Commons:Village pump/Archive/2024/11

Speedy deletion: F3. Derivative work of non-free content

• File:Scientology Symbol with LGBTQ Rainbow Flag.jpg
• Commons:Deletion requests/File:Scientology Symbol with LGBTQ Rainbow Flag.jpg

I tried to figure out how to correctly nominate it for speedy deletion, but alas I could not figure out how. Grorp (talk) 05:03, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Grorp: There is an important distinction between trademark (an identifying idea) and copyright (a creative expression). For example, the content of a novel is copyrighted, while the title or certain character names may be trademarked for marketing purposes. Commons primarily concerns itself with copyright, as it directly affects whether we can host a file. In this case, the symbol itself is too geometrically simple to be copyrighted. For non-copyright restrictions like trademarks that do not affect Commons but may affect reuse elsewhere, we sometimes use templates like {{Trademark}} as courtesy notices on the file pages.

There may be other reasons for us to not keep the file - in this case, it may be out of scope - but F3 is not applicable here. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 05:33, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Pi.1415926535: Well, I'm no intellectual property expert, but I do know that the trademark holder, the Church of Scientology, is particularly litigious... and anti-LGBTQ. And someone created this LGBTQ symbol and placed it in Wikipedia article Scientology and homosexuality, most likely as trolling/provocation/agitation... putting Wiki in the middle and smack dab in the crosshairs. Though it was quickly removed from the article, there is no need of keeping such in Wikicommons. I am only familiar with deletion process in English Wikipedia, and not in Wikicommons. How fast does that process usually go? Grorp (talk) 13:24, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, trademark is not a copyright restriction. However I wonder what educational use there could be for this file. I warned the uploader about scope and copyright violations. Yann (talk) 13:47, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 10:39, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Probable vandalism

I suspect the mutation https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ABad_Wildbad_tram_2019.jpg&diff=952047828&oldid=874105226 is vandalism, but I dont know any Indonesian. When I try to translate 'kakaksk', I dont see any results wich could apply to a tram. Its the only mutation of 'Feriaulia'. Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:18, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Edit reverted.--Túrelio (talk) 10:25, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 10:37, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Hosting HDR images as JPEG with gain map

The tools for creating and displaying High Dynamic Range (HDR) images are starting to mature. HDR displays can render much brighter highlights than before, which leads to a big qualitative improvement in an image. Software for HDR production, and web-browser support, are becoming wide-spread. (Note that this is distinct from the tone-mapped HDR images you may have seen for the past decade or so.)

This post is partly a response to User:Hym3242 and User:PantheraLeo1359531 in Commons:Village pump/Archive/2024/08#Can I upload bt2020nc/bt2020/smpte2084(PQ) HDR AVIF images to commons and use them in wikipedia articles?. I was wondering the same thing, so I uploaded a couple files to see how well Commons would support them. They are formatted as JPEG with a gain map. The promise of this format is that it is backward-compatible with systems that process and serve standard JPEG. The base image is a JPEG, usable on any device. HDR information is inserted in the file as metadata. In the worst case HDR metadata is lost, resulting in a standard image. In the best case HDR metadata is preserved, the end-user has an HDR-capable display and web browser, and the image looks great.

My test results are at Category:HDR gain-mapped images. Both images survived the process of uploading and rendering previews. HDR metadata was stripped from preview images, but preserved in the original uploads. If you have a newish HDR screen and a compliant web browser, the originals of this house and this church will appear brighter than usual. The effect on the house is subtle, limited to where sunlight hits white paint. The effect on the church is more dramatic: the windows should appear much brighter than the rest of the interior.

Most users of Commons images will see one of the smaller standard files, so for now the benefits of publishing this sort of content are limited. Are there any downsides to publishing it on Commons?

This post isn't marked as a proposal, because hosting these images on Commons works already. At a later date, when the standards are settled and the hardware is widely available, it would be nice to preserve HDR metadata in the generated preview images. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Semiautonomous (talk • contribs) 23:51, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

A phab task would need to be created for "include gain map of images into thumbs"- C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm - p7.ee/p) (talk) 07:41, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Commons Gazette 2024-11

Volunteer staff changes

In October 2024, 1 sysop was elected. Currently, there are 180 sysops.

• User:Bastique was elected sysop (35/7/0) on 2 October.

Other news

• Results of Picture of the Year 2023 are out.

---

Edited by RoyZuo.

---

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

--RoyZuo (talk) 19:15, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Special:Uploads/Claudiupt

I'd like a second opinion on the user's uploads. All the pictures seem to be AI-generated. When confronted on his talk page, he admitted to heavily editing one of the pictures. Since the subject of hos articles are lesser known (but notable) persons, I cannot confirm they actually represent the persons he claims they represent. Given this situation, do these pictures respect Commons inclusion policy? Strainu (talk) 10:19, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Help needed with a new userbox template

Hi everyone!

I hope to receive your help with the template Template:User ISNI . The outputs should be as follows: the ISNI code in format like 0000 1111 2222 3333 on the Userbox (with spaces, because of Google indexation of ISNI codes), but the URL should be in this format https://isni.org/isni/0000111122223333 . So, my idea was that a user can input 4 groups of characters separately and the template logic would me it happen in terms of reaching the desirable output fortmat of ISNI code. I'm struggling to make it happen and would like to receive your helping hand, please. David Osipov (talk) 11:54, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Provinces of China by month and year

Hello! I have created templates for the distribution of provinces of China by year and month - these are examples {{MonthinChinabyprovince}} and {{Chinaprovinceyear}}. Could you help with categorization in a short time frame and also check the templates? MasterRus21thCentury (talk) 15:07, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Is there any consensus for categorizing images by Chinese province by month and year? Trade (talk) 20:03, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

We dont need new templates. use Template:Category description/Year by province. RoyZuo (talk) 23:58, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Derivative works (FOP etc.)

1. does commons want derivative works (dw) that are currently not compatible with com:l, especially photos taken in no-FOP countries?
2. were there users that got blocked for uploading such dw?

--RoyZuo (talk) 19:24, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

• Yes, they are wanted because one day they will be in the public domain. We hide the images and add an undelete date. There should be a mechanism in place where you can hide an image yourself and add the undelete date. --RAN (talk) 01:17, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't know if its neccessarily in line with the guidelines but I'm big proponent of people uploading uploading copyrighted works under the guise of documenting and theb deleting them with undeletion dates. At the end of the day this is as much about hosting documenting who created certain works and when they will become PD as it is a place to host freely licensed media. That's at least how I see it. There's no harm in uploading something purely to have it deleted so it can be restored once the copyright expires though. --Adamant1 (talk) 02:35, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Afaik, this topic or a similar one was already discussed. And uploading and then deleting sounds a bit circumstancial to me, but it would be very good if you could upload the file and set a publish date (especially for files with copyrighted content that soon will enter the public domain) :). But I strongly support the idea. --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 10:09, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Just create a deletion request with the undeletion date. That's an easy way to do that. Yann (talk) 09:05, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the question one should read "FOP" instead of "no-FOP".
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 10:39, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Edit summary on project chat

Do we have a guideline that one should state which section one is replying to ? If not, should we have one? Commons:Talk page guidelines doesn't say much about it, but seems to concern itself more with user talk pages than with project chat (or noticeboards).

Personally, I find [1] problematic. The user does so regularly and insists on continuing doing so systematically.
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 11:09, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

The gadget should be changed so that includes the section link of the closed discussion. This has already been request on its talk page. I also think section links to closed discussions are useful. If subscribing to a thread one gets notified about any reply (and one can also see the section via the diff linked at t he Revision history) which makes this somewhat redundant but it would still be useful. Better than having a gadget for marking threads about issues as solved would be some native button to do so like there is for DiscussionTools that is used on MediaWiki talk pages.

It's meta:User:DannyS712/EasyResolve. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:19, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

That a gadget could be changed is not really relevant to the question about what we currently require. Also, as the change has been requested for a long time, it's unlikely it will be changed. In the meantime, one should limit its use to user talk pages.
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 11:27, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

I think 1) the problem of not including section headers is not large enough for it to mean contributors should stop using it 2) many contributors often also edit without any edit summary or section header + there currently is no policy about such things and while it may be the case they should be requested to include such more often, they usually are not asked to change that 3) the benefits of this gadget outweigh. In addition, it is relevant to this discussion – I never said it was relevant to the question about what "we currently require". However, obviously it's also relevant to that. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:33, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it would be nice if the gadget did this, no it is not a big problem. - Jmabel ! talk 17:42, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Agreed with Jmabel. ReneeWrites (talk) 22:35, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

file description pages from IA Flickr stream

File description pages on these generally have extensive automated content, e.g. at this file there is:

"Identifier, Title, Year, Authors, Subjects, Publisher, Contributing Library, Digitizing Sponsor, Text Appearing Before Image, Text Appearing After Image".

All without actually including the title of the image (included in the source, but vertically).

By default, this all gets added into the "description"-field of {{Information}}. I wonder if there wouldn't be a better place: a separate section and/or field.
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 14:30, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

New page for establishing textured meshes on Commons

In 2018, Commons allowed to upload STL files for the first time. To extend the amount of types that can be uploaded, a new page for textured meshes was created. Perhaps one or the another is interested :)

Commons:Textured 3D --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 18:16, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Moscow State University Herbarium

Hi, I see that the Moscow State University Herbarium has images of its plants under a free license on its website. It would be useful to 1. add all images already uploaded to the source category. 2. license review all files. 3. mass upload all files not yet uploaded. This may requires writing a bot, and knowledge of botany (and may be Russian although the website is also available in English) is probably needed to properly categorize the images (Total items: 983,569). And more than that, apparently all images under [2] are under a free license. Yann (talk) 15:36, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

File from NASA remains in "PD-USGov missing SDC copyright status" category indefinitely

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. ReneeWrites (talk) 10:45, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I uploaded this file from NASA months ago, and it has been in "PD-USGov missing SDC copyright status" hidden category since then. Usually, a few hours or days after upload, a bot fills the SDC copyright status and removes the file from such kind of category, but this does not seem to be happening with this file. Could it be solved manually in some way? MGeog2022 (talk) 19:43, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

 Done ReneeWrites (talk) 23:48, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @ReneeWrites! MGeog2022 (talk) 13:06, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

@MGeog2022 and ReneeWrites: I created and emptied out Category:PD-USGov missing SDC copyright status some time ago. Looks like I forgot to add a job to keep it empty. Did it now and it's catching up. Multichill (talk) 17:37, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

👍 MGeog2022 (talk) 20:43, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

New law in Costa Rica: "Public Domain of Information"

Last Friday, November 1, 2024, Costa Rica’s official newspaper, La Gaceta, published Law 10.554, the "Framework Law on Access to Public Information". Pages 24-37.

Article 18 of this law establishes the following:

"ARTICLE 18 - Public Domain of Information
All materials produced by a public official in the course of their duties shall be considered in the public domain, except for personal data and without prejudice to the limits established in the Political Constitution of the Republic of Costa Rica, in international regulations approved by the Legislative Assembly, and in laws, in accordance with the principle of legal reservation."

I kindly request that a Wikimedia Commons administrator consider including this in the copyright policy. ¡Pura vida! LuchoCR (talk) 00:01, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

• Any idea whether this is retroactive? - Jmabel ! talk 19:45, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

  Hello. Pursuant to Article 34 of the Constitution, it has no retroactive effect. LuchoCR (talk) 01:04, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Commons:Oversighters/Requests/Kadı 2

Hello dear Wikimedia Commons Community,

My request for oversight access is open for voting until 11th of November, 2024. I wanted to announce it here because 5 days have left. Thanks for all voters and who are planning to vote. Kind regards, Kadı Message 14:58, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

External link detection is now live on Commons

Hi all! We are releasing the first version of our external links detection tool, that will help moderators in identifying potentially problematic media uploaded from potentially problematic domains (such as social media networks and/or stock image suppliers).

If the source corresponds to one of such domains, UploadWizard would create automatically a Structured Data on Commons statement source of file (P7482) file available on the internet (Q74228490), with qualifiers “operator (P137) = <the operator of the website where the image originated>” and “described at URL (P973) = <link to source>”. This would make the potentially problematic uploads easily accessible by administrators and moderators.

For the moment, we will be parsing only for a few selected domains and, if needed, the list can be amended by the community to include other domains that are problematic or have a strong probability of being deleted. We could also make it available for the community to maintain the list of domains directly.

If you have questions or suggestions, please write to us in our project’s talk page. (Since I will be travelling in the next days, I might be slow to respond, so please have patience)

Thanks for your cooperation! Sannita (WMF) (talk) 16:36, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

AI generated and licensing

Hello everyone. I'm trying to find informations about the possibility of creating images with perchance.org so I need to check if licensing is correct. With that AI generator, I've made a portrait for a Wikipedia article without illustration (composer Judith Weir) so I wanted to be sure I could use it on Commons. Thanks for your help. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 07:49, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

You can upload a real photograph of Judith Weir to en.wikipedia.org as they allow fair use, or reach out to her personally to ask if she could release a photograph of herself under a free license that can be uploaded to Commons (you can find a list of e-mail templates you can use here: WP:ERP). While I don't know if there's a policy against it, it's certainly frowned upon to use AI images for the purpose of illustrating things that have nothing to do with AI. ReneeWrites (talk) 11:08, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

It's frowned by a few anti-technology people who don't want to use novel tech for good but slumber. Many AI illustrations are inappropriate, some are great and many could be very useful. However, illustrations of living people are a special case. At least try to make sure no free media of the person exists and you may also try to reach out and ask for a photo albeit that certainly shouldn't be expected. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:11, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Why not? ReneeWrites (talk) 12:38, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Why should it be expected for people to reach out to people via email asking for a CCBY photo, they or somebody else could have simply uploaded it somewhere if they cared and usually these emails don't get a reply at least none that is positive. The main reason is that nowhere are people asked to first reach out via mail asking for such. There may be a point in requiring that but I think it would be enough / better (e.g. because it's more scalable and less time-intensive) to just have some well-findable FAQ-type Wikipedia info page about "I don't like the image of me in the article about me, can I replaced it?" or something like that where there would be info that they can simply release and/or upload a better photo of them under CCBY and then ask on the article or a user talk page about replacing the photo (or replace it directly). Related to that, I think something should be done about the dysfunctional or nonexistent media-requests system including making reaching out via email a much more common activity (I don't think it's particularly useful for or should necessarily be expected when it comes to just photos of people rather than illustrations etc). Prototyperspective (talk) 12:52, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

There's a FAQ-type page for this on the English Wikipedia at en:Wikipedia:A picture of you, and a (badly out of date) one about images in general at en:Wikipedia:Images from social media, or elsewhere. Belbury (talk) 12:09, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

"This is not Judith Weir, it's what an AI estimated she might look like. It's based on 3500 photos of other people, which all have their own copyright."

That's why. DS (talk) 13:42, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

"it's what an AI estimated she might look like" as are paintings. The image would only be used if sufficiently accurate. People also look at copyrighted photos and they can and are allowed learn from any images they have access to. Don't want people to look at your photos/images? Don't put them online or into public exhibitions. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:44, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

So it´s either simply stolen (via AI) or the AI is crystal balling it. That is truely what an encyclopedia needs. Alexpl (talk) 14:00, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

No, I just explained why it's not stolen. Hello to the 18th century. Prototyperspective (talk) 14:02, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

@ReneeWrites, Prototyperspective, DragonflySixtyseven, and Alexpl: A drawing or painting of a living person is accepted when we don't have any alternative illustration (there are many examples on Commons/Wikipedia), even if inspired by/based on many real pictures, so an AI drawing or 3D image is the same logic, at least as long as 1) it isn't a copy of an existing work, 2) it is clearly visible and/or mentioned that it isn't a real picture of the person. My question was mainly about licensing and actually also authorship: can I consider myself as the author or co-author of the image (since I chose/delivered the written instructions/guidelines topo the AI) and can I choose any license I want ? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 15:05, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

No, I think you should set lice {{PD-algorithm}}...it's unclear whether there is some credit/licensing-worthy authorship in prompting; advanced prompting where one continuously adjusts the prompt and modifies the image via img2img and further tools can be quite complex and require good skills but I don't think this applies much to prompting illustrations of persons. There is not really any downside to just selecting PD for these files instead of a CCBY one. Also consider that there probably aren't that many (or are there?) Wikipedia articles with paintings of people where the person lived in a time where photography was already invented. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:32, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

What is that supposed to mean? Almost everybody can turn a photo into a "painting" with a cheap grafics program. But nobody wants to see the results in wikipedia articels. Alexpl (talk) 17:15, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

1. AI images are not converted photos, they start of with a random seed like white noise and then "diffuse" this into a generated image. 2. False: if the result was CCBY and no CCBY photo was available then many people would want to see the results there and they would get added by contributors there. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:30, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

@Alexpl: It's not about "turning a photo into a painting", it's about creating a picture to illustrate an article for which we don't have access to any photo/picture with a compatible license. Do you prefer an article without any illustration? @Prototyperspective: There are many examples here. It's a project on French Wikipedia that aims to create articles about women and to add illustrations (of course photos when it's possible) to articles about women. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 22:59, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

If you don't have any photos/pictures of the subject, it is grossly inappropriate to "assign" them an AI-generated portrait. Not having an image at all is preferable to having a completely made-up image which is unlikely to resemble the subject of the article. Omphalographer (talk) 18:00, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Just like paintings it is not completely made-up and it's used only when resembling the subject. I just wonder whether it adds much to the article. Prototyperspective (talk) 18:04, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

It's up to individual Wikipedia projects whether they want to use AI-generated portraits for biographies, in the same way that some use speculatively AI-upscaled historical photos and others have a policy not to.

From Category:AI-generated images of living people (PIP), three images (File:Sirisha Bandla drawing.png, File:Midjourney Marie Dauchy.png and File:Drawing of Vida Movahed.png) are in use on Wikipedia projects and/or Wikidata right now. Belbury (talk) 18:10, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Commons:AI-generated media is the relevant guideline here. You can upload what you like, and its copyright status depends on what country you're making it in, and whether you modified it or based it on an input photo. If you're in France and are just writing a prompt, the output image is considered public domain. The file may end up deleted if the French Wikipedia doesn't actually want to use it, and if Commons decides (on the grounds of it not being in use) that it has no educational use. Belbury (talk) 11:57, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Invitation to the upcoming Commons Community Calls -- November 21, 2024

Hello everyone! The Wikimedia Foundation will be hosting a series of community calls to help prioritize support efforts from Wikimedia Foundation for the 2025-2026 Fiscal Year.

The purpose of these calls is to support community members in hearing more from one another - across uploaders, moderators, GLAM enthusiasts, tool and bot makers, etc. - about the future of Commons. There is so much to discuss about the general direction of the project, and we hope that people from different perspectives can think through some of the tradeoffs that will shape Commons going forward.

Our first call will focus on Content Organization. It will take place at two different time slots:

•  The first one will be on November 21, at 08:00 UTC, and it will be hosted on Zoom by Senior Director of Product Management Runa Bhattacharjee; you can subscribe to it on Meta;
•  The second one will be on November 21, at 16:00 UTC, and it will be hosted on Zoom by Chief Product & Technology Officer Selena Deckelmann; you can subscribe to it on Meta.

If you cannot attend the meeting, you are invited to express your point of view at any time you want on the Commons community calls talk page. We will also post the notes of the meeting on the project page, to give the possibility to read what was discussed also to those who couldn’t attend it.

If you want, you are invited to share this invitation with all the people you think might be interested in this call.

We hope to see you and/or read you very soon! Sannita (WMF) (talk) 10:33, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Please remove Category:Depreradovich family from Category:Zora Preradović

Hello there. I want to remove the parent category Category:Depreradovich family from Category:Zora Preradović, but I couldn't do it by editing. The category has no options for modifying and removing. The same problem is for Category:Petar Preradović, Category:Paula Preradović too. If you are reading this, please help me. I need to remove Category:Depreradovich family from Category:Zora Preradović, Category:Petar Preradović, Category:Paula Preradović.

I also need to remove Category:1911 in Ternopil Oblast and Category:1911 establishments in Ukraine by region, and Category:Karpelès (surname) from Category:1911 establishments in Ternopil Oblast and Category:Suzanne Karpelès, respectively. Please help me in that too.

OperationSakura6144 (talk) 14:17, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

That category was erroneously linked to Wikidata item Preradović (Q20997674). I have made the correction and purged the cache and done null edits. Should be decategorized. William Graham (talk) 15:25, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Upload a new version

It's one hour I am waiting to upload a new version of Ahmad Shakir al-Karmi.png. Its not working for me. Can anyone please do it? the new source of new version is https://archive.org/details/2-1927-28/%E2%80%8F%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D8%B9%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%201%20-%20%E2%80%8F%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B2%D8%B1%D9%83%D9%84%D9%8A%201954-1959/page/n148/mode/1up. I will crop it later. --Sazwar (talk) 19:49, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Convenience link: File:Ahmad Shakir al-Karmi.png. - Jmabel ! talk 22:58, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

 Done - Jmabel ! talk 23:04, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Template:CR cooldown

What is the "cool down period" referred to at Category:Carmen Contreras Bozak? RAN (talk) 15:56, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Pinging @R'n'B, RoyZuo, Enhancing999 as involved users.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 16:36, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

RussBot will move pages out of redirected categories into the target category, but it waits a week after the last edit to the redirected category. That week is the "cooldown" period. It's meant to prevent pages ping-ponging back and forth between categories in the event a redirect gets reverted. --R'n'B (talk) 01:08, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

What parts of Template:CR cooldown should be improved?
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 09:45, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

• Probably adding the above text to the cooldown template to define cooldown period. --RAN (talk) 15:03, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

  Or the explanaaion could just be on a project page someplace, and linked from the template. I don't think we want to turn the template into a wall of text, or have to revise a template if the cooldown were to work a little differently in the future. - Jmabel ! talk 18:34, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Remove 1911 in Ternopil Oblast and 1911 establishments in Ukraine by region from Category:1911 establishments in Ternopil Oblast, and Category:Young people in Cuba from Category:Children in Cuba.

Like I said yesterday, I need to remove the parent categories 1911 in Ternopil Oblast and 1911 establishments in Ukraine by region from Category:1911 establishments in Ternopil Oblast, and also Category:Young people in Cuba from Category:Children in Cuba, but I couldn't do it manually. Please help me in it and tell me how you removed Category:Depreradovich family from Category:Zora Preradović elaborately so that I could do it myself following that technique. OperationSakura6144 (talk) 04:52, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Appears to be done. Probably was a template fix. - Jmabel ! talk 18:40, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

2024 open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation

Hi, It is usually best not to spread issues from one project to another, but this is a much wider issue, which may impact all Wikimedia projects, including Commons.

In brief, Asian News International, an Indian news agency, has taken to court the Wikimedia Foundation over its article on the English Wikipedia. Then it has requested that editors' identities to that article to be disclosed. And last, but not least, it has requested the article about this court case to be taken down, which the WMF did, pending the result. So there is now an 2024 open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation. Please sign it to protect our freedom to edit. More information available at the Signpost, on Community response to Asian News International vs. Wikimedia Foundation, on the BBC, and newslaundry.com. Yann (talk) 17:26, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

It's a bit weird to think that WMF participates in court proceedings in other countries than the US, be it Iceland, India, Iran, etc.
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 17:49, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Our Wikipedias are international projects, and some countries like the Philippines @JWilz12345: have a stance that all internet companies are subject to their laws. I signed, thanks for the reminder, User:Yann. Abzeronow (talk) 18:12, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

The question is what is WMF stance on that.
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 18:18, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Unknown. When I talked to a few WMF people at Wikimania 2024, I got some indications that they would not comply with some legal orders to gather some information that they currently don't have. However, it may be possible senior leadership at the Foundation believes access to India outweighs the risks to three editors (at least one lives in India). Obviously, I disagree. Abzeronow (talk) 18:40, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the WMF policy is to comply with court orders if the country is democratic and to not comply in authoritarian countries. With for example countries from the EU, Russia and China it is easy to say in which category they belong. With India it is not that easy to say in which category it belongs. GPSLeo (talk) 21:18, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

In case it is unclear, because not stated explicitly above, the petition is a call for WMF to refuse to hand over information about editors to an Indian court. - Jmabel ! talk 18:43, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

There was some WP/Commons India-brouhaha in 2020: Commons:Deletion requests/File:India Bhutan Locator.png. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:17, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

How to edit Special:EditWatchlist, when there is a server timeout?

I have 43k pages on my watchlist. I want to remove thousands of them by editing Special:EditWatchlist. This however does not work because of a server timeout (the page is likely to large). What are my options? My network connection works fine. --Polarlys (talk) 17:56, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

You have to use the Special:EditWatchlist/raw editor. GPSLeo (talk) 18:56, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, this helps me a lot! Have a good weekend. Polarlys (talk) 21:33, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 22:58, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

About Category:Lakes in the canton of Zurich.

Also, I need to say something. This might be controversial but look at Category:Lakes in the canton of Zurich. There was an attempt by a bot to move Category:Lakes in the canton of Zürich to Category:Lakes in the canton of Zurich which has no umlaut over "u" in "Zurich", which makes no sense as most, if not all nor many, categories related to the canton of Zürich use "Zürich" with umlauted u (ü) instead. If you think moving Category:Lakes in the canton of Zürich to Category:Lakes in the canton of Zurich is justified, give me the reasons for it. OperationSakura6144 (talk) 05:33, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

It should use whatever spelling is used by Category:Canton of Zürich.
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 09:43, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

At least there should have been a discussion at CfD before initiating a bot move. Moves at en.wikipedia, especially controversial ones, are no justification for bot moves at Commons. Rudolph Buch (talk) 18:40, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

The main reason would be that, for a Databank, use of the alphabet other than what's on the top of the keyboard is superfluous.

Pronunciation is of no consequence here. The project's core language is English. Zürich is Zurich in English. Use of diacritic marks in English is unusual, unless quoting French.

Diacritic marks are affectations within the setting of a databank. They are an unwanted overhead for users with standard keyboards, their use in the real world is inconsistent. Their absence does not destroy the meaning of the word. Their inclusion does not enhance the defined meaning. Even in Zurich, there are many signs not using the umlaut. Broichmore (talk) 14:54, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

"fire box" at Lean-tos and picnic sites in Sweden

Hi, in Sweden one often finds "fire boxes" at Lean-tos and picnic sites, such as here. In OSM, they are often just labeled firepit or bbq or so. I couldn't find out what the correct term is. Is there a wikidata (and OSM) entry (instance of) for them? What do the Swedes call them? Thx. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uli@wiki (talk • contribs) 14:56, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

That's a really weird link. I presume it is meant to go to File:Shelter (lean-to, vindskydd) at Skimlingen Lake (Uddevalla Municipality, Sweden) 01.jpg. - Jmabel ! talk 20:06, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Rename of a PDF in transcription at Wikisource breaks Wikisource links

I renamed a PDF while it was being transcribed, and now a bunch of links on Wikisource are broken, including CSS stylesheet links, hindering transcription and messing up the styling of the transcribed book (discussion on Wikisource). Could anyone make a bot to fix this sort of situation, please? Or is another fix suitable? I'd be grateful for any information. HLHJ (talk) 17:12, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

I posted on the Scriptorium and, almost instantly, MarkLSteadman fixed it. Thank you very much! HLHJ (talk)

FYI

For the next few weeks, I'm looking forward to nominating some kind Wikimedians from this project on m:Merchandise giveaways to appreciate their contributions. I nominated @Abzeronow yesterday and I am hopeful that his contributions are valued. You might want to take a look at at the nomination. _Regards, Aafi ^(talk) 09:49, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Curious how much that cost? Aren't donations to WMF to run the servers and pay for MediaWiki developments?
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 09:53, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps check m:Wikimedia merchandise for this purpose. _Regards, Aafi ^(talk) 10:07, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't say anything about the cost of not selling the merchandise and not spending the charity funds on fixing the misconfigured Commons upload function instead.
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 10:16, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

The stability of uploads (on the server side) has been improved significantly in this year. (this allows more stable upload tools by users. I cannot comment on the Upload Wizard, i nearly never use the Wizard) C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm - p7.ee/p) (talk) 16:37, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Apparently uploads by users at Commons are slowed down or stopped each time another wiki does some large scale cache invalidation, e.g. to add "JsonConfig tracking category" at dewiki (phab:T378352), More about it at Commons:Village_pump/Technical#Upload_Wizard_very_slow.
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 21:15, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Something discovered only 2 weeks ago. It's getting fixed. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:34, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

"Aren't donations to WMF to run the servers and pay for MediaWiki developments?" No. They are to support the foundation, which has as it's mission: 'to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally'. Handing out merch is a very small gesture that is relatively cheap to do and a gesture of appreciation from community to some of its members. Keeping the site up and developing the software is another (infinitely more expensive) part of that. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:43, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Making such an announcement while having a request for Oversight rights running is a bit odd as it looks like you would try to buy votes. GPSLeo (talk) 16:23, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

{{TOO-US}}

When are we actually supposed to use this template?--Trade (talk) 12:24, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it is ever the only alternative, but it can clarify the reason something is {{PD-ineligible}} in the U.S. - Jmabel ! talk 19:29, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

US law is the “default” on Commons because Commons is hosted there. I’m not sure what purpose this has. Dronebogus (talk) 12:17, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

It's one of the oldest license templates we have and still used by many older files. --Rosenzweig τ 12:12, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Copy captions and alt texts from Wikisource?

Separately, wWould it be possible to automatically copy the captions and alt descriptions added to thea book transcription, adding them to the pages of the corresponding Commons files? Example in links. HLHJ (talk) 22:52, 10 November 2024 (UTC). (edited HLHJ (talk) 15:33, 11 November 2024 (UTC))

Broken link for share-alike clause in Template:Cc-by-sa-3.0, Template:Cc-by-sa-2.0, ...

The same problem also affects Template:Cc-by-sa-2.0, Template:Cc-by-sa-4.0,3.0,2.5,2.0,1.0 (and related CC templates), showing this SA clause (and in many translations of these templates, if they use wikilinks with the prefix alias, instead of the canonical prefix, or plain external links, see Category:CC license tags). The problem is apparently caused by externally translated messages such as {{int:Wm-license-cc-conditions-share alike-text (Cc-by-sa-2.0)}}. Everything is admin-protected and cannot be fixed (the problem is also present in the English translation source).

See also Template talk:Cc-by-sa-3.0#Broken link for share-alike clause, for the 1st template that I detected and where I 1st signaled it.

So this affects A LOT of file description pages on Commons, whose licencing conditions are NOT displayed correctly. verdy_p (talk) 08:09, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Someone accidentally added an extra line break on MediaWiki:Wm-license-cc-conditions-share alike-text/fr. Already fixed on Translatewiki, but might take some time to show here so I modified the local version for now. Multichill (talk) 17:47, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Unknown station and historic coaches in Denmark

File:Old coaches in Denmark in 2000.jpg

Where could this be? It is along an electric line in Denmark. I suppose this ia historic collection of coaches used for some special train.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:23, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

The picture was taken at Hillerød Station. The historic coaches belongs to Nordsjællands Jernbaneklub. --Dannebrog Spy (talk) 12:10, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Copyright for street poster?

I have taken a photo of a pro-Palestine poster that was hanging outside in the street, it is not visible who created the poster. Am I allowed to upload it or is there a copyright for the poster? Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 14:17, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

There can be: it all depends on where the poster was hung. E.g. in the United States, the threshold of originality is higher than in Australia, so a design has to be more complex before it is even able to be copyrighted in American than down under. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 14:21, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

It was in Amsterdam, NL. The design is not complex. Simple political, caricature and slogan, no author name. can I upload it? --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 14:37, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I recommend you take a look at Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Netherlands and use your best judgement. If you make a mistake, it's not the end of the world. Someone making a good faith upload that happens to be a copyright violation will not face some kind of punishment: the file just gets deleted and we all move on. Looking forward to seeing it. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 14:52, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Even if there is a copyright for the poster (and a caricature is probably artistically complex enough to incur copyright), the Netherlands has some Freedom of the Panorama, so if you photographed it from a public street it's probably okay. It's not as though you are likely to be infringing on commercial profits or otherwise harming the author; the author probably wants people to see their poster and register their protest, and does not want or expect to make money off selling posters. This is actually a legal consideration. HLHJ (talk) 15:04, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I am attempting to upload now and when I ad "FoP-Netherland" with "{{}}" it still says "The wikitext you entered doesn't contain a valid license template." --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 15:55, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately, these arguments cannot be taken into account. Copyright is also granted for any kind of advertisement --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 15:13, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Depending on the jurisdiction, they can. For instance, in Canada, while ads are copyright, almost any third-party reproduction of them is legal.[3] I think there was even a case where someone posted a movie trailer on YouTube without comment, and the movie-maker sued (because the trailer was awful and people mocked it), and their claim got rejected on the grounds that reposting an ad was fair dealing. And the international Berne 3-part test is pretty much those considerations (but does not mention the rights of non-copyright holders, which are important in Canadian law). HLHJ (talk) 15:51, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I have uploaded it. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pro-Palestinian_Resistance_Poster_Amsterdam.jpg#%7B%7Bint%3Alicense-header%7D%7D If there is something wrong, please fix it. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 16:21, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

To answer your question, this is photograph is fine. The relevant ruling is here: COM:FOP Netherlands. Specifically these parts:

It is not an infringement of copyright to reproduce and publish pictures of a work, as meant in article 10 (...) which are made to be permanently located in public places, as long as the work is depicted as it is located in the public space.

With regards to "permanent": Article 18 is limited to works that were originally made for being placed permanently in public places. The literature mentions that this would also apply to graffiti, even if these normally are removed rather quickly. This is consistent with the interpretation of "permanent" e.g. in Germany as explained here; the "natural lifetime" of a graffito is considered to end with its removal.

While a poster is not the same as graffiti, the same principle applies. This is also extended to things like public advertisements, which also feature copyrighted material.

You start entering risky territory, copyright-wise, when you divorce this image from its context (this being the public space). For instance, if you made a derivative version of the poster that's a .svg of the graphical elements of the poster, those are probably still copyrighted and may be deleted, despite being a derivative of a free image, even if no author is known. ReneeWrites (talk) 23:39, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Commons mentioned in Hyperallergic

When Copyright Transforms the Right to Remember at Hyperallergic. Subtitle: "Images of “We Are Our Mountains,” an Armenian monument in occupied Artsakh, have disappeared from Wikimedia Commons in the months since Azerbaijan’s invasion."

Doesn't look like there's anything to be done. Artwork created in the USSR, then in [an area internationally regarded as part of] Azerbaijan, which only has non-commercial FOP. But some legal speculation in the article that may be worth discussing. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  00:26, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

All I can see is an empty white screen. Seems they're hyperallergic against Firefox. -- Herbert Ortner (talk) 09:30, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Better discuss this at Commons talk:Freedom of panorama, where it is currently being discussed. The topic forum is becoming fragmented (also including a message on my talk page). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 01:42, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Multilingual signature design

I would like to design my signature myself and would like the word for the talk page to be adapted to the language set. Which code do I have to use in the wikitext? --KimKelting (talk) 16:31, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

KimKelting, see WP:CUSTOMSIG for details. Note that it is on English Wikipedia. Ratekreel (talk) 18:19, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, disregard the above reply. You can add {{int:Talkpagelinktext}}, which will display the word for talk page according to language. Ratekreel (talk) 18:26, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

When I enter this, it makes {{SUBST:int:Talkpagelinktext}} out of it KimKelting (talk) 07:37, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Why categories "London by topic" and "Porto by topic" act differently #2

This follows Commons:Village pump/Archive/2024/09#Why categories "London by topic" and "Porto by topic" act differently

@JotaCartas, Jmabel, and Joshbaumgartner: I investigated. The two categories London by topic and Porto by topic both include {{Country category}}. This uses {{Country category/data}} with by=topic and name=London or name=Porto. {{Country category/data}} collects the informations that {{Country category/layout}} finally display. The problem is that {{Country category/data}} use a lot of {{Country label}} that recalls {{Country label/K}} for London (and a row exists) and {{Country label/N}} for Porto (and a row doesn't exist). ZandDev (talk) 13:05, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Implicit dual-licensing

Commons:Deletion requests/Files found with "with an active link required" recently concluded that if somebody CC-licences a photo and specifies additional restrictions on its usage, this is meaningless, and all they've actually done is dual-license it. Anybody who wants to reuse the image can choose the base CC licence and ignore the additions because any condition provided for outside of the license is not part of the license and does not constitute an additional restriction.

Should we put an explanatory template on such files? Commons visitors would be forgiven for assuming that such conditions were additional restrictions, possibly in Commons' voice, that had to be obeyed. Belbury (talk) 11:07, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Do we need to retain the text describing the non-free license at all? If we're confident that the files can be reused under a CC license, we shouldn't need to retain information about alternate licensing terms. Omphalographer (talk) 04:13, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Commons:Multi-licensing says to retain this kind of thing, that Commons "tries to preserve mention" of overly restrictive licences (such as non-commercial ones) when they're multi-licenced alongside a valid free one. Belbury (talk) 18:55, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Charts extension is about to be deployed

Hey everyone,

As a heads up, WMF is preparing to deploy the Chart extension to Commons the week of Nov 25th, 2024, with deployment to pilot wikis soon after. Charts are already enabled on testwiki and testcommons, where you can find the documentation. The extension has been designed to use the Commons Data namespace as the central store for definitions and datasets, making it easy to include a chart on any wiki.

We know that visibility into pages in the Data namespace is low, creating gaps in the current ability to patrol it. While the initial deployment to pilot wikis should be minimally disruptive, we are considering improvements to the Data namespace that would help make storing charts on Commons sustainable in the long run. We're open to suggestions about what other improvements you’d like to see and we are available to answer any questions you have about the deployment.

Thanks in advance for you help! -- Sannita (WMF) (talk) 10:32, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

@Sannita (WMF) Thanks for the info. The main reason the Data namespace is flying under the radar of most Commons users is almost certainly that it doesn't work with Categories (see phab:T242596). Categories are out main way of organizing Media. If Data: pages are not showing up in Categories, for most people over here they might just as well not exist at all. Reason number 2 would be lack of Structured Data integration (phab:T235332) - which is somewhat surprising given how much StructuredData has been pushed by WMF/WMDE in the past. Don't you folks talk to each other across teams? El Grafo (talk) 18:58, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

You mentioned testcommons but testcommons shows that it is disabled and editing there is not possible. And one question: If the community decides to block anon users from editing charts can this be done through a config change or do we need to create an AbuseFilter if we want to block them? GPSLeo (talk) 19:23, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Tramtype Wroclaw

Unfortunately there is no wikipedia articles wich list the tram numbers of the tramtypes. I'm looking for 2242. It looks like Konstal 105Na, but I am not certain. Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:59, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Solved, I found a close number (2250) in File:Konstal 105Na, -2250, MPK Wrocław (35054236092).jpg.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:05, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

mail:commons-l

For those wondering why you got unsubscribed from commons-l...

First, I am sorry. It was me, hastily clicking "confirm" to remove all subscribers instead of specific user I wanted to remove.
  [06:22:19] <revi> oh shit
  [06:23:07] <revi> I just clicked "remove all members" for commons-l and mindlessly clicked "confirm", would it be possible to undo... this catastrophy?
Yeah, I am stupid. Mea culpa. What I wanted to do was "unsubscribe that fakemailgenerator user", but I ended up clicking "remove all" instead of "remove selected".
I filed a task to see if WMF can undo my grave mistake. Again, I am sorry for all those confused.

After calming myself down, I just took second look on subscriber lists, and it seems like... I closed the browser fast enough to stop truly removing everyone, so people with email address K (and later in latin alphabet) survived, but A to K was affected.

Well, those who received this in your inbox is probably unaffected, so... if someone asks, tell them to resubscribe or wait to see if WMF can resubscribe you. :P

(Pasted from my posts to commons-l)

Yes, I am certified to be stupid at this point. Sorry for those who got unsubscribed. — regards, Revi 06:51, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I think you could blame the interface.
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 07:05, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Maybe, but I should have read that RED button more carefully. :-p — regards, Revi 07:21, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Note: Database got rolled back and (unless you manually subscribed again) you were automatically re-subscribed with your preferences intact. (If you manually re-subscribed, your preferences are not restored.) — regards, Revi 08:56, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Project scope: question concerning videos

Hello,

I have a question, or a request for opinions, about our project scope concerning video files. While working on license reviews, I happen now and then over video files without sound; at the source (like Youtube), the clips do have sound. I do not know for every case why the audio data was removed, it is likely so to avoid copyright infringements. I challenged one of these files with a deletion request for being out of scope as lacking educational usefulness. This opinion seems to get challenged by Green Giant among others in this discussion. On this deletion request page, there are already clashing opinions, with Srittau supporting the notion of a lack of usefulness.

I, on my part, do think that subtitles are not enough to heave a tampered video with sounds removed over the threshold of educational usability. I'd rather have a nicely curated media repository instead of a heap of data with little usefulness, even if this means that the amount of video data for Commons gets reduced as a result. There is no point in removing useful data – vocal information may e.g. serve for people endeavouring to learn a language, more so than subtitles. Of course, videos that are already published without sound as a concise decision by a videographer would still be allowable. What does the majority think? Shall video clips with sound data removed in order to avoid copyright issues that have sound at the source be unconditionally seen as in scope (barring other issues) or is the sound removal a valid reason for deletion? Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 03:25, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I also think if a video is published under a CC license and we challenged the legitimacy of this claim for the audio I would also not trust this claim for the video. In most cases I would delete the entire video per COM:PCP. If there are explicitly separate licenses for video it is something different. In such cases I would keep the video only version. GPSLeo (talk) 07:07, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

is the sound removal a valid reason for deletion No, it is not. Exceptions include if the audio is an essential part of the video (and with no plausible substitution any time soon). Prototyperspective (talk) 07:16, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Actually the source is not under a free license. So the issue is not scope, but copyright. Yann (talk) 09:55, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

More generally, the only cases where the video is OK but not the sound are old films with a new soundtrack. I have never seen a recent free video with a copyrighted sound. Yann (talk) 09:57, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

There are lots of videos with nonfree sound that have their sound muted (including recent ones). Good time to mention that somebody should take care of Category:Videos containing non-free audio as well as the other cat linked there. It can be a bit more difficult to fix in an optimal way when only parts of videos extensively contain nonfree audio while other parts contain useful speech audio that would be good to keep. Prototyperspective (talk) 10:01, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I've seen plenty. A common one is conference presentations where the conference video was released as CC-by-sa 4.0, but where the conference organizer had copyrighted intro/outro/background music at the venue that nobody had considered. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:21, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

In such a case I would cut away the break entirely. If there is a speaker and from the neighbouring room there is some music audible it would falls under de minimis. GPSLeo (talk) 07:43, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

I also think that this particular video is not very useful this way. And even with subtitles, it is questionable AND you are modifying the video to a level that materially alters it, while not being very distinct from the original. Japan has moral rights, which means that the author is allowed protection of the integrity of the work. I think it can be argued that that integrity get pretty broken down here and I think it is not a good look for our project. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:26, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

@TheDJ: If it is free-licensed in a way that allows derivative works, "integrity of the work" would seem moot. - Jmabel ! talk 18:34, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I'd like to place a clarification of my ideas that seems to be necessary. There are in my opinion two different crowds of Commons contributors, of course with large overlaps. One of these crowds are uploaders, the other are maintainers. The maintainers take care of operations like license reviewing, file moving, categorization and so on. I do see an obligation to provide good quality data among the uploader crowd so as to not unnecessarily add to the maintainer workload. Completely removing audio so as to filter out possible copyright infringements of the original videographer on media like interviews or vocal explanations is not a suitable way of working, I dare to say. I'd rather have less videos than clutter our repository with media with dubious usability at best that will hide the good works in their mass. Is this something that could be working into a RFC or policy? Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 00:05, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

As a general matter: there is probably a lot less user review of audio/video uploads to Commons than there should be. Reviewing video content requires dramatically more time and effort than reviewing images; even with the smaller number of files being uploaded, many are probably not getting viewed at all. Omphalographer (talk) 20:16, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Parking assistants category?

Parking assistant in Cuenca, Ecuador

The lady on the picture on the right is basically a replacement of the parking machine: She takes payment for parking, indicates where there are available places, and stops the traffic when a car needs to park in or out. She is likely employed by the municipality. Is there a proper name for this type of profession? Do we have a category describing this activity? Ymblanter (talk) 21:24, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I think this fits: Category:Parking marshals. It also links to this category: Category:Traffic wardens. ReneeWrites (talk) 22:21, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Great, thanks. Ymblanter (talk) 08:11, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Obtuse bot created categories

Apparently User:Gzen92Bot has been mass creating thousands of categories that only contain a couple of images and basing the names of the categories on the file names. Category:"Papier dominoté. Damier alternant le motif du dé, face cinq, un carré plein, deux carrés avec deux fleurs stylisées différentes, un carré avec un motif " géométrique ", sur fond vert pâle - btv1b10576326x being one of thousands of examples. People can look through Category:Files from Gallica needing categories (images) to find a ton more. Creating 20 word categories based on purely descriptive file names seems sub-suboptimal at best though. More so given that it's being done in mass and through automated editing. I'm not really sure what to do about it though since I'm not an expert on bots. Let alone am I even sure if it's an issue to begin with. But it does seem like a needlessly obtuse way to do things. So does anyone else have an opinion about it or know what can be done done to fix the issue assuming it even is one? --Adamant1 (talk) 04:51, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Adamant1: I fully agree. Creation of >7,000 uncategorized and possibly-nonsense categories is not appropriate. Doubly so given that this does not seem to be an approved task for the bot. I have blocked the bot until/unless the task is approved.

@Gzen92: This is the third time your bot has been blocked for operating with an unapproved task. Per Commons:Bots#Permission to run a bot, it is not optional to seek approval for bot tasks. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 05:46, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Adamant1: As a regular user with some background in research data management, I completely agree as well. Thanks for pursuing the matter. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 06:53, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Gee .. what's the cleanup plan for these?
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 07:48, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Please delete all the subcategories of Category:Files from Gallica needing categories (images). Prototyperspective (talk) 11:56, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Strong oppose towards such mass deletions. These categories appear to contain similar images, which can greatly aid the manual, proper catgorisation on commons - these categories may or may not be deleted if the images in them have been properly categorized. ~TheImaCow (talk) 16:24, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Most of them contain just 2 images. The files would be upmerged. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:20, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Adamant1, Pi.1415926535, and Enhancing999: I continued uploading following Commons:Bots/Requests/Gzen92Bot-4, but I agree with the additional categories. I will make a new request (I will indicate the link here soon). This raises questions: there are millions of files to upload and it cannot be done manually, so from how many files should a category be created? How to name the categories (other than with the name of the file)? Following the decision I could easily empty the categories. Gzen92 (talk) 08:19, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

If you are not able to categorize the photos properly when uploading such an amount of photos you should slow down the upload process and create them manually. GPSLeo (talk) 08:29, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Categorisation of images on Commons is not a requirement when uploading images & it shouldn't be - especially not for batch/GLAM uploads. A category such as "Images to check" is sufficient & often much better than automated categorisation. There are still thousands of content categories with random junk in them that was dumped there by automatic categorisation from ten years ago which needs to be cleaned up. A bunch of images, or also a bunch of 500,000 images waiting in a "to check/to categorize" category don't hurt anyone whatsoever, as opposed to poorly done automatic categorisation. ~TheImaCow (talk) 16:24, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I made the request. Gzen92 (talk) 17:26, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's practical in this case but the way I'd do it is to categorize the images by subject. For instance "maps from Gallica", "books from Gallica", Etc. Etc. Then people sub-categorize the images beyond that if they want to. But at least it doesn't lead to a bunch of random categories. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:42, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

•  Comment I'm not a fan of mass creation of categories with very few files in them (generally I do not like categories with very few files and I prefer to have 20 photos of John Doe in one category rather than to have 10 categories of John Doe in 2020, John Doe in 2021 or John Doe wearing a yellow hat looking west). But now they are created I agree with TheImaCow that it might be better to keep them untill better categories are created. --MGA73 (talk) 18:04, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

At Commons:Bots/Requests/Gzen92Bot-6 there is now a discussion if the user should be trust to allow more uploads without categorization or cleanup of the current mess.
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 10:46, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

@Adamant1, Enhancing999, TheImaCow, Prototyperspective, and MGA73: the millions of files in Gallica will not be able to be categorized automatically (default maintenance category). So :

1) Empty the 7,000 categories of Category:Files from Gallica needing categories (images), put the files in Category:Files from Gallica needing categories (images).

2) Continue uploading files to Category:Files from Gallica needing categories (images).

Is that what you need to do? Gzen92 (talk) 09:43, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Instead of 7000 or 50000 categories with strange names will it be possible to make fewer categories and put the files in them? For example 500 categories with more generic names? Putting millions of files in just one category does not sound optimal. --MGA73 (talk) 11:22, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

User:Multichill can you remember where the mapping of images from Geograph was done? I think perhaps a similar method could perhaps work here. --MGA73 (talk) 11:24, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that's an idea. With the author or what is represented. The problem is that it is not structured data, it's text (example author "Atget, Eugène (1857-1927). Photographe" or title "[Eglise] St Sulpice - Buffet d'orgues dessiné par Chalgrin - A été orné de statues de Clodion : [photographie] / [Atget]"), it's complicated. Gzen92 (talk) 12:41, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Some effort is needed to map existing metadata to Commons categories. Professionals at GLAMs should be able to work it out.

Millions of uncategorized files aren't useful. Files dumps should be avoided.
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 08:31, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

The "obtuse" categories group the files by the originating works so they seem to be useful. It should be made sure that they do not interfere with manually curated categories or pages like "special: uncategorized categories" but as long as they stay in their own maintenance system I see no need to mass delete them. More important is to develop rules and a workflow how to proceed with this huge upload. Many of the files are valuable and can be put to good use so a more positive view may be adequate. Does anyone remember Commons:British Library/Mechanical Curator collection ten years ago? I´m not sure whether User:Jheald or User:Pigsonthewing initiated that and they chose a different approach (automated table of contents with a focus on commons workflow and manual upload instead of automated upload) but they may have some advice on the handling of British Library´s french counterpart. I hope they are still around :-) --Rudolph Buch (talk) 10:57, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

While ironing my laundry I thought about it a bit more and have a few suggestions:

• (1) Check if the bot needs these exact category names to avoid double uploads. If yes, we shouldn´t change them for now even though they are strange.
• (2) Make sure that the provenance of the files from Gallica is included by a template in the file descriptions so this information can´t get lost by any recategorization done manually. Same for the uploader information, if Gzen wishes to retain that.
• (3) Allow the manual creation of a set of maintenance subcategories to group Gallica files and cats by country and by object type (e.g. Category:Gallica - Uncategorized buildings in France or Category:Gallica - Uncategorized people of Italy and invite everyone to move (not copy!) all suitable content there. Reason: Anyone can do that kind of rough sorting in a first manual run. For a a finer categorization people with interest and expertise in the specific topic can proceed from there.
• (4) Define how comprehensive an image must be categorized before it can be released from the maintenance categories.
• (5) Create a special Gallica dust bin, e.g. Category:Gallica - files and cats to be deleted, to avoid the complicated nominations for deletion of files and categories that contain have no useful content
• (6) Move all the empty images, backsides of postcards and obsolete categories into the dust bin, but keep and rename all categories that group a series of files like book pages or images from the same artist or style.

--Rudolph Buch (talk) 17:30, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think building a parallel temporary hierarchy for a millions of files is the way to go. If there are issues with mapping meta data to our categories, this should be looked at by specialists.
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 17:36, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

The file name is the Gallica "title", I can truncate it or put only the Gallica identifier (btv...).

I will try to extract all the authors and see how many there are (unique). If there are not too many, I can match them with existing categories.

Otherwise I can use the date to make categories by year or decade.

But with so many files, there will always be a need for better human classification. Gzen92 (talk) 21:40, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

By author, 25,200 cases. About 11,100 complete (example "Dautel, Pierre-Victor (1873-1954 ; sculpteur)") and they must be associated with a category. And very often only family names (example "Dannbach, P"). Gzen92 (talk) 10:27, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

By date, 4,387 uniques (there are intervals, example "1840-1860"), 563 if I take the first year. With about 1,200,000 images, 2,000 files on average by categories. Gzen92 (talk) 10:50, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I'm also against mass-deletions of actual content. However, Gzen92, my suggestion here is to (regrettably: manually) make a list of images that you want to upload as just one single file, without the reverse, like for example in the current Category:(Paris, hôtel de Châtillon) Profil du corps de logis et des pavillons sur la rue (profil de la cour d'honneur du côté droit, second projet) - (dessin) - btv1b6937302q. The architectural drawing is certainly of interest for Commons, the flipside is not. A bit less than half the categories you create, just have these "2-file cases". If you don't upload the reverse/flipside in the first place, there is also no need to create a category (which will have to get deleted eventually, when interested users process the images). These single-images can then be placed directly in Category:Files from Gallica needing categories (images). Best regards. --Enyavar (talk) 06:41, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello. Problem of the reverse side: the description is common to all the images of an id, there is no indication "reverse side". 458,000 id so 458,000 BnF pages to go see and choose the photos, it is not possible.

I propose:

Subcategory by year in Category:Files from Gallica needing categories (images), for example Category:Files from Gallica needing categories (images of 1880).

No category for 2 files because often reverse sides (category with 3 or more files).

At the end of the import, I will manually browse the categories by year to visually identify the reverse sides and move them to a "trash" folder. Gzen92 (talk) 07:23, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Photo challenge September results

Accessibility: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Fare gates at Stevens MRT station in Singapore, including a wider gate for priority users	Wheelchair ramp, Confey Railway Station, Ireland.	Wheelchair racer during Paralympic Games 2024
Author	S5A-0043	Leimanbhradain	Ibex73
Score	9	9	8

Roofs: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Altstadt Meißen, Dach Des Hauses Markt 3.	Workers re-doing the artistic roof line on a thatched cottage	Holzschindeldach des Frohnauer Hammer (Sachsen)
Author	Kora27	Cbuske46	YvoBentele
Score	19	18	8

Congratulations to S5A-0043, Leimanbhradain, Ibex73, Kora27, Cbuske46 and YvoBentele. -- Jarekt (talk) 15:09, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

How do you nominate .djvu pages for deletion?

Currently i cannot find any way to link to individual pages. Only the .djvu file as a whole can be linked --Trade (talk) 17:16, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Then, a suggestion: nominate the whole file and name the pages who you deem problematic. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 17:35, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Inflation calculator template

Can we migrate wikipedia:en:Template:Inflation and the subtemplates to Commons and Wikisource? We host news articles that have money values that have no context until adjusted into today's dollars. When I read that something was $100 in 1900, I have no idea if that is a lot or a little. RAN (talk) 20:32, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Charts built with OECD Data

Hello,

I have created an updated version of this chart: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tax_revenue_as_a_percentage_of_GDP_(1985-2014).png It depicts data from OECD Data Explorer.

According to https://www.oecd.org/en/about/oecd-open-by-default-policy.html this data - which was published before before 1 July 2024 - is "generally available for commercial and non-commercial purposes on terms similar to CC BY 4.0."

The Terms & Conditions linked state:

You must give appropriate credit to the OECD by using the citation associated with the relevant Data, or, if no specific citation is available, you must cite the source information using the following format: OECD (year), (dataset name),(data source) DOI or URL (accessed on (date)). When sharing or licensing work created using the Data, you agree to include the same acknowledgment requirement in any sub-licenses that you grant, along with the requirement that any further sub-licensees do the same.

How would i correctly label this work in the upload wizard? It contains the work of others (the data by OECD), but it is not licensed under one of the free licenses (only a "similar" one).

Is it enough to label the data as licensed under a free license, publish under CC BY 4.0 and add a source in the summary? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aryezz (talk • contribs) 11:34, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Is it enough to label the data as licensed under a free license, publish under CC BY 4.0 and add a source in the summary? I think the answer is yes.

Moreover, I'd be interested in whether one is required to use data that is explicitly PD/CCBY for charts – I think one could also use other data for the creation of datagraphics as long as the image is CCBY (eg due to being self-made). Prototyperspective (talk) 18:47, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

@Aryezz, yes, as Prototyperspective says, data by itself is not copyrightable. As long as only the data and not its original presentation, format, style or literal wording are used, data can be taken even from completely non-free sources (let's say, for example, Encyclopædia Britannica). MGeog2022 (talk) 14:35, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

You must give appropriate credit to the OECD

By this, they are meaning that you should mention OECD as the origin of the data. Even if they try to place additional restritions on the usage of publicly availble data, I doubt it can have any legal validity. For example, if in a non-freely licensed publication you say that country X has a population of 1 million, you can't restrict third parties from using that information in any way they want, even if you try to put those kind of restrictions in a written form. I believe the only exception to this would be confidential information. MGeog2022 (talk) 14:41, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Issues with interwiki

Should Category:4th-century people of France and Category:4th-century Frankish people be linked to each other? Trade (talk) 19:32, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

You can always use a hat note to explain the relationship, rather than go through Wikidata to say that they represent exactly the same concept. - Jmabel ! talk 20:11, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

I dont know much about the history of France Trade (talk) 23:10, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

I do think the issue of having "-century people of" categories for countries that didn't exist until several centuries later is an issue that we need to take a look at Trade (talk) 23:15, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Everybody knows w:Charlemagne had a Belgian passport, not a French one ;)
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 11:17, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Remove irremovable parent categories from the categories

I want to remove some irremovable parent categories that are useless from the following categories:

Category:Young people in Cuba, Category:In Cuba, and Category:Children in North America from Category:Children in Cuba

Category:Society in Cuba from Category:People in Cuba

Category:People of Cuba by stage of development from Category:Children of Cuba

Category:75-6895 (aircraft) from Category:F-104S Starfighter

Category:Teaching by country of location, Category:Teaching in South America and Category:Teaching of Venezuela from Category:Teaching in Venezuela

Category:Telugu-language writers from Category:Translators to Telugu

Category:United States House of Representatives elections in New York (state), 2016 from Category:2016 United States House of Representatives election maps of New York (state)

Category:Volcanism of the Czech Republic from Category:Volcanology of the Czech Republic

I talked about the similar problem in Category talk:Children in Cuba. I hope you help me. Also, tell me how to remove seemingly irremovable categories with no hassle. OperationSakura6144 (talk) 04:28, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

• Not what you are asking but: why exactly would you want to remove Category:Young people in Cuba as a parent category of Category:Children in Cuba, or Category:United States House of Representatives elections in New York (state), 2016 from Category:2016 United States House of Representatives election maps of New York (state)? Offhand, both of these seem correct.- Jmabel ! talk 05:53, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
• All of these seem to be driven by templates. You'd have to take it up with the people who edited the templates. - Jmabel ! talk 05:56, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

  But, how can I do it? I don't know if templates have to do with it. If so, how to know if that's the case and solve the underlying problems of irremovable parent categories? OperationSakura6144 (talk) 06:01, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

  Comment out the template in the wikitext editor, click Preview, and see if it removes the cat. If it does, you can ask on that template's talk page. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:40, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

  I successfully removed the parent categories Category:People of Cuba by stage of development from Category:Children of Cuba, Category:Society in Cuba from Category:People in Cuba, and Category:F-104S Starfighter from Category:75-6895 (aircraft) (sorry for the swap, by the way). I also removed the mentioned unnecessary parent categories from Category:Children in Cuba successfully, but I accidentally replaced Category:Young people in Cuba with Young people of Cuba which is now a new problem to me. I want User:Joshbaumgartner in the topic to discuss about it and the main problem. OperationSakura6144 (talk) 11:06, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Cisgender

I could take this to a CfD, but I think this needs more attention than that typically gets. Starting (I believe) 2024-10-12, Web-julio introduced several categories such as Category:Cisgender people, Category:Cisgender women, and Category:Cisgender men. Given what a high percentage of humans are cisgendered, this strikes me as a very ill-conceived direction to go, like having a category for "four-limbed British admirals" or "songs with less than 12 verses". I think this should be turned back before we find ourselves extending this to well over 95% of our content that involves humans.

I ran across this when Web-julio recently added Category:Cisgender women as a parent of Category:Cecilia Augspurger.

As I've said many times: the purpose of categorization is not an abstract exercise in ontology. It is to help people find appropriate media. - Jmabel ! talk 20:23, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

• I agree, stick to the simplest term. --RAN (talk) 20:35, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

 Delete these categories. modern_primat ^{ඞඞඞ ----TALK} 20:58, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

 Delete per nom. This user's behaviour with regards to categories warrants a closer look in general. He has created over 500 categories in the last 5 days, almost all pertaining to very specific or overly-broad categories about sex and gender, Pokémon, including the genders of Pokémon. ReneeWrites (talk) 23:26, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

 Keep, if there's Category:Male humans by eye color, including the ones that are the populational majority, then so should cisgender. Also, if they are not categorized with these categories, they loose gender categories as they are that way on Wikidata. See this listeria list. Web-julio (talk) 23:28, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Also, I do have criteria for cisgender inclusion. Not every non-trans person self-identifies as cisgender, and if reliable sources exist for people specifically identifying as cisgender, they should be respected. Web-julio (talk) 23:29, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

 Question Is this only about the categories mentioned, not subcategories or potential categories? For example, Another Believer suggested a cisgender drag performers category in English Wikipedia. Maddy Morphosis' biography talks about the performer being a cisgender heterosexual man, so in some cases it's a defining characteristic. Web-julio (talk) 00:58, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Delete per nom. No one eye color is not on >99% of population. MBH 02:07, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Nor gender modalities. Web-julio (talk) 02:19, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

@Web-julio: I strongly urge you not to continue editing in this direction while this discussion plays out. So far, literally everyone else who has weighed in here disagrees with you, and there is a very strong chance you are editing against a general consensus. - Jmabel ! talk 02:10, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

But did I? I didn't add anyone else on cisgender categories after this discussion started. And they had few subcats anyways. Web-julio (talk) 02:12, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

@Web-julio: I didn't say you did, but your comments here seem to be dismissive of what others are saying, so I considered it best to warn you not to walk out on the thin ice. - Jmabel ! talk 05:48, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel Well, when you commented I was arguing alone, I didn't reply to anyone else except nominator. Actually, I replied and after that that it showed Renee's comment, the modern_primat's comment is just a !vote. No one argued against my comments specifically, the one being dismissed is me. Anyways, let me address ReneeWrites' comment: she criticized my category creation in general, including Pokémon-related categories, which I expanded on. almost all pertaining to very specific or overly-broad categories tells a lot that I don't have a pattern, because in fact all categories are either specific or broad, so I guess this is good or indifferent. While for including the genders of Pokémon, Wikidata is even more hyperspecific (thanks OmegaFallon), I didn't even create categories for gender ratios (such as 12.5% male, 87.5% female gender ratio (Q116752968) and 75% male, 25% female gender ratio (Q116752957)). However, is it my contributions in general that are being discussed or Cis people's categories specifically? So that I know what I'm defending. Web-julio (talk) 06:07, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

I can't vouch for what Renee is criticizing, but my issue is about the "cisgender" categories. I think my initial comment above is perfectly clear, so I don't see any need to elaborate. - Jmabel ! talk 06:17, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

You have an issue, but didn't argue. When I was just explaining why I created, yet you had an issue with my explanation too. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Web-julio (talk) 18:57, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

One of your inclusions was an 18th century Spanish religious servant for the Catholic Church. I really wanna know where that self-identification came from Trade (talk) 16:39, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

From Wikidata. Had you looked at the list I linked? Web-julio (talk) 00:49, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

 Delete These are both not defining and also not helpful for actually finding media, plus they will inevitably result in all kinds of weird nonsense with users having pet theories about how a certain ancient Roman orator may have had whatever gender tendencies and other bizarre retroactive fiction. Categorizing by various other gender identities is sensible and useful (and itself fraught enough), but it's actually probably more rare for someone to make "being cisgender" a core part of that person's public persona than being transgender is. The whole exercise is probably well-intentioned in its outset, but deeply flawed in implementation and users should definitely seek consensus or discussion before even attempting such a radical overhaul of the categorization system. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:30, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

 Delete Trying to duplicate the Wikidata database in Commons categories is always a bad idea. Categories are for the most important links everything else is a task for Wikidata and Wikipedia. GPSLeo (talk) 07:58, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

 Delete per nom; I just think the emphasis should be on "exercise" in the last paragraph of the explanation and GPSLeo's comment could also be meant and/or understood in imo flawed ways: duplicating it entirely or indiscriminately is a problem but at the same time duplicating it redundantly by hand is also an issue due to which some (not all) properties/data should be synced somehow (such as Category:Free software programmed in C++ which could readily be populated via WD data and vice versa). Prototyperspective (talk) 11:39, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Minimum number of edits for license reviewers

Hi, Please see the discussion I started on Commons talk:License review#Minimum number of edits for license reviewers. Thanks, Yann (talk) 18:48, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

There is also still an open discussion on whether license reviewers should be able to assign LR rights at Commons talk:License review/Requests#Suggestion: Remove assigning of LR rights by LR Abzeronow (talk) 21:12, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Deletions by Android app users

I'm not a Commons habitué and I do not use the Android app. While browsing the recent deletion requests, I found a comment and was curious. "Test or nonsense request by another Android app user who could not resist". Is the Android app that easy to misuse? Does that mean there is an increased chance of unwarranted deletions, and has it been reported to the app developers? --Pkoroau (talk) 20:10, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I intentionally use to use always the same text, so this search shows 142 hits. Unfortunately there is no way to prevent such deletion requests by our abuse filters. --Achim55 (talk) 20:38, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

There is not a lot of chance of an admin deleting a file based on a request with no sane rationale. - Jmabel ! talk 23:05, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Audio files made by Flame, not lame

The audios made by this user are detected as being made by a (now) nonexistent user Flame because of the comma in her username. Rodrigo5260 (talk) 03:24, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Flame, not lame.

Example File:LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-all-out.wav.

@Rodrigo5260: Not sure what you mean be "detected". Are you talking about the wrong "recorder" credit, or is there more to this? - Jmabel ! talk 03:40, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that, and that forces me to edit it manually, which takes a lot of time. Rodrigo5260 (talk) 03:41, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel forgot this. Rodrigo5260 (talk) 04:20, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

So presumably a problem somewhere in Template:Lingua Libre record. User:0x010C who started that seems to be more or less gone. @Lucas Werkmeister: any thoughts on this, or on who might need to be brought into the discussion? - Jmabel ! talk 05:06, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

I don’t understand the problem yet. The speaker and recorder are both "User:Flame, not lame", right? And the author link goes to User:Flame, not lame, which is an existing user (redlink notwithstanding). Is the problem just that the link text is given as "Flame" instead of "Flame, not lame"? Lucas Werkmeister (talk) 19:13, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it is. Rodrigo5260 (talk) 02:12, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

I think it's standard wikitext behaviour.

[[Commons:Bla, bla|]]

is converted to

Bla

So it's a bug in the lingualibre upload tool.
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 12:17, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, the file’s source wikitext says | author = [[User:Flame, not lame|Flame]], so the template is rendering that link faithfully. If it’s true that the Lingua Libre uploader is relying on the pipe trick, then it should be changed to not do that (and just remove the User: prefix from the link text explicitly). Lucas Werkmeister (talk) 16:08, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Maybe for the time being it would be fine for a bot to add the ", not lame" part (and fix any typoed version I may have left behind). Rodrigo5260 (talk) 03:57, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

File:Marx+Family and Engels.jpg

The current version of the photo is obviously a mirror inversion, because Engels' frock coat is buttoned on the female side, and the Milanese buttonhole on Marx's jacket is on the right side, while should be on the left. What needs to be done to flip it back? --Romano1981 (talk) 12:04, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

@Romano1981: Normally, you mark these with {{Flopped}}; I believe a bot then takes care of it. - Jmabel ! talk 17:38, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

It seems to me that the bot decided not to come. Romano1981 (talk) 04:20, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

 Done. --Achim55 (talk) 07:35, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Reminder: Invitation to the upcoming Commons Community Calls -- November 21, 2024

Hello everyone! The Wikimedia Foundation will be hosting a series of community calls to help prioritize support efforts from Wikimedia Foundation for the 2025-2026 Fiscal Year.

The purpose of these calls is to support community members in hearing more from one another - across uploaders, moderators, GLAM enthusiasts, tool and bot makers, etc. - about the future of Commons. There is so much to discuss about the general direction of the project, and we hope that people from different perspectives can think through some of the tradeoffs that will shape Commons going forward.

Our first call will focus on Content Organization. It will take place at two different time slots:

•  The first one will be on November 21, at 08:00 UTC, and it will be hosted by Senior Director of Product Management Runa Bhattacharjee; you can join us on Zoom;
•  The second one will be on November 21, at 16:00 UTC, and it will be hosted by Chief Product & Technology Officer Selena Deckelmann; you can join us on Zoom.

If you cannot attend the meeting, you are invited to express your point of view at any time you want on the Commons community calls talk page. We will also post the notes of the meeting on the project page, to give the possibility to read what was discussed also to those who couldn’t attend it.

These calls are important to shape the way Wikimedia Foundation will be giving attention to Wikimedia Commons in the upcoming years, so please have your say!

If you want, you are invited to share this invitation with all the people you think might be interested in this call.

We hope to see you and/or read you very soon! Sannita (WMF) (talk) 10:55, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Tram types and tram doors in Poland

The Polish tram type Category:Konstal 105Na is usualy equipped with Category:Tram inward slide doors. The later modernisations (Category:Konstal 105Na modernizations) mostly have other types of doors. I started classifying all the subcategories in Category:Konstal 105Na by city with the door types. To simplify things I removed the category links to Konstal 105Na for the modernized versions (Konstal 105N... and Protram ...), if the door type is not was not: inward slide doors. (nearly always in Category:Tram swerve-swing doors)Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:46, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

This system was working until I arrived at Category:Konstal 105Na in Wrocław. There are different door types:

• 
  swerve-swing
• 
  inward slide
• 
  swerve-swing
• 
  likely swerve-swing
• 
  inward slide

This is a major difference in the tram characteristics. It could be a modernisation wich is not classified or an misclassification. Can some Polish tram expert shed some ligth on this?Smiley.toerist (talk) 13:10, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

(I'm using an automatic translator, so I apologize for the style) It is as you write. Old trams 105N (105Na) have "inward slide" doors (although I would call them "opening inwards") and 4 doors per car. Newer ones after modernizations and various 105Na clones - outward-sliding ("swerve-swing"; I once came across the name "Atwood system doors") and 3 doors per car. There were also such modifications – "accordion doors" – File:Konstal 111N, -342, Tramwaje Śląskie (15939536112).jpg. More modern trams in Poland usually have swing-sliding doors. Grzexs (talk) 07:56, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the name is not ideal, but I follow this source Bus Door (1) Inward Gliding (Rig and Animation) for the naming. Many train door systems have a gliding element to it. This door system has a sliding rail along the dooropening even as folding doors. One part of the door leaf is attachched to it. Only slam doors and swerve-swing door have no gliding system. If there is a sourced better name we can use it. I am against inventing names in the Commons or Wikipedia.Smiley.toerist (talk) 00:01, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Something's wrong here. The doors in the old 105N don't have a sliding rail. The rail is fixed, inverted U-shaped. Inside, the pins with bearings slide. The bearing has a vertical axis and a large clearance, and sometimes it hits one side of rail, sometimes the other. That's how it works. • How to call door systems in English, don't ask 😸. In my native language there are problems with this. • I've seen the animation, but it doesn't explain what the drive element is. In the 105N, it's the 90° rotating shafts or tubes on the edges of the door. It seems that there may be door mechanisms driven by moving the pins I wrote about earlier, e.g. using chains, but I haven't seen any. Grzexs (talk) 19:13, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

See: Rename proposal for Rail vehicle inward slide doors and Tram inward slide doors further on.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:57, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

PS:I have decided to classify the pictures individualy for Wrocław.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:24, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Fixing Category:People in the 18th century by country

Category:People in the 18th century by country lists a lot of 19th-century categories - probably because of an error in automatically generated entries in the subcategories. Perhaps someone who knows how to fix this (I´m sorry I don´t) could have a look at it. Thanks, Rudolph Buch (talk) 23:43, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

@Rudolph Buch: This edit is typical of what you need to do to fix these: [4]. If you need the word "the" before the country name, it is like [5]. Looks like there are similarly a bunch of 20th-century categories in Category:People in the 19th century by country. - Jmabel ! talk 01:55, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

I'll add some documentation to Template:PeopleCenturybyCountry. - Jmabel ! talk 01:56, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. I fixed all countries in the 18th century and will see if I can motivate me to do the 19th century as well some day. A very boring task :-( Rudolph Buch (talk) 16:54, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

abuse filter 142

Special:AbuseFilter/142 "is a" seems to be a rather normal and common occurrence, which shouldnt be included in the filter? RoyZuo (talk) 16:16, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

+1 - Jmabel ! talk 00:42, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Sign up for the language community meeting on November 29th, 16:00 UTC

Hello everyone,

The next language community meeting is coming up next week, on November 29th, at 16:00 UTC (Zonestamp! For your timezone <https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1732896000>). If you're interested in joining, you can sign up on this wiki page: <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Language_and_Product_Localization/Community_meetings#29_November_2024>.

This participant-driven meeting will be organized by the Wikimedia Foundation’s Language Product Localization team and the Language Diversity Hub. There will be presentations on topics like developing language keyboards, the creation of the Moore Wikipedia, and the language support track at Wiki Indaba. We will also have members from the Wayuunaiki community joining us to share their experiences with the Incubator and as a new community within our movement. This meeting will have a Spanish interpretation.

Looking forward to seeing you at the language community meeting! Cheers, Srishti 19:53, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Should date of digitisation be retained?

File:The Wishing Chair (13735481134).jpg

analog photo Date: c.1888

Date and time of data generation 09:03, 20 March 2014

in this case, is it necessary to retain 2014 in the date parameter of the info template? and in sdc? RoyZuo (talk) 21:45, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

No, as this is misleading and irrelevant. The technical data (scan date) remains available. The scan can be replaced by another scan if need be. There is in principle to scan as early as posible as time deterioration affects al analog material. It can be partialy compensaded with a better scan. I have slides wich are discouloured or have other defects growing in time.Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:31, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Rename proposal for Rail vehicle inward slide doors and Tram inward slide doors

Using this source https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-different-types-of-train-doors.194447/, where Twin-leaf inward pivoting doors is used, I propose Rail vehicle inward pivoting doors and Tram inward pivoting doors for Category:Rail vehicle inward slide doors and Category:Tram inward slide doors. Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:54, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

 Done for bus, tram and train.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:51, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Naming of people in historical photographs

Student organizers during the 1989 Czechoslovakia Velvet Revolution. The placard in the background reads in English "We need very badly .."

The picture on the right was taken by me 35 years ago in Prague during a public uprising against the then communist government. I asked to photograph the organizers and was led up to this room in a building at Charles University.

I have a credible report that the woman in the middle is called Monika and I also have her surname. I am currently trying to get in contact with her.

Given my information is accurate, what is the protocol for recording such information on Wikimedia? Can such metadata be made public under certain circumstances? Can it be stored non‑publicly on Wikimedia for the historical record and made available only to accredited researchers?

Is there Wikimedia policy on these questions? For example, does inferred consent to publish include inferred consent to name? I suppose these kind of issues crop up regularly on genealogy websites?

TIA, RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 09:02, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Does Commons:Photographs of identifiable people answer your questions? Alexpl (talk) 09:31, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. That page on identifiable people provides context and boundaries and also covers any associated information (metadata if you like) made public or withheld on the basis of subjects' rights. My first response is to seek explicit consent when naming subjects. But my related question remains: is Wikimedia able to store such information privately? Or does that idea run counter to the concept of Wikipedia? RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 16:09, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

We are technically capable of storing information in a manner where only admins or higher can see it (add it, immediately [soft-]delete the version, possibly note the date at which it could be made public by undeletion), but we don't have anything else that is visible to some without being visible to all. - Jmabel ! talk 00:41, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel: many thanks as always! RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 07:26, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

I have now decided that Wikimedia is not the appropriate place for this kind of background information which should remain private. My solution in this special case is to deposit the material with the National Archives of the Czech Republic and then submit any names and related details to them. The National Archives are in a much better position to retain and control access to this kind of private information than Wikimedia. My thanks to those who responded to my query. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 13:23, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Preposition, the, proper noun

Where may i find authoritative explanation about whether "the" should be used between a preposition and a proper noun, e.g. "from (the?) Bank of England", "of (the?) European Union"...?

many cat titles have this format of "preposition+proper noun". i wanna know once and for all whether i should use "the". RoyZuo (talk) 13:15, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

There is no definitive answer to this. It's different for different proper nouns, and for some it isn't even clear one way or the other. In the two cases you've given, I'd expect "the" but (for example):

• "of the United States"
• "of France"
• normal before Ukrainian independence "of the Ukraine"; normal now, because requested by the independent Ukrainian government "of Ukraine"
• (referring to the former Canal Zone in Panama) "of the Canal Zone"
• in New York City, "of the Bronx" or "of Bronx County", but never the other way around

Plus, the matter is complicated by what used to be called "telegraphic style", a term that has faded along with the telegraph but remains commons as a style of writing headlines, and which allows that in a short phrase you can leave out "the" for compactness. Category names are a lot like headlines, and I've definitely seen users go this way; I've probably even done it myself. - Jmabel ! talk 20:51, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Thx. I asked this question to decide on my preferred format for subcats of Category:Media by source. I decided to go without "the" in cases where it seems optional. To me a non native speaker, "media from Bank of England", "media of European Union" sound ok. There're also many things that sound odd with "the", e.g. website domain, foreign organisation names, acronyms (NASA, APEC, OECD...). RoyZuo (talk) 07:50, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

"The" ("the definitive article") is definitely required in each of the cases you have cited. To a native speaker, any of them, without it, sound clumsy. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:45, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Andy that both of those in quotes sound more natural with "the". Agree about website domains, but the other two vary with no real pattern I can see: the KGB, the FBI, the CIA; NASA, NOAA. Most foreign-language acronyms or initialisms take "the"; the only exception I can think of offhand is ONCE but I bet there are others. [Slightly later thought: a few other acronyms (not mere initialisms) from Spanish: {{w|FINCA International|FINCA]], for example. But the rule isn't just "acronym vs. initialism": the Template:Institutional Revolutionary Party, always treated as a proper acronym. - Jmabel ! talk 22:56, 23 November 2024 (UTC)] Foreign-named organization names also vary: Médecins Sans Frontières, La Croix-Rouge (or translate as "the French Red Cross"), Alliance française (which can probably go either with or without a "the"), the Goethe-Institut.

It is really no more rational than (for example) the gender of German nouns. You just have to trust a native speaker to tell you if you have it wrong. - Jmabel ! talk 22:50, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

dvidshub tool or trick

for example https://www.dvidshub.net/image/8066972/vp-16-concludes-operations-papua-new-guinea there's an option to log in and download, but i'm reluctant to do so.

is https://d1ldvf68ux039x.cloudfront.net/thumbs/photos/2310/8066972/1000w_q95.jpg the highest resolution version? if not, can the url be constructed based on the catalog number?

is there a tool for dvidshub files? RoyZuo (talk) 17:55, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

@RoyZuo You do have to log in for the original resolution. The original resolution URLs contain required unique keys, so you won't be able to reconstruct them. I'm not aware of a tool or script for importing DVIDS files, I usually do a lot of manual copy-pasting into {{Milim}}. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 18:20, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

If consensus is clear, I suggest dropping a note on the admin noticeboard. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

If you have a nice subset of images, User:Don-vip might be able to help you out. Multichill (talk) 22:02, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi @RoyZuo, I've launched an import of pictures taken in Papua New Guinea, let me know if this is what you are interested in. vip (talk) 23:38, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

@Don-vip thx for the effort. sorry to tell you, that was just a random example i found on its main page. i was just curious about whether a tool or trick exists.

beware of Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Papua New Guinea. :) RoyZuo (talk) 23:42, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Ok :) The trick is to use the API. I use it in my bot. vip (talk) 00:48, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Interesting article on a photog who allows use of his work, free, under a CC licence

http://priceonomics.com/how-a-college-student-used-creative-commons-to/

-- Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:51, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Ah Gage Skidmore, good man. Weird to see a comment who complains that someone offers his(!) images for free. As it would be illegal to decide about his own copyright. No economic sector will work and exist forever, and demanding money for digital files might be a thing of the past sooner than many think. Anyway, people who make things differently and better than the mainstream will paint the appearance of the future, and so he is part of it :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 17:07, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

The same could be said about some presidential photographers who widely distribute their work for free across the internet.

If you look at pictures of politicians from before the internet, you will frequently see the same photos, generally not that great, but taken by a professional photographers. Maybe it's just that politicians aren't elected for their looks.

Some photographers (with or without support of WMDE) once did photo sessions in a German regional parliament. I think that was actually a worthwhile exercise, even though I'm not interested in German politics.
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 21:06, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, WMDE had a project for photo sessions in newly elected state parliaments. Different to the US congress, German paliaments have no tradition of "official photographs" that would by in the public domain automatically. (The project sadly died when the paid project manager was fired because of using it for a shady side business.) Anyway it seems easier to convince the politicians to publish their portraits under a free licence (i.e. make their own photographers release it). Some parties even started to do that, but it seems to me that this is on the decline, as politicians want to retain copyright as a means against unwanted use of their images. Rudolph Buch (talk) 23:40, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Ignoring edit requests

On 14 July 2024 I made an edit request for the Main page which is probably watched by many users including many admins. After a long time it has been partly implemented but now the wikilink is broken and my requests to fully implement it so that the wikilink works is being ignored as is the edit request by another user to fix another broken wikilink.

My edit request to fix this broken wikilink (especially problematic on mobile) has been ignored since 3 September 2024 which means it's approaching 3 months of no reply or implementation. The other user's edit request has been ignored since 29 September 2024 (UTC).

Please do something about it. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:34, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

I already got used to this. MediaWiki_talk:Gadget-GoogleImagesTineye.js#c-El_Grafo-20221118160700-El_Grafo-20220915091000 received community approval 2 years ago but is still waiting for ui admin.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&limit=100&offset=0&ns0=1&ns1=1&ns2=1&ns3=1&ns4=1&ns5=1&ns6=1&ns7=1&ns8=1&ns9=1&ns10=1&ns11=1&ns12=1&ns13=1&ns15=1&ns100=1&ns101=1&ns102=1&ns103=1&ns104=1&ns105=1&ns106=1&ns107=1&ns460=1&ns461=1&ns486=1&ns487=1&ns828=1&ns829=1&ns1198=1&ns1199=1&search=deepcategory%3A%22Commons_protected_edit_requests%22&sort=last_edit_desc around 70 requests waiting. RoyZuo (talk) 12:07, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Interesting link. Most (maybe all?) of those other edit requests are for pages/templates that are seen far less often. I think bugs on the very frontpage should be fixed quickly rather than edit requests be ignored for ca ½ year as it gets so many views. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:38, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I think an edit request on the Main page is not comparable to any of the other edit requests there. This is the most-viewed page and it should not contain broken wikilinks and edit requests asking to get these fixed be addressed. Could somebody maybe an admin clarify why this is still not getting done? As far as I understand it any admin could implement that at any time and the requests have been there for months. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:50, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

@Prototyperspective: Perhaps if you would indicate here what you want done rather than just say "a link is broken" and provide a search that does not immediately explain (at least to me) what link is broken, it is more likely someone would follow up. - Jmabel ! talk 18:19, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Okay. The request is on the talk page and quite clear. I'll also put it here – it's relatively simple:

• replacing |Content=Content with |Content={{visible anchor|Content}} so that the link to #Content works (especially important on mobile)
• another user requested that the broken link https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Wikifunctions:Main_Page/en is replaced with a functional link; for example https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Wikifunctions:Main_Page

Prototyperspective (talk) 18:26, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

@Prototyperspective: I believe I've properly dealt with your "content" anchor. The other is somewhere via Template:Sisterprojects, but I don't rapidly see what file needs to be edited. - Jmabel ! talk 22:18, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, so this is solved now. I do have other edit requests for the Main page though and I guess I'll file them separately at some point and they aren't as urgent. I don't rapidly see what file needs to be edited. this is also helpful, the source of the broken link seems to be at {{Sisterprojects layout}}. Prototyperspective (talk) 10:26, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 10:26, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Where to offer help with photos in Stockholm?

Hi, I live in Stockholm and enjoy photographing interesting subjects. If anyone has any requests for anything that needs a photo on Commons I'll gladly upload it. Is there anywhere on Commons where I can advertize this free service for the project for people to add requests?StarTrekker (talk) 08:46, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi @StarTrekker, Commons:File requests is the starting point for this, officially speaking. Whether it gets enough attention to be useful is another question... One thing mentioned there and which could be relevant to you is the tool/list described at en:User:Flominator/Find Nearest Photographer. --HyperGaruda (talk) 10:01, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

With WikiShootMe you can look for Wikidata items they are missing photos. GPSLeo (talk) 11:34, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you @HyperGaruda and @GPSLeo.StarTrekker (talk) 18:22, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

• Also, I see that individual Wikipedia often have photo requests, so you might check on English and Swedish Wikipedias as well. Cheers, -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 19:47, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

The German Wikipedia too, a good point of contact for your purpose would be Fragen zur Wikipedia ("Questions about Wikipedia", serving a similar purpose to the local Village pump). English can be used, of course. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 20:00, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

In particular, en:Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Sweden would definitely be of interest. Felix QW (talk) 20:09, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you all for your advice!StarTrekker (talk) 16:39, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Seeking approval for batch cat moves

To move all "Panoramic views of/in <location>" to "Panoramas of <location>" https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Category:intitle:%22Panoramic+views%22+-hastemplate:category_redirect . "Panoramic views..." will be kept as redirects. 700+ cats affected.

reason: the cat tree is established under cat:Panoramas. see also Commons:Categories for discussion/2018/02/Category:Panoramics. RoyZuo (talk) 20:55, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm okay with that. What are your thoughts on the mix between the use of "Panoramas" and "Panoramics"? I think if the entire category tree is getting an overhaul, it's a good idea to straighten out all the other inconsistencies too. ReneeWrites (talk) 15:45, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

With regard to your (ReneeWrites) specific question: I need to find / develop a bot to do the cat moves. Right now I dont have much time for this, but I've marked this on my list for 2 years now.

"Panoramic views" doesnt need the new tech i mentioned above. SteinsplitterBot can do them anytime now.--RoyZuo (talk) 18:45, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Standardizing categories for films

Hi, Please see my proposal here: Commons:Village pump/Proposals#Standardizing categories for films. Thanks, Yann (talk) 16:50, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Category:Signed books

We don't seem to have a Category:Signed books or any equivalent. Is it there and I'm just not finding it? We have Category:Signed objects. - Jmabel ! talk 00:03, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Lokalbahn Linz

There seems to have been a Lokalbahn station in Linz. However I cant find a trace of it in Category:Linz Hauptbahnhof. The Linzer Lokalbahn has a separate electrification at 750 V DC, not the 15kV AC at the main station. So it would be logical that the Linzer Lokalbahn had a separate line and station. Only later where the Linzer Lokalbahn trains adapted for 15kV AC. Aother question is wich traintype is in the picture. Its looks like Westwaggon, but I am not certain.

• 
• 
• 
• 

--Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:11, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

This is the former Lokalbahn station in Coulinstraße: File:Ex LiLo-Bhf Linz.jpg. It has been demolished, today you will find "LUX tower" at this place (https://www.pih.at/portfolio/lux-tower/). German article de:Linzer Lokalbahn says that Lokalbahn has been stopping at main station since 18 November 2005 (after it had been rebuilt for 24 Mio €). --тнояsтеn ⇔ 15:37, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I created: Category:Lokalbahn bahnhof Linz. Maybe not the correct local name.

I found more about the train: https://www.bahnbilder.de/bild/oesterreich~unternehmen~lilo-linzer-lokalbahn/916066/et-22141-der-linzer-lokalbahn-ex.html

Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:48, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Moved to Category:Lokalbahnhof Linz --тнояsтеn ⇔ 17:22, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

• 
• 
• 

The precise location is a bit unclear as the tram seems to go beneath the building. The rail tracks would probably to the rigth.Smiley.toerist (talk) 13:19, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

In front of the old main station building. See for example File:USIS - Hauptbahnhof Linz 1.jpg. Should be somewhere around here. --тнояsтеn ⇔ 13:51, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Similar perspective: File:Linz-esg-sl-b-hauptbahnhof-573967.jpg
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 23:04, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

audios made by User:Flame, not lame (again)

Something else I noticed about her audios is that thay don't have all the structured data a regular Lingua Libre audio has (especially the ID unique to every audio made with that page). Rodrigo5260 (talk) 16:39, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Media of the day, new look

Using Template:Monthly archive table Template:Monthly calendar I made a new layout for com:motd, primarily to improve mobile user experience. The old one greets users with the TOC (oldest year 2009 on top), which is a big chunk of text, before the actual motd snippets of the month.

1 more thing i have in mind is missing though. currently users can tap the TOC and jump to a certain day, but then they have to scroll all the way back to reach the TOC. i will add a button so that users can jump back from day snippet to the top.

What do you think of the new layout?--RoyZuo (talk) 17:22, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Moving inclines

How do we call this?

Personaly I always find it takes to long, certainly when people are only standing still.Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:58, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I doubt we have a category. I call it a "ramp escalator," but I'm not sure how standard that is. - Jmabel ! talk 23:03, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Category:Moving ramps? Rudolph Buch (talk) 23:55, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Flag of France

Moved from Commons:Administrators' noticeboard

Hi. France had changed its flag since 2020. However, the names of the files are incorrect, making the flag cannot be updated in all wiki pages. I suggest moving File:Flag of France.svg to File:Flag of France (1976-2020).svg while moving File:Flag of France (1794–1815, 1830–1974, 2020–present).svg to File:Flag of France.svg. These should be moved at same time to prevent the change by the bot. Пусть от победы☆к победе ведёт! 10:26, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

 Done —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 12:25, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

(note: moved to [6] instead) —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 12:32, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

@Matrix: have you checked this RfC? M.Bitton (talk) 11:41, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

@M.Bitton: There's precedent to move files to new names when the flag is updated, e.g. File:Flag of Kyrgyzstan.svg, File:Flag of Mauritania.svg, File:Flag of Malawi.svg, File:Air Force Ensign of India.svg etc. The discussion (not RfC) you linked also has 5 1/2 agree votes vs 3 oppose votes, and 5.5 > 3 so seems like a rough consensus to me. —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 19:57, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

@Matrix: my bad for linking to the discussion when I actually meant the RfC that the discussion was based on. I didn't know that there was such a rule as "precedent" on Commons, but since there is one, we might as well make full use of it and change the colours of the flag according to this official source (which would make it closer to the one that was replaced). Please let me know what you think. M.Bitton (talk) 02:31, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

@M.Bitton: You seem to have misunderstood the source you linked. It looks to be defining a colour palette for French government websites rather than talking about the flag. Indeed there is no mention of a flag on the page. Pinging @Jean-Frédéric and Christian Ferrer: who can verify this as French speakers. A good source that agrees the current version is the official Ggvernment flag is Britannica.

Also, about your point "I didn't know that there was such a rule as "precedent" on Commons", what I mean is that usually flags are moved to new names when updated, so it wouldn't make sense to not do it in this scenario. RfCs at enwiki don't really affect Commons, also noting that enwiki decided to upload their own locally hosted file for the French flag. Even if we ignore precedent, the Commons discussion you linked has 5.5 people who want to have the new flag under this file name, and 3 people against. This is similar to consensus found at Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2024/06#Renaming of File:Air Force Ensign of India (2023).svg. —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 17:25, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

@Matrix: it's true that those colours are not specifically about the flag, but being part of the symbols of the French republic, they are the closest thing we have to the official colours of the flag (French blue, white and Marian red), which is also shown here (and described as the flag). Most of those who supported the change where in fact supporting what they perceived as the official flag, whose precise colours were/are unknown. M.Bitton (talk) 17:57, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

@M.Bitton: The current file is at least close to the official/default flag, per [7] and other sources. The other flag is an alternate official flag. Whilst the exact shades of dark can be debated due to varying digital interpretations, it's clear the URL here has shades that are definitely not close to the current official flag's shades. —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 18:49, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

@Matrix: since the other sources don't mention the exact colours, all we're left with is guesswork (depending on the light, the camera angle, etc). The flag that is used on the government website is as official as it can get and in line with the official colours. M.Bitton (talk) 18:57, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

@M.Bitton: moving this to village pump rather than AN FYI. —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 18:59, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it's guesswork to say the colours here are very much lighter than those displayed on the background here. This is clearly a variant of the non-default official flag than the current default one. —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 19:02, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I personally don't see the point in guessing the colours when we have the official ones. Also, Britannica (cited above) hasn't changed the flag since at least 2020. M.Bitton (talk) 19:06, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Fair point about Britannica. I still think that whilst we don't have official colours, we know the new flag has a dark navy blue shade, which is not shown on the government website. Again, the government website link is just a colour scheme, presumably because the navy blue would clash with black elements. —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 19:18, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

It's more than a simple colour scheme, it's part of the symbols of the French Republic. They also have a flag on their website that uses the same colours.

For what it's worth, they also look similar to what is displayed on the background here (photo from 2024). M.Bitton (talk) 19:22, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

@M.Bitton: I think this is just a product of having two official flags. The lighter shade only seems to be used to match the EU shade of blue, but in most other circumstances the darker shade is perferred. I checked this with Google Images. —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 18:24, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

• * Comment I was pinged above as a french speaker, 1/ actually the French Flag is definited by the 2nd article of the French Constitution "L'emblème national est le drapeau tricolore, bleu, blanc, rouge.", litteraly traduced by "The national emblem is the tricolor flag, blue, white, red". Neither more nor less. The French Constitution is above all the other "common" laws, decrees, orders, circulars, ect... of the country, and 2/ it is also therefore of course above this page which is a graphic charter for government communication and public action. That don't mean that this charter is not relevant, it just mean that it can change tomorrow, next year or never. Now, if you ask me if we must update our French Flags here, or create new ones, or renames them... clearly I don't know. Hopes I helped. [this is a copy of my comment in the Adm. noticeboard] Christian Ferrer ^(talk) 21:44, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Invitation to the upcoming Commons Community Calls -- December 12, 2024

Hello everyone! The Wikimedia Foundation will be hosting the second round of a series of community calls to help prioritize support efforts from Wikimedia Foundation for the 2025-2026 Fiscal Year.

The purpose of these calls is to support community members in hearing more from one another - across uploaders, moderators, GLAM enthusiasts, tool and bot makers, etc. - about the future of Commons. There is so much to discuss about the general direction of the project, and we hope that people from different perspectives can think through some of the tradeoffs that will shape Commons going forward.

Our second call will focus on new media and new contributors. More specifically the questions will be:

1. There are periodic requests from the community for more support to contribute and edit audio and video files. At the same time, the community seems to be struggling under the current weight of uncategorized images and various patrolling backlogs. Does the community have the capacity to respond to substantially increased uploads of this media?
2. What is the right level of friction for new content uploads? Should we prioritize support for easier contribution or continue to introduce friction that reduces moderator burden?

The call will take place at two different time slots:

•  The first one will be on December 12, at 08:00 UTC, and it will be hosted on Zoom by Senior Director of Product Management Runa Bhattacharjee; you can subscribe to it on Meta;
•  The second one will be on December 12, at 16:00 UTC, and it will be hosted on Zoom by Chief Product & Technology Officer Selena Deckelmann; you can subscribe to it on Meta.

If you cannot attend the meeting, you are invited to express your point of view at any time you want on the Commons community calls talk page. We will also post the notes of the meeting on the project page, to give the possibility to read what was discussed also to those who couldn’t attend it.

If you want, you are invited to share this invitation with all the people you think might be interested in this call.

We hope to see you and/or read you very soon! Sannita (WMF) (talk) 10:00, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Broken upload?

A new user has uploaded an image, which can be seen at:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cc/R._I._Pocock.jpg

but there is no image at File:R. I. Pocock.jpg. What happened, and how can it be fixed? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:36, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

It is here: en:File:R. I. Pocock.jpg --тнояsтеn ⇔ 20:55, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you - now, why didn't I think of that? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:45, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Tmbox improvments

Hello, so I wanted to share some proposed changes to Tmbox that would harmonise it with mbox. This would be useful when we decide to migrate Mbox to Module:Message box. Due to the unfortunate way templatestlyes works, I can't show changes side-by-side, but here's the changes with old Tmbox and my version. With the old version, there is quite a bad contrast with mbox since one has an inline border but one doesn't, which is especially noticed on talk pages, but my version fixes that. Also, it synchronises the colours with mbox with design tokens. —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 19:17, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

For me this looks fine but with this I would also change all colors to use the codex colors. GPSLeo (talk) 10:52, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I did, however some of the border colours can't be codex since codex doesn't have a good equivalent. See Module:Message box/sandbox/tmbox.css. —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 12:04, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Defective old files

What to do with defective files like Special:Redirect/page/22745428? it was surely once used, but it's not used anymore and maybe became defective because of svg code incompatibility? RoyZuo (talk) 16:36, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Keep it as an archive. It's the vector source for File:Guangzhou west.png and File:Guangzhou east.png, so if anyone ever wants to update those, they'll need this file. It's not actually defective either. It's not rendering properly on Commons, but it was never meant to in the first place. El Grafo (talk) 11:17, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

But it doesnt render well in firefox or chrome either? RoyZuo (talk) 12:51, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

 Done The file should render correctly now. ReneeWrites (talk) 23:02, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

@ReneeWrites thx for fixing! is there a template to mark these SVG? i found more. RoyZuo (talk) 09:27, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

@RoyZuo: I couldn't find a template like that, so I made {{BrokenSVG}}. ReneeWrites (talk) 12:42, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

@ReneeWrites thx a lot! I just found out that it's possible to use {{Broken file|filetype=SVG}} which puts files in Category:SVG files with errors. RoyZuo (talk) 18:54, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Odd categorisation by user

I'm not sure where to report it, but my watchlist is flooded by a user who obsessively moves photographs I took from normal categories, then removes these categories, and then tags these categories as "Unuseful empty categories" (another example here). They tend to have a very idiosyncratic way of organising and I wanted to ask in the village pump regarding a different matter, but I just find this behaviour quite weird. As far as I know, I follow the same category system as already existed at the Wikimedia Commons and nobody had any issue with it until I photographed parts of Rotterdam, which this person seems to see as "his city" or something. Emptying categories like this seems like a form of vandalism. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 18:13, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

The original issue I wanted to bring up was their odd categorisation where they ascribe their own definitions to the boundaries of neighbourhoods, despite official sources disagreeing and when I pointed this out they just appealed to Wikipedia as authority, despite Wikipedia not even backing up what they claimed. Though I still wanted to bring this up at a later point as I'm both too busy IRL and with other projects for these kinds of unproductive drama, so I'll discuss that in detail when I'll nominate the category for a CfD. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 18:17, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

@Donald Trung: Hi, Did you talk to this user? Yann (talk) 18:19, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Yann, I've tried in the past but they rarely respond and often seem hostile. A recent example is here where they claim that the name they chose is "gangbare taalgebruik" (how people call it) despite the website of the government of Rotterdam itself disagreeing with these terms being synonymous and they claiming that Wikipedia is correct, but the map Wikipedia uses doesn't even mark it under the same name and the website of the municipality notes that it's only a part of it. But that isn't the issue, the issue is them removing categories simply because they don't want my works to show up in any of the main categories. This is odd, imagine if someone would remove all categories of a work you published and simply replace it with "photographs by Yann" which would normally even be a hidden category. I've just never seen a user act like this. -- — Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 18:26, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Another example, this category had dozens of files before it was nominated as "The given reason is: CSD C2 (unuseful empty category)". The files weren't placed in any other sign categories, just completely removed. This category itself had a number of sub-categories, all emptied and tagged as "Unuseful empty categories". --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 18:33, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

@Donald Trung: As I recall our contact started on a fair and friendly base, yet I was (and I am) critical towards your work , see here. -- Mdd (talk) 16:30, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I requested Mdd to come here to discuss this. Yann (talk) 18:43, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Screenshot of Category Delfshaven 27 nov 2024 at 19.45

Thanks for sharing your concern. I uploaded a screenshot of the current state of the Category Delfshaven. I brought it back to the basics to start expanding it again on lower levels. -- Mdd (talk) 18:54, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Mdd, and how are signs, for example, not a good category for Delfshaven? Why are street signs in Delfshaven not a sub+category of street signs in Rotterdam? — Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 18:56, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Also, I fail to see how "Symbols of Delfshaven" fits into "Views of Delfshaven". Symbols of a place are an important top level category as it includes things like coats of arms, emblems, logos, Etc. while a "view" sounds more like a photograph. -- Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 19:10, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

 Comment I reverted some speedy deletion requests by Mdd. Such issues require a discussion, and cannot be speedy deleted. Yann (talk) 19:38, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough. I can restore the content of those categories (and list those categories in a separate Category Objects in Delfshaven like I did before in the Category Kleiwegkwartier) if there are no objections. Then a fair assessment can be made. Even more, I might supplement those content with some new works (yet to be made/or uploaded) and then most discussion might not be needed (yet). -- Mdd (talk) 15:19, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

@Mdd: Please stop replacing topical categories such as Category:Bus stop signs in Delfshaven with user categories you created on behalf of the user such as Category:Photographs in Delfshaven in 2023 by Donald Trung.

when creating users categories, please ensure the user is ok with that. Also, don't mix them with topical categories.
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 09:35, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

 Comment To add to this, user categories are treated as separate from mainspace categories. So files in Category:Photographs in Delfshaven in 2023 by Donald Trung should still be in Category:2023 in Delfshaven - this is not considered overcategorization. And like Enhancing999 said, user categories shouldn't be mixed with mainspace categories, Category:Photographs in Delfshaven in 2023 by Donald Trung isn't a subcat of Category:2023 in Delfshaven, see COM:USERCAT for a more detailed explanation. ReneeWrites (talk) 16:43, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Thx @Enhancing999: , yet I didn't replaces the Category:Bus stop signs in Delfshaven. I just removed its content ( and now just offered to restore that situation) What I did was moving one part of Category:2023 in Delfshaven to the subcat Category:Photographs in Delfshaven in 2023 by Donald Trung, which is indeed meant in this way as a service to all audiences. People can see the contributions of Donald Trung that year and can get a clear overview of other contributions.

So I disagree with your addition turning the sub-category into a user-category, and would like to have this restored (as ReneeWrites also suggest if I am not mistaken). In this matter I agree with Donald Trung initial statement that this is an odd/other way of categorizing. I can explain, but will leave it with this fo now. -- Mdd (talk) 15:41, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

My main issue is with the fact that you essentially try to "hide" these works under non-topical categories, you seem to be under the impression that this is some sort of "art project", but I was inspired to take photographs of "the mundane" and "the every day" after I read a number of local history books while I was volunteering at an elderly care facility, those books often contain images of old signs, old infrastructure, streets, Etc. Most photographs I see at the Wikimedia Commons tend to be of already well-known art or monuments, sometimes WikiPhotographers would go to a village, take the same pictures of the same church or windmill everyone else has already photographed while ignoring all the things people deem "too mundane". I believe that it is precisely these "mundane" things that have more educational and historical value than monuments that are largely unchanged for decades or centuries and will remain largely unchanged for decades or centuries. This isn't a "genre" of photography and I doubt someone looking for "old" (from a future perspective) street name signs or manhole covers would be interested in shops or vice versa as being somehow something special. In fact, in case of outdoor electrical enclosures many are being replaced as we speak / write and can already be considered "an obsolete / a historical" version. As for your criticism of the quality, I use a smartphone and I can't always get the best lighting, but plenty of newspapers from all over the world have found my works good enough to be included in them, yet the last time you criticised me for providing works that "aren't used as much on Wikipedia", the Wikimedia Commons is more than just Wikipedia, plenty of images of mine I've seen in local newspapers, the NL Times, or DutchNews.com wouldn't necessarily be used for Wikipedia, educational works have more use cases than just an online encyclopedia. The topical category system helps people find what they want or need, "works by a specific photographer in a specific location" isn't as handy of a category to use. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 17:19, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Another thing I noticed is that people often miss areas of monuments they photograph, like angles, and I often take a horizontal and vertical picture because those have separate use cases, for example when people make vertical videos on on-line services like Instagram and TikTok, or small columns in a newspaper, while horizontal works are a better fit for example videos on Google's YouTube or books. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 17:23, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

I think there is a slight misunderstanding. User categories are categories specific to Commons users, and the category you created for Donald Trung's photography is a user category. These categories aren't treated the same way "Photographs by photographer"-subcats are treated for non-Commons users. ReneeWrites (talk) 18:07, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Here is a diff for my comment about replacing topical categories with user categories: [8].
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 12:15, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

@ReneeWrites indeed I think I misunderstood your comment. I beg the difference. To make my self more clear I have made an demonstration by creating the Category:Photographs in Rotterdam in 2024 by Marcel Douwe Dekker. This is also not a user-category, but just subcategory. I will proceed... -- Mdd (talk) 18:31, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

In this particular matter the person, the photographer Marcel Douwe Dekker, is just the same as the person, the photographer Donald Trung. There is an artist who just died, Q.S. Serafijn... which wasn't its real name. There ar tons of authors publishing under a fancy name... etc., etc. This is all the same. -- Mdd (talk) 18:36, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Usercats can utilize both a person's username or real name (see COM:USERCAT), but they're still usercats. The categories you created for yourself are usercats, as well. ReneeWrites (talk) 18:48, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

@Yann: Sorry for bothering you about this, but I think it would be helpful if someone more knowledgeable on Commons policy could take a closer look at the situation. The issue is user categories and whether these categories (for Mdd & Donald Trung) are considered user categories, or not. ReneeWrites (talk) 21:08, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, these are user categories. I added {{Hiddencat}} to both of them. Yann (talk) 10:58, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Do note that user categories are already hidden. For user categories, {{Hiddencat}} really just adds a note saying that they are hidden. - Jmabel ! talk 17:29, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

The general approach by Mdd to categorize images by year rather than by topic within Category:Rotterdam is also not helpful.

Replacing actual topical subcategories with year or date subcategories should be a no go.

To fix this mess, one could readd to the main category all images that haven only been added in subcategories by date/user/photographer/collection/etc.
 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 12:23, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

There are now CfDs on two aspects:

• Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/12/Category:Photographs by Donald Trung in Rotterdam
• Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/12/Category:Categories initiated by User:Mdd

 ∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 17:39, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Category:Snow tires vs. Category:Winter tires

Is it the same and should be merged? To me (and my dictionary) both expressions are synonyms. Or if there are differences, they should be defined/explained. And the categories should be somehow linked or in the same category tree. --тнояsтеn ⇔ 18:04, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Btw, the wikipedia article en:Snow tire does not differentiate: "Snow tires, also known as winter tires, ..." --тнояsтеn ⇔ 19:04, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

 Comment I think those two categories can be regarded as same.

This site mentions to the topic, but I still don't know what the difference is in the end. In any case, they can be merged as the categories are not so bloated that they need to be differentiated. --Tmv (talk) 10:45, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

 Support merging the two. ReneeWrites (talk) 23:36, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Merge. Even if there is a subtle distinction in how some people use the term, having future uploaders obey that distinction is hopeless. - Jmabel ! talk 01:13, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Template:DeepcatSearch

Template:DeepcatSearch i made this template (reusing idea behind MediaWiki:Gadget-DeepcatSearch.js) which can be added to cat pages to give links for everyone to quickly preview files scattered across all subcats, so now not only registered users using the gadget but every single visitor of the website can have this functionality. you can see a demo at Category:Kylie Minogue by year. RoyZuo (talk) 11:57, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Good idea, looks great! It's important to note that it currently doesn't yet work for all categories, see phab:T376440 including the comment with 3 ideas for how users could be enabled to configure what is / is not shown & how many levels it should scan.

I'm not sure if that second button "Preview all files (detail)" is useful however, the page it leads to looks old and outdated and the info shown is not really useful (in your example it's This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. You are free: to share and the filetitle; it may be better to enable users to see the filetitle in the MediaSearch…maybe even a toggle-type button to see filetitle & first x chars of file description in the MediaSearch wall of images).

Furthermore, I don't know how the files are sorted on the results page (Relevance) and here are several proposals for improving the sorting. Lastly, I think it would be better if this was some sort of integrated functionality rather than a manually added template (e.g. because there's so many categories) and maybe the category search box could be added along with it or get integrated into this template (see an example for that at Category:Our World in Data). Prototyperspective (talk) 12:54, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

1 template does 1 thing.

for a jumbo tool, i also made Template:Category helper putting everything i like together.

it could possibly be integrated with {{Metacat}} so that it gets automatically transcluded to all cat pages with "PAGESINCATEGORY:categoryname|subcats"<256. all the "xx by yy" cats are what needs this feature the most.

before wmf takes on development of these much needed functionalities, we can only survive on these little hacks, lol. RoyZuo (talk) 14:03, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Okay. Adding it to a widely used template like Metacat may be a good idea but many of the relevant cats don't have it. Still I don't think the second link is useful rather than very-rarely-useful bloat that often confuses users.

Another issue is that by default it opens the image tab but this may also be useful for video categories and cats with mixed contents etc so I think these two things would be very useful: 1. a way to see or tab for 'all media' in MediaSearch 2. a parameter to specify which mediatype to open for this template when the user clicks "Preview all images" (currently it opens the image tab). Both of these would also be useful for the category-searchbox as it could then use the better newer MediaSearch. See phab:T378756; also asked about it here. Prototyperspective (talk) 21:10, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, I dont think it's possible to build interactive templates that can allow users to pick filters and then generate a corresponding link. such things have to be built with js. on one hand i dont have the knowledge; on the other it's not sure a gadget would definitely be enabled for all website visitors. I'm motivated to make these little tools to save my own time clicking/typing, and just happy that they can also help some users along the way. RoyZuo (talk) 19:18, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure which part of my comment you were addressing. In the searchbox template for example it's specified that the file namespace is searched. In the same way one would specify which media-type is searched when clicking the button so that when adding it to category Videos of xyz the Video tab is opened instead of the image one. The phab issue is probably about a code change. I did not write about a gadget so I don't know what you were referring to there. Prototyperspective (talk) 19:56, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

I tried adding it to Category:Logging in Washington (state) by county and it doesn't seem to work usefully there. (On the other hand, it worked fine on Category:Pike Place Market by decade). - Jmabel ! talk 02:46, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

What's the issue with the first cat? It seems to work fine and seems to show all images. Prototyperspective (talk) 09:52, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Ah, working now. It wasn't (said there were no images). - Jmabel ! talk 18:22, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Seems like the subcategories were added just recently to the cat: it always takes a while like a day or so until deepcategory shows newly added files or subcategories. Prototyperspective (talk) 18:33, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

New calendar templates

I made 2 new templates Template:Monthly archive table Template:Monthly calendar which can be customised to automatically make calendar-like tables of contents. Monthly archive table is partly inspired by https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Village_pump_archives&oldid=908053133 .

I hope these templates are more mobile friendly than text based TOC, which often is not auto adjusted to page width. The TOC should also be new on top and old on bottom, since more recent archives are more relevant for current users.

You can see their effect on com:motd (as long as the new design is kept).--RoyZuo (talk) 17:22, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Nice work ! Thank you for doing this. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:32, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Agree, nice work! SirlupinwatsonIII (talk) 01:09, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

iOS Commons app is no more

Dear ALL it seems that since few days ago (independent) iOS Commons app Wiki Uploader is no more (has not been maintained since a while, but now gone from Apple's App Store).

As F/L/OSS advocate I am always favoring open hardware/software/services/standards (understand communal preference to focus on Android as platform), but this is second time that we do not have any mobile app for iPhone (in the time when iPhone is literary celebrated by professionals for its lens quality and software).

Is there a way to do something about cross-plaform portability of the Commons App code so that iOS can have at least basic app supported by WMF or establish a minimal support for indy developers to have one maintained in sustainable way?

--Zblace (talk) 16:52, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

There is a current wish at m:Community Wishlist/Wishes/IOS Commons App that you could support. Commander Keane (talk) 21:26, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

@Commander Keane how exactly can I support it? It does not look like and active process. Zblace (talk) 15:45, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

As a former app developer (and one of the developers working on the first versions of mobile Wikipedia)... Cross platform development is not really a golden ticket. Or rather.. that is what the web is for.

If you want a cross platform app, there are some solutions, but it should not be underestimated how much time you will still have to spend working on very platform specific things, that now have to fit into a multiplatform straightjacket.

What you are seeing here is the cost of quality. Development (esp mobile) is expensive. And the few very good floss mobile apps you see, are essentially built on the backs of a lot of available time and dedication by singular very skilled developers. These are the exceptions, most apps lack either the time, the skill or the interest of people. The point here being, that i would not focus on the technology too much. The right people tend to be a bigger differentiator here (or money, but that isn't going to happen). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:28, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

@TheDJ not sure I understand your arguments. We had several unofficial but non-terrible iOS apps for Commons photo uploads, but it seems none were given any support in any way. Zblace (talk) 15:48, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

The best solution might be to make file uploading an add-on for the official Wikipedia app. GPSLeo (talk) 17:22, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

@Zblace I will reply down here if you don't mind. Regarding supporting the wish, I would recommend adding a {{Support}} to the talk page and a comment on why you think it is important. I am pretty sure the WMF looks at activity on the wishlist. Commander Keane (talk) 21:53, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

@Commander Keane really? Is there an example of wishlist item being taken on based on this (sorry if I sound cynical but historically it was not the case AFAIK) Zblace (talk) 11:00, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

@GPSLeo easy to agree to extend Wikipedia app with photo upload, but I kind of doubt that will be done unless there is huge preassure from contributing and developer communities to extend the app in that direction. Zblace (talk) 10:58, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

@Zblace, perhaps adding {{Support}} for the wish was a bit misleading (WMF employees don't want that action for some unknown reason) but still I think the wishlist is the main way to get attention for an iOS app, with adding a love token on Phabricator and directly approaching WMF board members the only other ways I can think of. Anecdotally I have noticed a WMF product manager participating, hence my assumption that the WMF is watching the wishlist. Take a look at the status column at m:Community Wishlist Survey 2022/Results to see examples of wishes from a previous year that were taken on. Dark mode would be another example of something implemented. Having said all that I am also cynical about the situation, but you can only try and stranger things have happened. Commander Keane (talk) 05:30, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Tracked in GitHub
commons-app/apps-android-commons/issues/5828

Agree with what you said Keane. As for adding things to the Wikipedia app (which has an iOS version) I don't know if it's feasible to make the WP app extendable – one could install a plugin for iOS Commons features or even Commons to the much better known more popular iOS-compatible Wikipedia app (but it would require a lot of development to match the Commons app functionality so I think it's probably easier to convert the app to iOS which may be readily possible with some effort despite that it's not been developed with some cross-platform framework with which it would have been very easy.) Prototyperspective (talk) 11:45, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Heya, I cannot answering your question about cross-platform portability of the Android App. But regarding the topic of an iOS Commons App in general, I am currently developing a new native iOS app for Commons, to make uploads and search/explore images and categories. It will be open source and licensed under A FOSS license. There is currently no public test version though, but I plan to have a first semi-public test version around March, 2025. Nylki (talk) 15:30, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

That sounds great! Would be good to get let people at Commons:Mobile app know then so any interested devs if there are any can help out with it as soon as possible when the code is public. Prototyperspective (talk) 18:36, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Already done :) Nylki (talk) 19:24, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Tmbox improvments

Hello, so I wanted to share some proposed changes to Tmbox that would harmonise it with mbox. This would be useful when we decide to migrate Mbox to Module:Message box. Due to the unfortunate way templatestlyes works, I can't show changes side-by-side, but here's the changes with old Tmbox and my version. With the old version, there is quite a bad contrast with mbox since one has an inline border but one doesn't, which is especially noticed on talk pages, but my version fixes that. Also, it synchronises the colours with mbox with design tokens. —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 19:17, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

For me this looks fine but with this I would also change all colors to use the codex colors. GPSLeo (talk) 10:52, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I did, however some of the border colours can't be codex since codex doesn't have a good equivalent. See Module:Message box/sandbox/tmbox.css. —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 12:04, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

@Acroterion: Why did you unarchive this section?   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 06:21, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I must have misclicked. Acroterion (talk) 14:52, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

@Matrix you should test with text, so that their look in dark mode can be checked.

is Category:Wikipedia message box parameter needs fixing related to your tests? RoyZuo (talk) 21:36, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

@RoyZuo: I tested above with dark mode. The category should have been Category:Message box parameter needs fixing, thanks for pointing that out, they should update in a few hours. —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 21:41, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Also that category is supposed to be a maintenance category. For example Template:Categorise/layout was using "type=diffuse" which caused errors. —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 21:45, 12 December 2024 (UTC)