Commons:Village pump/Archive/2008/05

Licensing

If I upload an image onto commons with a public domain license can someone save that picture and then upload it onto their website and then copyright it, so no-one is allowed to use it and then demand that my original image be removed, because of copyright imfringement? bsrboy 20:14, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

No -- but they could copyright a derived (significantly transformed) version of the image which they made (without prejudice to the public domain status of the original untransformed image)... AnonMoos 21:02, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Fraudulently making false copyright claims regarding a public domain work (without any copyrightable modifications) is a criminal offense under United States Code Title 17, Circular 92, Section 506(c) (and similar laws in other countries). —LX (talk, contribs) 18:31, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

First of all, public domain is not a license, it's a copyright status. There is some doubt over whether copyright can actually be voluntarily relinquished to the public domain. This is why {{PD-self}} says, "In case this is not legally possible: I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose [...]". But either way there's no way someone could claim the original infringed copyright. If it's PD, there's no copyright to infringe. If it's copyrighted, you've already licensed it freely and there's no way they can reverse that. Superm401 - Talk 03:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

April 30

Whoah.

How come every image description page is saying "This file is a duplicate of another file from shared repository"? Apart from the fact that this is grammatically incorrect, the link points to the same page on Commons. Which one of you broke it? Own up now! :P Lewis Collard! (hai thar, wut u doin) 23:14, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, it just went away (I'm not going mad; someone else saw it as well). Still, what the shit was that about? :D Lewis Collard! (hai thar, wut u doin) 23:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

How do you know you're not both mad? Just kidding, of course. It probably has something to do with MediaWiki:Shareduploadconflict. Superm401 - Talk 07:32, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed this popped up on the English Wikipedia for images that have a namesake here, so I'm guessing it's a new feature. Someone probably just forgot to set it so Commons doesn't check if its images "also" exist on Commons. —LX (talk, contribs) 15:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

This was a problem with our Commonsettings.php, and was fixed last night. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 17:19, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

May 2

Image template standardization

There is currently a proposal at en Wikipedia to standardize construction and appearance of image page templates using a metatemplate; this may have possible future application here at the Commons. Interested users should see en:Template:Imbox and its associated talk page. Thanks! Kelly 16:04, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Bridgeman v. Corel, 9 years on

http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4872982/ --Historiograf 17:09, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Amin help needed

Hi. For pragmatic reasons (I'd explain more if needed), I uploaded a new image (that one) over a derivative work in order to keep the same picture title. But an admin now has to delete the previous picture (which is still here). Thanks in advance. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 17:24, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Done'– Mike.lifeguard' | ^@en.wb 18:55, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Nope. It's still there! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 18:56, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

No, its not! Delete your browser cache, and it will disappear. --Kjetil_r 19:14, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

OK sorry. I never know how to delete my browser cache, I should save it in a memo on my profile. How do we do it? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 19:45, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

"Note: After saving, you have to bypass your browser's cache to see the changes. Mozilla/Safari/Konqueror/Firefox: hold down Shift while clicking Reload (or press Ctrl-Shift-R), IE: press Ctrl-F5, Opera: press F5." – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 20:18, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Mozambique copyright law about stamps?

Would anyone know if copyright would apply to a cancelled stamp from Mozambique? I'm not sure of the date of the stamp. It's currently in the Esperanto Wikipedia at eo:Dosiero:Narina.jpg, and I'm wondering if it's public domain or not. Thanks... -- Yekrats 22:25, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

May 3

images

Please delete the orphan images i have uploaded.--Dimorsitanos 15:51, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Adopt-a-user

Wikipedia has it, why can't Commons? Nothing444 13:43, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Because we aren't Wikipedia, we're Wikimedia Commons. Monobi (talk) 16:18, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Still, there are many experienced users here who would be willing to help you if you need it. Majorly (talk) 16:37, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I suppose we could start it, if people are interested. I am an adopter at English Wikipedia. Superm401 - Talk 00:23, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Check out Commons:Welcome log if you're itching to adopt! pfctdayelise (说什么?) 13:55, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

OpenOffice.org file types?

I am rather confused to notice that, according to Commons:File types, not only OO2 file types (Open Document Format) are still not allowed but even OO1 file types have been removed from the whitelist. Note that ODFs (OO2) are among the most powerful formats, since e.g. spreadsheets allow easy calculation and tabulation of complex formulas that otherwise would require the implementation of text formulas into a self-written program by the reader.

What is the reason for this? What in general is the reason for not allowing all (or at least all free) popular and useful content formats? Please note that the natural way should be so forbid only selected files ("blacklist") rather than first forbidding all and then allowing only a selected "elite" of file types ("whitelist"). Who is responsible for these decisions? What are the criteria? I have never found any public discussion about this (apart from here) nor any transparent decision process or any hint where to look for that.--SiriusB 07:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

When would we actually use an OpenOffice file on a Wikimedia project? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 16:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

You would have to ask the developer and Meta types for the full official reasons, but I think one part of the reason is that Commons is mainly for files whose data is strongly associated with one specific fixed visual representation. Files whose data could potentially displayed in many different ways, and which lack a default fixed visual representation, could possibly be useful for many purposes, but they might not fall into the scope of Commons... -- AnonMoos 16:54, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

First, this is no valid reason to forbid(*) the use, only not to recommend them for mere presentation of content. Second, OpenOffice spreadsheets may be a great enhancement of possibilities to present content because they allow calculations by the user himself. I am using OO mainly for spreadsheet calculations. And other peoble do as well. As an example, see here. There you can download an Excel file for the interactive calculation of nuclear weapons effects. Such things can also been done with OO spreadsheets (and as far as I know you can also use them in most of the recent Excel versions). Many other applications are possible for scientific, technical or whatever purposes. But since the deletion of OO1 file types from the whitelist(*) there ist no interactive file type left. The user can only upload and download passive (=non-interactive) file types the reader can only read (or play, if it's a media file), but not use for own calculations, tabulations etc. Or is there any possibility to upload self-written source code e.g. in C, Java, Fortran or whatever, that can be used for such things? This, of course, would be an even better alternative but, again, no reason to prohibit the upload of OO spreadsheets.

(*) What is the reason to work with a whitelist of a selected "elite" of contents rather than with a blacklist to exclude unfree content or malware? However, if the people responsible for the policies insist in whitelists, a viable way would be to allow at least spreadsheets from OpenOffice, Gnumerics or other free applications as well as C/C++, Fortran, Java etc. codes. There are many Wikipedia articles that come with formulas (e.g. most of the physics-related articles), which could greatly be enhanced if linked to free calculation tools related to the topic. Ok, for many topics there are Weblinks that allow such calculations (e.g. weather-related or so), but most of them are not free-licensed.--SiriusB 08:24, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Some people would say that CSV is the most portable spreadsheet format. "Interactive tools" means integrating user-written software as part of the Wikipedia interface, which would open the door to all sorts of issues... AnonMoos 21:46, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

CSV is far from being comparable to a spreadsheet format since it is a simple text file without any interactive functionality. A CSV file may be used as a condensed table format (and can be used to import data files to OpenOffice.org), but it contains only numbers, no functions.

I'm not sure how to interpret your conclusion about interactivity: Do you see any problem in allowing user-written software in Commons? I wouldn't call this integrating that software into the Wikipedia interface since the underlying Wikimedia software is not being touched by merely offering software the user may run on a local machine. And yes, allowing interactive applications as media files would indeed open the door to a whole world of new possibilities and thus probably be an enormous enhancement! Why beinf afraid of this? In my opionion, any restriction requires a good reason. If there is no such good reason to keep Commons free of interactive content, then any such restriction is unjustified and should be abolished immediately.--SiriusB 18:18, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Crazyaboutlost

Hi. I am a pt-wiki user and tried to upload an image to my wiki. When I tried to create an account, I realized someone had already created an account with my user name and had been blocked. I was wondering if is there the possibility to erase that account so I can create it and use it properly? Thanks in advance. Crazyaboutlost

You can request usurpation of that account on COM:CHU -- Bryan (talk to me) 17:00, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much.201.14.241.221 21:18, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Words In Ancient Greeks

Hi, I would like to ask if anyone knows how to spell Isaac in ancient greeks letters.. Thanks..

According to this page, Ισαάκ. --rimshot^talk 17:47, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Another handy trick is to find it on the English wikipedia and then look at the interwiki links along the left side for the language you want -- in this case "el" is Greek. Indeed, it looks like Ισαάκ is correct. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 01:20, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

In fact ancient greeks did not use lower case letters, so in ancient greek it would be ΙΣΑΑΚ. Geraki ^T_L^G 14:34, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

DC Comics Image

Image:OFF123.jpg is copyright of DC Comics..Why has it the "Attribution" license? --87.0.125.182 19:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

It seems, because the copyright holder allowed use under the condition of proper attribution. --Túrelio 19:47, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

May 4

Oxygen icons

Why there aren't any icons from Oxygen project. They are released in GPL I think, so license is not the problem. Also all Oxygen icons are drown in SVG format. --Mihael Simonic 13:14, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

We have Category:Tango project icons which I believe are part of Oxygen project. If you know of other useful icons please upload them. --Jarekt 17:57, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

There is huge difference between Tango and Oxygen. Oxygen has nothing to do with Tango. Oxygen is for en:KDE 4, while Tango is only for en:GNOME. You can see some of them here http://websvn.kde.org/tags/KDE/4.0.3/kdebase/runtime/pics/oxygen/scalable/, but note that they are .svgz so you need to open them in inkscape. --Mihael Simonic 07:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I've been meaning to upload those sooner or later. I just wish they were already .svg. That would make it a little easier. Rocket000 18:11, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

They will no release SVG version. They switch to compressed SVGZ format to save space after installation of KDE... --Mihael Simonic 20:25, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Handbuch der Systematischen Botanik (1924)

Hi. Can someone tell me if it is OK to upload these images?:

http://caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de/~stueber/wettstein/botanik/index.html

In the footnote I think it says that the license is GFDL (don't know german). Should'nt the license be PD-old ? Thanks. Lijealso 12:11, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I speak German and I find that footer somewhat confusing. It says:

Dieses Buch ist Teil von www.biolib.de der virtuellen biologischen Bibliothek. © Kurt Stueber, 2007. Dieses Buch ist geschützt durch die GNU Free Document License. Diese Lizenz erlaubt private und kommerzielle Verwendungen unter den Bedingungen der GNU Free Dokument License. Bei Verwendung von Teilen/Abbildungen bitten wir um die Quellenangabe: www.BioLib.de

Which translated to English is:

This book is a part of www.biolib.de, a virtual biological library. © Kurt Stueber, 2007. This book is protected through the GNU Free Document License. This license allows private and commercial use under the rules stated in the GNU Free Dokument License. When you use parts/images we ask that you state the source: www.BioLib.de

However, that seems to be a site wide footer. So I looked around and found that they have scanned hundreds of books and published them on that site. The specific book you linked to can't really be under the GFDL since the book is much older than the GFDL, unless of course the author or his children or similar have released it under the GFDL now. But of course, the book is from 1924 so it might be public domain. According to that site German copyright law says that books become public domain 70 years after the author have died. I don't know if that is correct and the site anyway doesn't tell when/if that author died. But it is likely the author of that book is this Richard Wettstein, and if that article is correct then he died in 1931. And then that book probably is public domain.

Anyway, you should perhaps email the person in charge of that site and ask? www.biolib.de has pages in English too, and this specific subpage has the contact address.

--Davidgothberg 18:55, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. I just found that biolib.de is listed in this page: Commons:Public domain and free image resources. I think I will contact them by email. Lijealso 08:56, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

• The illustrations in this book (all three editions) were done by Adolf Kasper (probably this one: 1863 - 1935) from sketches by Wettstein (see the forewords at [1]). A first edition of the book appeared in 1901, a second edition in 1911. Images from these editions are {{PD-Old-70}} (for Germany, Austria, and all other 70-years-p.m.a. countries) and {{PD-1923}} (for the U.S.). Images that originally appeared for the first time in the third edition are {{PD-old}} for Germany, Austria, and all other 70-years-p.m.a. countries, but are not PD in the U.S. because they were copyrighted in Austria (and in Germany) on January 1, 1996. In the U.S., images that for the first time appeared in the 1924 edition are copyrighted until the end of 2019. So, how do we find out which of the images already were in the 1911 or even in the 1901 edition? Lupo 09:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Public Domain or not?

Does anyone have any idea what do we do when a copyrighted work of art appears in a film trailer that is in the public domain? Specifically, the problem is this Image:Mutiny bounty 2.jpg - it shows artwork on the cover of a book that was published in 1934 which I presume is still under copyright? Gustav VH 22:09, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

The work would be protected by copyright. Megapixie 09:40, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I presume this would only apply in similar cases where the artwork constituted most of the frame i.e. if a painting, photo, book cover appears in the background of a scene, this wouldn't affect the public domain status? Gustav VH 10:07, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. How far in the background and how small it would have to be is not an easy question to answer, though. --rimshot^talk 17:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

May 5

I clearly disagree with that DR closing

The fact that the uploader himself asked for its deletion is not a valid reason of deletion. It's like someone who would want to cancel a "PD" licence in a "CC-BY-SA" licence. It's not acceptable. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 05:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I disagree too, but you know where to take this. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 12:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done > Undeletion request. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 14:04, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Find dupes

Hi people, i wrote a little tool to find dupes at your local wikipedia. It's located at http://tools.wikimedia.org/~multichill/nowcommons.php . Have fun, Multichill 17:15, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Great tool, thanks --Jarekt 15:28, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

And another tool to find images at your wiki which are uploaded more than once, see http://tools.wikimedia.org/~multichill/dupes.php.

To give you an indication about the amount of dupes, at en wikipedia the first tool found 22014 images and the second tool 16217 images. Multichill 22:40, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I love it! Is there any way for the tool to not display images that are already tagged with {{NowCommons}}? It would save time as many of the images I looked at from the tool were already tagged. Kelly 17:00, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I first filtered out these images, but this made the query *very* slow. Maybe i'll add it again as an extra option. Multichill 20:52, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Will you make them work for more wikipedias (e.g. el.wikipedia)? Geraki ^T_L^G 14:36, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Every wikipedia is possible, just tell me how to nominate a picture. How do you nominate a duplicate image at el wikipedia? What's the template name? Multichill 21:19, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

The template used is {{διπλότυπο}}. Please give me a note when you are ready. Geraki ^T_L^G 08:40, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Promotional username

User:Ch-info.ch seems to be here to make good image contributions, but his username promotes his website. Do we have an actual policy that forbids this, as on en:wp? Sandstein 20:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Not really. Sometimes I'll block new accounts with website names, but as long as the user's making welcomed contribs and the name's not causing a problem, I don't it's much of issue. Rocket000 12:27, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Tend to agree with Rocket - it is the work of the account rather than the name that matters - however quite often the ones named after websites do have self promotion in mind. In this instance he is giving freely licensed content so that is good (I hope) --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:42, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

License in Portuguese

Could someone who knows Spanish check this[2] image and see if the source really states the image is released under that license? FunkMonk 22:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not spanish but portuguese. The copyright note on the source page (© FAPERJ – Todas as matérias poderão ser reproduzidas desde que citada a fonte.) sounds good, but the question remains whether "you can reproduce it" really means a free license. --Túrelio 06:06, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid it's not good enough. It just asks for a source to be given, and authorizes reproduction. There is no mention that the images can be used for any purpose, including commercial and production of derivative works. That is simply a "press" license, and does not comply with Commons licensing policy. Patrícia ^msg 16:20, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

• Darn, well, I just uploaded a couple of images form that site too, might want to delete them too if this one is. FunkMonk 21:33, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Robot suggestion

For give me if this has already been proposed, but, how about a robot which puts in the back links from commons to Wikipedia based upon the {{Commonscat}} templates. If this is to dangerous how about one which finds a link from commons to a Wikipedia, then checks that Wikipedia page for other language versions, visits them to add commons links and then add the back link from commons to all the relevant Wikipedia languages. I've done this by hand on a few pages but it's a real chore. Railwayfan2005 20:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

You may wish to try Commons:Bots/Requests. Cheers! --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 01:59, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

May 6

Template talk:Featured picture mul#Delisted on Commons

Heads up! -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 08:40, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Template:GFDL-user-en-no-disclaimers

Actual change
GFDL-user-en-no-disclaimers	GFDL-user
usernamegoeshere at the English Wikipedia, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publishes it under the following license: The relicensing status of this image has not yet been reviewed. You can help.	usernamegoeshere at the English-language Wikipedia, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publishes it under the following license: The relicensing status of this image has not yet been reviewed. You can help.

I suggest we abolish this ({{GFDL-user-en-no-disclaimers}}) template and all the likes of it. Generic Template:GFDL-user can do the exact same thing with one additional parameter ("en"). -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 20:32, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

See [3]. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 11:02, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

If there are no objections I will preform this operation right away. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 23:34, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

No. This needs discussion first! – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 03:34, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Then raise your objections if you have any. This is a completely noncontroversial issue as it stands. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 10:44, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I have no objections because I haven't even looked at this. The point is that you should be discussing this first. Be bold, but not reckless. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 17:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

This is an extremely bad idea. It is necessary we have separate templates to indicate whether there are disclaimers. Superm401 - Talk 18:40, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Really? Have you checked the actual change? You do not need to explicitly state the absence of disclaimers. The generic template, {{GFDL-user}}, does just that. We do not need to explicitly state if an image came from "English language Wikipedia". -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 10:44, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

If those few words are the ONLY difference (and they are), it makes no sense to keep the 'english special' version when the general version can do the job just as well. Redundancy, run a bot to replace all usages of the GFDL-user-en-no-disclaimers with GFDL-user (keeping the name and adding '|en') and delete the superfluous template. --Guandalug 13:32, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

If there is to be a redirect between those two, I believe it should be the other way around. We should keep a tag explicitly saying "no disclaimers" to avoid further confusion on this. I could be supportive of a general {{GFDL-user-no-disclaimers}} tag, which would address this. Superm401 - Talk 23:06, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

All images tagged with {{GFDL}} lack a disclaimer. There is no confusion whatsoever on this. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 11:20, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I know there's no confusion now. Please read up at w:Wikipedia:GFDL standardization. There was no confusion at en Wikipedia until someone decided to make a well-meaning but incorrect change to a generically named template, {{GFDL}}. Hence, why {{GFDL-user-no-disclaimers}} is a safer permanent name for here. No one is likely to decide {{GFDL-user-no-disclaimers}} is meant to have a disclaimer. However, they might do so with {{GFDL}}. Superm401 - Talk 04:03, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

There are hundreds of thousands of images uploaded from English wikipedia with {{GFDL}} and {{GFDL-user}}. This really is a no-issue. All images on English wikipedia tagged with {{GFDL}} are licensed without a disclaimer. Images marked with {{GFDL-with-disclaimers}} are with disclaimers. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 19:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

There used to be {{GFDL-user-fi}} or something (and it looks like it still exists). I hope that that will be deleted as well as {{GFDL-user-en-no-disclaimers}}. All we need is GFDL-user. Samulili 15:32, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Or rather, replace all with {{GFDL-user-w}} which has more parameters. Samulili 15:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

{{GFDL-user-w}} can also be abolished. {{{2}}} parameter on it is entirely unnecesary. {{GFDL-user-fi}} and all other flavors of license templates that {{GFDL-user}} covers should also be abolished. {{GFDL-user}} can cover all wikis, even non-wikipedia wikis like wikinews, wikisource, wikibooks, wikiversity, wikiquote, wiktionary. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 19:16, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Before deleting the license, please talk to Magnus or at least set up a redirect so that licenses are not lost when images are moved here via CommonsHelper. 131.7.52.17 20:17, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I intend to leave the redirect where it is. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 19:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

April 19

Template substitution at Commons:Deletion requests

As we all know, DR pages are a pain to load due to size. Recently, there were some that wouldn't render properly because there were too many inclusions. To help reduce server load on these pages (which reduces your load time), I'd like to suggest that folks start subst'ing their !vote icons. There's no need to have those dynamically loaded, and there are probably hundreds on each DR page.

If I'm getting the technical details wrong here, let me know. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 02:34, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Could a bot regularly scan & replace any non-subst'ed vote templates? --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 03:24, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I could do that now. Any objections? – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 14:26, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I dont think this will improve your load time because this is server side code. We seem to be well below the limits at Commons:Deletion requests:

NewPP limit report
Preprocessor node count: 7856/1000000
Post-expand include size: 1350241/2048000 bytes
Template argument size: 35234/2048000 bytes
Expensive parser function count: 0/500

Substitution of all those templates seems useless and very anoying (will pop up in watchlists) to me. Multichill 14:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem was due to DRBot not archiving older discussions, so that particular months (namely March) got larger than any month normally would get. I don't think its a problem any longer. --rimshot^talk 14:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I've thought about this myself, however, I don't think it would've helped that much. My solution (at the time it was at it's peak) was to suggest we stray away from using vote templates on COM:DR and simply start using bold text à la en.wp among others. As long as it's being archived on time, I think we'll stay under the post-expand limit, but the main problem is still the loading time, I don't know what's worst—all the template calls or the fact they all contain images. If we don't want to sacrifice our little vote symbols, maybe we can rethink how we organize the current requests. Maybe transclude less days at once or even have separate pages (e.g. one for copyright-related requests, one for mass deletions, and one for "out of scope" issues and everything else). This separation would also ideal for those looking for certain DRs. Mass deletions usually warrant more attention and affect things on a greater scale so grouping them makes sense. Many template and non-image page nominations go through the process with little or no input due to being lost in a sea of potential copyvios. Not everyone is interested or knowledgeable enough to give their input on the copyright-related requests and don't even bother going through them all to find those few they normally would comment on. We already have COM:CFD for categories; a separate page for galleries, or templates, or something like MfD doesn't really make sense on Commons (yet), but we should split it somehow. Personally, I would like if we could do a page solely for copyright issues and a page for everything else. Any ideas on how we can do this? Or any better ideas? Rocket000 17:09, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it being an image matters. My understanding is that the post-expand include size for a template (e.g. Template:Support) is just the size of the included wikitext. Thus, the size for {{Support}} ("[[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|15px]] '''{{{1|Support}}}'''") would just be 63, which is not really that large. Superm401 - Talk 07:37, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I didn't mean that it affects the post-expand size. That's not really the problem though as long as it gets archived. Its the loading time, which images obviously do affect regardless of being in a template or not. Rocket000 08:15, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I did some tests. First I transcluded 1MB of {{Vd}} templates to User:Rocket000/test1 and then expanded them all on User:Rocket000/test2. The pages without transclusions loading on average roughly 0.3-0.5 sec faster. Sometimes they were the same. Of course, my download speed wasn't constant and I didn't do it enough to make the numbers mean much, but I don't think subst'ing would have helped (except to get us under the arbitrary limit). Rocket000 08:52, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I was just thinking, we could make use of our new magic word {{PAGESIZE}} to regulate the size of the page. If it gets too long, make it call some bot to start archiving early or something like that. Rocket000 10:42, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Or alternatively, close DRs faster! ;) I don't think changing the way we use the templates will have a significant affect, and we shouldn't remove the images for the multi-lingual issues that EnWP doesn't have. giggy _(:O) 10:45, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, yes. I have requested that DRBot work more often. Also, we should all please subst the !vote icons - they absolutely do not need to be loaded dynamically - that's unnecssary inclusion. We may also wish to think about having only the past x days (ie fewer than whatever is there now) on Commons:Deletion requests/Current requests. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 21:35, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I changed COM:RFD a bit, it's now got links to the big discussion pages like on AFD over on the English Wikipedia. If we could, we could sort it out by date too. This'll hopefully fix it, because I think today it finally buckled under the pressure and refused to render it as anything but a link. This, should be the best way to go. ViperSnake151 21:36, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

oh wait.......CONSENSUS? In our time of need...you expect us to need consensus? We need to change things...ViperSnake151 21:38, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

→ Commons talk:Deletion requests#Overhauling RFD Rocket000 00:43, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Library and Archives Canada

For those who don't follow the mailing list, there is currently a discussion about the copyright status of the thousands of images that have been imported from LAC (see Category:Images from Library and Archives Canada). There are two issues: one is that there are currently many non-PD images from LAC which have been erroneously tagged as copyrighted free use, and the other is that LAC is claiming copyright over the PD photos it has scanned and posted on its website. --Padraic 14:52, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that Library and Archives Canada can request their {{CopyrightedFreeUse}} images to be removed from commons, but they have no say over images which are in PD. It sounds like discussion about Darwin Online images. --Jarekt 01:33, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I suggest we start working on a list of post-1949 images for a purge. --Padraic 13:09, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

See Commons:Deletion requests/Library and Archives Canada non-PD images. I may not have time to mass-tag all these images with the deletion notice, so any help would be appreciated. --Padraic 14:58, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Edit war and admin protection on museum dispute

In at least two places User:Gryffindor has put warnings that images taken at a private location, without consent, will be deleted. He did this at Category:Galleria degli Uffizi[4] and Category:Villa la Petraia[5]. At Category:Galleria degli Uffizi, he reverted attempts to remove the warning, and instiuted full protection. Also, note, there's a related discussion at Commons talk:Licensing#sustainable photography. It's been my understanding that we can use such photos, particular when the subject of hte photos, are works of art, in the public domain. --Rob 14:34, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Taken care of, I discussed the issue on the IRC. The admin Guillom unprotected the page. If their is anything like this again, then please post it. Thank you. --Kanonkas_(talk) 15:12, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

The help page makes clear the Commons long-standing policy on this. I doubt there would be much support to change that, as it has been the subject of extensive discussions in the past. --MichaelMaggs 17:22, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it seems like just one individual's idea with no support whatsoever. He protected the page (originally with cascading on) like there was some kind of community disagree when so far he's the only one who thinks this is an issue. I find Gryffindor's actions here to be completely inappropriate and an abuse of the tools. Rocket000 20:50, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Eh he made a mistake. It happens.Geni 21:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not calling for resignation or anything. :) I don't think was a mistake, though. Rocket000 14:49, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Important deletion request

Please see Commons:Deletion requests/Images of Fabelfroh 2008. It involves the likely deletion of tons of FPs and QIs. Rocket000 04:57, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow... we clearly need to make the four keypoints of each of the licenses clearer:

The license you have selected implies for this image that throughout the world:

• it is [not] copyrighted
• commercial usage is always allowed.
• adaptation and editing are always allowed
• attribution/crediting is [not] required

Perhaps we can add this into our "new upload wizard"? To make sure people more easily understand what they are selecting? TheDJ 10:26, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I guess so. But it wouldn't have helped in this case, I don't think... Rocket000 14:34, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Switching over to *box here.

I've been loving the new Ambox and Imbox templates that the people down at en.wikipedia are using/implementing now. I think maybe we should migrate the Commons over to them. We'd need to implement the Ambox CSS classes here first though.... ViperSnake151 17:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Could you provide links to some examples? Ambox and Imbox sound like prescription drugs to me ;-). Cheers, NielsF ^{? (en, nl, fr, it)} 20:08, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Template:Ambox; Template:Imbox. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 20:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Lazy me thanks you, Bossi. ViperSnake151: do these templates have any advantages in uses over currently used templates on Commons, or do you just prefer them "'cause they're prettier"? More specific: is there any visual / layout problem at the moment with currently used templates? Just asking because it sounds like a major change. NielsF ^{? (en, nl, fr, it)} 20:41, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Please, please don't fix what isn't broken. :/ I really don't see the point of implementing this. Lewis Collard! (hai thar, wut u doin) 23:02, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

"Ambox and Imbox sound like prescription drugs to me" haha they kinda do. Yeah, I don't think ambox suits Commons very well. For one thing, we don't have articles (ambox = article message box). I think it's ok for Wikipedia, but I always thought it clashed with Wikimedia's/MediaWiki's general style (e.g. the front page and system messages). I can see some standardizing and adapting image page templates, though. Ideally, these should mix well with all other project's template styles since the show up there. We can't be en.wp-centric here but they do usually set the standards. I don't think we should mess with the license tags and {{Information}}-like templates. These are already standardized and work well (although I don't know why they're not CSS). Rocket000 23:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed a change to a similar look for article message boxes in the Swedish Wikipedia as well lately, so it seems to be catching on elsewhere too. As for implementing it here, I think more consistency is a good thing, so I personally welcome those who feel like doing the legwork to experiment on some of the less frequently used templates and see if any Commons-specific problems pop up. Keep in mind that we have a lot of multilingual templates, and it's no small task to change them all, so please take one step at a time. —LX (talk, contribs) 19:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

May 7

Image:BDD Variable Ordering Bad.svg - No thumbnail

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask, but Image:BDD Variable Ordering Bad.svg has no thumbnail, even though the file is clearly there. It's used on w:Binary decision diagram. Is this a known problem? --141.84.220.87 17:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Shows up for me. Rocket000 19:06, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I also see the image, have you tried to bypass your cache? If not, then follow these instructions: Mozilla/Safari/Konqueror/Firefox: hold down Shift while clicking Reload (or press Ctrl-Shift-R), IE: press Ctrl-F5, Opera: press F5. If you still don't see it, then just ask again! --Kanonkas_(talk) 19:16, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, found the problem: Konqueror's image filter seems to block anything with "Bad." in the filename. I'll have to investigate how that rule came into my ruleset, but the problem definitely is not Wikimedia related. So sorry for that, and thanks for your time! --141.84.220.89 11:18, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

May 8

Trouble uploading JPEG to the Commons

I'm attempting to upload a JPEG image with the ".jpg" extension to the Commons. After numerous attempts, I keep getting the following error message: "The file has no extension (like ".jpg")." I've also tried the ".jpeg" extension with the same result. Any suggestions? Navrek 17:54, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Rules about language for image description?

Is there any rule on Commons whether the description of an image should be at least also in english? I'm asking because the description for Image:Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich.jpg is exclusively in Japanese signs and language (I assume). So, only a few people can check what is written there and whether the claims are true (probably not in that case). The uploader did the same in other images he uploaded. --Túrelio 12:09, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure there's any strict English-language requirement, but it certainly would have been nice if the uploader of this image had supplemented the Katakana with the Latin alphabet in the case of names which were originally written in the Latin alphabet anyway...

Was Heydrich ever in Japan, or was the photo taken taken in Germany by a German photographer, and then published in Japan? AnonMoos 13:04, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Heydrich was probably never in Japan and the photo was with high probability taken in Germany by a German photographer. As there is also no creation date give, let's assume 1938. To be free or PD, the photographer must have died on the spot (1938 +70 = 2008), actually not very probable. --Túrelio 19:23, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Of course there's no such rule demanding English descriptions. That would be ridiculous. If you don't understand Japanese, ask a Japanese-speaking user: Category:User ja. --::Slomox:: >< 10:48, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

However, the image is not of a Japanese subject matter, and in all probability the original photograph was not taken in Japan, factors which tend to raise questions about whether the claimed tagging is appropriate. In such a situation, it would have been advisable to retain source information in the original source language (German), which would have avoided confusion and uncertainty.. AnonMoos 13:40, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Slomox, why would it be ridiculous to require image descriptions to be at least also in english? (I'm a German speaker, by the way.) English is the lingua franca of today and we ask to have cat-names on Commons in english. If a user first has to find a translator for an image description exclusively in a rarely used language, that is clearly a minus score for usability of our images. --Túrelio 14:13, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Rarely used like Japanese? Well, the requirement to have English descriptions would exclude more than five billion users from uploading images to Commons. That should be reason enough, shouldn't it? English is the lingua franca, but that is no status. Lingua franca means language which puts the least communication barriers in a specific context. Requiring English is not lingua franca, its defining an official language.

If you are concerned about usability, okay, then ask a Japanese for translation and add the English or German or Nahuatl or Miao or Ainu description. --::Slomox:: >< 20:05, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Mistake

I uploaded a wrong picture under the name of another picture. Could anyone delete the first version of this file? Thanks. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 08:48, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Done. -- Bryan (talk to me) 14:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 20:10, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Is access to Commons blocked in China?

I will be going to the PRC on vacation soon. Wikipedia is blocked there (tried it out too). Is Commons? BrokenSphere 16:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The english wikipedia was unblocked a few weeks back.Geni 17:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't put my faith in the whims of the Chinese authorities. I'll probably just put up a vac notice saying just email me if you absolutely need to contact me. BrokenSphere 17:44, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

If you are carrying your own laptop try installing TOR - Vidalia - Privoxy trio. It bypasses almost most censors. --Nevit Dilmen 17:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Not applicable in my situation, but thanks anyway. BrokenSphere 18:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Duplicate images of lower quality and file size

I've heard a couple of people say the same thing about this - that images should be uploaded at the highest possible quality and nothing else is worth bothering with. I'd just like to hear from a few more people to make sure: is there no value in adding a lower quality version of an image (e.g. a smaller jpg version that still looks okay to the casual observer and uses much less bandwidth and memory space). I'm talking mainly about images that are very large and high resolution (e.g. Image:Naturalist on the River Amazons figure 1.png‎, compare with Image:Naturalist figure 1.JPG (though the latter hasn't been edited; I just uploaded it as an example). There are others in this set that are up to 5 MB. Richard001 10:59, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I think this has more to do with the general suckiness of Wikimedia PNG thumbnailing... AnonMoos 13:01, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

See Commons:FAQ#What_resolution_should_the_images_I_upload_be.3F. --Foroa 13:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Problem with Creator space

There seem to be a problem with the Help:Creator space in the way it's currently used and documented:

• On the one hand, each Creator page is supposed to embed an automatic categorization into the creator's main cat (the {{Creator}} documentation says so, and all Creator pages I've seen do so).
  • For instance, Creator:Raffaello Sanzio auto-categorize any page using it into Category:Raffaello Sanzio.
• On the other hand, when someone wants to thin a large category into subcats, each image finds itself categorized twice, once into the creator's main cat (automatically) and another into the subcat; this defeats the point of subcats, apparently leading people to remove Creator tags.
  • For instance, Image:Raffael 040.jpg is currently into both Category:Raffaello Sanzio and its direct subcat Category:Leo X by Raphael. Because of this, the category creator decided to delete the Creator tag altogether. (I've since put it back, but then realized why he had to delete it.)

Am I missing something, or is the current system not very useable because of this? Solutions I can see do not seem very easy:

1. Keep it like this, and remove Creator tags from subcategorized images: then the Creator space isn't very useful.
2. Keep it like this, and keep Creator tags on subcategorized images: then there'll always be a main category crowded with all pictures, plus subcats used only to regroup picture sets (rather than unload the main parent cat), and people trying to delete Creator tags because they justifiably see them as a problem.
3. Change the system gradually: by adding an optional parameter such as {{Creator:Raffaello Sanzio|cat=}} that would allow to selectively disable auto-cat. That would avoid the need for a massive change, but I feel the resulting system would be ugly and unpractical in the long term.
4. Change the system en masse, now requiring Creator pages not to include automatic categorization (e.g., the creator page would only use <noinclude>[[Category:Raffaello Sanzio]]</noinclude> for itself): this could reasonably be done only by a bot. Not only each Creator page would need to have its auto-cat disabled (using noinclude), but there's also a lot of image pages that depend on the feature and need the cat to be added there first. (For instance, all pages using Creator:Raffaello Sanzio would need to be tagged with Category:Raffaello Sanzio when it's not already there, before the auto-cat is disabled on this Creator page...) That's a lot of bot work.

There probably are other ways, but I can't see a quick and easy fix. 62.147.38.94 17:59, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I never liked this automatic categories that come with {{Creator}} template and avoided this template. {{Photographer}} is almost identical to {{Creator}} template, with main difference other than using word photographer instead of Creator/Artist being no automatic categories. That way, for example, I can keep Category:Photographs by Eugeniusz Lokajski and Category:Eugeniusz Lokajski separate. --Jarekt 01:50, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't like it either (I'd be for solution #4), but it's not something than can be changed with just a consensus and an update to the documentation. A bot is needed to categorize all images currently auto-categorized by Creator tags before auto-categorization can be removed from the Creator space. Finding a consensus should be easy, finding a botmaster will be the real problem, I think. 62.147.36.16 19:13, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Advertising?

Could someone with knowledge of Arabic check whether the pages Jafar Ershadi Fard, طراحی_وب_سایت, ترجمه, جعفر_ارشاری_فرد, تدریس_فیزیک and the related images Image:Jafar Ershadi Fard.JPG, Image:Jafar Ershadi Fard 26.jpg, Image:Jafar Ershadi Fard 2.jpg and Image:Jafar Ershadi Fard 24.jpg, all carrying a phone number and some external links to obviously commercial websites related to the same name, aren't a sort of advertisement? --Túrelio 19:08, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Not Arabic, it is in Persian and translates: website design, translation , physics teaching by Jafar Ershadi Fard. All ad. --Nevit Dilmen 19:37, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

May 10

rename Featured picture mul -> Assessments

I propose to rename the new template {{Featured picture mul}} to {{Assessments}}. It is currently being discussed whether Featured Picture mul should absorb the QualityImage and ValuedImage tags as well. The old name would not represent such additions, and contains an ugly abbreviation. The new name is short, concise, more general and neutral. --Dschwen 16:37, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Support -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 17:23, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I have boldly made the rename in the absence of objections. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 21:48, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

You and your boldness ;) No, I agree too. And I think "Assessment templates" is a good name for the category for all these templates. What's the plan for implementing this? There's still a lot of unmerged FP templates. Renaming some and not others will make bot work more difficult. Rocket000 23:56, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I had not noticed this thread. Personally I do not think it has been thoroughly investigated and discussed on the affected project pages what the pros and cons could be by merging the templates into one and I find the move premature. Whereas I think it is fine to try and implement such things and ideas in some sandbox template namespace to initiate discussions, I do not see the urgent need to actively start using it until it has been coordinated with other projects and their templates, procedures and bots. -- Slaunger 05:29, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

See also the VI discussion here. -- Slaunger 06:23, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I hope to make changes to commons with in a year. We do not need to spend several weeks per every minor point. It is just a template name, nothing major. If you wish it to be changed feel free to nominate it. Comments unrelated to the template rename are unrelated to this thread. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 13:25, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Botmoves from other wikipedias

It might be a good idea, when botmoving images from wikipedias to commons, to insert all the pages that refer to the image as interwikis. If that was the case, I would already have saved many hours. We can clean the interwikis when doing the review. When looking in Category:Files moved to Commons requiring review, there are probably hundreds of thousands of such images to be reviewed. --Foroa 18:33, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

sounds good. presumably that's something that the bot writers have to be involved in changing, yes? ++Lar: t/c 14:42, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Transwiki tool

Looking for a tool to transwiki material from Commons to other projects. A group of images that were thought to be public domain have turned out to be copyrighted, but would be acceptable as fair use on some other projects. Suggestions? Durova 05:56, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

User:BryanBot/movebackbot.py is the only option I think -- Bryan (talk to me) 08:39, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Dude, I'll call you on that. Here is the discussion of the problematic images, and here is a good spot to discuss them. I'll fill in more tomorrow & if you want to chat on gmail about it, drop me a line. There is also the issue of putting notices onto xx:wiki/article pages notifying them that an image needs to be FUR'd/removed. Your help is appreciated and thanks Durova, I knew you would a good person to ask where I should go for help! Franamax 09:31, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't have time to look at the discussion into detail, but if somebody can supply me a list of images that need moving I'll move them to enwikipedia. (After the deletion request has been closed but before the images have been deleted). -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:42, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Check usage?

Where did the "Check usage" and "en" tabs go? —Angr 09:35, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

There have been recent changes which temporarily broke site javascript. You may be getting served cached data - try purging your browser cache. If you still encounter errors, please see if your error console yields any useful info. In Firefox: Tools>Error Console. Not sure about IE. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 20:20, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Import image WITH its old versions

Hello, I have an dozen of images on wikipedia, each with a dozen of old images versions, I wish to import my images WITH their HISTORY (of old images versions). Is it a way to do so ? 220.135.4.212 17:13, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

You can use CommonsHelper to move images to Commons. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 20:21, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I think he's saying he wants to also copy over the old file versions. If these are useful, they should probably be uploaded with separate filenames. Superm401 - Talk 04:07, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Correct licenses when cropping work by others

Could someone please check I've used the correct licences when uploading crops I made of images originally taken by others? The images in question are:

• Image:Agriculture group (Albert Memorial).jpg
• Image:Commerce group (Albert Memorial).jpg
• Image:Engineering group (Albert Memorial).jpg
• Image:Manufactures group (Albert Memorial).jpg

Three are PD and one was CC 2.5. Thanks. Carcharoth (Commons) 04:00, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

As cropping is not creative enough to create new copyright, the license stays the same. The way you did it is just fine. --rimshot^talk 10:31, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

derivativeFX

Hi all, after some weeks my tool derivativeFX should be finished now. That doesn't mean that there are no bugs, so I hope of a large usage ;-) Because of JavaScript problems it doesn't work with Internet Explorer.

With derivativeFX you can add one or more original files and derivativeFX checks for license-compatibility and create a new descriptionpage.

The code is available here, it's published under the terms of the GNU General Public License.--Luxo 13:35, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow Luxo, I tested this most of the way and it seems nifty! Thanks for sharing. ++Lar: t/c 15:04, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

May 12

Film publicity photos

Does anyone know the status of these copyright wise? A user has claimed that this publicity photo Image:The wizard of Oz.jpg for the Wizard of Oz is public domain "because it was published in the United States between 1923 and 1963 with a copyright notice, and its copyright was not renewed"? Gustav VH 01:14, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

The status of film publicity photos varies according to circumstance. Works originally published in the USA between those dates with no notice of copyright are indeed public domain per US law; see Commons:Licensing. -- Infrogmation 01:51, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, the relevant section seems to be here Commons:Licensing#United_States. It seems pretty badly worded:

"Anything published before January 1, 1923 is in the public domain. Anything published before January 1, 1964 and not renewed is in the public domain (search the renewal records for books and maps here). Anything published before March 1, 1989 with no copyright notice ("©", "Copyright" or "Copr.") plus the year of publication (may be omitted in some cases) plus the copyright owner (or pseudonym) is in the public domain."

Firstly, how are you meant to check whether a publicity photo has had its copyright renewed? And is the second sentence saying that an image published before 1989 without a copyright notice AND the year of publication, AND the copyright owner is in the public domain or OR ?? Gustav VH 11:19, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Checking what copyrights were or weren't renewed does require actual research. Publications with no copyright notice are often a more obvious case. -- Infrogmation 11:59, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

So, should we be we only allowed to keep the "copyright not renewed" stuff if someone has checked that it wasn't renewed? Gustav VH 13:29, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Cat with a warning

When creating the new Category:Urban exploration I felt compelled to add a sort of warning that Commons does not encourage urban exploring. I hope that is o.k. We surely don't want to have people die or get injured for providing us thrilling images for that cat. --Túrelio 08:09, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I understand the need for a disclaimer, but isn't claiming there are "inherent dangers" a bit POV? --Padraic 13:39, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't know what should be POV in that. But you might see en:Urban exploration#Safety, from where I took even the term, or in German de:Urban Exploring#Gefahren. --Túrelio 13:50, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

That's what "No Trespassing" signs are for. Wikimedia's role isn't to warn everybody not to pour hot coffee on themselves. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 17:17, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The slight difference to the coffee might be that by providing a platform to publish photos Wikimedia-Commons itself might be a sort of incentive for UE. --Túrelio 18:14, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

What about "Warning, do not incite revolution" ... "Wikimedia does not encourage massacres" ... or urban exploration is discouraged, but urban warfare is OK?  :) --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 18:39, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

No disclaimers please. And don't speak for all of us by saying "Commons". Personally, I would encourage others to urban explore. It's fun. Rocket000 07:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

There. I made it more neutral but now it's rather pointless. Rocket000 07:29, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow, if you're going to head down this path, there's an awful lot of disclaimers to be added to an awful lot of content; seems to be a slippery and unnecessary slope. Perhaps check out w:Risk. -- Jtneill - Talk 11:02, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted the warning as there seems at present to be no consensus for it. Indeed, this type of warning may well increase the legal risk to the WMF, as it creates an expectation that it's normal for Commons to warn users away from any risky conduct. Then, over time, "expected" starts to become "required", and who knows what could be argued when we accidentally miss a "required" warning off some dangerous activity. I don't say that any such argument would suceed, but it's not good to get Commons involved in that area. --MichaelMaggs 16:37, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Please fix

Can an svg guru please fix Image:Featured Quality logo.svg? I want to remove the whitespace on it's size. I made a few attempts which worked fine on Inkscape but they did not work when I uploaded the image to commons. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 15:56, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Do want all the whitespace removed or keep some like Image:Quality images logo.svg? (It looks like some left over Illustrator crap is causing the problem.) Rocket000 18:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok. I gave it the same dimensions as the QI logo. Let me know if you want a tighter fit (although I'm sure you can do it now, it's all cleaned up). The thumbnail hasn't refreshed yet, so it still looks the same. Rocket000 19:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Why make such a FP logo over QI logo in the first place? Is it for a combined award template or something? Although there are probably some good intentions behind this, I do not think that would be a good idea. It is IMO graphically very unappealing and (almost) an insult to the QI logo ;-) Please, place them next to each other if you insist on making a multi-purpose award template. And I hope the FP star will not be moved on top of the VI seal too for some multipurpose template purpose. LadyofHats has dopne a tremendous effort to make graphically pleasing logos, and such a combined one is an eyesore for me. -- Slaunger 19:40, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Just because it exists doesn't mean we got to use it. There's other projects and other potential uses. Who knows. :) Rocket000 19:45, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Its not that I request it to be deleted. I am just expressing my personal opinion about such combined logos and their usability on Commons. I respect if other users have other opinions. -- Slaunger 20:31, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Just to lend my 2 cents, the featured star seems a bit too crisp as compared to the softer nature of the QI wax. If this blended logo is going to be used for anything, perhaps try and soften up the star a bit? --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 22:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I would like that, but I do not think the logo sill be used in the template. But then again, we are a free image repository. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 21:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Gallery trumps category?

A user recently removed a category which identifies a flowers as Impatiens hawkeri because the image has been added to the respective gallery. Is it correct to remove the category if it is in the gallery? Personally I would think the category should remain: gallery images come and go, but diamonds categories are forever. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 04:19, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Dear Andrew, principally I'm not sure about the value of "Category:Pink flowers", but the version-copmare link you gave shows that "Category:Impatiens" was removed, and the pic was later put into appropriate sub-category "Impatiens hawkeri". This ist for cleaning up higher level categories -- files should be categorized as specifically as possible. Totally removing an appropriate category for the reason of having put an item in a gallery would be inappropriate. BTW, I passed by here rather "by chance" and am amused to meet you here (remember "Annasäule"/Innsbruck ;)? Besides: do not believe too much in lyrics -- ist seems that nothing is forever, especially not in wikipedia ;) Best, WeHaWoe 07:02, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep, I remember! :) In this case, these is no defining category at all -- unless I have a bug, it appears to only be in the gallery for Impatiens hawkeri; not a category. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 07:31, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, the image is not in any tree of life category, neither Impatiens hawkeri nor Impatiens. --rimshot^talk 07:36, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

It should be in at least the genus/species category. Galleries are presenting them. Not everything should be in a gallery, but everything should be in a category. They serve different purposes. Why do people still act like it's one or the other? Rocket000 07:45, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

10-4, just wanted to check.. thanks! --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 17:03, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

In reply to Rocket, it's basically because categories and galleries do overlap a lot. On Wikipedia, articles and categories are very different. On Commons, a category can serve almost as well as a gallery (except it won't have captions or subheadings, and maybe a few other gizmos). The only real reason for having both is that a gallery is only supposed to contain the better images, while a category is for all of them. However, if they're all worth presenting, and there are no subcategories (or any serious possibility for there to be any) it is basically redundant to have both. Richard001 06:39, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I guess, if that's the case. But then why make a gallery at all if you're just going to duplicate the purpose of categories? I think if we ever make some gallery guidelines like you suggested, we'll need some section "When to make a gallery". What purpose does a page serve when all it has is <gallery> Image_1.jpg Image_2.jpg </gallery>? Categories do that. Galleries should be created with a purpose, not just to have one on every subject. Rocket000 07:12, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually I think galleries should remain in cases of redundancy. IMO it's categories that are perhaps not necessary in such cases (sometimes, granted, categories are useful while galleries would be inappropriate, e.g. categories like 'books by author' couldn't really have a corresponding gallery, but that's not really what we're talking about). Galleries present the material in a structured, well described manner and may omit poorer quality material. Categories have the advantage that they can have subcategories (you can categorize a gallery, but you can't have subcategories of it) and they can store the inferior material. In some cases, however, there is no need for any subcategories (there are some topics that will almost certainly never have subcategories, generally the very specific ones) and it may also be very unlikely that there would be any media not worth presenting in the gallery, while still being worthy of a place here.

In cases where the category is needed because there are subcategories, and a gallery wouldn't be much use (e.g. there are only a couple of pictures (such that a gallery would have no sections, or only one of rather obvious title), all of them are worth presenting, and descriptions would just be stating the obvious), then a category would probably be preferable. I think this is more the sort of situation you are getting at.

I think we should definitely create a gallery guideline, but the FG page is inactive and I don't really know what to write myself, so I think we need more input on the matter. Perhaps I should create a new section calling for comments on a proposed guideline page? Richard001 08:41, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Aaaargh - I've nearly posted here a couple of times but cancelled. The thing is - I don't understand the argument - why is one "better" than the other. The important things is that folk can find the media they are looking for. Galleries are ok but if all the media we had in a category were in the gallery there would be some galleries that were so slow to load they would not be useful.

Maybe it depends on the subject matter but a gallery (to me) is a sample of what is available. A category is (hopefully) everything that is available. In practice creating & maintaining a category I find easier than a gallery. So long as they are intelligently named & in sensible chunks that should be fine (if a category/gallery gets too big it is time to split it).

In the end the key is still that media need to be found easily. At the risk of being somewhat terse - go improve whichever you find best - that way we will be making it easier for folk. However I accept a guideline would be useful but sadly I think it is likely that you would not get agreement on the content! --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:43, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

The text on Commons:Images_on_normal_pages_or_categories:Vote#Categories_and_Galleries:_two_different_things might clarify a bit. --Foroa 10:10, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

For animal and plant species the suggested way to organize images identified to the species level is to add it to the corresponding species article/gallery. That is, unlike other, normal Commons galleries this should contain all images of the given species. The species gallery is then linked to a parent genus category. See the guidelines in COM:TOL for details. If you want to do it otherwise I think the COM:TOL guidelines should be modified. That means that species images do not have to go in a species category. As a matter of fact that would be redundant information. The motivation for this is primarily the technical reason of later maintenance. These years a lot of scientific renaming of species is going on, where for instance the genus of a species is changed to another one which better match the genetics as revealed by gene technology. Image a species cat has to be renamed from X arcticum to Y arcticum and that this cat has 100 images. The rename operation of the cat is tedious and the species category referred to from the 100 image pages needs to be changed. Although this can be bot assisted it is not very elegant. it is much easier is the images are in a species gallery, as then the gallery page just has to be renamed and cat to the genus on the species gallery page has to be updated to the new Genus. The disadvantage of this is that you actively have to go find the species gallery page and explicitly add you image when uploading. This is a two step process as compared to adding a species cat in one step. Another disadvantage is that it is an exception to the "always categorize" images guideline as here adding the image to the relevant species gallery is "equivalent". -- Slaunger 10:21, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

One problem is that we all come at this from our "own" directions! I've been involved in dealing with geographical areas. Take a UK county category, you then have "Towns in", "Rivers in", "Churches in" etc etc. There will usually be a County page but to have all the media from towns, churches, rivers etc would be excessive. Ideally there would be pages for each of those cats - until I am cloned that is unlikley :)

They both have their place - help people to find media is the aim. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 10:27, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I spamming this link: Commons:Galleries. I didn't start it for nothing. Rocket000 06:57, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Hidden comments

The hidden comments (<!-- Like this -->) button on the editing screen seems to be unavailable here. Any reason why? Richard001 09:02, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's under the "Wiki markup" part below the edit screen. I can add it a button too or put it in the "Standard" menu as it's used enough. I've kinda been waiting for some input regarding the buttons and MediaWiki:Edittools. I think these both can use some improvement but I don't want to do all based on what I personally use the most. Rocket000 11:53, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Rocket000, is there a way to personalize MediaWiki:Edittools I seem to be always switching to "Polish" menu but I would love to have the bottom row of buttons as well. The problem with switching to "Polish" menu is that there is often a LONG delay between opening an edit window and when the language menu and buttons above edit window appear. So I often have to wait a while before I can start editing. In ideal world I could either have my personal subset of buttons or at least choose the default one. Thanks for a great tool. --Jarekt 12:23, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh it wasn't my doing. You have Lupo to thank for that :) I just had the idea to have a "extended" menu of buttons. I'm think there's a way to customize it, but I unsure what that might be. I'm going to look into it. You customize the buttons, though.

Add the following to your monobook.js (you can remove the comments):

mwCustomEditButtons[mwCustomEditButtons.length] = {
  "imageFile": "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/...", <!-- The image's full URL. (Not the description page.) -->
  "speedTip": "Something", <!-- What it says when you mouse-over it -->
  "tagOpen": "Beginning ", <!-- What you want to be inserted before the highlighted text -->
  "tagClose": "End",       <!-- What you want to be inserted after the highlighted text -->
  "sampleText": "Middle"}; <!-- What is inserted if nothing is highlighted. E.g. "Bold text" -->

You add a entry like this for every button you want. There's a way to replace/rearrange the default ones too, but I forgot how to do that. Rocket000 17:24, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

This extension to add extra buttons on the top is great. It does not help me with the problem that it takes a while for them to load, but I added some things I seem to type a lot. Thanks. --Jarekt 19:52, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

May 14

Galleries - are there any guidelines for them?

It seems we don't have a page describing what a Commons:Gallery should be like. That link just redirects to Commons:First steps/Sorting, which says very little about galleries; it just tells you how to add an image to one. If we are going to have Commons:Featured galleries, wouldn't it make sense to start with Commons:Galleries first? Richard001 22:37, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure. You feel like starting it? IMO, there's not too much to say about them without bordering on instruction creep, but I agree some info for new users or those looking to improve galleries would be beneficial. Some good stuff on Commons talk:Featured galleries. Rocket000 23:48, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

The important point is to explain the differences between galleries and categories. I was trying to do a gallery for Category:Albert Memorial, but decided to work on the en-WP article instead. I presume you can just select the best pictures for the gallery and leave the rubbish pictures in the category? Carcharoth (Commons) 06:51, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you can certainly avoid adding the poorer media files, especially if there are better files that are the same or similar. Richard001 08:58, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

The text on Commons:Images_on_normal_pages_or_categories:Vote#Categories_and_Galleries:_two_different_things might clarify a bit. --Foroa 10:11, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Commons:Galleries. At least it's a start :) Rocket000 16:51, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Nice work! Richard001 09:55, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

May 11

SOHO probe

• http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/summary/copyright.html

“

Notice: The use of SOHO images or data for public education efforts and non-commercial purposes is strongly encouraged and requires no expressed authorization. It is requested, however, that any such use properly attributes the source of the images or data as: "Courtesy of SOHO/[instrument] consortium. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA." where [instrument] stands for the name of the instrument that acquired the data (i.e. SOHO/EIT, SOHO/LASCO, etc). Another, shorter, version of the notice: "SOHO (ESA & NASA)" is also acceptable.

”

I do not believe they are banning non-commercial usage. They are just discouraging it. "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted" and hence I do believe these are PD.

OTRS verification would be nice though.

-- Cat ^ちぃ？ 13:21, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

They are not PD-NASA as NASA is not the only institution involved. Here it's a cooperation ESA/NASA so other restrictions apply, similar restrictions may also apply if NASA and another insitute/University are involved. They are only PD if only NASA and associated (government) institutions are involved. See also Template_talk:PD-USGov-NASA#SOHO_images_require_permission_for_commercial_use.3F. And they do not ban non-commercial usage as it's stricly allowed. It's the commercial usage they don't want without authorization. --Denniss 14:08, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

From the copyright notice they feel free enough... -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 18:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

A content is free if it's stated as such. Currently it's only free for public education and non-commercial purposes, all other purposes require authorization. It may be free to use for commercial purposes but every single use requires authorization and that's not compatible with Commons licensing policy. --Denniss 19:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Where is such a restriction stated? "[...] public education efforts and non-commercial purposes is strongly encouraged" doesn't mean commercial purposes are banned or that they require authorization. They seem to be only asking for attribution - they do not even require it. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 20:43, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Cat, as you know, works produced by NASA employees are public domain. However, when NASA partners with other organizations such as outside universities or the ESA, NASA's current policy is that partners are only required to agree to unrestricted educational / non-commercial use. Partners can continue to restrict the commercial use of their works. Incidentally, that's the ESA's default position (i.e. non-commercial is free, but commercial use must be approved and/or paid for on a case-by-case basis). The result is that imagery that are jointly authored by NASA and an outside agency often still carry commercial restrictions because the outside agency hasn't relinquished their rights. Dragons flight 20:57, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Based on the copyright notice these images are free. ESA's own images may be non free. But these images are part of a join project between NASA and ESA. I seriously doubt NASA will let ESA dictate the copyright. The copyright notice is their agreement and it does not restrict commercial use. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 15:01, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Please contact them directly. As I said, NASA does allow the ESA and others to retain commercial rights which does have the effect of dictating copyright. That's ugly, but it is what it is. The copyright notice you cite does not explicitly release commercial rights and that is what is required for our use. As you know, that copyright exists must be our default legal position, and I think you are reading more into the statement above than is actually there. However, please be encourage to contact the SOHO collaboration and ask about commercial rights. Dragons flight 15:38, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

"NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted"

Therefore since there are no commercial restrictions, we have no reason not to allow these. If such a restriction existed I am sure NASA would mention it. If I were willing to contact SOHO directly why would I post it here? I am requesting someone more familiar with such communication to contact SOHO on behaf of commons. Probably a member of the OTRS team.

-- Cat ^ちぃ？ 11:16, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that ESA material is not equal to NASA material, which is how these whole messes start when imagery is jointly authored. For a recent related discussion see, Commons talk:Licensing#Chandra__images - not PD-USGov-NASA.3F, where some but not necessarily all Chandra imagery is PD. You may note that the most important factor mentioned there is that NASA owns Chandra, while by contrast the ESA owns (e.g. designed and built) SOHO even though day to day mission operations are now led by NASA. If there are SOHO imagery that mention NASA authorship only, then I agree with your above statement that we can assume they are PD, but if multiple authors are involved we have to start from the position of the most restrictive, not the least.

As for contact, most outreach with external copyright holders is simply done by ordinary volunteers. Those conversations may later get archived at OTRS for reference purposes, but there is nothing that says that you or I can't go talk to NASA about the issue. If you are afraid to do so, I'm willing to write them an email. Dragons flight 15:25, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I am pretty uncomfortable talking to NASA/ESA etc. I would truly appreciate it if you would do this for me and commons. :) -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 18:53, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Arabic Search

Dont know whether to ask this question here. Where else?

Is Wikipedia Arabic using the Lucene search engine?

If you are aware of this, thank you for the kind email to abhijit8086@yahoo.com and delete this part.

No, all wikis now use native MWSearch. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 22:24, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Commons:Assessments

Hi I started a general page on various types of assessments we have here on commons. Feel free to jump in and expand the page. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 21:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Please help fill this page. I am not 100% sure how to describe each type of assessment. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 19:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

New template for colour blind users

Hi! I created a new template to help those of use who have some form of colour blindness: {{Colour blind}}. With this template, you can tag images that you wish some one would edit so that even you can see what is meant to be seen.

When you use the image, please describe the type of colour blindness you have (if you know it), and the problem you are having with the image.

I would be very happy if you could pass this message on to the Village pump of your language and to your local Wikimedia project. Samulili 15:26, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I have to ask about this template. The purpose and use of it. I'm not color blind myself, but I understand the concept. I see the one image currently tagged (Image:Big brother countries.png) as making perfect sense, but correct me if I'm wrong - but... wouldn't this template apply to almost every image for at least one type of color blindness or another? Thanks --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 07:09, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

There are indeed very different types of colour vision deficiency, some of them very severe. I do not know much of the more severe ones, but must people who are colour blind have problems with shades of green and red. It should be possible to make almost every image readable for di- and trichromatic people - or at least for those who have red-green colour blindness (making up 99.9 % of the colour blind population). This is why it is important to tell what type of colour blindness one has and why the template suggests values only for dichromatic and trichromatic problems.

What I would like to find is a tutorial for making "colour accessible" maps and charts. There may not be one, because colour blindness is hard to understand for those who have normal vision and difficult to explain for the colour blind... Samulili 08:07, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Template:PD-SerbiaGov

I raised a discussion on Template talk:PD-SerbiaGov about the usage of this template, which IMO seems to be problematic in some of the cases. Please, anyone who has experience with public domain and licensing, have a look and share your views. Thank you. →Spiritia 09:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

CC-Zero

Should we create a tag for CC-Zero content as it is clearly free? ([6]) Anonymous101 15:49, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I have created Template:CC-Zero but I don;t recommend its use yet. Anonymous101 15:56, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Heh, you didn't have to includeonly that "big ugly message", the whole top message would be included anyway :) I see know reason why this shouldn't be allowed. I like this license, specially this part: The Affirmer hereby fully, permanently and irrevocably waives and relinquishes all of her or his copyright and related or neighboring legal rights in the Work available under any federal or state law, treaty or contract, including but not limited to moral rights, publicity and privacy rights, rights protecting against unfair competition... I've found my new license. Rocket000 11:36, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

If we do implement the license we should probably use the proper logo here. /Lokal_Profil 23:16, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

May 13

Picture of the year (candidate image)

• 
  Winner
• 
  Runner-up
• 
  3rd
• 
  Finalist
• 
  Candidate?

I am looking for a logo for candidates. Images that were good enough to be a candidate but not good enough to be a finalist. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 21:04, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Ummm, isn't the candidate list just a collection of Featured Pictures promoted that year? In which case the logo is just the Featured Picture logo. Or is there more to it than that? Dragons flight 21:51, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

No. Candidate list is "selected images". When you enter a competition you typically "win" by default even if you do not make it to the finals. Thats what I am trying to do. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 01:34, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a Graphics Lab question. /Lokal_Profil 21:33, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I still don't understand the question. As Dragons flight said, all FP's that were promoted during the year were automatically candidates. There is no other logo, nor any need for one. --MichaelMaggs 21:48, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I do not get it either. All FPs promoted in a given year automatically participates in the POTY competition for that year. Therefore, a POTY candidate logo seems redundant with the FP star, since, eventually, any FP will participate in a POTY competition. -- Slaunger 22:08, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes all images promoted that year do qualify, but not all of them gets voted on. I was thinking of this for all images listed on the POTY pages (first round) that were voted on. Not all images will be voted on at POTY. I don't know... I feel it would be nice if we were to encourage people like this. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 18:49, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I was only involved in POTY last year, but at that occasion every single image nominated were voted on, see the results here, so again, I really think this is almost 100% redundant information as it merely tells you when something about the time period in which it was promoted to FP. What is relevent is if a candidate proceeded to the secodn round as a finalist. -- Slaunger 19:28, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that featured star is used for images from other wikis like in {{Featured picture on}} which are not necesarily featured on commons. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 03:13, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Licensing and Picture Resolution

After studying given hints, I still am unaware whether an ever given licence applies to one specific file or to the "picture". We are still about "begging" pros for minor resolution pics: Would it be acceptable if anyone would allow (license) COM:WP to use a pic of, say, 480x640 px, although the photographer wants to keep copyright on any higher resolution pics, which he might at the same time share=offer to public under (C) on (e.g.) his own website? WeHaWoe 20:09, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, a license is offered in combination with a particular rendering. One is then allowed to take that low-res rendering and create derivatives including upscaled version. In some cases, e.g. logos and geometric patterns, it may be possible that those upscaled images are indistinguishable from high-res originals. In that case, licensing a low-res image would be functionally equivalent to licensing the high-res version. However, for most images such as photographs, downscaling is a lossy process and there is no logical way that the high-res image could be constructed as a derivative of the low-res image. In those cases, I think the copyright on the high-res image is not impacted by licensing a low-res version.

So, in short, I think the license applies to the low-res file and any derivatives that can be created from the low-res image alone, but it does not apply to the original high-res files. So, in my opinion, in most cases an author can license low-res files and safely choose to keep control over high-res versions. Dragons flight 02:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Sounds fine, but: Would it be possible [for sure, it would, but], rather: COULDN'T this be implemented in the template? I'm still talking about photographers who are not very much aware about specific WP conventions, nor willing to spend their time to "look-up" details, but might be willing to leave a low-resolution pic to WP which might be fair for onscreen-display, but inappropriate for a quality print. AND I see that the "attribution" template is more flexible (adaptable to user's convenience) than the "cc-by" template, although of less value. I think that WP looses quite a lot of valuable graphical material (especially photographs) due to [for non-wikipedians] "clumsy" handling of licensing. -- WeHaWoe 17:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I would have no problem with an "advertisement" like:

The low-res resolution image shown above was donated and freely released by John Q. Photomaster

Higher resolution versions may be available from Photomaster Studios

I think the potential input of high quality image donations outweighs the potential noxious side effect of this kind of advertising since announcements like this are of similar scope to the attribution that we are required to provide anyway. It is something that more people would need to discuss however, prior to implementing such a scheme. Dragons flight 18:45, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, @Dragons flight, I do think so, too. But I would prefer to be able to express something like that within the cc-by-template, IF I was a professional (often stressed) photographer and somewhat "desinterested" in studying details on licensing in WP.

Besides, I see that there's not very much talk about this issue. Is it really that meaningless to the community? -- WeHaWoe 16:19, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Thinking about the future

I visited a church on Sunday where I was shown a chapel they thought was worth pictures in Wikipedia. That is definitely true, but the painter of the frescos lived far to long for me to upload those pictures. But it made me think that something should be done with respect to such pictures. There is no guarantee that it will be possible to take similar pictures when such pictures can be released. We should have a repository of pictures that will be released as free pictures in 2009, 2010, and so on. We lack a lot of pictures today that we would have been pleased if someone 10, 20, 30 years ago decided should one day be free. As Wikimedia was not around at that time we cannot blame anyone for not giving us a gift of a batch newly free pictures each January 1st. We should make it possible for the future wikipedians to get such a gift. I may not live to see 2039, but even if I don't it would be nice to be able to give them a gift of these pictures at that time. We don't have a space problem, why don't we create commons2010.wikimedia.org and so on? Haros 23:02, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, that very act of storage would be a violation of copyright/license. I completely agree with your intention, but I think the reality of it is that the burden is upon us as individuals to keep photos of copyrighted items within our own personal storage until such times comes that they can be released. For example, I've recently dabbled in uploading some photos from family photo albums... the photos exist because there was the foresight to keep them properly stored at an individual level. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 23:53, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

It wouldn't be a violation. We already storage every copyvio that's uploaded. When we "delete" these we are merely making them unavailable to users. Even if it reaches the level of being oversighted, they are still technically on our servers (developers still have access to them). Rocket000 18:14, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

You're operating on the assumption that storing our "deleted" content is legal. Strictly speaking it isn't, and we would expunge the deleted copies if asked to do so. However, archiving copyvios in that fashion is a very minor act of infringment compared to distributing them to the public, and in general few copyright holders care (or know) what happens to "deleted" content once it is removed. Dragons flight 18:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

It isn't illegal to keep copies of copyrighted work. It is illegal to make copies of or publish them. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 01:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Probably storing such photos on a central, shared server, even if it is not visible to the general public, might already be a violation of copyright, as copyright law grants the owner of the copyright the exclusive right to make copies. (And also the right to publish the work or to authorize publication.) Typically, making "copies" is fine for strictly personal, private uses, so storing such items locally on your computer would not be a copyright violation. But doing so in a shared repository would, I think. Lupo 20:42, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

But maybe a creative lawyer could devise some way to maintain such a repository in a way that would make it legally ok? Perhaps like this: on that wiki, uploaded files would be visible only to the uploader, but otherwise it might be an open access wiki, so that anyone could help categorize files based on the descriptions? Arguably, that still might be "private use", just the storage would not be on the uploader's local machine... With a select team (admins?) or a bot that could transwiki every January 1 those files that had entered the public domain to Commons? Haros's idea certainly has merits, and I think it'd be great if it could somehow be made to happen. Lupo 20:42, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we would also need some way to keep track of images we delete because they are not PD yet. For instance, if we delete today an image XY because it is still copyrighted, but that would become PD in both the source country and in the U.S. in 2011, it might be worthwhile to record somewhere "undelete file XY on January 1, 2011". (And have a bot do so automatically on that date.) Lupo 20:42, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm storing a lot of mp3s on my computer in anticipation of the day when they become PD. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 22:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I suggested something like this a while ago - I call it a Vault. You upload files to the Vault with a certain attached date, and on that date they are made accessible to the public. Meanwhile no one can access the content. Whether this is legal I don't know, but it sure would be handy, as this is likely to be a very long-lived project, and if not stored somewhere reliable the media is quite likely to be lost due to disk crashes and/or the death of the user who would have uploaded it. The fact that we currently archive copyright violations as a matter of course seems to support that this could be done. Dcoetzee 23:19, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I proposed this on bugzilla (https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11709) and it was declined. Maybe it ca be reopened. For things that will be PD the next year or 5 years later this tool would help. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 01:54, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Without software support, I think this is still something we can automate: a user uploads an image, applying an appropriate template. An admin-flagged bot goes through that category, deletes all images in it, and records the image names and dates on a protected page. At the appointed date, the bot undeletes the image. The only snag I see is that we'd have to worry about people uploading images over the temporarily deleted images - which can be worked around by uploading a benign image in its place, like a "reserved" sign or something. Dcoetzee 02:25, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Preparing the future - forcing good licenses

I would suggest to add to the system a feature that limits the display and retrieval of images to thumbnails (or limited resolution images), possibly with even a watermark on it until the description and license is evaluated as being OK. This could be even extended with a check of the categorisation. That would be a good motivator for uploaders to bring in more complete information and open the way for automatic release when the license becomes valid. --Foroa 06:38, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

May 15

Subst'ing all templates

What's the use of that kind of thing?!!? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 07:43, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

It would be nice that if that has to be done tbat at least a bot with bot flag could do it, so that I do not need to see it on my watchlist, which is really cluttered because of that (and the things bot-account Computer is doing). -- Cecil 09:47, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Commons:Village_pump#Template_substitution_at_Commons:Deletion_requests. -- Cecil 11:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm doing this to make the archives more usable. Those archives easily reach the transclusion limit and substing them is the only solution. -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:31, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Can I do this too? -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 02:03, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to start removing <noinclude>{{Commons:Deletion requests/box}}</noinclude> (or the subst'd version) completely from all closed DRs. Anyone oppose? Rocket000 03:33, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Commons talk:Featured picture candidates#Featured picture template poll

Although I consider the poll itself premature, since it wont be closed I would prefer a broad variety of people voting hence this announcement/advertisement of the poll. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 01:45, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Geolocation by EXIF

I recently uploaded some images that had Geolocation encoded in EXIF by GPISYNC. Unfortunately the locations are not properly displayed in EXIF info nor there is a tool to convert geolocation in EXIF to location template. Doing it manually need hours of extra work. --Nevit Dilmen 21:28, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I made ths same comment at Commons talk:Geocoding#File metadata a while back. I agree that this is a process which could be automated, and I haven't bothered adding location templates to the vast majority of my photos since I think it will be automated eventually. --Padraic 23:03, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

ok, maybe it is time to write a bot to do this task. Let me look into that. --Dschwen 23:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Thankyou for your interest... --Nevit Dilmen 19:33, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

See also Commons:Forum/Archiv/2008/February#Format von GPS Daten in den EXIF Informationen. (Sorry, most of it in German.) In essence there's a problem in the MediaWiki software reading some EXIF geotags. Lupo 12:52, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

May 9

Error in license tag

See Image:Mucocele2.jpg, something is wrong with {{BSD}}. Maybe someone more skilled with templates than me can fix it? --Kjetil_r 02:23, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Yea, I see a giant copy of the image. Awesome. I'll see what I can do. --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 06:11, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done. The wrong {{lang}} template was being called. Thanks for the report Kjetil_r. --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 06:18, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Oops, I thought I did remove that. Guess not. Thanks. Rocket000 12:02, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

BTW, to make {{Lang links}} work now you just need something like {{lang links|Template:BSD}}, but that was just a trial thing. Red links are good motivation. Rocket000 12:08, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I'll keep that in mind. I figured since this /lang template had redlinks - it was "good 'nuff". --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 21:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

OUCH! Spoken Article, not playing

this [[7]] audio file, ogg, isn't playing. when i first uploaded it, it played ok. now it doesn't. does this happen a lot? is it contemporary? i thought wiki was unbreakable!! although, it can be downloaded. but not played on the page. so it's a problem of the wikiplayer?CuteHappyBrute 22:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Well it was either a temporary issue thats gone away or your machine. I pulled up that file and hit the play button and listened to it. Granted I don't understand greek so I had no idea what was being read - but it did work. --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 04:21, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

May 17

Wrong photo credit

For some reason, this webiste http://www.earthdocumentary.com/museum_of_contemporary_art_sydney.htm credits me for the photo of the Museum of Contemporary art at Circular Quay in Sydney when I never actually took the photo. Maybe someone should point this out to the authors of the website so that the rite person can be attributed. The image caption points out this image of Olympic Park Sydney Image:2007_0908klklk0023.JPG as being the photo--Adam.J.W.C. 04:38, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

They have obviously got the wrong image. Can't you contact them yourself? They have a contact link at the bottom, which will show you their gmail address if you click on it. Richard001 05:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

• I think the photo credit is there from the previous image that was in its place. I will bring it to their attentionAdam.J.W.C. 05:41, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Help move an image

Image:Holyland 236.jpg Can Some one help me change the name of this file to Image:PatriarchwithCatholicos.jpg Lijujacobk 06:26, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

From m:Help:Moving a page: Pages in the image or category namespace cannot be moved. To change the name of an image, one needs to upload it again, and copy the image description. To change the name of a category, one needs to change all category tags, and copy the editable part.

This is the topic of my post above. Richard001 08:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I could order a bot to rename it, but first I would like to see some more info in the description: names of both persons, location, date, eventually the event. Also, you should categorize the image. --Túrelio 09:20, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Template for using appropriate filenames for image uploads ?

Do we have a (user talk page) template to advise image uploaders to use appropriate filenames for their uploads? --Túrelio 09:29, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Template:Please name images -- AnonMoos 12:45, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. --Túrelio 13:51, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Translation

Hi. I've looked through the documentation but I can't seem to find a place where users can request a pool of multilingual people to help with translating images, descriptions, etc. Is there such a place? Should there be such a place?--HereToHelp (talk) 11:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Try Commons:Help page maintenance. Cheers! Siebrand 12:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License

• Where can images with such license be used? From what I've read, I wouldn't be allowed to upload it to Commons, but could it be uploaded to Wikipedia itself? FunkMonk 02:59, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
  • It would have to be under their fair use rules. Kelly 03:34, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
• Darn. Why isn't there a specific tag for that license? FunkMonk 22:02, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

That license is non-free. Wikipedia has no reason to produce a different tag for each non-free license. In the end, you just have to use a non-free use rationale anyway. Superm401 - Talk 00:12, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Two types of "Trusted user" status?

A long-standing renaming request for an image with a highly suggestive but totally unsourced file name (Image:Homosexuality Spanish Inquisition.jpg) was declared as failed by a bot declaring (me nicely as "a non-trusted user" and) that a "trusted user" could do it. As the Commons' definition for trusted user is ... were granted reviewer status as trusted users for reviewing images uploaded from flickr and the respective image wasn't uploaded from Flickr at all but from an academic website, there comes my question, are there 2 types of trusted users (one for Flickr and one for non-Flickr)? --Túrelio 07:06, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Diff - you'll need to ask Betacommand what he means by trusted user, I'm unsure. giggy _(:O) 11:02, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, look at User_talk:Betacommand#Trusted_user and you question is answered. :) giggy _(:O) 11:02, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

@Giggy, thanks for the helpful links. --Túrelio 12:08, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

The list of users approved for this is at Commons:MediaMoveBot/CheckPage. Superm401 - Talk 00:29, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Changing licenses?

Hi, I upload my pics for a while under "cc-by" and found out just now that I would prefer them to be under "Attribution". Would I be allowed to change any of "my" "cc-by"s into "Attribution" ?? Or, if not here, where else do I have to ask? Thanks, WeHaWoe 06:42, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

You sure can. You are the copyright holder so you can relicense them however you want and since {{Attribution}} is allowed on Commons, you may change your licenses here. Just remember licenses are irrevocable, so if someone wanted to they could still reuse your images under the CC-BY license. Is If you need a bot to do the switch for you, just let me know. Rocket000 08:04, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Note that cc-by also provides you attribution, plus some more important stuff. -- Bryan (talk to me) 08:37, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

So, where would I find the exact differences between "cc-by" and "Attribution"? At first look, "Attribution" seems similar, but more "flexible", i.e., better adaptable to some photographer's personal needs. Am I wrong? It is not so much about any pics taken+uploaded by myself, to be true, but rather, that sometimes I get in contact with professional photographers who are, let's say, "at least reluctant" to offer one single pic to WP, because of "having to give it up" totally. KIND-of-slim-COPYRIGHT seems to be helpful in such cases (note the green (C)!). WeHaWoe 21:42, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, the CCs are real licenses with clearly defined rights for the author/creator, and, if I remember right, from version 3.0 on the license text also mentions that the so-called moral rights of the author/creator are not touched. Compared to that "attribution" only gives attribution. --Túrelio 21:48, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Does this mean, that CC-pics do not need any "disclaimer" (regarding possible personal rights warnings, or on any restricted use in some countries?). Unfortunately, the Green(C)-thing looks better to a lot of people I recently talked to. WeHaWoe 07:11, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The personal rights have nothing to do with copyright, therefore it is advisable to put that tag any portrait images of living persons (as I usually do). The personal rights belong to and concern the depicted person, whereas the moral rights, mentioned above, belong to the author/photographer (her/his professional image might be damaged if a work of art/photography attributed to her/him is changed in a bad way, e.g.) and, at least in some countries, cannot be waived at all. Other non-copyright related restriction are probably not covered by CC and therefore still have to be considered; but I'm not a lawyer. --Túrelio 07:37, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Is there a wikilink where such details are well-explained to other "non-lawyer"s? WeHaWoe 07:47, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

For personal rights see: Commons:Photographs of identifiable people and en:Personality rights with links to other language versions and other jurisdictions. For licensing and related questions see Commons:Licensing. For moral rights see en:Moral rights. Here an example how moral rights might apply, Image:Heroico1.jpg; not a political endorsement ;-). --Túrelio 08:01, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Big TX to all of you. WeHaWoe 11:17, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't know exactly what you mean "give it up totally", but note that both CC and Attribution (which is vaguer) images are still copyrighted. They are under a certain license, but the author still has full rights to sell and publish the images. Superm401 - Talk 00:35, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Again with Wikimedia Logos

They, no matter how you slice it, are non-free. I do not care about exceptions. Every day, the scope of our project is lying. Yeah, we only host freely licensed media that ANYONE can use. Oh yeah, but then what's this? "Use of the Wikimedia logo is subject to the Wikimedia visual identity guidelines and requires permission." Oh really now? Sure, they said we could use them on any WMF webpage, but still. I do not think that these should be on Commons at all. Period. I think we should just turn Meta into a 2nd repository of sorts and put all the CopyrightByWikimedia stuff there instead. ViperSnake151 12:10, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

No. I belive we should ask the board to make such logos free as gfdl. Trademark should be enough protection, imho. abf /talk to me/ 12:14, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Anthere has said definitely that they will never be GFDL or equivalent. The Board believes that both trademark and copyright restrictions are necessary. Dragons flight 12:54, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, then they should go to Meta or somewhere else. --Túrelio 13:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Personally I agree. It is impractical to move the widely used project logos, but there are many things in Category:Copyright by Wikimedia that are used 0, 1, or 2 times across all the projects, and I think it would make sense for Commons to stop warehousing those items and move them to the projects where they are used and/or Meta. Dragons flight 13:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, MediaWiki allow several shared file repositories like Commons. So it's technically possible, but require more discussions on Meta/Board. --EugeneZelenko 15:03, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually I don't believe thats the case. I've got 3 wiki's running inside my company, one of which is functioning as a "commons". There is only set of variables for LocalSettings.php to use. I'd be happier to be proven wrong - but from what I've seen, you can only do one "commons". --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 06:08, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

As of ~6 months ago the functionality was created to allow multiple commons-like shared repositories. Dragons flight 06:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion those Wikimedia logos indeed do not fit in the current Commons policies, but I have been told multiple times to shut up. -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Same here. 哦，是吗？(висчвын) 20:26, 15 May 2008 (GMT)

Proposal for a seperate WMF-copyright repository

It appears that it is now possible for Mediawiki wikis to use more than one shared image repository. That being the case, I propose that we ask the WMF to either designate a different existing wiki (e.g. Meta) or create a new wiki to serve as the shared file repository for content owned by the Foundation. That way we can move all of the Category:Copyright by Wikimedia content to a new home fully seperate from the free content mission of Commons, without interfering with the normal functioning of the other wikis which may still reference that content. Dragons flight 20:15, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

• Strong support. -- Infrogmation 23:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
• Bad idea... It is a programmers hell to do it. The amount of content is no where near enough to start an individual wiki for it. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 01:49, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

  Actually it's quite simple to set up a shared repository like Commons under Mediawiki, and if the shared repository were an existing wiki, like Meta, the technical apsect of the change would only require modifying a half dozen lines in the global configuration file. The harder part is moving the 2500 images, which is a question for us, not the devs. Dragons flight 05:44, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

  See my comment below. 哦，是吗？(висчвын) 05:55, 16 May 2008 (GMT)

• There's no need for all this. Whenever someone uses an image from Commons, they have to read the specific license terms to know what they need to do; so they should also be aware of the special license notice attached to these exception images. That's what they are, exceptions, present on Commons for technical reasons, and they don't need to be mentioned except in discussions relating directly to them. Dcoetzee 02:20, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

  Why have exceptions when there is no longer a technical reason for hosting them here? Dragons flight 05:44, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

  Moving the media would actually duplicate them, since deletion on MediaWiki isn't really deletion. In order for the "deleted" media to be truly deleted, they need to be flushed through one of those archive php scripts (can't remember which); I'll bet that the execution of those script(s) is one of the lowest priorities shell users have right now. 哦，是吗？(висчвын) 05:55, 16 May 2008 (GMT)

• Against. An entire wiki for a dozen images or so? Nah. --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 06:08, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

  There are 2500 Category:Copyright by Wikimedia files. Dragons flight 06:31, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

---

In that case, a lot of stuff which includes an element of a Wikimedia logos, but which is not itself a Wikimedia logo, would have to be separated out (see the recently uploaded Image:Icon for KWuZ-bereits vorhanden.png , Image:Wikiswing.gif etc.). I'm not sure I see any burning need for this; if the only reason for creating a new image repository is to satisfy abstract conceptual clarity, then I would vote no. AnonMoos 06:01, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd propose to put those there too since they are unfree and incompatible with Commons' mission. Dragons flight 06:31, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I suspect that such images would be unwelcome at an official Wikimedia repository for official Wikimedia images only, and would fall between the cracks... AnonMoos 16:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I support removing these images from Commons. If this means creating another shared repository, I support that too. Commons needs to be first and foremost a free media repository. Superm401 - Talk 00:43, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Category:Cathedral of Saint Martin, Utrecht

I think this category is incorrect. First, I have never heard this church called Cathedral of St. Martin, and I have lived in Utrecht for five years. Called it anything else will merely make this category useless. Second, it says that this is the "cathedral of the protestant diocese of Utrecht". There is, in Dutch protestant churches, no such thing as a diocese, nor do Dutch protestant churches have bishops. To the extent that there is a geographical entity broadly comparable in size, there are things called classis. As to a hierarchical division, there is a thing called synode. I strongly suggest that the category "Dom (Utrecht)" (or something like that) be reinstated. Best regards, MartinD 20:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

As nobody seems to object to my proposal, I'm going to implement this over the next few days. Beste regards, MartinD 08:18, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

May 16

Check for re-upload of deleted files

MediaWiki allow to search for files duplicates now. I think will be good idea to expand this to check for re-upload of deleted files (since deleted files and their checksum are available to MediaWiki). As result administrators will be able to detect repetitive copyvio or other problematic files uploads under different names. Unfortunately it'll not help if files will be modified.

Bots could categorize such upload and also provide references to previous files and deletion request entry.

Even as for now will be good idea to have bot which will check uploads under names already deleted.

EugeneZelenko 15:39, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

That's a great idea.. I wonder how hard it would be. Every once in awhile I go through my deletion log (and others) and check out any blue links. Not the fastest way, but I do catch a lot of repeat copyvios that way. Rocket000 16:32, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Suggested as bugzilla:14171. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 14:17, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Article hiding in a caption

Image:Waddy Wood (225675805).jpg seems to contain an entire article (possibly to be transwiki'd) about an architect but, as far as I can quickly tell, nothing at all about the location of the particular photo. Someone may want to sort this one out; I'm in the midst of other things, so I figured I'd just drop a note. - Jmabel ! talk 04:27, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The description was more or less a full copy of the :en article about this guy; removed it. --Túrelio 07:26, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Periodically updated graphs: using new file names every month or using the same file name?

On nl:Handelsbalans I have two graphs showing the development of the trade balance of the U.S. and Euroland. So far, I use EaseTimeline, but I find that there are problems with adding monthly figures: the script doesn't work properly. I'm thinking of using graphs made in Excel and saved as a PNG-file. My question: both these graphs would be updated every month. Should I upload a sequence of files (named "Trade balance US March 2008.PNG" and so on) or should I use the same file name ("Trade balance US.PNG" and "Trade balance Euroland.PNG") and upload them under the same filename, thereby overwriting the existing file(s)? Overwriting files is no problem, since the newer file merely contains more information that the previous one. Please let me know whether there are any rules for this. Best regards, MartinD 08:14, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Category deletion

How do you flag a category for deletion? The category I have in mind is "Pitstone windmill", which is superfluous as the picture fits nicely in the "Buckinghamshire windmills" category. Mjroots 08:31, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

First, for others, the categories in question are: Category:Pitstone Windmill and Category:Windmills in Buckinghamshire; of which the former is currently a sub-category of the latter. Second, I've never nominated a category for deletion -- I just use {{categoryredirect|NAME}}. Third, my opinion is that while it'd be OK to move that 1 image into the higher-up category which has 4 images, I also think it is OK as-is -- so why bother moving stuff about? Should more photos get added of these subjects, we'll just have to split up the categories again. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 15:15, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

100 years old images

Hello, I thought that we keep 100 years old images if the author is unknown. Was this rule changed? I think we need to get this clear: Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Alain fournier.jpg. This image is from 1904, and I think that nearly every publisher considers that it is in the public domain, even in France. It is in the public domain in USA anyway. Thanks, Yann 22:05, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Not always. It is possible that work wasn't PD. If the author is unknown, how can we know he didn't live 34+ years after taking the photo? That would within the life+70 term. Rocket000 09:22, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

We have to put the limit somewhere. Seeing what was the life expectancy 100 years ago (about 50-55 years in USA / Europe [8] [9]), this limit seems reasonable to me. The figures I found are actually lower than I expected. Yann 10:41, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I'm not saying it's likely, just possible. I think it's very safe to assume it's PD or can be treated like it is, but that's different than allowing it on Commons. Rocket000 11:24, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

That's exactly the point: if it is very safe to assume it's PD, why should we refuse them? We accept a lot of things which are much less safe. Why setting different standards? This goes against our mission. AFAIK, we have accepted such images upto now, why do we refuse them now? Yann 11:33, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I guess it's the difference between using it yourself and telling people they may freely use it. I'm not aware that we ever accepted images based on the fact they were 100+ years; maybe it was just the de facto standard since most people would never even question it. It's true we have gotten more and more strict on copyrights. And I agree, sometimes I think we are overly restrictive and it does more harm than good. Rocket000 12:15, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any Commons rule or even guideline on this, but it would be useful to have one, if only to avoid our having to discuss each time whether it is "sufficiently unlikely" that the author has been dead for the required period (usally 70 years). 100 years seems reasonable to me as a default. --MichaelMaggs 20:41, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

As I've mentioned elsewhere, 120 years after the works' creation is the default in US law, if the author's date of death was never registered with the Copyright Office. Dragons flight 21:00, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, yes, maybe 100 is rather too short. --MichaelMaggs 21:44, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

In Wikisource at the beginning of the year we published a list of authors whose work was from now on public domain because the 70 years rule now applied: Wikisource:Presse/Auslaufende Urheberrechte 2007. From those two people got over 90, 62 % of them got over 60 years old, 42% over 70. Sure, the life expectancy back than was not as high as it is today, but those numbers were mainly low because of the many really poor people who lead a hard life and thus died young. Authors, photographers, ... hardly ever belonged to that social class (otherwise they would not have been able to afford something as expensive as camera equipment, darkroom, ...). A 100-years-rule would interfere in the rights of more than 60% of the people on that list. 120 is much more plausible, even though it still will meet a few people whose rights would be 'violated' (even though they are hardly able to complain about it). If wished I will get a list of authors who died 1907/1908, so we can see if the life expectancy changed in the 30 years between then and the list of 1937, but I don't think so. -- Cecil 09:41, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

• Just a minor nitpick: AFAIK, the 120-years in the U.S. is valid only for published works, and only if that publication occurred either before 1978 or after 2002. Lupo 06:17, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

1907 analysis

I took all biografies of people who died in 1907 (data from German Wikipedia per catscan). In total it where 308 articles, from which I removed one because of unknown birthdate. This list contains the poet who died with 21 from tuberculosis, the car racer who died at 24 during a training, but also the landscape artist who died with 97 and the painter who died with 91. In this list the average age is 66,6807

• 92,83% got 40 and older
• 86,97% got 50 and older
• 81,65% got 60 and older
• 56,55% got 70 and older
• 42,38% got 80 and older
• 5,96% got 90 and older

Next I checked the oldest people on the list to see if they would fit in a 100-year-rule, if their life dates would have been unknown. Not all of them had published things that would be of use for Commons, but a few did. So lets see:

• the painter Charles Leickert: he was born in 1816 and died with 91. He learned painting already when he was young, and started professional painting in 1841. That is not a 100 years ago, thats not 120 years ago, not even 150 years. It's 167 years ago!
• the bibliographer Moritz Steinschneider; he was also born in 1816 and died with 90. He was writing a lot about religion. His first important work (don't know if there has been some before) was published in 1841. Once again 167 years ago.
• the ingenieur Friedrich von Lössl; born 1817, died with 90. First wirk published in 1854; which was 154 years ago.
• the doctor and poet Theobald Kerner; born 1817; died with 90. First poem published in 1851; thus 157 years ago.

For this four people, if we wouldn't have known their lifedata, 100 years and 120 years are definitely violating their rights. If we would have taken Leickerts first pictures from 1841 and put them under public domain in 1941 (100 years later), it would have been just 34 years after his death, thus 36 years to early.

Just because we don't know when somebody died or who made some work, it does not mean we can assume that unknown somebody dropped dead within 30 years just for our benefit. Just because the life expectancy back than was 55 years according to some general statistics, we can't assume that those unknown fotographers did too. Especially the poor people died younger because of their hard life (farm working, ...), the child mortality was still very high and lots of woman died young in childbed. But those people were not the ones who were working as authors, paintes, photographers, ... These jobs were done by the middle and higher classes. Still they are combined with the poor people in that 55 years life expectancy, no matter that 80% of them lived much longer. -- Cecil 10:57, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the research. That's the only meaningful arguments I have seen so far in this discussion. I am not really convinced that we have to be so strict about this issue. For me, it is all a matter of interpretation anyway. The number of people living past 100 years at the beginning of the 20th century was so small that we could nearly have a list, which would show that the authors with unknown date of death are not among them.

Beside that, German Wikipedia has a template Bild-PD-alt-100. I don't understand how one can advocate different copyright rules for Wikipedia and for Commons. This is beyond any legal and objective argument: this content is hosted on the same computers, managed by the same organisation. What this content is used for does not change in anyway its copyright status (except for fair use, but fair use is not the point here). Therefore if this content is allowed on the German Wikipedia, there is no reason it should not be allowed on Commons.

I also think that this attitude of excessive copyright interpretation is the main reason why Commons is not more widely used by the different projects: they have no guarantee that the content they allow and they need will be kept on Commons. There were more people advocating the same opinion as mine, but they are all absent here. Wondering if they have lost all hope that this opinion could be accepted here... Yann 10:43, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The "100 years rule" at the German Wikipedia is a kind of EDP. They clearly acknowledge that they are not sure these images are free, but they consider the risk of getting into trouble over hosting such files low. The Commons is not allowed to have an EDP, and furthermore, such an approach is incompatible with our mission. The Commons is supposed to be a repository of free images, not one of images we can get away with hosting. Lupo 12:16, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

This practice of the German Wikipedia is not what should be included in any EDP. So now you are going even further, stating that some projects can have a preferential treatement, and some cannot. Sorry I cannot disagree more. This has nothing to do with copyright laws and practice, and it is going much beyond what rules we use here, so I have asked for input from Mike Godwin and others on foundation-l. Quite funnily, what you explain about the practice on the German Wikipedia is exactly what I am advocating here. Yann 22:50, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Main Page big search box

I've changed the big search box on the Main Page to use HTML and CSS instead of JavaScript. This should be faster and work better on various browsers. I tested it and it appears to be working fine in Firefox 2 and 3 and Internet Explorer 6 and 7. If it looks funny to you, try clearing your browser cache. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 03:39, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Would you try to get the search field and the search button on the same line please? – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 19:41, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, they already are, but I'll try and tweak it some more to hopefully work well for everyone. Could you post a screenshot of how it looks on your computer? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 02:03, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see now, Safari is splitting it across lines. Let me try and fix that. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 02:07, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, I think it's all fixed now. Thanks for the note, and please tell me if you find any more problems. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 03:15, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Translating image names with redirects

When long ago I submitted the feature suggestion for image redirects, one of my primary motivations was that each Wikipedia could refer to a shared image in its own language. To demonstrate, I've added the redirect Image:Drapeau de la Croix-Rouge.svg→Image:Flag of the Red Cross.svg and modified the markup in an image reference in fr:Rouge to use the French name. The idea is that people editing the French-language article can see what the image is without having to know English or correlate images to wikitext. I think that this should be done widely and in many languages for any images whose names are not language-neutral. My main concern at the moment is: does this break "check usage"? Also, it seems like it'll be a lot of work, and I wanted to get an idea whether others think this work is worthwhile. Dcoetzee 01:12, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

It will break checkusage. -- Bryan (talk to me) 09:45, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I noticed that in many cases even thumb, px, right, left keywords are not translated in non-English wikis. So creating multiple redirects will definitely increase complexity of maintenance.

Also will be good idea to have automated way of translation (OmegaWiki?).

EugeneZelenko 14:41, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Featured sound

I know Wikipedia has featured sound. Does Commons have it? (NOT media of the day) OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 06:44, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Looking for co-maintainer for Flickr tools

I'm looking for one or two active co-operator and developers for my Flickr tools. This mainly concerns User:FlickreviewR and User:Flickr upload bot. Those two tools are heavily used with respectively 70k reviews and 13k uploads. See User:Bryan/Flickr maintainer for more information -- Bryan (talk to me) 10:02, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Famous?

Is she famous? Any idea? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 10:43, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

New Template:Slide show

I would like to invite you to improve the syntax. The template does not display one photo at once but all together. Please help! :-)

Quelques photos du massif du Vercors

Le plateau d'Ambel en mai

Le plateau d'Ambel en août

Le petit Veymont

--Mattes 13:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

This needs Javascript support. See fr:MediaWiki:Common.js for what's needed. Lupo 13:26, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

And I don't quite see what this is needed for on commons. We are an image repository. We have categories and galleries. The gallery pages would not be improved by this template. IMO this is a case of not all that could be done should be done. --Dschwen 14:25, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

There are galleries both in the article namespace and in the user namespace, too. Commons consists not only of categories... I think, it is a nice feature at least for the user namespace. --Mattes 14:48, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

(To Dschwen) That was my spontaneous reaction, too, but then I remembered that Flickr has slideshows, too. There might, just might, be a future for such a feature here. Maybe with some support to display a whole category as a slide show. Or all uploads by a particular user. (Yes, I know about the gallery tool :-) Lupo 15:17, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

And do you also know about the slide-show gadget? IMO usernamespace stuff should be handled with optional gadgets. I'm kind of reluctant to support userpage candy bloating out site JS, you know, the whole this is not myspace.com argument... --Dschwen 16:18, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

It is worth a try, wherever it is used. The Javascript needs to implemented by someone else. I have no idea about it...^^^--Mattes 11:17, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

The French-language WP has a template that does the same thing, no JS needed: Modèle:Images. Arria Belli | parlami 01:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Note to self: read whole discussion before posting. Sorry, guys. :-p Arria Belli | parlami 01:03, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

May 20

Infobox Company Error

When i use the following code;

{{Infobox Company
 | name = Vision Equities
 |}}

My page says this;

Template loop detected: Template:Infobox Company

"Gaia-Wind" are a company that develop and manufacture small and efficient wind turbines for supplying electricity to properties such as private homes, farms offices, and swimming pools.

History

Established in the mid 1990's in Aarhus, Denmark, the develpoment of the company coincided with a demonstration project by the Danish Wind Energy Association to support and and regenerate a market for small wind turbines.

In October 2006, Gaia-Wind was taken over by a group of investors committed to further improving the product and driving forward the international expansion of the company. Since this acquisition the Gaia-Wind has relocated to Scotland, and from 2007 has operated from its offices in Hillington, Glasgow. Why. This makes no sense

This happened because you were calling a template from itself. I think you are a bit confused about Wikimedia Commons. First, we are not an encyclopedia (Wikipedia is), so we're not going to have an article on Gaia-Wind. Second, Infobox Company is supposed to be a template, which means the template code itself shouldn't specific to any company. Finally, Wikimedia Commons has no need for templates like this. I recommend you go to Wikipedia:Help desk for more assistance. Superm401 - Talk 21:28, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

May 21

Template:Attribution-UN-WFP

I just created Template:Attribution-UN-WFP after stumbling across the World Food Programme's liberal photograph guidelines. This is my first try at this sort of licensing template, so would appreciate other users checking to make sure that it is worded and formatted correctly. Thanks, BanyanTree 11:44, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it needs to be clearer that WFP applies these rights to the images that are downloadable from their website. They have no explicit statement on print quality images, which might indicate that if I ordered a crapeyInsert non-formatted text here image and you would copy this print image from me that it is not clear what rights you have. Also, the images are now put into the category PD-UN, which is clearly incorrect. TheDJ 12:38, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I gave it Category:UN-WFP to fill. Rocket000 14:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

There is another issue I just realised. It is not stated if derivative works of these photo's are allowed. It only talks about free reproduction, not of free usage. TheDJ 20:20, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't even look at the site, I just wanted to fix the categorizing. The site says "for use on websites, newspapers & magazines or for educational purposes". I don't think these image are allowed. Rocket000 20:26, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

That's a very good point. I'll send the contact person an email. Is there anything else besides derivative works and downloadable images that I should get clarification on? - BanyanTree 23:56, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

We need to make sure the images can be reused commercially. Superm401 - Talk 00:22, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Received an email with the following text from the WFP (key points emboldened by me):

Dear Banyan Tree,

Please see our publication rules for WFP images hereunder.
Permission to use WFP images:
WFP provides its copyrighted images for free on the understanding that when published both WFP and the photographer are clearly credited.
The photographs should be credited as follows; WFP/name and surname of the photographer (information within each file name and in the IPTC fields with captions and the copyright notice).

It would also be appreciated that complementary copies of the final publication are physically sent to the attention of the Head of the Photography Unit Mr. Rein Skullerud (address and contact details hereunder).These will be circulated within WFP and added to our archive. If instead the images are being published on the web kindly send us the link to the hosting website.
WFP photographs must be used for non profit purposes and in a truthful context. No pixelation or modification other than regular colour calibration and cropping is allowed.
Use of WFP images is allowed for the one time editorial use approved by WFP. Additional use must be supported by a new request for permission to WFP re-distribution of WFP images is not allowed without consent from WFP.
The captions are true to the best of our knowledge.
Please don't hesitate to contact me should you have any further query.
Many thanks.
Regards,

Rein

The extended image use guidelines are obviously not compatible with the GFDL and I have deleted the template. Thanks to all for their assistance. - BanyanTree 04:05, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Note that GFDL compatibility is not required. However, images must be free and you are correct that these aren't. Superm401 - Talk 12:25, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Upload CRASH

the upload process crashes every time i try to upload a big file, a spoken article. when i try to upload a regular file, it uploads ok, but the big one just won't upload. this ugly firefox page comes up>> The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading. The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few moments. is there anything that we can do? i thought wiki servers were invincible =[ CuteHappyBrute 01:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

We try hard, but they're not invincible. I don't think this is the server's fault though. How big is the file? There is a maximum of 20MB. Also, if you are on a slow connection, the transfer may fail by taking too long. Can you please check these things and report any relevant details? – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 03:19, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

i'm not 100% sure but i think it's not my pc. my connection is 2Mbps and my memory is 2Giga.dammit the file is 28MB. i didn't know that. .ogg files are too grumpy to be manipulated into lesser quality and thus size. if you know how, tell me. why did they choose .ogg? mp3 is teh coolest. anyway thanx for the info mate.CuteHappyBrute 07:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

ogg is a free file format - mp3 isn't. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 14:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

it's not? so all these years i've been a thief =[? jk it's that ogg is not very manageable/knownCuteHappyBrute 16:24, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

More specifically, MP3 encoders/decoders require a patent license and can't be incorporated into free and open source software. Some people around here feel only using patent-free formats is important to the free content mission. Dragons flight 17:10, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, is there a plan to move content to MP3 after the expiration of the patents in question? Or are we sticking with OGG because of its technical merits? Dcoetzee 22:55, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no plan to recode content to MP3, and that would be a bad idea because it would require a second round of lossy compression. However, after the patents expire, there would then be no obstacle to uploading new MP3s. In fact, though, Ogg Vorbis is considered superior by to MP3 by many; it's subjective, though. Superm401 - Talk 12:43, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Once its free it can be added. Ogg supports streaming, mp3 does not. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 02:01, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, both have streaming solutions wrapped around them. And both can be recoded (lossily) to lower quality, contrary to CuteHappyBrute's comment above. Superm401 - Talk 12:43, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Requests - non-media requests

Where would one go here to log a request for something other than a media file. An example might be a gallery (emotion would be a good idea for a gallery) or a template that the requester didn't feel up to making (or didn't have time to make). Even when it's only a matter of not being able to do make everything you would like in the time you have, it can be useful to add important things to a request list so they aren't forgotten about and others can see the need to make them if you never get around to it.

Wikipedia has a lot of specific requests pages, but we're not quite as big a community at the moment so perhaps a 'requests - other' type page would be more appropriate? Richard001 09:19, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

How about I create Commons:Miscellaneous requests and put it in Category:Commons requests? Richard001 23:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Image namespace pages with out media

Is there any easy way to search for or generate a list of image pages that have no media uploaded to them? I continually run across these and some are pretty old. Rocket000 00:31, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Mediawiki bug: Templates in Galleries?

Hello,

I've got the following scenario:

 <gallery>
 {{linegenerator|ImageA}}
 {{linegenerator|ImageB}}
 {{linegenerator|ImageC}}
 </gallery>

Where {{linegenerator}} shall be an example for a template which generates something like

     Image:ImageX.abc|Some Text...

so in the end it should result in the automatically generated sourcecode

 <gallery>
     ImageA.abc|Somehting about image A
     ImageB.abc|and Image B
     ImageC.abc|and so on...
 </gallery>

But it doesn't, because templates are ignored in <gallery> tags. A better real world example: see here or User:Sven/Latest (see sourcecode). Why? This makes galleries quite inattractive to use. Is there a workaround? Like

  {{I'll echo <gallery>}}
      {{my Templates}}
  {{I'll echo </gallery>}}

But this really looks ugly. Why does <gallery> behave like that? --Sven 19:25, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I tried your suggested workaround in my sandbox, but it didn't help; see User:Superm401/gallery head and User:Superm401/gallery foot. I believe this is a known bug. <gallery> is an extension, which means it doesn't fit in the parsing framework as nicely as might be hoped. Superm401 - Talk 21:34, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, as {{make <gallery> around this| {{my Templates}} }} doesn't work too there doesn't seem to be a real workaround for this bug. On meta they have a meta:Template:Gallery which doesn't use the <gallery> tag but generates a table which looks and feels like the real <gallery>. On the commons we have a rarely used template:gallery. So principally I could transfer the meta workaround to the commons to get a solution for this bug. Is there anything that argues against this solution? --Sven 21:55, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

It is possible to use something like:

 {{#tag: gallery |
   {{template|parameters}}
   {{template|parameters}}
 }}

Where the template produces "Image:imagename.abc{{!}}some text". See example in Sandbox here and template on Sandbox talk here. /Ö 22:08, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Sounds nicely... Argh! And just after I have installed User:Sven/Template:Gallery and got User:Sven/Latest working (with some limitations) ;-) But your solution seems to work, too. And it's surely less expensive than the overhead with my {{Template:Gallery}}. --Sven 22:45, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Apparently the #tag: gallery construction works only with substituted templates. But afer all it's much nicer than meta:template:gallery :-) --Sven 22:58, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

The tag trick is also used in {{VISC}}, if you want to have a look there. -- Slaunger 20:07, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I imported that template to Template:Gallery if anyone wants to use it. I figured it's good to have at least. And IMO, it's not a bad alternative (see examples on Template talk:Gallery). Rocket000 01:31, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmkey... I'll add the information from User:Sven/Template:Gallery to Template:Gallery. --Sven 13:15, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

what's wrong with this picture / page

Image:Picswiss_BE-90-14_Hotel_"Oeschinensee"_beim_Oeschinensee.jpg seems to be non-existing, but the page is there. Is there a problem with the name (using quotes) or some anomaly of the MediaWiki Software? Sorry, if I'm asking silly questions, but I did not find it out myself. Could someone repair this? Similar with Image:Picswiss BE-90-15 Hotel und Berghaus "Oeschinensee" beim Oeschinensee.jpg. If there is a better place to find such information or ask such questions, please let me know. Thanks --Herzi Pinki 19:35, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Hallo Herzi,

sieht tatsächlich so aus, als ob es so ist, wie du es schilderst. wenn man nämlich auf "bild hochladen" unter dem Namen klickt, kommt die Nachricht

The description page for this file has already been created at Image:Picswiss BE-90-14 Hotel "Oeschinensee" beim Oeschinensee.jpg, but no file with this name currently exists. The summary you enter will not appear on the description page. To make your summary appear there, you will need to manually edit it

Ich hab die Warnung dann einfach ignoriert und jetzt ein idiotisches Testbild unter dem Namen hochgeladen. Du musst also deine BIlder wohl (noch) mal hochladen. Und mein Testbild natürlich löschen (einfach, in dem du dein Bild darüber hochlädst). Viele Grüße, --Sven 19:48, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Danke, ist nicht mein Bild, hatte nur Probleme hier. Die bestehen fort. Also entweder lässt sich das Orginal irgendwo hervorkitzeln, oder die beiden Bilder sollten gelöscht werden. lg --Herzi Pinki 20:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

still, it looks like an error caused by the quotes in the name? I will temporarily remove the categories until the images get fixed. --Herzi Pinki 20:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Erhm... ich kann dein Problem nicht ganz nachvollziehen. Mit den Anführungszeichen gibt es kein Problem – alles, was mit UTF-8 dargestellt werden kann, ist hier unproblematisch, selbst chinesische Zeichen. Und ich konnte (testweise) ein Bild unter diesem Namen hochladen. Warum lädst du nun nicht einfach diese beiden Bilder hoch und fertig? Wenn du sie nicht hochladen kannst, dann schick sie mir halt per Mail und ich lade sie für dich hoch. --Sven 21:47, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Gut, das ist eine klare Aussage. Nochmals von meiner Seite, das sind nicht meine Bilder, ich habe sie nicht (sind aber auf picswiss verlinkt), sind nicht wichtig, werden nicht verwendet, aus der Kat habe ich sie rausgeschmissen. Mich hätte interessiert, wie dieser schiefe Zustand zustandekommt. Aber es ist nicht mehr so wichtig. Danke --Herzi Pinki 21:53, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Wie der schiefe Zustand gekommen ist, kann ich dir leider auch nicht sagen. Tud mir leid, wenn ich etwas grob geantwortet habe :) – darf ich nachfragen, wozu die Bilder hochgeladen werden, wenn sie doch sowieso nicht verwendet werden, wie du behauptest? --Sven 23:01, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Not sure if Sven answered this or not, but no images were uploaded with those names to begin with. Only the description page was created. If files aren't uploaded with those names soon, they should be deleted. Rocket000 23:56, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that was the answer I suspected. I will mark them for deletion --Herzi Pinki 22:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Image:HerbariumSM.jpg

What's the license status of this image? The subject has given permission for her image to be used specifically for the English Wikipedia. --Eleassar ^(t/p) 15:03, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, the wishes of Monique Reed, the non-identifiable subject of the photograph are irrelevant to the license status and should be removed from description. --Jarekt 15:20, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a free image. I put a personality rights tag to alert of a possible issue here, but in my opinion this wouldn't likely be infringing her rights. Superm401 - Talk 22:16, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Non Commercial Use - limited agreement recieved from creator - is this a licence?

Good morning,

Yesterday i uploaded the image NGC_2770_Gemini.jpg which was retrieved from the following source on the Gemini Observatory website (image can be seen there in situ).

http://www.gemini.edu/babysnimage

I am a newbie and didn't understand that the provisions of 'educational/research' use given by them (I placed the full text of the licence at http://www.gemini.edu/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=14 in the image description) wasn't sufficient as commons requires that the creator releases the image for commercial use. As soon as i realised this I nominated the image for speedy deletion and it has since been deleted.

ok, well in the meantime, I had notified the Gemini Observatory that the image was going into wikipedia, and recieved the following from them:

–

Alex,

Thank you for letting us know that you have included the image on Wikipedia. We also appreciate the fact that you have included the copyright information - great!

Regards,

Public Affairs Program Coordinator

–

I then wrote back saying that I would be getting the image deleted due to the commons policy and had this reply from them:

–

Alex.Watt wrote

Hi again - and apologies - I just realised that allowing commercial use is part of uploading to the commons. So i've nominated this image for speedy deletion.

Regards,

alex watt

Alex -

Actually it isn't - since you aren't selling the image - you have included it on your web site as a reference. If, however, there was someone who wanted to use the image and it fell into the 'commercial' usage category, then they would be the ones who would need to contact us and make payment.

Gemini and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory don't mind at all that our images are included in Wikipedia, but we do require that you include the 'conditions of use' as you did with the NGC_2770. It is best that users understand upfront that not all images are part of Public Domain - and that they need to contact the originating organization to find out what their image usage policies are.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Public Affairs Program Coordinator

–

So my question is, do the emails above grant use on the commons or has Gemini not understood the full implications of putting an image on the Commons?

I appreciate your advice.

Alexander110 —Preceding comment was added at 00:53, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it seems they misunderstood what Commons is about. Uploading here isn't just for Wikipedia use, it's for anyone's use, including people who want to make money off of it. Even if they gave explicit permission for Commons and Wikipedia use, it wouldn't be enough. It's not just about what we do with it, it's what others may do with it. The image(s) in question still may be able to be used on Wikipedia if its use meets the local project's fair use rules. Rocket000 01:30, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - not sure I am familiar with the local project rules you describe - could you please point me towards the FAQ or otherwise expand on that...? Alexander110 —Preceding comment was added at 03:10, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Some projects, like the English Wikipedia, allows non-free media in certain situations. It's referred to as "Fair Use" - the name of the defense used in court if you would get sued over it (afaik). You can read more about it at en:Wikipedia:Non-free content. Anrie 06:10, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it would depend on what Wikipedia we're talking about. Most, including the English Wikipedia, are are pretty strict on what can be used under "fair use". Basically, if it's at all possible a free alternative may exist, than it's unlikely they will allow a non-free image. (Technically, they aren't using it under the legal definition of fair use since they have permission, but they don't acknowledge exclusive permission in any case.) Rocket000 09:08, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Captions in images - keep or crop?

I've received a couple of opposite responses regarding including captions in images. I have uploaded some images from 19th century books lately (see Category:The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals and Category:The Naturalist on the River Amazons) and have been including captions without really thinking about it. Should I be cropping these out? The only thing I can think of for or against captions (sometimes including figure numbers) is that they may not be relevant if the picture is used in a more general context. I have found quite a few of these images have been the first of their type and are suitable for a Wikipedia article that is currently pictureless, but the caption is often inappropriate there. So I'm thinking I should crop the captions out where possible. Richard001 06:32, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Removing captions would also allow use of the image in other language Wikis. Text of the caption should be preserved as text so the search engine can find it. --Jarekt 12:08, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I think I'll remove the captions from my previous uploads, and leave them out in future. They probably vary from edition to edition too, unlike the images themselves. Richard001 01:33, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

One advantage I've just realized is that you can see that the image is correctly oriented, i.e. if the caption is slantly you know something went wrong. Richard001 06:35, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you just upload them with the caption preserved in the image, and redundantly typed in the textual description. If/when somebody has a use for the image without the caption, they can upload a cropped version under a different name. I'm pretty sure we got space for both. --Rob 07:05, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Overall I don't really think it's worth it. The images here are really for general use. I suppose there is slight extra utility in having a caption version as well but I don't think it's worth uploading extra versions just for that. Given how "incomplete" (not that we can ever be complete) Commons is I think getting as many images up is the priority, so I'm not going to upload both in grayscale and colour, with and without captions etc. By the way, typing the caption when it's already in the image isn't redundant because it allows both searches and copy-and-pasting. Richard001 09:45, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

If you don't think it is worth the effort to do both, upload the image raw, and let the end user that wants a cropped version create another version cropped... I think that's a better approach than cropping and only uploading that. It also gets more images on commons per unit of your time expended. Raw is better as it leaves your judgement out. ++Lar: t/c 20:32, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Category:Jesus Christ and Category:Christ

Yesterday another Dutch user complained to me about confusing categorisation, and pointed me out to the example of the above categories, and I indeed have to say it looks somewhat odd. Most images in Category:Christ are actually depictions of Jesus Christ and Christ is a subcategory of Jesus Christ instead of the other way around which seems more logical to me. Any ideas/suggestions on what the proper categorisation should be? - Dammit 09:17, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The actual population of both categories says it all: Category:Jesus Christ should be the one (according to the Highlander rule) --Túrelio 10:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that Category:Jesus Christ should be the place for all relevant images. However, I understand Dammit's viewpoint in that while Jesus is a Christ, not all Christs must necessarily beJesus. However, "Christ" is a Christian word for the Hebrew "Messiah". If we use the Christian word, it seems only reasonable that such a category should adhere to the Christian traditions of who the Christs are -- which is that there is only one: Jesus. Such a category would remain quite underpopulated unless something happened such that we should have more than one person in that category... which would prompt a rewrite of quite a number of other articles. Using Category:Messiahs as an overarching category might be more applicable, as that could include generational messiahs of some Jewish traditions as well as other messiahs like Muhammad al-Mahdi and Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 15:34, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that work needs to be done on this (and some other) categories. What really is needed is to take a step or two back and look at the broader landscape of possible future sub-categories and what would be a good Parent Category to have them all under.

After looking at what categories seem lacking and coming up with a few long winded suggestions, I went and compared them to the English Wikipedia and found it matched them so closely I though we might as well use some of the same wording.

I think the following will help future contributors to find an appropriate category for their images that fall into this general area. At the same time it will suggest to those that follow where new subcategories should go; as the need arises for them to be created.

1) Create a Parent category -Category:People associated with religion or philosophy. See the existing :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People_associated_with_religion_or_philosophy

We could even use the same guidance as they do at the top to make thing clear: People in this category need not be adherents of a specific religion or philosophy, e.g., if they are specifically involved with such adherents, or are prominent writers or teachers regarding religion, philosophy, or specific instances of them.

2) Add the existing Wikicommons sub cat Category:Philosophers to it. Add also, a completely new Category:Founders of religions See how they have done it on WP:[16]

We could use the same WP guidance at the beginning of this too:This category is for the founder or the spiritual inspiration of major religions or spiritual belief systems. The purpose of this category is to catalog those great spiritual teachers that inspired many others to follow them. Religions and spiritual belief systems are usually founded by, or based upon the teachings of, one person. That person may or may not call himself, or be termed by others, a messiah, prophet, guru, etc. This category is only for the founder or primary source of a major religion or spiritual belief system; not for notable leaders, teachers, or followers. This category is also for actual historical figures, irrespective of whether their existence is disputed or whether the historical figure has been deified by believers; it is not for non-human deities that believers may credit with founding a particular religion. Note - Please check that the name added shows up under the correct letter in the sort below. Otherwise please use the DEFAULTSORT template to fix the problem (see talk).

3) In The new category of Founders_of_religions

Add the Subcategories 'Jesus'

4) Recategorise all the Jesus Christ's and Christ's to plain Jesus.

Finally:

5) Do away with the Category Christ to that people can't use it again.

(The Gran Poder sub will also need to be re-categorised but that's a small incidental)

I think I can do the creation and rearrangements if others agree that this is the way to go. Mind-you, I 'd appreciate some help with updating all the Jesus Christ images. --P.g.champion 18:24, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but totally opposed to this Jesus Christ to Jesus reduction. Though "Jesus Christ" may be what comes into the mind of most people when they read "Jesus", IMHO it is too unspecific (see also: en:Jesus (disambiguation). Jesus Christ is in fact the most commonly used name for Jesus of Nazareth. Category:Christ might be deleted, but Category:Jesus Christ should stay. --Túrelio 18:53, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

May 19

Malaouwie foto

I found a foto here and want to know if the copyright status is all right to upload here on the Commons. Thx--Sanandros 22:56, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

At least, the uploader on :ms labelled it as PD. In case that is really true, you may upload it here. --Túrelio 06:27, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

• It is already on commons Image:MP5A4.jpg, but I don't believe that it will get very old without a real author Mutter Erde 07:01, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

And who is the copyrihtholder?--Sanandros 13:48, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Try your luck at the first uploader's disk: ms:Perbincangan Pengguna:Rizuan. But he seems to have already a problem with another "free" pic (as far as I understand this strange language) Mutter Erde 14:09, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

May 23

Redirect to local projects

I recently came across a user talkpage where the text had been replaced with #REDIRECT [[LOCAL TALK]]. Following that edit an admin had fullprotected the page with the summary As requested pr user. I have unprotected the page and replaced redir with "please notify user at..." (and notified the user at their local wiki.)

While I understand that Commons is second (or twelwth) wiki to most of our contributors, I think it is an important principle that all users here should be able to communicate with each other without having to IP-edit or sign in in different Wikimedia projects. Politely asking for local notification is OK, but will not necessarily be respected - especially when templates are added by scripts. What users that don't check in here regularly should do is to enable e-mail notification. This has probably been discussed before, but I would still like confirmation that neither redirecting talk pages or protecting talk pages for other purposes than vandalism and personal attacks are acceptable. Finn Rindahl 13:44, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I think this is worth getting views on. If someone is not uploading material to Commons then a redirect to another wiki seems fine. However if we need to contact them regarding licensing or similar I don't think we should be expected to go to their wiki to do it (templates etc won't work anyway). Could we/should we encourage people who are not regularly here to use the "E-mail me when my user talk page is changed" option in "my preferences"? --Herby ^{talk thyme} 15:44, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

IMHO I think you shouldn't be mucking about on other peoples user/talk page. Obviously yes, I think we should allow redirects on talk pages - I know I do that on most projects (and I've never seen any of the other project have a problem with it). I have my commons and en.wp talk pages open - the rest of the projects I work on redirect to en.wp (for now). There is absolutely nothing wrong with someone coming across to another wiki and IP editing my talk page with a note saying they are from X project. --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 17:44, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, there's two issues: Redirects and protection. One problem with cross wiki redirects is that they don't work, you don't get redirected to another project. A note saying "Leave messages here:LINK" has the same effect. The other problem is that semi-automaticly added template messages and robot messages seemingly get added, but all anyone can see without editing the page is the redir. I agree that there's nothing wrong with getting a IP message, my concern is that noone should be forced to leave an IP message if they're not signing in to a project where they're not going to contribute. (And for clarification, this would not a problem for myself or other SUL users).

As for protection simply to prevent other users to add legitimate messages I'm totally opposed to that, that's not what protection is for. Regards, Finn Rindahl 20:52, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Finnrind. I have no problem with soft redirects. "Please use my Wikipedia talk page instead" is not the issue. Check out the pages on Special:BrokenRedirects for many reasons why redirects to other projects should not be allowed (besides the fact they don't work at all.) Rocket000 08:46, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and regarding protection, talk pages should never be protected (unless blocked users are misusing theirs or something). We have bots and scripts that are going to leave messages anyway regardless of any redirects. Deletion notices and such are a courtesy. If someone's nominating hundreds of potential copyvios a day, I don't expect them to go to a bunch of various wikis and manually inform all the uploaders with templates those projects don't have. It's better to leave these messages on seldom checked talk pages than nothing at all, right? Rocket000 09:00, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Image displays errors for some users

I recently uploaded two images, Image:K28 Immunity.jpg‎ and Image:K1 preprotoxin.jpg‎. They are used in en:Killer yeasts. I just got a comment on my user talk page that the images won't display for a user, and while they display fine in several different browsers on my computer running Linux, they won't display in someone else's computer running Windows. Any suggestions for what I should do? Are the images corrupt, or somehow incompatible with some systems?-Gadfium 02:56, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

If I drill down to http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/K28_Immunity.jpg for example, under IE/Windows it just doesn't display, and using SeaMonkey/Windows it says "The image “http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/K28_Immunity.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors." It loads OK into Microsoft Photo Editor and Paint Shop Pro 8, but when I save it from PSP8 it is 26K instead of 284K, and can then be viewed in either browser. FWIW. 71.231.81.76 04:33, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Both of those images don't work for me either. Firefox 2.0 (and IE6) on Windows XPSP3. The images do however work for me under FF3.0Beta on Ubuntu 8.04. Even still, they need to be fixed and replaced - what ever the user did - they aren't working properly. --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 04:52, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I have re-saved and re-uploaded both images from the original TIFF format to JPG using GIMP instead of Krita. They now appear on the Windows machine as well as the Linux one. Unless others still have problems viewing them, I presume this concludes the matter.-Gadfium 05:50, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I can confirm this is  Done (both Windows & Linux it works). Sorry Gadfium, I mis-read your initial post, didn't realize you had done the original image work. Thanks! --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 05:59, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

"Self-made"

Taking a picture of someone else's image doesn't convey rights to release the new picture under GFDL, or public domain, as "self-made", does it? (for example, and another). 71.231.81.76 04:18, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

In this perticular case, no, they don't have the rights. These don't look like simple pictures either. --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 04:54, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done I've created a mass delete request for all of these images. See Commons:Deletion_requests/Images by Ably Weathered . Thanks for the information. --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 05:32, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Please de-link Image:Albert Richter Grabstein.png

and delete it, before more duplicate versions are embedded in national WPs. TX, WeHaWoe 07:47, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done I replaced the one use on pt.wp and it was deleted by User:Giggy --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 08:12, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

TXXX! WeHaWoe 11:15, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Original date and context needed...

Many of the images are interesting, beautiful or informative, but without a context or the date of the original work - not just of the image - many of the images are dead-ends. I admit I'm spoiled: in archaeology, an artifact's true worth is not dependent on it's appearance alone but on its provenance: the date it was made and the context it was found in. If this has already been discussed, please point me to the discussion. If not, please give it due consideration. Thank you, Shir-El too 12:45, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

We agree that images need as thorough a description as possible, and we also know much work on this is needed. Please help by adding descriptions and dates (of both the image and source work) where you can and using the template {{Missing description}} when necessary. You can also request more information on the talk page of an image. Superm401 - Talk 12:54, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The Commons' "First Steps" guide includes an appeal for detailed file descriptions. It's up to each individual uploader to decide how much/little of a description they want to add and it is unfortunate that not all uploaders care about image descriptions. You might also try contacting the uploader if you have a specific question about an image. Anrie 14:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Shir-El too you are preaching to the choir. I believe that most of us will agree that in many cases even poor quality images with extensive description are more useful for wikipedia than great images with no description. So improving descriptions is an ongoing task that sometimes takes a lot of time.--Jarekt 15:16, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. WeHaWoe 11:52, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, all. I'd hoped there was an overall solution, much like the peer review on Wikipedia. Meanwhile I will follow your suggestions to the best of my ability. Thank you again, Shir-El too 19:42, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Featured picture template poll

There is a poll going on here on the template we should adopt for tagging feature pictures (as well as other awards, if agreed). We would like a broad consensus on this issue before taking a decision as some unpleasant events have already taken place. Please participate and leave your comment/vote there -- Alvesgaspar 20:07, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Moved to here. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 00:14, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

May 24

Remove/rename image

Could somebody please delete this file: Image:Interior_of_R68_Subway.jpg

It is improperly named, I have re-uploaded the file under its proper name (Image:Interior_of_R62_Subway.jpg).

Thank you. --Gafaddict 03:23, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

It appears you haven't (as the 2nd link is a redlink). When you've reuploaded, just add {{badname|Image:Interior_of_R62_Subway.jpg}} to the original. giggy _(:O) 03:27, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, it turned blue as I saved the page! Deleted. giggy _(:O) 03:28, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

PD-Because

Is it really needed to have the template {{PD-because}}? Would it ever be unavoidable? As far as I understand it, any reason that can make an image become public domain (copyright expired by X law, released that way by X creators, images released by X source are all free, etc) would always be a reason capable to be generalized and applied to other similar cases, and then worthy of a licence tag of it's own. Thialfi 03:35, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

There is _always_ going to be an exception to any rule. Yes, there are cases in which a PD-because is used more than once for the same reason (any many cases where PD-Because could be substituted for a proper PD template). Do we really need a template that will only be used twice? Additionally, PD-Because allows people to explain a bit if they don't feel any of the other PD templates apply to them, or they need to explain better. You can check out Category:PD_other_reasons for the ~5k images that use this template. Personally I see some that make sense, and some that are questionable. --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 05:00, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Photographs of statues

I've searched the answer to this, but I didn't find. I'm sorry if the question isn't useful here.

I was going to upload a photo of a statue when I noticed in step 1 of the form Upload your own work that "Photographs of art, statues, commercial packaging and often toys." are "not permitted". However, there are a lot of photos of statues in Wikimedia/Wikipedia. So, I don't know what to do. Are all the photos of statues really not permitted? Or only statues in museums, etc? Does it applies to statues in public open spaces? Does it applies, eg, if the photo of a park/garden include a statue? Francisco 21:50, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

It depends on the country, and on when the sculpter died. Very old statues are always ok, assuming they are old enough to be out of copyright; more recent ones are ok in for example the UK but not the US. See COM:FOP. --MichaelMaggs 22:09, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. It seems a rather confusing issue all over the world. I guess it is not easy to enforce some of those regulations and laws. Francisco 21:35, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Quite true! --MichaelMaggs 22:06, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

May 25

Featured picture template poll

This has been moved to:

Commons:Village pump/Featured picture template poll. --MichaelMaggs 20:15, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Darwin's work

Someone with a fluency in English, better than mine, could try to ask the images of http://darwin-online.org.uk/ or permission to use them in the commons, in theory they are already in public domain, but I think they have control of these scans. The request is in http://www.darwin-online.org.uk/reproductions.html . Thanks Econt 14:58, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

This source was discussed recently, and is considered OK here as the purported copyright claim is not considered strong. See Commons:Deletion requests/Images from Darwin Online. Please tag any images you upload from the source with {{PD-scan}}. --MichaelMaggs 19:55, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Calling for a German speaker...

I don't speak German. This wonderful image, Image:VSPreal.jpg, was ported from the German wikipedia, de:Bild:VSP 01 real.jpg, to the commons.

It looks to me like the version on the German wikipedia has the German equivalent of a "fair use" liscense. But the version on the commons has a {{Gfdl}} liscense. If a German speaker can confirm the German version is, in fact, liscensed under fair use, then shouldn't the commons version should be deleted...

Cheers Geo Swan 03:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Same for Image:VSPsurtug.jpg and de:Bild:VSP 11 eingebaut.jpg... Geo Swan 03:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

My rough translation of the copyright notice:

This file is copyrighted. The copyright holder permits anyone any kind of use (including external uses independent from Wikipedia) to the extent as possible by law (including using it for any purpose, public exhibition, redistribution, commercial use, derivative work) worldwide for an unlimited period under the condition that the copyright holder is appropriately named (for example in the caption).

I am not a lawyer but for me this sounds as this could be equivalent to {{Attribution}}. --AFBorchert 05:00, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

The German license template is the equivalent to Template:Copyrighted free use, that was introduced in de-WP, as some believe that true PD is impossible under German law. I changed the template here, because GFDL is clearly wrong. --h-stt !? 06:33, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi h-stt, I do not think that {{Copyrighted free use}} is equivalent as this license does not require an attribution. But the original license does. --AFBorchert 08:03, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I've changed the license to Attribution (for this one and all other images from the same source), as this is clearly equivalent to what is written and meant with the template and the additional note in [17]. --Túrelio 08:10, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Has anybody of you noticed that the image at German Wikipedia is missing permission? It is described as being from a company and not from the uploader himself. I remember the user and he only wrote about things concerning that company, but still we don't know if he had the permission to use the images. -- Cecil 08:43, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Ähem, Cecil, Markus Woehl ist der Pressesprecher der Voight AG. Du erreichst ihn per E-Mail unter vorname.nachname(at)arbeitgeber(dot)com - und als er die Bilder hogeladen hat, gab es das DÜP noch nicht. Die Anwendung eurer Regeln auf früher hochgeleadene Dateien ist ein klarer Verstoß gegen AGF. (summary: the uploader is the spokes person of the Voight AG, who own the rights. And applying the new rules regarding images on images uploaded before they were introduces is in violation of AGF) --h-stt !? 08:51, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Toolserver down?

I've been getting SQL errors when trying to use Flickr upload Bot - is the toolserver down? Kelly 05:10, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Well the status page for the tool servers is also kicking out an error. So I'd say yes. --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 05:16, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Images with inside date/time stamp

Is there any specific maintenance category (besides Category:Images with captions) or template for images carrying a date or time stamp inside, such as for example Image:100 2926.JPG ? --Túrelio 13:48, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I've seen Category:Images with watermarks used for it before. Rocket000 13:51, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Thx. --Túrelio 13:58, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Screenshot of a censored site

I have a screenshot of youtube which is currently censored by court order in Turkey. The screenshot shows parts of Mozilla browser plus some text, which is the transcript of court order. No part of the actual youtube site. Which license might apply here? --Nevit Dilmen 19:13, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

The copyright status of Turkish court judgements would seem to be the overriding factor here... AnonMoos 15:27, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

It seems that court judgements are ineligible for copyright. I uploaded the image Image:Youtube censored TR2008.png here. Any contributions / alternate licence suggestions? --Nevit Dilmen 19:24, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

It actually gives a citation to the court decision, but does not seem to directly quote from it, so I'm not sure what to tell you about that. The Mozilla browser window visual elements would be under Template:Free screenshot, while the XP interface buttons at upper right (minimize, maximize, and close) are actually copyright by Microsoft... AnonMoos 01:19, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

So if you suggest a better tag you can change it. Also you can suggest cropping or deletion. --Nevit Dilmen 13:25, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I just cropped it, we don't need the rest of the image anyway. ViperSnake151 18:18, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Thnx. It seems usable thisway. --Nevit Dilmen 19:41, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

May 18

Deletions requests

How comes it takes an age for a file to be deleted? I wonder whether i should send it to CSD. The image i amd talking about is Image:Grand Central trial route map.JPG, which has now been superceded by the more accurate Image:Grand Central trial route map.png. Can CSD work by author request also? Simply south 12:16, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

It's just 6 weeks, that is no time for non-copyvio cases. --Túrelio 14:03, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

No, there is something wrong for a DR request to be open this long... As I saw it the DR wasn't listed on COM:DR - so I brought it back up. --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 08:08, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Uploading new version of audio

I am uploading pronunciations of Hungarian numbers. Some already existed, but the quality was not very good, so I uploaded the new versions. The upload is successful, but for three existing numbers the old version plays instead of the new one. Please see Image:Hu-hét.ogg, Image:Hu-tíz.ogg, Image:Hu-tizenkettő.ogg. I use the same upload process for all numbers. Could you help? Thanks. --Panda10 17:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks like no one ever responded to your request here. I left a note on your talk page for you Panda10. --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 08:02, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

May 22

Upload New Version

Hi everyone...
I am well aware that this is probably a horribly dumb question, but I'm a graphist from the English Wikipedia, and I'm trying to upload a new version of a commons photo as requested over at the Graphics Lab and I can't find the darn link to do it! Is this something where you have to have a certain number of edits before that option becomes available? I had an account here but I lost the password and had to make a new one, and I've never had this problem before. The link just isn't there. Please help!! Aquatique 18:06, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Its not a stupid question. I'm not exactly sure what link you are looking for - but I assume you have some random image on en.wp, and you'd like to get to the commons copy? If that is the case, just under the image on en.wp there should be a box that reads "This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. The description on its description page there is shown below." The "description page there" link, is the link to commons. Then when on commons, under the == File History == heading, there is a link that says "Upload a new version of this file". Hopefully this helps. --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 19:11, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Right, that's what I thought. But when I look exactly where you say- which was the first place I looked, that link quite simply isn't there! This is incredibly frustrating... Aquatique 22:54, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Which link isn't there? The Upload link? Because you can always goto Special:Upload and just manually punch in the file name. What image is it that you are trying to work on? --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 23:12, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I wanted to make mention the fact that your account has to be 4 days old before you can upload over existing images. I apologize for not mentioning this sooner - but I didn't find out myself till just now. --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 07:58, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

May 26

Bug when I upload Djvu files

The file is corrupt or has an incorrect extension. Please check the file and upload again.

Three or four times, and then, it works finally. Guy Baraduc 14:45, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd suggest you search for and file the bug over on Bugzilla. If you have a file which can reliably reproduce the error - include it in the bug. They may be able to do something about it, unfortunately we can't. Thanks! --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 06:37, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

May 27

Uploader to Hebrew Wikipedia asks me to delete his images that I copied to Commons

I have a confusing situation here. I copied two images from Hebrew Wikipedia to my computer, then uploaded those images to Commons so that I could incorporate them into an English translation I was writing. The images are Image:Amatzia01.jpg and Image:Amatzia021.jpg. Although I am new at this process, I think I followed the rules. The images were released under GFDL as far as I can tell.

I received a message on my talk page on Hebrew Wikipedia from the uploader. [18]

שלום לך, ראיתי כי לאחרונה העלית שתי תמונות שלי לויקישיתוף ובמקביל לא התייחסת לזכויות היוצרים - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Geography_of_the_Palestinian_territories. הסיבה שבגללה אני לא מעוניין שהתמונות שלי תעלנה לויקישיתוף היא שבעקבות זאת נעשה שימוש בתמונות ללא מתן קרדיט. אני מבקש ממך להסיר את התמונות מויקישיתוף ולא לעשות זאת שוב. תודה והמשך לתרום יצירה עצמית: מיכאלי - שיחה 10:59, 26 במאי 2008 (IDT)

English translation: "Hello, I see that you recently uploaded two of my photographs to Wikimedia Commons but you did not concomitantly relate to the copyright status. The reason I prefer that my photographs should not be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons is that as a result these pictures are used without giving credit. I ask you to remove the pictures from Wikimedia Commons and not to do this again."

I find it hard to believe that a user can restrict the use of his images to a local wiki while preventing them from being used on other wikis. My inclination is to comply with the uploader's wishes going forward, but for the two images I already uploaded, which are being used to illustrate w:Amatzia (moshav), I would prefer not to delete them. If the uploader released the images on Hebrew Wikipedia under the GFDL, then derivative use on Wikimedia Commons, and even outside the ambit of Wikimedia, is permitted. I don't wish to violate the uploader's wishes, but there is real harm in removing images from an English Wikipedia article, so to balance the uploader's wishes I must also consider the reader's wishes. What should I do? Shalom Yechiel 02:44, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Please leave a note on my talk page. Shalom Yechiel 02:44, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

You appear to have attributed him correctly, though you may want to change "Original uploader" to "Author". I don't see any reason the images should be deleted. Superm401 - Talk 02:48, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep, I agree that you appear to be doing the right thing. The license is what it is: he can't restrict what he's already put forth. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 03:17, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll tell the uploader. I changed "original uploader" to "author" as you suggested. Shalom Yechiel 03:54, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Confirming what's already been said, if he releases images under GFDL (as he has done), he's unable to disallow the use of the image, as long as it's attributed properly under the terms of the GFDL. This has been done, you've acted correctly. He's welcome to ask here if he has any further questions. giggy _(:O) 03:59, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

New upload form reminder

Just a reminder that tomorrow morning between 07:00 - 08:00 UTC we will go live with the new upload form. If you want to translate the interface into your language, click here. You'll see a list of all English interface messages. Type your translations in the edit box (telling for each one which message it is), and save. Mention in the subject for which language yopur translations are. If you want to see also which messages already are translated into your language, make the following change in the pre-filled text in the edit box: replace {{MediaWiki:UploadFormTexts}} by {{MediaWiki:UploadFormTexts|lang=XX}}, where "XX" is the language code of your language. Then click "preview". If you do this, do not click the red links: unless you're an admin, you can't edit on the linked pages. If you are an admin, you may also place your translations directly at the re-linked pages. In that case, leave a comment at MediaWiki talk:UploadFormLabels/UploadFormTranslations telling us which messages you have translated. Changes you make in the interface messages take an effect only if the language is enabled for the new upload form. Currently, Afrikaans, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Ukrainian are enabled. Once there are translations for other languages, we'll enable those, too. Lupo 07:51, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Is there going to be a way to go back to the old one? Or perhaps the original upload form, for those of us that don't need the assistance? --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 07:54, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Please read #New upload form, and see also the documentation linked there. Short answer: yes. Lupo 07:57, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Featured pictures on de.wikipedia not on commons

1. de:Image:Windmühle auf Île de Noirmoutier.jpg
   • Image:Windmühle auf Île de Noirmoutier.jpg Done Now Image:Windmill on Ile de Noirmoutier.jpg
2. de:Image:USS Enterprise - Crash landing (Nov. 1943).jpg
   • Image:USS Enterprise - Crash landing (Nov. 1943).jpg  Done Now Image:EnterpriseBurningHellcat.jpg
3. de:Image:Teneriffa Gesteinsschichten.JPG
   • Image:Teneriffa Gesteinsschichten.JPG Done
4. de:Image:Steam locomotive work2.gif
   • Image:Steam locomotive work2.gif Done Please proof read.
5. de:Image:Stadtkirche Loerrach 2.jpg
   • Image:Stadtkirche Loerrach 2.jpg DoneClemRutter 22:31, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
6. de:Image:Skorpionfliege.jpg
   • Image:Skorpionfliege.jpg
7. de:Image:Schloss Chambord nachts 2.JPG
   • Image:Schloss Chambord nachts 2.JPG
8. de:Image:Safran2.jpg
   • Image:Safran2.jpg DoneNow Image:Iran saffron threads.jpg
9. de:Image:Raymond Battegay1.jpg
   • Image:Raymond Battegay1.jpg
10. de:Image:Pico de Teide.jpg
    • Image:Pico de Teide.jpg
11. de:Image:Nymphaea nouchali.JPG
    • Image:Nymphaea nouchali.JPG
12. de:Image:Niesen Panorama.jpg
    • Image:Niesen Panorama.jpg
13. de:Image:Matterhorn Gondel aufgehellt.jpg
    • Image:Matterhorn Gondel aufgehellt.jpg
14. de:Image:Maria Lach 04.jpg --note spelling mistake in name but Description correct 'Laach'
    • Image:Maria Lach 04.jpg Done Now Image:Maria Laach de04.jpg geotagged ClemRutter 00:13, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
15. de:Image:Krebsnebel3.jpg
    • Image:Krebsnebel3.jpg Done Now Image:Crab Nebula.jpg
16. de:Image:Isachsen2004-a.jpg
    • Image:Isachsen2004-a.jpg
17. de:Image:Grimselpass Panorama.jpg
    • Image:Grimselpass Panorama.jpg
18. de:Image:Geyer greifenbach.jpg
    • Image:Geyer greifenbach.jpg
19. de:Image:Fuerstabtei St Gallen.png
    • Image:Fuerstabtei St Gallen.png
20. de:Image:Florian Schroeder.jpg
    • Image:Florian Schroeder.jpg
21. de:Image:Erik Zabel Tour 2006.jpg
    • Image:Erik Zabel Tour 2006.jpg
22. de:Image:Christian Zeitz jump-4.jpg
    • Image:Christian Zeitz jump-4.jpg
23. de:Image:Braunschweig Schloss Richmond Frontansicht.jpg
    • Image:Braunschweig Schloss Richmond Frontansicht.jpg
24. de:Image:Blaue Kapseerose (Nymphaea capensis).JPG
    • Image:Blaue Kapseerose (Nymphaea capensis).JPG
25. de:Image:Basstoelpel-4.jpg
    • Image:Basstoelpel-4.jpg
26. de:Image:41 241 im Essener Hauptbahnhof 80er Jahre.jpg
    • Image:41 241 im Essener Hauptbahnhof 80er Jahre.jpg DoneClemRutter 00:13, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

List needs to be processed. These are featured images on German wikipedia not hosted by commons. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 17:13, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Is there no German version of the {{Copy to commons}} template? Railwayfan2005 20:13, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

The German instructions are at de:Hilfe:Dateien auf Commons verschieben, and the template once it is moved is de:Vorlage:NowCommons. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:18, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Hast du das gelesen? Nicht sehr Benutzerfreundlich! So, the tool you need is Move-to-Commons-Assistant. You shove de in the language code field, and copy and paste in the image name- then it does the rest- all the prompts are in English. The first time you have to register as a TUSC- all explained and painless.(Tricky bit: When it prompts you for a password- you make up a new one like it says.)ClemRutter 22:22, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

No {{Copy to commons}} then... Railwayfan2005 19:18, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Number two is at Image:EnterpriseBurningHellcat.jpg, number 8 is at Image:Iran saffron threads.jpg, and 15 is at Image:Crab Nebula.jpg jwillbur 00:42, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

T shirts

I would like to purchase a T shirt or Polo shirt with a Wikimedia Commons logo or writing? Does anyone knows where to get it? Thanks, --Mattes 11:17, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Some days ago I searched for the same, but without any result. --Túrelio 12:10, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand it might be better not to wear such a t-shirt as Commons seems to become a porn site regarded what's going on here currently (see next section). --Túrelio 10:12, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

yes it's odd that the cafe press wikimedia shop does not have anything with commons on it. I guess we could create a few designs at spreadshirt.net too for us europeans, but since the logos are copyright I think we need to get the foundation's permission first.--Inkwina (talk • contribs) 23:23, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikimedia Sverige sells T shirts on spreadshirt.net, http://325837.spreadshirt.net/se/SE/Shop. I think the shop is only in Swedish, but they have a T shirt with Wikimedia Commons logo. /90.229.135.159 23:04, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Minsk World category vs. Soviet aircraft carrier Minsk category

The former en:Soviet aircraft carrier Minsk was turned into a military amusement park named en:Minsk World and is located in Shenzhen, PRC. I paid a visit to Minsk World and have a load of pics to upload when I get back. I'm thinking of creating a category for Minsk World, but am wondering what to put in it vs. what to locate in the existing Category:Soviet aircraft carrier Minsk, as Minsk World has several features that were not part of the original carrier, such as several PLA artillery pieces on the shore, entrance way, etc. --BrokenSphere 04:49, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

You could create the category and put it under both Category:Soviet aircraft carrier Minsk and Category:Amusement_parks_in_China. --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 04:54, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

My recommendation would be to keep the carrier category, redirect Minsk World to the carrier category, and in the carrier category add in category tags for amusement parks. My thought it that it has always been an aircraft carrier... even after turning into an amusement park, it is still an aircraft carrier at heart. --18:02, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with ShakataGaNai on this. The amusement park is an aspect of the carrier's history, so it should be a subcategory of the carrier (Category:Category:Soviet aircraft carrier Minsk). It's also an amusement park in China, so it belongs there. Superm401 - Talk 02:59, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

My question lies more in regards to what content to locate in each respective category. I was already thinking of creating a Minsk World subcat of the existing cat for Soviet aircraft carrier Minsk. I'm thinking that all photos of the carrier itself can go into the latter, however things that were added on in order to create Minsk World, such as the entrance way that you drive to get there, the grounds, the performers dressed in military costume, PLA artillery and the like, can go in the Minsk World category. BrokenSphere 03:36, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Since it currently is "Minsk World" everything should go under that category, even if it is just the ship. The original category will be kept clean for original images before it became a theme park (if any more happen to make there way onto commons). I hope that helps. --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 07:56, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I was also thinking of doing that as well, but wasn't sure. Thanks. BrokenSphere 21:14, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

JavaScript help

Hello. I need a minor JavaScript that works when "http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:Foe.jpg&imagesource=1", it will gives browser the command "javascript:mnx_mark('mns_mns',%20'mnx_warn',%20'en')", which is used by MediaWiki:Quick-delete.js, then it will be tagged as nsd and uploader will be noted. I'm not sure if there is a better way to call a script from another one in JavaScrpit. That will be very useful for my new project. Thanks a lot!--OsamaK 17:56, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Something simple like this should do. Possibly, it could require a loadcheck on mnx_mark() as well. Code like used here should work in that case. TheDJ 23:32, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Great! Thank you.--OsamaK 01:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

May 28

download question

How do I download an animation graphic for use in another project? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Myonus62 (talk • contribs) 11:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Right-click on the .OGG or .Gif filename (below the displayed file) and choose "save link as". --Jarekt 12:30, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Redirection of discussion page

Is it possible to redirect your discussion page here to your discussion page at WP? I've tried to create my discussion page User_talk:Mankash as:

#redirect [[sv:Användardiskussion:Mankash]]

It doesn't work as usual, at least not for myself.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Mankash (talk • contribs) 10:04, 27. Mai 2008 (UTC)

Try #redirect [[:w:sv:Användardiskussion:Mankash]] . --norro 10:21, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Cross-wiki redirects like this don't work. Superm401 - Talk 14:15, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Use a soft redirect like "Please contact me at [[:sv:Användardiskussion:Mankash]]" instead, see also discussion above #Redirect to local projects. Regards, Finn Rindahl 15:03, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Well a cross wiki redirect "works" in the fact that it gives people a link to click - but no it doesn't autoforward. You can always use {{Softredirect}} or {{Interwiki redirect}} . --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 15:31, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Use soft redirects please. You're going to get messages away (from bots/scripts), and if you use #REDIRECT you'll be listed on Special:BrokenRedirects. Rocket000 01:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, everyone, thank you all for your answers. I'll go for the link; can see I didn't get the full picture earlier. // Mankash 05:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Bulk cleanup

I would like to cleanup Category:Photographs by Marek and Ewa Wojciechowscy where most of the 1400 images need {{Information}} template and cropping of the watermark. I was thinking about downloading all the images, writing a script for detecting and cropping the watermark and reuploding all the cropped images with. So here are some questions:

1. is there a tool / script / bot to download all the images from this category to my machine?
2. is there a tool / script / bot to add {{Information}} template to all those images and do some other bulk editing?

--Jarekt 15:48, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

If possible it would be nice if the geotagging of their images (as used on their homepage) could be imported too. /Lokal_Profil 16:11, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

You can use AWB for mass edits. It has regex search and replace - and can populate a list by category. There isn't much info on the pages currently, so it shouldn't be that hard. You wouldn't be able to remotely retrieve data for geotagging though - That would require a more complex (And probably custom written bot). --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 21:32, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I will try the AWB tool. Some of the geotagging can be tricky since often there is no information in the description more specific than the town name. I still do not know how to quickly download 1400 files from Commons to my PC, but I think I might be able to do it on the original site where the photos came from. --Jarekt 12:20, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Is there some trick to login to Commons by AWB. I am unable to do it either by "Log in" or "Profiles" screens.--Jarekt 17:32, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

You need to be approved on Commons:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage before you can log in. /Lokal_Profil 17:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. --Jarekt 03:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

New upload form live

Our new upload form is live now. The form can be configured in your Special:Mypage/monobook.js (or modern.js, or standard.js, or ...), see MediaWiki:UploadForm.js/Documentation#User configurations. If you don't see any change, tell your browser to get the newest files from the Commons by going to the upload page and forcing a reload (shift-reload in Firefox, ctrl-reload in IE). Lupo 07:13, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• How do I use the old form. I don;'t understand this new one at all, and all the information is prepared for me via the various scripts and doesn't seem to fit into this new form. Hiding 11:36, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
• And you can't fit half the info in the fields. The other versions only allows one line. Hiding 11:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
• Ok, I sussed it. Sorry. Hiding 11:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Heh ;-) Sometimes it pays off to read the documentation, eh? Lupo 12:30, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
    • It does, but it seems silly to have tools like Flinfo spitting out info that is now realistically impractical for a lot of new users. It's the old left hand and right hand if you ask me. Hiding 18:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

However, I have inserted var UploadForm_forcebasic = true; into my monobook.js, but the old upload form is continually unavailable. The new old form isn't practicable to uploading of more of files. Implementation of the new upload form is untimely. The Commons became unusable for me from now (only temporarily, I hope). --ŠJů 17:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• • • • It took a while for my system to clear its cache out despite repeated shift-r ctrl-r shift reload ctrl reload and the like. Maybe the same is happening to you. Hiding 18:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
• Why, oh God, why? Where was this discussed? I realize this is probably meant to "force" new users to provide adequate information, but... it just seems like a waste of time for people who already know what they're doing. By the way, it's not currently possible to add more than one category at a time (I don't see anything in the documentation to that effect). Fvasconcellos (t·c) 18:46, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Click (+) to add categories. /Lokal_Profil 18:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
• Where's the old good one? This one is as complicated as filing for divorce. Good deterrent against uploaders though. NVO 19:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  Read the documentation. You can configure it such that it uses the old layout for you. (And yes, shift-reload/ctrl-reload is a good idea after a change to your monobook.js.) Lupo 19:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  It doesn't - instead of the old one, there's some basic novelty, which does not work as expected. Check for example [19] - the form inserted at least three unnecessary templates, had to remove them manually. NVO 21:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Could the "Upload a new version of this file" link be changed so that it uses the basic upload form? Since non of the information gets added to the page anyway it's unnessecary to use the full form. http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Upload&wpDestFile=FILENAME.EXT --> http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Upload&uploadformstyle=basic&wpDestFile=FILENAME.EXT
/Lokal_Profil 23:24, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's not really necessary, since the form does not require input for overwrites. But done anyway. You may need to force a reload (shift-reload on Firefox, crtl-reload on IE). Lupo 08:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. /Lokal_Profil 08:43, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Substituting message templates automatically

Hi. Is it possible for message templates to be automatically susbtituted in the talk pages? Because it's sometimes problematic when you want to edit the talk pages. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 08:51, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Did you try User Messages gadget. AFAIK it substitute templates. --EugeneZelenko 15:06, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Old upload form

Hi, I think, thaht new upload form takes me much more time, than old one. Is here any way, to use the old one? --Jagro 14:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I see it here - can I use this? --Jagro 14:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

You can, but you can also configure the form so that it uses the old layout for you. See the documentation. Lupo 14:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for link, I'll try configure my upload dialog, and when I don't limit with it, I'll use the old one, thanks, --Jagro 16:33, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Embedding without using extensions

My organization runs a secure MediaWiki wiki. Users must be on a list of allowed users to read or edit wiki content. Authentication is handled with an Apache module and a wrapper for MW.

With these security features in place, we decided that rather than installing extensions to help us with embedding YouTube videos or Google maps in MW articles, we would set the configuration variable $wgRawHtml to true. Since we've done that, we are able to put a larger range of HTML tags in our MW articles.

However, it doesn't work with the "object" tags for embedding a YouTube video or the "iframe" tags for embedding a Google map. Instead, MW just displays the HTML in the article. Using "nowiki" tags around the HTML doesn't help, either.

How can I make this work? --Lance E Sloan 16:06, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

This is not the right place for mediawiki discussion. See here for more information about mediawiki. --norro 16:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

My apologies. I have taken my question to mediawiki.org. --Lance E Sloan 16:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The cartographers of the Graphic Lab request helps : we need scripts to ease map translations

The Wikigraphists (in this cases the cartographers ones) have for long time state they will first set up map making standard, and then work to convert all maps (SVG and PNG) to thoses new standard.

But it stay the fact that they need more SVG tools to avoid wast of time.

By example, make a translation of a SVG currently need one translator, contacting one SVG graphist, which will then take 20 mins (download, edit, upload), to provide the new-language map. Why ? Why a such complex process when SVG is perfect to be edited online exactly like a wiki page. Wikicarthographers are hoping that trusted users on commons may be free to provide a list of traduction (pair of words, ex: London -> Londre ; England -> Angleterre ; Spain -> Espagne) on a page (by example on Image:map name.svg/translation/en), and then a bot will directly make the work and upload a new translated version on commons. This new translation process is doable by every bilingual user within 5 mins.

A good start point is the http://tools.wikimedia.de/~nikola/svgtranslate.php , but he is unknow an not integretated to commons. When on an Image's page on commons, we have on the top "# File # Discussion # Edit # History", it would be really great to add "#Translate"

As of 2008, wikipedians still work on SVG exactly like if SVG were Bitmap: we take no advantage of the fact it's a text based media editable by scripts. WikiCartographers would be really happy if administrators may improve the commons monobook to ease SVG translation by adding "#Translate" (going to http://tools.wikimedia.de/~nikola/svgtranslate.php) on the top of each SVG image's page. A simple tools like previously said eventually transforming every active user of commons with a keybaord into a SVG graphist. Yug (talk) 20:52, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Well if you want a button like "Check Usage" along the top, you could file a request for it on bugzilla. I think that would be rather cool to be able to easily translate SVG's (I assume this works for basically all of them?) --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 23:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully soon (i.e. within 5 years) we'll be able to write SVG directly to wiki pages. (This is already possible in plain HTML but MediaWiki doesn't recognize it.) We'll have a new namespace like SVG: where the pages can be transcluded like templates with variables and parser functions. Translators wouldn't ever need to see any SVG code. It could be automatic as well. And inline SVG... Rocket000 23:26, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

@Rocket: Are you joking !! O.o 5 years !!!!!! But in 5 years mens will have colinized Mars and Pluto, and we will be facing the slow death of the Sun. (5 years... are you serious...?) Yug (talk) 05:02, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

@Shaka: I made a request to the gods [programmers] for the button like "Check Usage" (see here), but the request was immediately close and attached to the #5899 bug, which is an impasse since 2005-2008. So I guest my un-understood request is already forgot. -___- Yug (talk) 05:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Hehe, I'm being realistic. No one has done what we're talking about yet and I really really doubt MediaWiki will be the first. You know how long it takes them to do anything. Browsers have to catch up also. If it wasn't for PNG thumbnails, there would be so many problems. Rocket000 05:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Can't the Greenspun 20.000 $ come to help us ? Or wikimedian boss be alerted that thing like this "button "Translate" like button "Check Usage" + http://tools.wikimedia.de/~nikola/svgtranslate.php = Great leap forward" ? Nikola already did it with his script, now it is just need to integrated it and let it be widely know and use. Yug (talk) 07:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC) I'm always astonished to see the lack of attention and energy spend by the Wikimedia boss and programmers on SVG issues and technology developpment. -___-

By exemple, now, a french wikigraphist is learning Python and have set up a little script to standarsed Climatic diagrams, as you can guess, this graphist spended about hundred hours to make a little small script : he is not programmer ! An other english one have made 80% of a script, and then abandonned. Both don't want submit their script to bugzilla, everybody know that all such "Boss level" propositions need HUNDREDS hours of talks to be implemented.

...

Sorry. Ok, I go to sleep. Yug (talk) 07:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Just a few Ideas: 1. I Think you can add a menu entry to the toolbox using javascript in the monobook.js. I don't know how to do this, but some of the "extended features" added from the prefernce dialog seem to do just that. This script would then send the appropriate url to http://tools.wikimedia.de/~nikola/svgtranslate.php

2. currently that tool offers you to download the resulting file, but it could copy the way CommonsHelper works, and upload the result directly.

3. In the meantime, assuming that the calligraphists are using Inkscape I would recommend that they put all of the text on a separate layer, then lock all layers except for that one. This would mean that a potential translator would only need to install Inkscape which is free and easy to use, and even then they would not need to learn how to use much, only how to change text. Since the non-text items would be locked they would also not feel afraid they they can mess things up. Its not very neat, but it helps.

4. Considering that there are hardly any FULL implementations of SVG available (e.g. animations, filters etc.) and that there are plugins for wikimedia for inline gnuplot and gracenote that are not enabled on commons, I think Rocet000 is being optimistic when he thinks that in 5 years we'll have full SVG integration ... its probably more like 15 years.

--Inkwina (talk • contribs) 08:21, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, you talk about FULL SVG integration... (with animation, etc.) : yet, for this I know : it will need years (at best 3, but probably 6 or 10).

But I'm not requesting that, I'm requesting that some assistant-script be coded, allowing, by exemple, to change text in a SVG. http://tools.wikimedia.de/~nikola/svgtranslate.php 's script is perfect pretty good (perfect = upload himself the product on commons), but not vissible enough.

A such add ("add button "Translate" like button "Check Usage" + http://tools.wikimedia.de/~nikola/svgtranslate.php = Great leap forward") is doable now. Yug (talk) 08:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

---

See below, section "final comment".

Template to ease Translation : add of a link to Nikola's script

I want to improve the following template:

This SVG file contains embedded text that can be translated into your language, using any capable SVG editor, text editor or the SVG Translate tool. For more information see: About translating SVG files.

So I need the magic word giving the full url of an image

We can put the link :

• http://toolserver.org/~nikola/svgtranslate.php?svg={{{Magic Word giving the Full URL}}}

Then, user clicking on the link will directly be able to start the translation. Yug (talk) 08:43, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Found : {{filepath:{{PAGENAME}}}}. Yug 08:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Final comment

 Done - That work, you can more easely translate each SVG of this page now, the http://toolserver.org/~nikola/svgtranslate.php is now partially integrated to commons, by the means of the man-handly-pasted template {{Translatable}}.

• Good point : ease translations. You are bilingual ? You can start now ;
• Bad point : since we made a STUPID USE of SVG, these translations will also duplicate graphic data (an SVG image is composed by graphic datas + text). Graphic data with mistakes will spread, and be un-correctable (too much to do). Gaphic data mistake will be unpossible to prevent.

Yug (talk) 09:00, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

---

As you can see upper, I eventually find a NOW-solution by using the template {Translatable}. This is for me really naive way to do :

• the system is not systematique, but need us to past the template.
• worse : The multiplication of SVG Images about a same thing, spending at least 5 min on an human's owned PC also provide new troubles on reliability : a/ who can state that vandalisms, or wrong modifications on the graphic data will not be done in these 5 mins ; b/ which version will be the trusted one and the one to update first ? c/ when the trusted version is update/corrected, how to update the X others versions ? etc.

All this troubles may find solutions with :

• the improvement of Nikola script (archivage of the pairs of words, of the user's pseudo) allowing to make automatic Image update every X months,
• and with the creations of about 2 bots with special rights (allow to upload on commons, making update, puting a template "this version is the trusted one" and "This is a derivated version", etc.), integrated to commons.

This request programmers understanding of this issue and involvement, and support from the community.

Yug (talk) 09:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Inline SVG and integration is also important for generating families of very similar SVGs, such as the "dot on a state map" to indicate city location, or road signs of identical design but different numbers. I hope this feature will eventually become available. Dcoetzee 20:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

May 29

New image upload form

Do you like it? I do not. Takes much longer to upload the image. Thank you.--Mbz1 04:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

How about reading the documentation and configuring the form to suit your needs? Lupo 06:49, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Even after reading the documentation (was actually the first thing I did, as well as tweaking my monobook.js), I have problems. Pipe symbols in tables are automatically converted to some kind of unicode characters and wreak my layout (e.g. here). The basic upload form is not the old form, but has already to much frills (and probably new javascript working in the background) for my daily upload requirements. Probably many other seasoned uploaders will prefer an even more basic form. Of course I do acknowledge and applaud the new non-basic upload procedures. For new users it is a big improvement. Lycaon 07:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I didn't like to see my favorite upload form change either. Rocket000 08:06, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Lycaon, your particular problem (with the table) is resolved now. You may need to force a reload (shift-reload on Firefox, ctrl-reload on IE) to get the corrected version of the upload form script. Lupo 10:42, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much. Lycaon 13:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I like the new form but thank the developers for supporting those who prefer the old version. Walter Siegmund (talk) 15:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, very good idea !... but I usually prepare the whole description text first in a text editor by copying parts of the description of my former uploads and making the necessary adaptations, so the Basic form is much practical for me. I know it's possible to configure the monobook to get it directly but I don't know anything from this stuff, so a little button or at least a link to the Basic form in the Upload page would be much welcome. Thanks for taking this in consideration. Sting 17:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

There is a link to the basic form at the bottom of Commons:Upload. Has been there since we enabled this. But truly, opening your monobook.js for editing, adding one single line (as described in the documentation), saving and then doing shift-reload or ctrl-reload is no magic? You don't even need to know Javascript to do this. Lupo 18:37, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah ! OK !! I didn't pay attention the link was on the initial page, so it's perfect. Apologies, and thanks a lot. I created and modified standard.js and reloaded several times the page but nothing changed, so I think I've got to do something else about monobook, but I'm too lazy to learn about it as I've got other preoccupations. Sorry. Sting 19:02, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

No need to be sorry. I see. The fact that different skins use different user scripts complicates things slightly, that's true. All right, does anyone know whether gadgets are available in all skins? If so, I could write a gadget that would make the switch, and from then on, people could just use that gadget to get the basic form. Gadgets are not too complicated to enable for non-techy users, I hope? Sting, you do know about gadgets in your Special:Preferences? Lupo 19:31, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

In fact, I see User:Bryan already has done so. Go visit your Special:Preferences, select the "gadgets" tab, enable "DISABLED:Use the old-style upload form layout. [talk] ", and save. Lupo 19:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Bryan, thanks Lupo ! Works fine !

Well, I've “heard” (from far) about monobook which permits to improve things greatly, but in fact I'm satisfied with the standard functions which are sufficient for my needs here, that's why I'm not interested to learn more about it. Sting 20:03, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Switch of upload forms

Thank You for adding of check box „Disable the new-style upload form“ into Special:Preferences. I upload more series of images usually – and the old form is more hands-on in such a case. But if I want to upload a single image, then there some possibility of simple switch-over to the new form and back were welcomed. --ŠJů 19:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

What the heck is that new upload form

How is it possible to upload a picture with a standard template like template:SOlicense ? the system refuses the upload and asks for a licence - that's in the template! please revert to the previous version (by the way, where was this change decided?) Michelet-密是力 20:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Bug fixed. You may need to shift-reload (Firefox) or ctrl-reload (IE). Lupo 20:36, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

BTW: the change was talked about for several months in several places, prototypes have been shown, comments have been taken aboard, and it was proposed to finally switch on May 16, 2008. Since {{SOlicense}} is a pre-filled {{Information}}-like template, you should use the basic mode; link at Commons:Upload and also at Commons:Upload/fr. If you always want to use the old-style layout, there's a gadget in Special:Preferences that does this. Lupo 20:42, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

(cool) Commons is a place where contributors aren't expected to follow day-to-day discussions, changes must take that into account... If the interface is not "user friendly", this simply means that the change has been "user hostile" - who is responsible for that? Michelet-密是力 20:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe the changes has taken this into as much account as is realistically possible. Lupo has done a tremendous and diligent job in very carefully and over a long long time adressing as many problems as at all reasonable. Again and again, the regulars on this community has been asked, and we have tried it in prototype versions, translating and trying to weed out as many bugs as possible. When such a dramatic update is done, which is used by so many users, it is only expected that there will be minor bugs. Yours were addressed in less than half an hour minutes, which I think is very, very fast. -- Slaunger 21:10, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

@Michelet-密是力: Oh but the new upload form is more user friendly for the majority of uploaders. The rest of us will just have to get used (which takes only half a dozen of uploads). :-). Lycaon 21:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

My post was maybe unnecessarily aggressive, sorry for that. Thanks for fixing the bug anyway. Michelet-密是力 05:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, the new upload form is beautiful but not for everyone. This isn't a problem- when in doubt do both- and that is exactly what has been done. I always click on the link to the left, and it opens Commons:Upload. I click on the first link Upload your own work but if I look down the page there is a line.

• Already have an {-{information}-} template ready? (For instance, generated by the Flinfo tool?) Use the basic upload form

I suggest that this page could be changed to make this more obvious.

Where is the work from? (Click on the appropriate link)

• It is entirely my own work. Traditional users ( previous form )

And harmony is restored.

ClemRutter 22:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I was having the same issue with using templates that automatically insert author and license information (I was getting the "You must give the original source of the file, the author of the work, and a license." message), but clearing my cache and using Special:Upload worked for the PSF images I was uploading earlier. I've been working on cleaning up some old museum images I'd uploaded a while back, and clicking the "upload new version" link on the image was working fine until about 10 minutes ago; now I get the "You must give the original source of the file, the author of the work, and a license." message again, when I wasn't for the past 5 uploads. I've cleared my cache and tried using the "experienced" form, but had the same issue... did someone change something in the last half hour that led to this problem? It was working fine prior to that :( -- Editor at Large • talk 02:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

It seems to only be happening on this image, I've been able to upload over other images fine... clearing cache hasn't worked and I'm doing the exact same thing I have every other time, I really don't know why this one image is acting up on me. *scratches head* -- Editor at Large • talk 03:37, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Bug fixed. Problem would have occurred on all file names containing parentheses. Don't forget to shift-reload (Firefox) or ctrl-reload (IE). Lupo 06:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I dumped on my chair when I saw the new upload form, suddenly appearing during a massive upload section... I had to lose 15 mins to come to the village pump, find out the preference stuff, revert to the old form and so on. You should put an easy button somewhere to switch directly from a form to the other. And by the way, I uploaded something like 10.000 pics on commons, if when I registered my first time on commons I had found a form like that (no chanche to copy and paste, dozen of different fields to fill handly...) I think I just had uploaded no more than 100 pics, sorry. This is just to say the new form is NOT uploader friendly, it is just administrator or patroller friendly. It is good for beginners, but will beginners know that thay can switch to an easier form? It is just impossible to make a serial upload with copy and paste and it will be difficult to explain all the switches to all the new users we push to upload to commons from local wikipedias projects. This is my opinion. Regards. --Sailko 14:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

May 30

SUL mess

Hi, I am currently not able to login at Commons. I have a SUL and I am coming from the German wikipedia project where I have no problem working under my account. Yesterday, I could simply switch projects and continued to work under my SUL. This no longer works. Unfortunately I am also unable to login manually at Commons, i.e. my username and my password are accepted and I am greeted by a Login successful page just to find myself logged out when I move to the next page at Commons. --134.60.1.151 08:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC) (usually working as AFBorchert)

I am still unable to login. Any idea where to discuss this preferably? I have no problem with all the other Wikimedia projects, just with Commons. --134.60.1.151 13:11, 30 May 2008 (UTC) (usually working as AFBorchert)

As I type this (!) I no longer need to login to wikis where I already have an account as SUL has now brought global login too. Try logging in on de wiki & then open Commons in another browser window (you should find that you are logged in anyway? I just tried the reverse & it worked. The only other issues would be did SUL work with no problems for you? Post again if you need to, thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I have an SUL account and yesterday everything worked perfectly, i.e. I could move through all projects and got magically logged in. This included Commons as well. This continues to work since this morning with one big exception: Commons. I've tried everything. I tried to come from the German wikipedia. I tried to logout from the German wikipedia, login again. Nothing worked out. I just get the message Login successful at Commons but as described I get immediately logged out when I move to the next page. --134.60.1.151 15:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC) (usually working as AFBorchert)

In the absence of anyone else coming up with suggestions (?) I would

1. Clear your browser cache
2. Clear out any "commons" cookies
3. It may well be best to clear all wikimedia related cookies as I see I no longer have language specific ones only
4. If you have used your browser to save passwords maybe clear that too (only please be sure that you have them elsewhere ....!)

At that point I am getting stuck but I have to say I have had that sort of behaviour on individual wikis in the past (& have no idea why). Give it a try but it would be good to know how you get on. At least I sympathise with your frustration - thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 15:34, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, that helped. I exited Firefox, cleared all cookies related to any Wikimedia projects, and restarted Firefox. Even if I'm happy now as I can continue to work at Commons, I still suggest that there is still some nasty bug lurking in the recent SUL-related additions that is responsible for this strange behaviour. Thanks and kind regards, AFBorchert 16:37, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

You obviously encountered a bug, but if we're lucky it's one that won't manifest again after this one-time transition. Glad you got the problem fixed. Superm401 - Talk 17:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia on Google Maps

I recently ran across a blog entry on a new feature on Google Maps that shows geolocated English Wikipedia articles. Just click the "More" in the upper right on Google Maps. Besides being a good tool for learning and exploring, I think it'd also be quite handy for Commoners looking for things to photograph - just click on some Ws in your general vicinity, and you're quite likely to find subjects you can easily visit that have no current photograph. Try it. :-) Dcoetzee 11:11, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Google Earth had this for ages :-) But where is Commons:Geocoding images? And why English articles are shown for local Google Maps sites (Russian, German, etc)? --EugeneZelenko 15:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

As usual English Wikipedia gets all the attention. :-P As for showing English articles for other local versions, that's somewhat excusable in light of the effort Google needs to do to import an article set. Dcoetzee 18:45, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons announces launch of new Valued images project

The official VI seal

The project goes live for nominations on 1 June, 2008 at 0:00 UTC

This Commons Valued images project sets out to identify and encourage users' efforts in providing valuable images of high diversity and usability, and to build up a resource for editors from other Wikimedia projects seeking such images for use online. The project also provides recognition to contributors who have made an effort to contribute images of difficult subjects which are very hard or impossible to obtain in featured picture or quality image technical quality. The project will run alongside the existing Commons Featured pictures and Quality images projects.

Please visit Valued images candidates to nominate an image, or to help review the nominations. Anyone with an account on Commons is welcome to nominate images, and also to take part in the open review process.

Last, but not least thanks to all the dedicated Commons users who have helped form this project over the course of the last five months. -- Slaunger 22:24, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Subcategorys wrongly sorted

I created the Category:Narrow gauge railways in Bulgaria. When I look in the category 'Narrow gauge railways by country' I find the new category sorted together with Namibia? instead off the letter 'B'.

Technical glich?

Smiley.toerist 22:57, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Aangepast (zie hier). Groeten. Lycaon 23:04, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

May 31

Todays Media of the day : Image:SongFromCottonField.ogg

How did this file become Media of the day? Its metadata and PD justification is a total mess. It is using {{PD-old}} (authors life + 70 years) license but it is unclear who the author is: Artist: Bessie Brown (died 1955) or Composer: Porter Grainger (date of birth and death is unknown)1. Original upload data also mentions: "Copyright Liz Roy. Released under the GFDL with author's permission." Can anybody figure out what is going on there? --Jarekt 02:06, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Will be good idea to request this file for deletion. If song was created in USA there is possibility that copyrights were not renewed. --EugeneZelenko 15:22, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

"noc" email

I received a "noc" email, but I can't find any damage. The language quoted in the "noc" email looks like it came from http://www.kcfs.org where Hrafn has posted, in addition to posts on .en . The admin at kcfs.org is very sophisticated wrt cyber stuff to the extent that xxxxxxxxxxx redacted xxxxxxxxxxx. Watch out. Doug youvan 03:51, 31 May 2008 (UTC)