known paraphyletic taxons that no one has yet created replacements for; (4) Obscure senior taxon names that everyone agrees should be suppressed, but haven't been officially; (5) Taxonomic vandalism[1]; (6) Taxonomically complex groups where cladistics has largely replaced the use of Linnaean taxonomy (this often overlaps with case #3).

An example of #1: Back in the 1840s Hentz divided all the jumping spiders into 6 taxa: Ambulatoriae, Insidiosae, Luctatoriae, Metatoriae, Pugnatoriae, and Saltatoriae. These were based on which legs were the longest. No one else thought this taxonomy was sensible, so it was discarded and never mentioned again. No type species were designated so no one has felt the need to declare them as synonyms to other taxa. They've just been completely ignored for about 180 years despite being valid names that probably have seniority. Since it's a lot easier to continue ignoring them than to petition the ICZN to suppress the names (which they rarely do), they will probably be ignored forever.

An example of #3: The spider superfamily Thomisoidea is widely known to be paraphyletic and useless (as it just groups two families that aren't actually closely related), but no one has yet suggested a new superfamily to put Thomisidae (the type family) into instead. It will probably eventually be synonymized, but in the meantime it's effectively abandoned and might stay that way for decades (or forever if it turns into case #6).

An example of #4: Phidippus audax, one of the most well known jumping spider species in the world, has an obscure senior synonym: Salticus variegatus. Arachnologists have been petitioning to have the senior synonym officially suppressed by the ICZN since 1970, but with no luck. Regardless, there is complete consensus among arachnologists to continue using Phidippus audax and that's what we use on Commons.

I'm not sure if any of those cases are what the authors of {{Invalid taxon category redirect}} had in mind, but I could imagine it being used for any of them. Of course one could argue that Commons should strictly follow ICZN rules, but in some cases that would lead to significant divergence from the taxonomies actually used in the current scientific literature, and it would be ignoring the fact that taxonomy is, in practice, messy and incomplete (a lot like Commons). Nosferattus (talk) 22:29, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

So it seems like there are two templates for three cases:

• valid synonym → use {{Synonym taxon category redirect}}
• noma invalida proper that still can be mapped to a synonymous name → also use {{Synonym taxon category redirect}}
• weird edge cases → use {{Invalid taxon category redirect}}

That seems mildly confusing, especially since the template documentation does not clearly explian that. El Grafo (talk) 09:35, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

@Felix QW and El Grafo: After looking more closely at the template documentation for both of these and how they are being used, I agree with both of you that it doesn't really make sense. It seems that Liné1 intended {{Synonym taxon category redirect}} to be for objective synonyms and {{Invalid taxon category redirect}} to be for subjective synonyms (or something like that). I would favor merging {{Invalid taxon category redirect}} into {{Synonym taxon category redirect}} to simplify things and limit confusion. The weird edge cases (which hardly exist on Commons) aren't important enough to justify a separate template, IMO, and we definitely don't want to be handling different types of proper synonyms with different templates as that's just confusing. Nosferattus (talk) 17:11, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

@Nosferattus and El Grafo: Thank you very much for your input, and Nosferattus in particula for the insightful examples. Does anyone here know the procedure for initiating a template merge?

On enwiki there is a dedicated "merging procedure"; would it here just need an administrator to implement? Felix QW (talk) 20:20, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

David S. Soriano

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

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

Apart from the controversy around AI-generated art, I think not many of his files are even within scope (Artwork without obvious educational use, including non-educational artwork uploaded to showcase the artist's skills in particular). But there are just so many by now... --HyperGaruda (talk) 05:05, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

We had Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by David S. Soriano in August 2022 and it was kept. Absent a large number of one-by-one listing each image for deletion with a separate explanation that each one isn't within the scope enough to annoy him, I don't see what people expect him to do differently. Even that I don't think will do much since it's pretty easy to just come up with words for an AI to generate images and upload them. Ricky81682 (talk) 17:09, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

March 19

Conflicting Copyright licensing on Flickr

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

Flickr has a license history. It does not mention that the file was at any time other than "all rights reserved". The license in the description has two problems: It will not pass the automated robot based flickr license review at commons. And the user can edit the description, leaving you without any prove of the cc license.

However the flickr user seems to be active, so you yould send them a message at flickr and ask them about the license issue. if it is a genuine error them might fix it. C.Suthorn (talk) 11:55, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

That's probably the best approach. Flickr is still providing the very outdated V.2 licenses only. They are discussing the introduction of V.4 licenses but that's going on for years now without any result. Some users may help themselves with hand written license statements like this one. -- Herbert Ortner (talk) 08:41, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

@Acabashi: I would say that these are obviously intended to be licensed under CC BY 4.0. Flickr doesn't allow users to choose CC BY 4.0, so the best a Flickr user who wants that licence can do is to choose "all rights reserved" and then grant a licence in prose. If you're worried about the user changing their mind later, you could ensure that the photo page on Flickr is archived by https://web.archive.org or similar. I don't know how our licence review system handles non-standard Flickr licences, but I'd hope that a manual licence review would sort it if necessary. --bjh21 (talk) 14:47, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Why this flickr import has a different size？

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

• Flickr version is (visually) slightly more cropped compared to ours, so it's a matter of a different crop, not stretching. I'd guess they somehow uploaded a slightly different version to Flickr after the upload to Commons, except I don't know how you could do that and keep the same Flickr photo ID. Definitely strange. - Jmabel ! talk 20:21, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

  @Infrogmation: do you know what happened, since it seems you uploaded it here 8 min after flickr upload? we're just being curious. :) RZuo (talk) 08:44, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

March 20

Misspelling/wrong word in diagram

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

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

Quick remark: the previous version of File:Organisation juridictionnelle nationale fr.svg still has editable text, so one could use that to fix the issue and then convert text to paths again for better renderuing (if necessary). El Grafo (talk) 09:03, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, not sure how to do that, but before anyone does, I'm going to request the attention of previous editors @Céréales Killer and Hérisson grognon: at the diagram. Peux-tu examiner cette conversation (éventuellement ainsi celle liée ci-dessus sur la pdd de Ternoc) et donner ton avis ici ? Au minimum, la faute d'orthographe doit être corrigée, mais même l'orthographe correcte départitrice est extrèmement rare en tant qu'adjectif (malgré son utilisation a fr:Tribunal des conflits (France)), et serait probablement la version fem. du nom départiteur et non pas un adjectif, donc inapproprié pour être utilisé dans le diagramme. Un mot différent (et un adj., dans l'occurrence) serait un meilleur choix, à mon avis. Peux-tu en suggérer un ? Merci, Mathglot (talk) 18:49, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Done. I have replaced “Juridiction départatrice” with “Tribunal départiteur”. Céréales Killer (talk) 19:13, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Appreciated, User:Tueur de Corn Flakes en série. Mathglot (talk) 09:16, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

GRIN links

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

• https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/taxon/taxonomydetail?id=19408

instead of

• https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/taxon/taxonomygenus?id=19408 ?

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

Dear Begalma,

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

March 21

New page for code review or getting interface administrators' attention

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

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

The National Archives (UK) copyright policy

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

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

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

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

The following two paragraphs are also relevant:

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

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

If Crown Copyright has expired then the files are in the public domain and the "non-commercial use" restriction is invalid. If Crown Copyright has been waived then there could be problems; if the waiver was conditional on non-commercial use, then the files can't be kept here.

If the files were released on the Open Government Licence[2] then commercial reuse is included by default.

The problem is therefore limited to files where UK Crown Copyright hasn't expired, the file hasn't been released under OGL and it is a situation where Crown Copyright was waived (rather than the usual method of releasing under OGL). From Hill To Shore (talk) 14:01, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

March 22

A24 (Stockholm) tram category

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

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

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

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

• @Enyavar: Yes, we use the common usage of considering those 20th-century. - Jmabel ! talk 18:06, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

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

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

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

We still have not agreed on how exactly to use depicts (P180). On the question "should we tag every image of a dog as such or can the system be smart enough to figure out that something tagged as depicting a Labradoodle by extension must depict a dog?", we're still waiting to hear back from the developers of the search function. Last year they said they wouldn't be able to get into that "before the end of the fiscal year" (whenever that is in the US). Maybe it's time to ask again. In any case, large scale editing of depicts statements does not make much sense at this point. El Grafo (talk) 16:26, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Addition of precise depicts statements (e.g "Labradoodle") is good and should continue, whether done individually, or at scale. The mass addition of generic (high level) statements (e.g "dog") is harmful. I'm unclear why the developers of the search function would be deferred to on this matter; search is only one use case for this data. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:25, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Replying to @El Grafo & @Pigsonthewing; to be fair "dog" is fairly generic. The actual reason why this came to mind for me is I've been working through category pages for cosplay, and I thought it would be convenient if I could somehow have that category automatically assign "depicts: [whichever character]". I feel like that, at least, is very much a specialized and non-general case in which nobody would really argue with the addition of that depicts statement. OmegaFallon (talk) 19:59, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

@OmegaFallon & Pigsonthewing no objection against adding precise statements! El Grafo (talk) 08:54, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Would it be worth whipping up a little template to indicate these statements should be added, even if currently they don't do anything? I could do that pretty easily, especially considering I've recently been switching over cosplay categories to use templates. That means adding something like this to every category would be as easy as just modifying the category template. OmegaFallon (talk) 13:27, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Template:ShouldHaveStatements is as far as I could get for a basic framework :P I'm not well versed in the whole SQL syntax or whatever it's called. Still, I think this could ultimately be a very good idea. OmegaFallon (talk) 13:36, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

@El Grafo I forgot to ping :P OmegaFallon (talk) 19:01, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Speaking of "Depicts"…

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

I think depicts (P180) Seattle (Q5083) is technically correct, though it would be better to use a more precise location. In addition, a statement like location of creation (P1071) Seattle (Q5083) can also be added. For the date, I think inception (P571) 1910​ is the standard way to do it, perhaps with a qualifier sourcing circumstances (P1480) circa (Q5727902) to indicate it's an approximate date. --Stevenliuyi (talk) 00:31, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

That looks a lot saner than what was there. I'll edit accordingly. - Jmabel ! talk 01:29, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

@Jmabel, Stevenliuyi: How about using point in time (P585) as a qualifier to depicts (P180)? That could be particularly useful in cases where the creation date of the work is not the same as the depicted date (e.g. retrospective paintings/drawings/maps of historic events). El Grafo (talk) 09:02, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

There is actually date depicted (P2913) for handling such cases. Stevenliuyi (talk) 09:27, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Ohh, nice, that's good to know! El Grafo (talk) 13:14, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

PDFs with missing pages

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

March 24

Delete an old version according to uploader's wish

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

I only see the current version in all 5 articles. Have you tried emptying your browser cache? --Rosenzweig τ 17:09, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

@Rosenzweig: I did it but it appears to be of no change in my device. If possible, please delete it. This issue is happening from the time ever since the new version is re-uploaded. I really worry if my situation is happening in some others' screens or not. Haoreima (talk) 17:36, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

OK, I did. In general, you might want to try to delete the server cache in such cases (the * in the panel at the top of the page). --Rosenzweig τ 17:53, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

@Rosenzweig: It’s not working, just like last week: Thumbnails get created but wont be readily updated when the original file changes: For the past 2h, I’m experiencing the same issue with File:5×4clicksBeachKhoekhoe(TNR).png, which filepage is showing two outdated thumbnails (and zero current ones), each from a separate past version. One needs to click on the main thumbnail or on one of the «Other resolutions» to get the newest version. This matter needs urgent fix. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 14:19, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm not having any issues like that (again). I've cleared the server cache to be sure, but beyond that, waiting is probably what will help. --Rosenzweig τ 14:56, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

March 25

CommonsDelinker bot discussion

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

March 26

Get QID from page title?

Currently running into a bit of a hiccup. I know there's Template:QID, which fetches the QID of the current page, and Template:GetQID which fetches the QID of the category's main topic. However, I want a template that gets the QID of a specified page's main topic. For example, {{getQIDfrompagename|Category:Minecraft}} which would return Q49740. Does this exist, or is there a potential alternate way of going about this? Thanks in advance.— Preceding unsigned comment added by OmegaFallon (talk • contribs) 16:06, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Category:French-language surnames

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

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

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

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

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

Surnames are tightly connected to language. I’m sure you can come up with many exceptions, but those are… exceptions. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 14:06, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

If you really want a flat category for surnames, then go ahead and do create and populate Category:Surnames (flat list) — nothing against that. Any attempt at dismantling will be met with the same opposition as any other vandalism attempt would. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 14:10, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

What is a hood?

Hi all,

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

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

file:1948 Tucker - 15715915860.jpg is the opposite: front lid covering no engine. Is it a hood or what? → bertux 17:29, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Probably in the first image it would be the trunk lid. Although I just refer to it as the rear hood. I don't think it matters which one you use. Either works. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:08, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

If I want to create a category for rear engined cars with open engine covers what would be a suitable name? Just Rear engined cars with open engine covers? → bertux 18:48, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Probably. Front engine is such a norm that I don't think there is any good common term for this. - Jmabel ! talk 19:11, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

"Rear engine cover" seems like a good safe compromise. Broichmore (talk) 19:54, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Category:Cars with open rear engine hood covers would be an interesting category name to say the least. Especially once you get to down more fined grained sub-categorization. Category:2017 Red sports cars with open green rear engine hood covers in Los Angeles County, California anyone? Lol. Not that I know what a good alternative would be though. --Adamant1 (talk) 08:35, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

A good alternative would be to not create Categories that intersect subject x place x time at all, but I'm afraid that ship has sailed long ago. El Grafo (talk) 10:49, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I totally agree with Adamant1 and El Grafo on the weirdness of the category system. Its fundamental flaw is that it is subtractive: if you just want a fine picture of a green left hand drive car you could probably find it in Category:Mercedes-Benz C197 if only you could. It should be replaced by an additive system with tags: #car #green #left hand drive would easily do the trick.

In Wikipedia the category system is totally useless and maintained by people who don't mind spending their life on a dead end but In Commons it still makes sense, mainly for lack of a viable alternative. Hopefully the depicts tags wil become user friendlier over time with decent interfaces for editors and searchers → bertux 12:59, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Categories are useful as buckets that contain images of the same topic. It starts to break down once you get down to the more fine grained parts of an image though. I've seen instances where someone created a category with like 9 nested child categories that were all inside of each other like a Russian doll just so they have a category at the bottom of it for something in the image that was totally meaningless and would never allow for other images besides that one being put in the category. Which isn't really a sustainable way to do things. It's also just needless micro-categorization. I'm not sure if depicts will necessary solve things, but it is an improvement. At least I believe it will be one once it's more widely used and whatnot. Although the whole interface for adding Wikidata items kind of sucks, but whatever. There's always a catch somewhere with this stuff lol. --Adamant1 (talk) 13:28, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

It is not the Russian dolls which make it break down, they are just the symtoms. It starts to break down if you have over a million pictures. The system is simply not scalable. The only way to avoid Russian dolls is to have many cats with 1000+ pictures which isn't helpful either.

A tag system on the other hand scales quite naturally, surely someone will have proposed that before. Do you know of any discussions on this topic? → bertux 13:40, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Why every discussion of “tags” presupposes that categories must be distroyed? Want tags?, create tags, then, and leave alone categories and editors interested in mantaining them. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 14:04, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Any good and ergonomic tag system would strip the category system off its last sliver of usefulness → bertux 14:54, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

I think it's good to use NoFoP templates in categories of buildings and monuments located NoFoP countries. Many people often upload photos without knowing that there are no FoP in some countries, and this use is a great way to indicate that the country where the building or monument is located has no FoP. Ox1997cow (talk) 07:42, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

So, how about using FoP templates in categories of buildings and monuments located FoP countries like Category:One World Trade Center, Category:CN Tower and Category:The Shard? Ox1997cow (talk) 07:49, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@Ox1997cow: I don't know if there has been some statistics if these no-FOP templates indeed warned uploaders or uploaders either ignore them or challenge our licensing policy (by purposely uploading photos testing if their photos or imports are going to be nominated). Regarding FOP templates, I once did that but eventually discontinued after one Wikipedian expressed reservation that such templates cause clutter in the structure of categories (see the link above I provided). Thus I stopped adding FOP templates to categories. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 08:10, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

In fact, I made the case for deleting {{FOP-buildings-category warning}} and replacing it with NoFoP templates in this deletion discussion. {{FOP-buildings-category warning}} is not suitable for use in categories of modern buildings or monuments, so I thought it would be nice to have NoFoP templates used in the category as well as the files. Ox1997cow (talk) 08:22, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

March 27

Should I just move this category ?

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

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

Yes, just move it, because Wikipedia and wikidata give the correct latin spelling for beetle. Broichmore (talk) 09:39, 27 March 2023 (UTC)