Commons:Village pump

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Village pump
Welcome to the Village pump

This Wikimedia Commons page is used for discussions of the operations, technical issues, and policies of Wikimedia Commons. For old discussions, see the Archive. Recent sections with no replies for 7 days may be archived.

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Contents


[edit] July 7

[edit] Commonwealth of Massachusetts works

How do we treat images taken from Commonwealth of Massachusetts websites? They state that: All of the material posted on the Commonwealth's Websites and accessible to the public without use of an authenticating and authorizing mechanism (such as a "PIN" or password) is public record. Most of the public record posted on Commonwealth Websites can be copied and used for any purpose. <...> please be advised that Mass.Gov makes use of materials (including, but not limited to, photographs) in which third parties hold the copyright, which also cannot be copied or used for use other than "fair use" without permission of the copyright owner. If you want to make use other than "fair use" of any copyrighted information on this Web site, you must seek permission directly from the copyright owner.

There is File:BarbaraLItalien.jpg in Category:Media without a license as of 19 May 2010. It is from Mass.gov, but author of the photo is not given. Should we presume it to be a Commonwealth of Massachusetts work and therefore PD or it may be a work of a third party and thus it's better to delete it until more info about the file is provided? Btw, I failed to find any specific PD-template concerning Commonwealth of Massachusetts works. --Blacklake (talk) 09:52, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd say that the text from the website that you reproduced above is adequate as a release of material not protected by a password into the public domain, except for material the copyright of which is held by a third party and not the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As regards "File:BarbaraLItalien.jpg", I note that it is a photograph of a Massachusetts State Representative, so the copyright in it was likely to be held by the Commonwealth, which has released the photograph into the public domain. It seems unlikely that this is a photograph the copyright of which is held by a third party. I'd say leaving it in the Commons is all right. A new template for material from Mass.gov may have to be created. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 10:03, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
I feel that better to file a normal DR in this case. The permission is quite ambiguous. Trycatch (talk) 13:09, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
Dunno, that does feel pretty explicit to me. "use for any purpose" seems fairly straightforward. Seems to be exactly what {{Copyrighted free use}} says. In general "public record" is not even close to the same thing as "public domain" in a copyright sense (public records can be from multiple authors, and may not allow commercial use or derivative works) but that does seem to be giving copyright statement on Massachusetts-owned works appearing on that website. Clarifications always help, but the license statement above seems to be absolutely aware of what copyright entails. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:23, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Is there something that would officially prove me being a Wikimedia Commons contributor?

Hello.

My question may seem strange at first but is there something official like an id card, a sticker etc. that I could use to prove me being a Wikimedia Commons contributor?

This would very helpful since when a person makes a lot of pictures in an area that is not attractive to tourists (read: construction zones for example) people start to get uneasy and sometimes ask to stop (even though there's no real danger to either them or their "face"). In such situations it would be very helpful if I could prove that I am a Wikimedia Commons contributor.

This would also prove handy during large scale events with a lot of people as it would potentially allow me a better spot for making pictures as my work would be later made free for everyone to use.

Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 23:40, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

May be you can create one yourself. Use the Wikimedia Commons logo and the data you can obtain from "edit count" of your contributions. That gives Username, User ID, Registration date and Total editcount. Wouter (talk) 06:18, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Quite some time ago, there has been talks about accredited Commons photographers (Commons:Accreditation). No idea if something really happened. --Foroa (talk) 06:47, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
While I could create one myself it wouldn't really carry any weight becausei8t would not be official. You see anyone can create an id card which "proves" that his with the XYZ organization even if such an organization doesn't exist or if his not really a part of it.
About the Commons:Accreditation: I've read about and there's a discussion there from more than two years ago where one of the users says and I quote: "The Commons as a WMF project is not a legal entity of any kind; the Commons is not an organization in itself, and it could not issue accreditations."
Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 11:31, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
You could get in touch with your local Wikimedia chapter (for example Wikimedia Polska). They might be able to help. Pruneautalk 07:17, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, I will look into it. For now I guess I'll just have to rely on words alone.
Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 11:31, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
n:en:Wikinews:Accreditation policy. Not Commons, but at least 'official' and should work for your intended use. --Slomox (talk) 18:58, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] July 22

[edit] Category guidance - Something OF else / Something BY else

Hi everyone. Recently, I placed a list of renames on the Delinker which I considered perfectly uncontroversial (these category move requests - which were then removed from the list).

I pointed out to the person who had removed them that that was standard categorisation policy. We don't use categories like Category:Examplestan people, we use Category:People of Examplestan. The same logic applies pretty much everywhere, and I have myself created and or moved hundreds of categories in this way. So why would we use Category:Example University alumni, when the "correct" way was Category:Alumni of Example University, I asked the editor who had removed my request.

Said editor then pointed out / queried whether we indeed had such a policy. Sadly, we may in fact not. However, this is such a generic rule used in practice, that it seems to me we should, for consistency if nothing else (unless it does exist somewhere after all - often, I find Commons so overwhelmingly hard to use in terms of finding policies or help I KNOW exists).

So do we have such a policy / should we have such a policy / what do others feel about the proposed change and similar changes? Ingolfson (talk) 11:56, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Additionally I mentioned harmonisation of Commons categories with Wikipedia categories, and mass changing of categories away from a existing pattern - changing all of "University alumni" to "Alumni of University" in Category:Alumni by university or college in the United States for example. That change also effects links on Wikipeida to Commons, en:Category:University of Auckland alumni for example. Benchill (talk) 13:03, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
That harmonisation is for en:wikipedia, but can't be done simultaneously for other wikipedias. Don't say it's an english shortlooking idea about commons. To avoid that on other wikipedias one gets lost, one should keep the old name as redirect to the harmonised name, shouldn't one? --Havang(nl) (talk) 13:33, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
I would say "Alumni of..." is the Commons way. I would be all for harmonisation with en.wp, but not when it comes to people/group categories. That would involve changing thousands (or tens of thousands) of categories around, not to mention all the links on all the wikis. Not going to happen. Rocket000 (talk) 07:16, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
If en_wiki uses some other form, one should at least keep a corresponding category redirect.  Docu  at 10:08, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Keep? You mean create. These weren't moved from the en.wp names. Anyway, their commonscat links are usually right. Rocket000 (talk) 10:28, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
A couple of days ago a few were moved and the old categories deleted (I'm not sure though in which direction they were moved). If redirects are there, it makes it easier to copy and paste categories from en_wiki when a category for an alumnus/alumna.  Docu  at 10:51, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I think it is pretty useful to keep the redirects, and my understanding is that that happens automatically unless one tells the bot otherwise / unless one deltes the redirect cats later. I seem to get at least somewhat of a feel here that the proposed rename is acceptable (i.e. moving to "Alumni of...") Ingolfson (talk) 21:45, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

There is the proposal Commons:By location category scheme which says "[object] of [Location name]", to avoid the adjectival form for placenames. It has a proposal "In order to maintain a consistent usage of Category names, the English Wiki's designation shall prevail". Also CommonsDelinker says the category redirects need to be created manually, and there is a discussion to change one of the alumni categories back already[1].

I think ideally alumni and faculty categories would use one system both on en:wikipedia and here, I feel it's somewhat counterproductive and problematic when the projects needlessly use different schemes. I understand the category discussions are more extensive on en, and the system used there is primarily [Organisation] [association], except for some British universities. Benchill (talk) 00:17, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

On Commons, almost all categories are <Topic> <Qualifiers> <by criteria>, left to right, small to big (in general). If we have around 500000 new categories per year (one per minute) with decreasing category discussions and renames, it means that we have a relatively sound and coherent system that is understood by most contributors.
We have around 700 sister projects in 272 languages, each with their own standards. What's important on Commons is that we use a consistent (worldwide) naming and that categories are in line with the naming of their parent categories. Considering the parent category name (and the world wide Commons standard on this topic), this naming discussion is closed for me as I have seen no single argument that could possible prevail over the Commons naming habits.
It is true that for now, the en:wikipedia provides the most articles (22 % of total), but Commons has nearly twice as much categories as the en:wikipedia, and should have within 18 to 24 months more categories than they have articles. If it is stated that "English Wiki's designation shall prevail", this is for English vocabulary issues, not for category naming syntax and structure.
Anyway, I would not be surprised to see the en:wikipedia category naming changed one day with its horrible (occasional) right-to-left syntax and not extensible/modular; try for example to extend this one: Category:University of Georgia alumni to Category:University of Georgia (US state), campus Sapelo Island, Marine alumni --Foroa (talk) 14:44, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I should point out that the "University of Georgia alumni" pattern has some advantage, at least with the Category-adding/editing interface in use on our upload form. It allows the user to start typing "University of Georgia" and see what the possible completions are; it doesn't work in the other direction. Powers (talk) 15:44, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
That's correct but is the case for all naming systems: the left to right one or the right to left one, but you have to stick to one system. You can now start typing "Alumni of ..." and see what possible completions are ... --Foroa (talk) 18:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Well, yes, but that's not nearly as useful. In general, when uploading an image, one would expect there to be at least a category for the university, along with a selection of subcategories, among which might be "alumni". With the university name first, that fact would be readily apparent after starting to type, and one could easily select an alternate category. On the other hand, worded with "Alumni" first, one would be tempted to start typing the university name and will not find the alumni category at all (or, if one is familiar with the pattern, one will start typing "Alumni of" and see if the category exists, but if it does not, one must delete the text and try some other prefix that might or might not have a University of Georgia category). Powers (talk) 19:42, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
More concisely, a less-to-more-specific ordering better reflects the way humans think. Powers (talk) 19:44, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
The fix to this would surely be fixing the tool to do substring matches instead of changing our category system.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:08, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I didn't suggest changing the category system. I just pointed out that there is, currently, some advantage to the alternate system. Powers (talk) 12:43, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Uploading to Commons

User:guillom of the Wikimedia Multimedia Usability team has published some results on his blog of the first testing done of the usability of Wikimedia Commons upload process, and the results of the first prototype for the new upload wizard that is currently under development. See also the following movies:

Please contribute your ideas, and you can test the prototype if you want. TheDJ (talk) 20:05, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. As a follow-up, I'd like to add that I'm currently working on a Questions & Answers page to address the most frequently asked questions. Feedback on the prototype is of course welcome, but you will understand that we may not have the resources to answer every comment individually, especially if many are similar. The Q&A page isn't ready yet, so it'll take some time before I can publish it. So, please consider this a "soft launch": we don't want to make a lot of publicity about our prototype yet. If you happen to know about it and you want to share your opinion, that's fine. But we'll officially invite the community later to try it out, when the Q&A page lets us focus on the most useful comments. Thanks, Guillaume Paumier 20:30, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Generally I like it. Some stuff i found:
  • Currently most users can't move any files, and I'm not sure we would want to activate that.
  • I don't really like that temp file thing, as it would also leave us with a lot of unfinished uploads to cleanup.
--DieBuche (talk) 20:54, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
This is typically the kind of thing we're going to fix before releasing the new upload wizard :) About the "temp file thing", these would be automatically deleted after a short period of time (a few hours?) if left incomplete. guillom 21:20, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Ok, great--DieBuche (talk) 22:10, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

There should be a possibility to upload files by giving a url. The roundabout by first downloading to one's own computer is unnecessary extra work when an image is available on line. It would also improve the documentation of such uploads. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 22:38, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

There is, but it's disabled for some reason. The right's called upload_by_url. It's listed on Special:ListGroupRights for admins. Rocket000 (talk) 00:25, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
See bugzilla:20512. —LX (talk, contribs) 11:46, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Interesting, I wouldn't use it though (too use to the current upload page or I just use the basic upload page), I do think it would be a better way for those who don't know the process to well but I find the prototype's page is slower on my ADSL (1500/256) connection. Bidgee (talk) 14:22, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] July 23

[edit] Category:River locks

Today a new category Category:River locks was introduced. I wonder if this is a useful category, as we already have Canal locks and it is not so simple to categorise locks in rivers with a parallel lock canal. Please transfer this item to another discussion forum when appropriate. --Stunteltje (talk) 18:19, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

There is somewhere a place to discuss categories. But this is a simple case which can be dealt with by a move proposal. Could they be fused to a Category:Canal and river locks ? If yes, make a simultaneous move proposal on the two categories to start the discussion there. --Havang(nl) (talk) 18:28, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I have my doubts. Have a look at category:Canal locks and you'll find that it is not so simple to move all these files. One has to rename a hell of a lot of categories that way. --Stunteltje (talk) 19:46, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I think the distinction is useful, but if you want to take this to the right forum it would be Commons:Categories for discussion. - 05:56, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Transferred. --Stunteltje (talk) 06:49, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
.... Here. Multichill (talk) 15:53, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] July 24

[edit] Ending POTD

Due to many people complaining about POTD being either censored or not censored, I hereby propose we do away with it and replace it with images from COM:FK, which I urge you all to contribute to. -mattbuck (Talk) 02:21, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

What about people who are offended by cute animals? Are there any societies that view cats as evil or unclean? lol — Huntster (t @ c) 04:29, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Too much nudity. Rocket000 (talk) 07:23, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
I want featured bunnies! Multichill (talk) 11:57, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
French speakers may see Commons:Chatons remarquables. Jean-Fred (talk) 16:28, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Births/deaths by month

For a short time (June 16 - July 18) the {{Creator}} template categorized categories of artists with births and deaths by month. Example: Category:Ernst Moritz Arndt was sorted into Category:December 1769 births and Category:January 1860 deaths automatically. This was discussed at Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2010Jul#Why are we splitting up births and deaths by month? and the discussion page of the Creator template. There are arguments in favor and against this kind of categorization.
The Creator template was switched back so that most of the categories are empty now. Some people started to use this categorization, created the by month categories and also added some subcategories to them manually, see Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Monthbyyeardeaths. Most categories were not created, see my (intentionally selected) example above. The question here is what to do with this now. Can we dissolve this new categorization scheme of births/deaths by month? --Martin H. (talk) 05:29, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, please delete them. There's no good reason to sort by month. I've never seen a year category even close to having enough members to warrant further categorization, which would be quite a high number given the use of these categories; they're more of informational labels rather than there to aid in finding images. Rocket000 (talk) 07:33, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Such date categorisations are marginal for the Commons role, so let's not make it more complicated (and unreliable and unsearchable) than it is. --Foroa (talk) 08:14, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Nuke them! Multichill (talk) 11:56, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes, delete them, but dont'forget to replace the month cat by the year cat.-- Havang(nl) (talk) 12:04, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Same here. Jean-Fred (talk) 15:19, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Fired up a bot to clean it out. Multichill (talk) 16:36, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Thank God for that! The next step would probably have been a '1 December year births' etc. categorisation (completely isolated from other cats, of course...). ;-) Anatiomaros (talk) 18:34, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks a lot - I wondered how best to request reverting this :) Hekerui (talk) 18:39, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Nuked

I moved all contents to the year births/deaths categories again. The month categories are all deleted and also the two templates. Multichill (talk) 09:34, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] More date categories

Apparently some users have been busy creating all sorts of intersections by date. Most of the subcategories of Category:Countries by month don't seem to be very useful to me. Opinions? Multichill (talk) 20:31, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

They look pretty useless now as Martin H. just nuked most of them. There is a thread about him at Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/User_problems#Martin H. (talk · contribs).
For some reasons, he doesn't want to discuss them at COM:CFD as everybody else would.  Docu  at 20:49, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm sort of a fan of them; what does a place look like in spring, summer, fall and winter, basically?--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:10, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Thanks for the link to Category:Countries by month, I came from Category:Months by country which was a twin, some countries took the one way, some the other. The category tree is removed. Collecting Category:January 2009 in England and Category:January 2005 in England together in Category:January in England with the only purpose of collecting images created in January in England is unnecessary, the topic related categories of Category:January 2009 in England are untouched.
The next category tree requireing a careful view is Category:Images of plants taken on June 21 et al. While for File:Starr 070621-7432 Cortaderia selloana.jpg it is maybe interesting to see how Cortaderia selloana looks in different growing seasons (and then build a topic based categorization tree from species growing seasons to seasons of the year and locations) the day of photo creation is unecessary categorization. There is no topic based relation between June 21 and this plant. --Martin H. (talk) 21:22, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I still can't believe someone thought organizing plant photos by the date they were taken was a good idea. WTF purpose does that serve? Category:Countries by month is a little more sane but still useless (IMO, of course, but I seriously tried to understand the purpose of these... they just seem like some people got carried away with categorizing not stopping to think how it would benefit users. Why would you ever need to look for files this way? There's no relationship. The date is simply metadata.). Organizing by season obviously has its uses, but that's completely different. Rocket000 (talk) 23:21, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
I think that for several trees, it is important to know the position of the moon when the picture is taken. Professional high quality wood harvesters cut only trees if the moon is in a certain position (flow direction of their juices). I think that for most date related categories (and their proliferation), we would better of with some catscan "date range" options instead of multiplying category matrixes. --Foroa (talk) 18:57, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Some are by moon phase, some are by season, some are by some other category - I don't hear any that do something in particular on June 21. Hell, June 21 means vastly different things in Alaska than they do in New Zealand. By specific dates is overkill. Wknight94 talk 19:11, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Right. If these were organized by moon phase that would be different. We are talking about days of any year, which have different moon phases. They also have different seasons depending on the location. "June 21" can contain any moon phase or season (well, at least summer and winter). Rocket000 (talk) 20:56, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

→CFD discussion Rocket000 (talk) 16:56, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Rework of category display by wikimedia

As you can read here, it looks that there is a major rework of the category displays in the pipeline. Category displays that are crippled whenever there are more than 200 items and that have all sorts of sort problems. Maybe it is the moment to ask for additional filtering of the media (to start with): on file extension and potentially some tag based filtering (sound, movie, B&W) and possibly some dates or date ranges. --Foroa (talk) 21:37, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Looks like a lot of sortkey stuff. I'm not convinced that it's that important for Commons.  Docu  at 05:29, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
To me, the basic problem is that category content pagination is global which makes it, in crowded categories, difficult to access a part of the image, gallery or category list; for example, one has no idea if there is a gallery in the category unless paginating through the whole bunch. So they need to reengineer it substantially to solve the problem of separate item type pages. --Foroa (talk) 07:30, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Generally there is just one gallery in a category. Most of the time, a simple fix that would set the sortkey for galleries with "categoryname" = "galleryname" or "categoryname" = "galleryname"+"s" could take care of that.
cattree can take care of categories that combine subcategories and files. Apparently cattree is inefficient for the server side, but if we'd start fixing everything that's inefficient for the user side, we'd never get to this one.
If work is done on sortkey, maybe sorting by date an image was taken could be a category sort key option that is useful for Commons.  Docu  at 09:31, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Check the theory on Category:Rock music groups, which is only beginning seriously, there are certainly more difficult cases. --Foroa (talk) 13:40, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
It just need about 30 new subcategories and it will be fine.  Docu  at 05:08, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Community hall, village hall, town hall categories

Hello, I find some trouble in categorising these. Town hall is from the municipality, even if this is a village. Two things

Category:Community centres? The difficulty with the "town hall" categories is that, depending on the form of municipal government, a "hall" may be a seat of local administration, or an enclosed amenity space, or both - and it's very difficult to tell from even a correctly described image what the precise function(s) is/are. Man vyi (talk) 10:40, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Whether a building is the town hall, in most cases in fr and nl it is evident by its naming (hotel de ville, mairie, raadhuis, gemeentehuis, stadhuis). For those which can not be defined as town halls, Category:Community centres seems a good overall category, with a large range (houses of culture, community halls, memorial halls etc. , I find there the specific cats I needed. Thanks. --Havang(nl) (talk) 11:36, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
A "community center", at least in U.S. parlance, is usually unrelated to local government operations (except perhaps in terms of funding and administration). Perhaps just "town, village, and city halls"? Powers (talk) 14:45, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
The problem we've been grappling with is that many village halls are unrelated to local government operations. Further, there are municipal halls which are not town halls as such, and then there are things like the chitalishte... Man vyi (talk) 17:10, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Indeed, usage varies widely. I think this is an example where "local" categories should be followed. In the countries of Britain, for example, a village hall may or may not be in use for the meetings of the local council and it may (or may not) also be in use as a "community centre" (recreation etc). On the other hand, a community centre is most often not a village hall as such. Town halls are usually used by the town council but will often be used for events and recreation as well and in some cases may no longer be used for day-to-day local government at all, having been superceded by some other, more modern centre. Neither a town hall or a village hall can be classed as "community centres" in the usual meaning of that term in Britain. We have Category:Town halls in Wales which has as one of its parent cats *Municipal buildings in Wales. Category:Village halls in Wales is a sub-cat of *Town halls in Wales but is only in the *Municipal buildings cat because of that: in most cases these village halls are not centres of local government as such. Confusing, perhaps, but without a case by case categorisation requiring research and/or local knowledge I see no alternative. A super-cat as proposed above - 'town, village, and city halls' - could be misleading. Anatiomaros (talk) 18:22, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Indeed, naming the three groups in the title was asking for distinction, nor for merging. Some locally (english) called village halls have there evident place in the town halls category tree. Thanks to above comments, I found that for other locally (english) called village halls the community centers tree is quite apt. But a category tree village halls should at inmternational commons level soon lead to confusion and is not suitable. The term Village hall(s) therefore should be restricted to the local (english) naming of items and categories and those should be as soon as possibly enter either parent cat town halls... or parent cat community halls ... or community centers... --Havang(nl) (talk) 13:31, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
There are such differences in nomenclature, often even within the same country, that en-wiki renamed its article to Seat of local government. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:05, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I'd strongly support a similar renaming here. Man vyi (talk) 20:15, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
So would I. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 20:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I see that Category:Community centres has been created and populated and I'm happy with English/Scottish/Welsh village halls been included in that. They are rather unique institutions but this seems an acceptable compromise as it keeps them out of local government. An exception might be made locally for United States village halls. I see that the 'en' article en:Village hall has the categories *Government buildings and *City and town halls, but whilst that is true for the US it is clearly contradicting their definition of village halls in Britain as given in the article itself ("usually a building within a village which contains at least one large room, usually owned by and run for the benefit of the local community. Such a hall is typically used for a variety of public and private events, such as parish council meetings, sports club functions, local drama productions, dances, jumble sales and private parties") and we should not follow suit. As for *Seats of local government, I agree with you that there is a certain ambiguity but can't think of an alternative that is much of an improvement (*Centres of... could arguably include local government offices etc, not just town or city halls, as would *Local government buildings). Perhaps we have to accept that perfection is not always possible? Anatiomaros (talk) 22:18, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
We already have Category:Municipal buildings which would cover the same very ambiguous ground as *Local government buildings. Man vyi (talk) 05:41, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] July 25

[edit] Funny category of the day: Category:Primates of Poland

Today I discovered rather funny category: Category:Primates of Poland which is not a sub of Category:Primates by country. Rather puzzled I found out that some IP who created it. meant this kind of en:Primate (religion) :) --Jarekt (talk) 04:13, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

This brings to mind a piece I read in the Readers' Digest many years ago. I don't remember the exact details, but it was something along these lines. An environmental group was organizing a conference, and decided to send invitation letters to various bodies in the UK studying primatology. However, the invitation was politely declined by the Primate of England (the Archbishop of York – or perhaps it was the Primate of All England, the Archbishop of Canterbury), his personal assistant writing: "Although His Grace is partial to the occasional banana, the conference is not really within his area of expertise." — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 06:33, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
And similarly, the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church is not a stove. (Compare and contrast: Primus v. Primus). Man vyi (talk) 08:06, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] File:German stamp- Marlene Dietrich crop.PNG

File deletion warning File:German stamp- Marlene Dietrich crop.PNG has been listed at Commons:Deletion requests so that the community can discuss whether it should be kept or not. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry.

If you created this file, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it, such as a copyright issue.
In all cases, please do not take the deletion request personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

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  — Jeff G. ツ 04:14, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Um, this is the village pump... Rocket000 (talk) 11:24, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
I think the user wants others to Comment on the DR. --MGA73 (talk) 15:32, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Image not loading properly

Can someone work out why File:Global tree canopy map NASA.jpg is not showing properly? Only the full size can be seen, not the large thumb on the image page, nor the small thumb in categories or galleries. I tried cropping excess white background but that didn't work. It isn't because it is too large, there are plenty of larger pics which do show properly. - MPF (talk) 10:31, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

"Error creating thumbnail: convert: Insufficient memory (case 4) `/mnt/upload6/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Global_tree_canopy_map_NASA.jpg'." TheDJ (talk) 13:46, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
So can it be solved so the thumbs do show? - MPF (talk) 14:09, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
It could, see Bugzilla:24228  Docu  at 19:05, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Fixed. cropped white, saved as jpg 97 quality using en:GIMP. I guess more quality should work too. --Saibo (Δ) 00:19, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
Excellent, thanks! - MPF (talk) 12:31, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Korean War Veterans Memorial

I've been discussing the status of the Korean War Veterans Memorial with another user on their talk page, and wanted to get wider opinions here on how to handle images of this memorial or parts of this memorial. The best source I have found so far discussing who was responsible for which bits of the memorial is this article (a Washington Post article hosted by the designers of the wall part of the memorial). As a multi-artist work, the "NoUploads" tag was removed (I agree with that removal). From what I can tell from the Washington Post article, and from the court case documented at the article, and from the deletion discussion, pictures of the statues and the wall are off-limits. But I'm not so clear what other photos of the memorial or parts of the memorial are OK or not. What do people here think? Carcharoth (Commons) (talk) 11:23, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Requesting freedom of panorama permissions

I was looking into writing to various people and organisations to get permissions related to images with freedom of panorama concerns. Specifically, I am thinking of writing to artists who had been commissioned to do public installation artworks (or the estate of said artists) as well as private or public organisations that had employed artists to do such work (works-for-hire). I was advised to ask them to use the form letter at Commons:OTRS, but this doesn't seem suited for the purpose. What I want to get across in such letters is the following:

Is it possible to come up with a wording that would satisfy all this, or would this be too much like a new license? Carcharoth (Commons) (talk) 11:40, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Seems a great idea to me. --Havang(nl) (talk) 14:27, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. I'd like some more opinions and some help with actual wording before going ahead. Maybe I should raise it at Commons talk:OTRS, or Commons:WikiProject Permission requests, or Wikipedia:Example requests for permission? Carcharoth (Commons) (talk) 18:25, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Why not, and if the first try doesn't get results, stick patiently to it and repeat your trials till you have a few users to join in to bring your idea in practice. But I do not find myself apt to this, sorry. User:Pieter Kuiper could be one of them, if he survives (see below): it could give him a possibility to take positive action regarding this subject. -- Havang(nl) (talk) 20:47, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion on a ban of User:Pieter Kuiper

Currently there is a discussiuon to ban Pieter Kuiper at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems#Lets end it here. In short the problem is that Pieter in a dispute starts deletion requests regarding (possible) copyvios uploaded by admins. Help us decide if that behavior should be stopped or if it is ok to nominate (possible) copyvios for deletion. --MGA73 (talk) 13:50, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Please excuse the biased tone of that last sentence. Wknight94 talk 13:53, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
..."in a dispute" then :-) --MGA73 (talk) 15:33, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] File:Camouflage DSC05383 - Original image.JPG

Originally posted on en:Talk:File:Camouflage DSC05383 - Original image.JPG by Mister Morris: "Either somebody provide a new version of this image with the alleged frog outlined in red, or I will be forced to call bullshit on this image and request that it be removed. Seriously, this drove me nuts for like 15 minutes. I think that was the intended purpose of this image."

I can't really see it either. Can someone help him out? NW (Talk) 20:23, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

[2] is linked from a blog, that claims to show the frog. I'm still a bit skeptical; is a frog that happens to look a lot like leaves, or is it a bunch of leaves that happens to look a little like a frog?--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:43, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
I looked at this picture and at first I too didn't see it but when I saw the version of the picture with the frog highlighted I looked closely at that spot on the original picture and I think that this is indeed a frog that looks a lot like the leaves surrounding it. You can clearly see its body parts and the shadow it casts on the ground (granted that you look very closely). Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 20:52, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Of course it's a frog, see adjacent images from uploader's Picasa photostream. Trycatch (talk) 20:58, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
I also saw it easily after knowing that she was left to the stick. Just look for her eyes, the legs are also visible.--Darwin (talk) 21:29, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] July 26

[edit] File:Strahman.jpg

Hi, could someone delete this image please. It is a classic and evident grab from the internet. In the source it says it was taken from Olé (Argentine newspaper) but it is then licensed as an own work... Thanks in advance. Regards. User:Fache (feeling lazy to log) 07:14, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Please nominate the image for deletion by clicking on the "Nominate for deletion" link on the left panel of the screen. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 09:37, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] User gallery aint working

Since some days the user gallery shows only one picture:

Message is:

"A database error has occurred Query: SELECT cl_to as cat FROM categorylinks LEFT JOIN u_daniel_cache.commonswiki_nontopics ON namespace = 14 AND title = cl_to where cl_from = 11004585 AND id IS NULL Function: getCategories Error: 1146 Table 'u_daniel_cache.commonswiki_nontopics' doesn't exist (sql-s4)"

--Mbdortmund (talk) 10:28, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

See above, july 22, toolserver down.--Havang(nl) (talk) 17:16, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Amendment to closure policy on Deletion Requests

In accordance with views expressed recently there is a proposal to ensure that DRs are not closed by those whose media is the subject of the DR. The community may wish to express their opinion here. Thanks --Herby talk thyme 12:23, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Image flipping

I came across File:Ayaan-Hirsi-Ali-VVD.NL-1200x1600.JPG which has gone through four revisions. While I agree that the cropping is probably better now (although not compellingly necessary), the horizontal flipping is in my opinion unacceptable. The reason given at the image's talk page is to conform better to Wikipedia's style guidelines regarding the placement of images.

Is there a formal policy on the appropriateness of flipping images, particularly of portraits? If so, is there a template to flag images which violate such policy?

Disclosure: I've once flipped an image back without asking for advice (File:Tomáš G Masaryk1918.jpg), but that image was less high-profile than Hirsi Ali's and it was uncontroversial because it made it fit better with Wikipedia style guidelines. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:18, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Flipping a portrait is not a good idea, as no face is perfectly symmetrical. I don't see how the flipping of Ali's image makes it conform better to Wikipedia's guidelines. Actually, en:MOS:IMAGES is quite clear: "images should not be reversed simply to resolve a conflict between these guidelines; doing so misinforms the reader for the sake of our layout preferences". I'll go unflip the image straight away. Pruneautalk 14:05, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
That "rule" may apply to enwiki but image is used in other wikies as well. And the wikies has added this photo knowing that the image is "facing left". I think it is a bad idea to change a used image - it is better to upload a new version and let the wikis decide which image they will use. However I suggest the discussion is thaken in one place so we do not have to add comments both here and on the image talk page. --MGA73 (talk) 15:46, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
We should not have pictures of people knowingly mirrored; it's deceptive. Would we keep a picture of Andrew Jackson in place under that name if we knew that it was actually Andrew Johnson?--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:06, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
Issues of accuracy aside, flipped images should never be uploaded over the original image. They may be uploaded under a new filename, if some local wikis prefers to use the mirrored image. Commons does not usually make editorial decisions of this nature. Dcoetzee (talk) 17:41, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
Flipped images shouldn't be uploaded over the original images.
If an image is flipped (or "flopped" as en_wiki calls it), this should be clearly indicated in the file description. Please categorize them into Category:Flopped images. The seal mentioned there is a good sample of an image that should be flipped.
For portraits, one could argue that there isn't really any value in a flipped version and I wonder if we should be hosting them. File:Billykid.jpg would be an exception. In any case, which version Wikipedia uses shouldn't be discussed here, but there.  Docu  at 06:04, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
In my view, flipping flopping lateral inversion is either (1) for aesthetic purposes; or (2) to correct an earlier mistake. Action 2 is fine, but for action 1 the only images that should be laterally inverted are those of objects where the action has no potential to mislead. We really should not be flopping portraits of people, photographs of places, historical images, photographs of artworks, and the like as this will give an incorrect impression of the subjects featured. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 06:52, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't see how a mirrored portrait can have any educational value above the corerctly oriented version, in the absense of very specific image-related reasons (eg. to make mirrored text readable). Creating them purely to standardize the layout of biographical articles is blatantly unencyclopedic and should not be supported by Commons. --Latebird (talk) 12:47, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect flickr file descriptions

Recently I encountered several files uploaded from flick which had incorrect file descriptions (incorrect location etc). Is there a policy about checking the truthworthy of the file descrition before uploading from Flickr? --Havang(nl) (talk) 17:10, 26 July 2010 (UTC) Comment added: It means, flickr files do not a priory fulfill encyclopedic standards and by uploading so many may-be it has been forgotten to be critical on these files as sources for encyclopedie images. --Havang(nl) (talk) 17:21, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I correct. The problem starts when a correct description or identification is failing. Is there need for some policy guideline for flickr-to-commons uploaders concerning the description in view of its encyclopedic usefullness? The flickr people are not normally present on commons for answering questions regarding their images. --Havang(nl) (talk) 18:40, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't think we need a new guideline or policy for this. If a meaningful description can't be derived from the Flickr description or the image itself, its use on Wikimedia projects may be of guidance. If it is not used and a meaningful description can't be derived from the Flickr description or the image itself, a deletion nomination with reference to Commons:Project scope is a completely reasonable recourse under current rules and practices. —LX (talk, contribs) 09:23, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Even if a description on flickr is accurate, it can generally use some editing: e.g. transform "I" in the photographer's comments, remove pasted wikipedia articles, etc.  Docu  at 09:46, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] July 27

[edit] When to crop and when not to crop

I recently came across some examples of cropping that seemed unnecessary. I will list three examples here. If there is a better place to discuss this, please move this post there.

Given the examples above, would a guideline on cropping be useful? It would cover things such as when cropping is strictly not allowed and when cropping might not be needed (even if technically allowed) and when cropping is allowed and useful and produces images that will be widely used by the WMF projects (as opposed to used for other purposes - my contention being that if the crop is used by the WMF projects it should be hosted here, but if not then the crop should be hosted externally). It would also cover aspects such as cropping to produce a tighter focus, cropping to frame a picture, cropping to extract elements from an image (usually transforming the image in the process), and cropping to remove elements around the edge of an image (whether damage to the image or correcting poor composition). A guideline could also try and mention that cropping should be respectful to what is being shown in the image (per the memorial example above). Maybe such a guideline already exists? If not, would it be useful to write one? Carcharoth (Commons) (talk) 02:21, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Only two comments: (2) is simply an stupid upload, that photo is not usefull and out of scope. For (3) you must involve the de minimis argumentation, you can modify the image as long as the de minimis argument is not broken. --Martin H. (talk) 02:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I agree that a policy (or at least a guideline) regarding cropping would be helpful. As I wrote in this edit, 'If we had image tags that would let us crop in wikitext, perhaps "There is little point in doing crops such as this in any case" might make some sense, but we would have to teach everyone who is using crops how to crop in wikitext. Many original photographers leave a large margin for error when composing their photographs, with the thought "I can always crop it later" - this was what I was taught in photography class. To prefer full images with EXIF metadata, and not allow cropping, flies in the face of classic photography.'   — Jeff G. ツ 02:41, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Courtesy link: Commons:Deletion requests/File:German stamp- Marlene Dietrich crop.PNG. Your crop (1) is manifestly useful, since it illustrates the person and not the stamp, but its legality appears to be uncertain. There are three positions we can take here: 1. both are free; 2. the cropped version should be deleted since it's not free but the original version should be retained; 3. both should be deleted, since we require any work on Commons to allow derivative works, and the cropped version is non-free. This is a largely unexplored area of inclusion policy - the de minimis cropping exception is well-established, but the one you describe in (1) is not and should be the subject of wider policy discussion. Another similar issue arises with currency (see Commons:Currency), where some countries require electronic copies of currency to be "clearly marked" as not actual notes (I think we currently reject this kind of currency image, but I may be overlooking something). My own position is that, besides the established de minimis exception, any image prohibiting some type of derivative work should be excluded from Commons (but not necessarily from local wikis).
For (2), we are legally obligated to remove copyrighted elements from images if they are not de minimis, regardless of the impact on image quality - for example we routinely crop frames from PD-Art images. Whether it should be removed in a very obvious manner or "painted over" with a plausible background is a matter for the uploader to decide. I don't agree with Martin H that File:Korean War Veterans Memorial Without Soldiers.jpg is necessarily out of scope - it usefully depicts the text in front of the monument and its surroundings. Dcoetzee (talk) 02:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
To explain my judgement: One can think of way better modifications, e.g. blurred out soldiers, but not a white rectangle in the center of the image. --Martin H. (talk) 02:52, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
My view is that modifications of this nature (even blurring) are akin to desecrating the memorial (strong view, but put yourself in the position of a veteran of that conflict viewing the photo and seeing the memorial to their sacrifice airbrushed out). Though I'm also aware that some may say that the US government not ensuring the memorial is in the public domain is also disrespectful to the memory of those it commemorates (and I'd agree with that as well). I may eventually nominate the image for deletion, as I think this is a situation of all or nothing. Either have the whole image, or nothing. And the elements that are useful (such as the text and surroundings) can be cropped out separately or someone can go and take a new photo. Incidentally, the main inscription on the memorial says "Freedom is not Free", which I thought people here might appreciate even in an ironic sense. Carcharoth (Commons) (talk) 02:59, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
(2) I strongly support retouches like this (of course it was better to pixelate or to blur out the memorial, but it's not the point). While the main object of the photograph was removed, the photograph is still useful, it provides useful context for a reader -- general look & feel of the location where the object is placed. Surroundings of the objects like this have value for themselves, and often it's just impossible to photograph surroundings without a very prominent depiction (not de minimis) of a copyrighted object (some small square, and a large sculpture in the center). Trycatch (talk) 14:41, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Rather than upset people who would object to pictures of memorials being altered in that fashion, why not just link to the picture as an external link? I do this all the time in articles where non-free images are needed to give the reader a balanced range of imagery (often, limiting yourself to free pictures compromises the ideal of comprehensive visual coverage, and in some cases even compromises NPOV). I've done this for the article on en-wikipedia, so that makes any arguments about blurring or blanking the central part of this picture unnecessary now. Carcharoth (Commons) (talk) 23:37, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Everything could be replaced with something (using Google Images is generally more handy than clicking numerous external links), photographs like this gives Wikipedia editors and editors of Commons galleries a choice. Commons is not censored, and hosts much more disturbing and upsetting photographs than a cropped photograph of the copyrighted memorial. Trycatch (talk) 08:38, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
To take two separate points you raise:
(a) Google Images is more handy than clicking numerous external links? I think you misunderstood. External links should be reserved only for the non-free images that are essential for a more complete understanding of a topic, and usually only where the copyright status is clear (you would normally link to a website hosted by the copyright holder, or to an official archive or library hosting page, in cases where the copyright status is not clear enough for Commons, but OK in terms of being published on an external website). Google Images is for indiscriminate searching. Wikipedia articles should assemble the most appropriate collection of free images and links to non-free images that is needed for the best encyclopedia article possible.
(b) You say Commons is not censored and there are shocking image that we host. This is true, but the shocking element of those pictures is created by others, not added by our actions. There is a difference between uploading a shocking picture and altering a picture (in a way that might upset others) and then uploading it. The irony, also, is that some people would see placing a big white rectangle over those statues as a form of censorship in itself! I realise that it is not really censorship (as this is a matter of copyright), but can you see how people might mistake it for censorship?
(c) There is a situation where this would be censorship, and that is where you provide only the cropped picture and fail to provide a link to the uncropped photo. In this case, the cropped photo gives a link to the original, but there are some situations where providing a link to the uncropped photo would be a linkvio. In those cases, how do you verify that the crop is accurate and genuine?
Anyway, I suspect this is moot for the cropped photo, as it is likely to remain an orphan. Carcharoth (Commons) (talk) 22:47, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] "nominate for deletion" is gone

My "nominate for deletion" toolbox entry is gone. Why? --ALE! ¿…? 08:04, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Which skin & browser are you using?--DieBuche (talk) 08:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I noticed you still link MediaWiki talk:Quick-delete.js in your monobook.js, but the script has been moved elsewhere. Perhaps this has something to do with your problem? --Ianezz (talk) 08:56, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
No, it does not as I changed to the new skript and still do not see the "nomination" button. --ALE! ¿…? 09:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Not sure if this is the problem that you're seeing, but this was the case for me anyway: The Quick Delete gadget was recently switched to a new version of the script, which can be found at MediaWiki:AjaxQuickDelete.js. As discussed at MediaWiki talk:AjaxQuickDelete.js#Missing links on some images?, the deletion toolbox entries are not available for files that already have problem tags. I guess we haven't decided if this is a bug or a feature yet. :) If you click on edit, the links appear. —LX (talk, contribs) 09:07, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
This is also not the problem as I wanted to nominate File:Ep-straatsburg.jpg which does not have a problem tag. --ALE! ¿…? 09:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I seem to have a similar problem, as I said below. I'm using Chromium with the Monobook skin, and trying with the image above, the links show up the first time, but then disappear. Clicking edit shows the links again. I also noticed now that if I reload the page several times, they reappear eventually, but then go away again and so on. There doesn't seem to be any pattern for this behavior. –Tryphon☂ 10:57, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Looking into it now. @ALE! are you using Chrome or Chromium as well? @Tryphon, Could I get OS and exact version number?--DieBuche (talk) 11:02, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Ok, found the caveat. I'll fix in one sec--DieBuche (talk) 11:05, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Done. It's a known problem with webkit browsers (their JS execution is too fast, so they try using addToolLink before the function is even retrieved from the cache). Fixed now. (Clean you cache in Chrome using the "under the hood" pref pane). ALE!, could you confirm?--DieBuche (talk) 11:24, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Well, but I am using IE7. The problem is not fixed for me. --ALE! ¿…? 13:06, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Normally I would say you should get a working browser, but today I feel like fixing funky MSIE bugs, so here you go ;). You need to go to "internet options" & delete "temporary files"--DieBuche (talk) 13:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Not in all environments one is free to choose the browser. Thank you! It seems to work now. --ALE! ¿…? 17:36, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Yep, that was it! Working perfectly for me now, thanks! –Tryphon☂ 12:03, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Need your guys opinion: Would you rather have the tags signed by --~~~~ or by ~~~~ (without dashes) ? --DieBuche (talk) 23:28, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Without dashes. If someone wants to systematically add dashes before their signature, they can customize it in the preferences. But if you don't want the dashes, and they're added by default, there's nothing you can do (or is there?) –Tryphon☂ 07:20, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
I also prefer without en dashes (as I have a custom em dash in my signature), but I lost the argument at Template talk:Delete#Why_have_the_--_been_added.3F.   — Jeff G. ツ 20:21, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Disappearing toolbox link in Chromium

I recently started using Chromium to browse Commons, and noticed a very strange behavior. When I go to an image page for the first time, the links to add problem tags or nominate the image for deletion show up just fine; but if I leave the page and come back, they are gone. Does anyone else have the same issue? –Tryphon☂ 10:16, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Quoting LX: The Quick Delete gadget was recently switched to a new version of the script, which can be found at MediaWiki:AjaxQuickDelete.js. As discussed at MediaWiki talk:AjaxQuickDelete.js#Missing links on some images?, the deletion toolbox entries are not available for files that already have problem tags. I guess we haven't decided if this is a bug or a feature yet. :) If you click on edit, the links appear.
I have disabled that for now, the seemingly unexplainable disapperance seems to cause to much confusion; also see above --DieBuche (talk) 10:44, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, and sorry for the duplicate thread. I must still be asleep, because I looked up and down this page to see if the issue had already been reported, but somehow missed it was right there at the bottom of the page. I need more coffee... –Tryphon☂ 10:49, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] File:Ice-cream.jpg duplicate title on en.wiki

Hi.. I want to use the File:Ice-cream.jpg from the COMMONS, but everytime I try to use it on the en.wiki, I get a different picture this. Help please. :( Tommy2010 (talk) 18:38, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I moved the en.wiki image. It's now also here: File:Mablethorpe, Spanish city - Ice-cream.jpg. When some en.wiki admin has deleted the File:Ice-cream.jpg on enwiki you are able to link the commons image. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 19:02, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I've deleted the en image. —David Levy 19:11, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Thank you!!! Tommy2010 (talk) 19:28, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] July 28

[edit] Free for all on Afghanistan images?!?

Is this really a good idea: {{PD-Afghanistan}}?

It is correct, as far as I know, that Afghanistan currently has no copyright laws and is not a party to any copyright treaties. But I could have sworn there was a past discussion (probably several years ago) that concluded that it was morally wrong to simply declare open season on works from Afghanistan. Not to mention that if they ever do adopt a copyright law and normalize international relations then most of this stuff is likely to be retroactively protected anyway. Isn't the country beaten up enough without our needing to appropriate all of their intellectual property? While maybe that tag is legally okay, it doesn't really seem consistent with the spirit of how we approach the treatment of international rights. Dragons flight (talk) 03:31, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

They can use anything from anywhere free of copyright. The amount of material that would be covered under Afghanistan copyright is minimal; Afghanistan does not produce many books or films. The appropriation for most purposes will be being done by them.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:29, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
If you believe that control over one's own intellectual property is a natural right, and not just a legal one, then I'd say that justifying our exploitation of their deficient legal system on the basis that they might do likewise is still fundamentally immoral. If they had collectively chosen to intentionally ignore copyright, then I might feel differently, but I think it is safe to assume that their lack of copyright law is merely a reflection of the terrible conditions Afghanis face and not a deliberate choice. Dragons flight (talk) 15:50, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
I believe that (quoting RMS) "There is no such unified thing as “intellectual property”—it is a mirage... The term “intellectual property” is at best a catch-all to lump together disparate laws... These laws originated separately, evolved differently, cover different activities, have different rules, and raise different public policy issues." I believe the only aspect of copyright that is a natural right is basically CC-BY; an author has a right to attribution for his work and not to be attributed for what's not his, in perpetuity. Of course, current copyright law sucks at that. (Not that I'm knocking the economic value of copyright, but I don't elevate it to moral right.) Afghanistan has been an independent nation since 1919, and the Berne Convention has been available for them to sign for every one of those 91 years. The fact they didn't sign was a choice, and a very, very valuable choice to them, since they never have been an exporter of a significant amount of copyrighted work.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:41, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
No offense, but I think there is a deep flaw in the reasoning in User:Dragons flight's initial query, and their comment of 15:50 above. I started a sub-heading, Is using Afghan images a kind of moral theft? User:Dragons flight asserts that Afghanistan's lack of copyright protection to a "deficient legal system". Afghanistan is a sovereign country, and it not up to the United Nations, the International Courts of Justice at the Hague, or any other International body to ram copyright protection done the throats of the Afghan people. I suggest it is absolutely not the role of the wikimedia foundation to decide Afghanistan has a "deficient legal system".
The comment of 15:50 goes on to say: "If they had collectively chosen to intentionally ignore copyright, then I might feel differently, but I think it is safe to assume that their lack of copyright law is merely a reflection of the terrible conditions Afghanis face and not a deliberate choice." This is not a safe assumption. I have done a lot of reading about Afghanistan in the last five years. I believe that Afghanistan's lack of copyright protection does reflect the views of the Afghan people as expressed through their elected representatives. Geo Swan (talk) 17:51, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
As noted below, representatives of the Afghani government have repeatedly stated (on multiple occasions over several years) that they intend to create a system that honors intellectual property. Dragons flight (talk) 21:45, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
In politics different factions hold different positions. I believe there is a US Congressional representative who, for decades, had tried to introduce legislation for the USA to have universal health care, like every other nation in the industrialized world. But he did not have support for that legislation, and it did not get introduced. I never doubted that the Afghan legislature included individuals with a westernized education, who believed in "progress", and were in favor of westernized copyright protection. And, if those factions can convince enough of the more conservative factions to sign on board, and pass the legislation, we will have to deprecate {{PD-Afghanistan}} Geo Swan (talk) 18:51, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
It is important to understand that this only affects material first published in Afghanistan. Just because eg. a photograph was made there does not make it Public Domain. The template should probably be modified to explicitly explain this ("Work of Afghanistan" is not a legally meaningful term). --Latebird (talk) 10:21, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Even more restrictive than that -- only material first published in Afghanistan by Afghan authors. If first published, even in Afghanistan, by an author from a Berne Convention country, the technical "country of origin" is then the country the author is from. "country of origin" is only the country of first publication if that nation is a Berne signatory. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:27, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Is it "first published", or "only published"? I was under the impression that works published in non-treaty countries by citizens of those countries, functionally didn't count as published under the law. And, that consequently, any future act of publication in a treaty country still counted as an act of first publication, even if it were far removed in time from the original publication in the non-treaty country. If that understanding is correct, then if an Afghani ever publishes a work in a treaty country then that work qualifies for copyright protection, regardless of when it may have been published in Afghanistan. Dragons flight (talk) 15:50, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
The Berne Convention, article 3 says "(1) The protection of this Convention shall apply to: (a) authors who are nationals of one of the countries of the Union, for their works, whether published or not; (b) authors who are not nationals of one of the countries of the Union, for their works first published in one of those countries, or simultaneously in a country outside the Union and in a country of the Union." Since simultaneously is within 30 days, and IMO uploading to Flikr or Commons or Internet Archive would satisfy the requirements for publication in a country of the Union, we're actually talking about a small set of locally published materials.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:41, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. Anyone want to take a stab at improving {{PD-Afghanistan}} to at least be more precise about what works it applies to? Dragons flight (talk) 17:28, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
{{lang|en|''This work is in the '''[[w:Public domain|public domain]]''' in the United States because it is a work first published in Afghanistan, not published within 30 days in [[:File:Berne Convention signatories.svg|a country that has signed the Berne Convention]], and by an Afgani national or the national of another country that has not signed the Berne Convention.}}
I'd add some comments about the potential to be deleted when Afghanistan adopts copyright law, and note about Flikr or Commons or IA probably being proper publication in a Berne Convention country to the discussion page or a /Doc page. Opinions?--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:12, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
I would suggest that rearranging the phrases makes it easier to read, i.e. "This work is in the '''[[w:Public domain|public domain]]''' in the United States because it is a work first published in Afghanistan by an Afgani national or the national of another country that has not signed the Berne Convention, and the work was not also published within 30 days in [[:File:Berne Convention signatories.svg|a country that has signed the Berne Convention]]. I also agree that having a discussion below the template would be a good thing. Either in the discussion, or in the template itself, it is probably good to retain the link to Afghanistan and copyright issues. Dragons flight (talk) 20:31, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
eh, not a good one. While I don't think the Berne Convention defines publication, it is surely not as complicated as the U.S. definition (which has no bearing on the Berne Convention). But selling artwork (or even just offering for sale) is generally publishing it, even in the U.S., regardless if there are multiple copies. Those would certainly seem to be first published in Afghanistan by an Afghan artist. Not simultaneously published elsewhere either, since that act was not done by the copyright owner (if such even exists in this case). Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:25, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
The Berne Convention, so you can see what it has to say about the subject. The US definition certainly has to do with whether it's out of copyright in the US. Selling the original can't be publication, because it can be legally done by someone not the author. If Salinger had sent you a letter, you could sell it, but you couldn't publish it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:46, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
The simple act of the original author offering the work for sale to the public is publishing it, by the U.S. definition. It appears those were sold in Afghanistan, by the author -- did I miss something? Not copyrighted in the U.S. from what I can tell. Private letters is different -- that is limited publication, not general (by the wonderful U.S. definitions). Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:51, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
The simple act of the original author offering copies of the work for sale "provided that the availability of such copies has been such as to satisfy the reasonable requirements of the public".--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:21, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes. The U.S. considers the original a "copy". The nature of the work also needs to be taken into account -- paintings like that are generally expected to have just one real copy -- that is "reasonable requirements of the public" to me. The author received expected economic compensation for it; this is the normal way such works are exploited. I really don't see how "country of origin" can change based on the nationality of a purchaser -- Berne Convention to me would clearly still have this as an Afghani work. U.S. definitions as well. Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:43, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
For record, I am pretty sure the discussion I believe I remember is much older than the {{PD-Afghanistan}} tag (which was created in 2008). If I had to guess I would say it was probably 2005 or 2006. Of a similar vintage, but probably slightly more recent than discussions that decided to respect the local copyright laws of countries that have no copyright treaties with the US (like Iran). Dragons flight (talk) 22:01, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
With Afghanistan having no copyright law whatsoever, the law seems pretty clear there (i.e. there is no protection whatsoever), unless there is some sort of judicial history we are unaware of. But the Berne Convention is equally clear on works merely *taken* there; that fact is almost irrelevant, as it is the country of first publication which matters most, followed by nationality of the author. And the Berne Convention definition is the one that Commons uses to determine "public domain in the country of origin". Carl Lindberg (talk) 11:56, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Is using Afghan images a kind of moral theft?

User:Dragons flight wrote, in the initial comment above:

"Isn't the country beaten up enough without our needing to appropriate all of their intellectual property? While maybe that tag is legally okay, it doesn't really seem consistent with the spirit of how we approach the treatment of international rights."

No offense, but it seems to me that this comment, which I have read in several similar discussions, is based on a kind of unrecognized cultural ethnocentrocism. In the developed world, and in the developing world, we have a very strong belief in "progress". We believe that Science and Technology are good things, that they lead to positive developments, that benefit the public, in general. This idea is so embedded in our culture that it is almost inconceivable that other cultures may not believe in progress, at all.

But some other cultures genuinely to not believe in progress.

The whole premise of our protections of intellectual property rights, copyright, patents, is based on the assumption that progress is good, and that it benefits the public in general. Copyright holders, and patent holders, get to control how their creations, their intellectual property, is used, so that they can make money from it, and finance their initial creations and future creations -- which in turn will benefit the public in general.

The Taliban were very culturall conservative. Let musical composers benefit from new works of music, so they could continue creating new musical works? Well they outlawed music. Painters worked under extreme restrictions too. The Taliban came from a philosophy that did not believe in progress. And it wasn't just the Taliban that felt that way. Many of the warlords in the Northern Alliance, now members of the National Assembly, share this view.

Russell Peters shares one of the funniest things about being a comedian whose humor focusses on different ethnic groups. Not funny ha-ha, but funny peculiar, is that the only people who complain that the humor he offers about people from India and Pakistan, from Africa, from the far east, are white people. Indians, Asians and Africans are his biggest fans. He says it is as if the white people who complain, are telling his fans, "It is okay, you are too stupid to understand, but we will protect you."

I see something similar going on here. Afghanistan is not a colonly. It is a sovereign country. And the Afghan people are entitled, through their elected representatives, to sign on to International agreements to protect intellectual property, and to pass a domestic copyright law. The Afghan people should do so if a majority of them make clear to their elected representatives that they do, in fact, believe in progress, and believe that individuals who compose music, paint paintings, or take pictures, should benefit from doing so, so they can keep on creating. If a majority of the Afghan people do not believe in progress, do not want to hear new music, see new paintings, new photos, do not think new work benefits the Afghan people in general, they should not pass these laws.

It is not up to the wikimedia foundation to protect rights the Afghan people seem to have rejected. I suggest it is culturally insensitive to protect those rights. It is a kind of cultural imperialism. It is as if we were saying to them: "You are too stupid to pass the right laws to protect yourselves. That is OK, we will protect you against yourselves."

So, no, I absolutely do not agree that using Afghan images is either actual theft, or some kind of moral theft. Geo Swan (talk) 17:29, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it is cultural imperialism to assume the Afghanis want intellectual property laws given that the Afghani government has repeatedly said they intend to create laws honoring intellectual property. If the Afghan government had said they intend to ignore copyright, then I would be happy to honor that, but that does not appear to be their intent. If the country were domestically stable then the absence of action on the issue might be a good indicator, but given their past and ongoing violence and the novelty of their current system of government (formed in 2004), I am inclined to accept their stated position on the issue and simply assume they just haven't gotten around to it legislatively. Dragons flight (talk) 21:38, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Telling us what you intend to do doesn't carry nearly as much weight as doing it. Politicians tell each group what they want to hear, and what WIPO and much of the US government want to hear is that Afghanistan is going to recognize the copyrights of Hollywood and the RIAA the world. Given the amount of money that the US and WTO will give struggling countries on the condition of having strong copyright protections, I'm sure Afghanistan will pass those laws sooner or later, but I have serious doubts that it will have anything to do with Afghanis actually wanting those laws.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:16, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
I believe policy is to respect whatever copyright law a country has, even if not a member of the Berne Convention or Universal Copyright Convention (within reason -- not sure we would respect a perpetual copyright or something like that). So, as soon as Afghanistan creates some sort of copyright law, we would start respecting it. As mentioned though, they haven't done that in their entire existence, let alone join in one of the two main copyright treaties, which was pretty obviously a deliberate choice, so at the moment it is pretty clear -- there is no copyright there (which, conversely, means they can copy foreign works there at will, which is probably to their overall benefit right now). If an Afghan author takes care to first publish a work in a foreign country, that is one way their authors can gain protection. We need to host works which are "free", which in a way is the national policy in Afghanistan, so we can use works first published there (by Afghan authors). Carl Lindberg (talk) 11:45, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
PS. Regardless of how you feel about the general issues involved here, I do hope we can work together to at least clarify when the tag applies, as discussed in the sections above. Dragons flight (talk) 22:19, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Questionable photographs

I have concerns I would like to raise about some of the photographs on this website. I am aware there is some controversy here about what is pornography and what is educational, but I have also raised the issue of several images which appear to have been taken within minutes of each other but seem to serve little use other than to show young women nude. I have nominated several photographs for deletion based on this reasoning, that there is no educational use for so many pornographic photographs, only to be slapped down by a small group of like-minded users who consider it to be an 'attack' on this site. What, for example, does this image achieve: File:Sabrina Deep adjusted.jpg? Or this: File:Kelly Madison 3.JPG? How can this image be educational: File:Demi Delia 1.JPG? Or these two photographs File:Angelina Ash 3.jpg and File:Angelina Ash 4.jpg which only appear to differ based on the amount of whipped cream on the body of the woman.

Wikimedia Commons needs to have a good long think about what is available on the site. I'm not attacking it, but I believe there should be some kind of effort to clean it up to return to the true educational purpose it was set up for. The Cleaner (talk) 11:55, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

In general, each of those images is useful for illustrating the work of a notable pornographic model or actress. Images such as the Angelina Ash series are also useful for illustrating specific fetishes. Powers (talk) 12:42, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
According to Commons:Nudity: "If a new image depicts something we already have an image of, but in a better way, the older image may be considered for deletion." Kaldari (talk) 20:44, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Okay... and? Powers (talk) 12:30, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

kuch..... (can the real puppeteer stand up now!). Multichill (talk) 13:59, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Puppeteer? The Cleaner (talk) 19:05, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Please note that Wikimedia Commons is supposed to serve as a common repository of images for all the Wikipedias. It's not this site's place to be telling en.wikipedia that it can't have articles on these four women, or at least, that they can't illustrate them. There are scope restrictions that would affect the pictures if they were just uploads of random amply proportioned women with no particular point (i.e. "snapshots of yourself and your friends" are unwanted). Wnt (talk) 04:06, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
I concur. Although I don't know the current technical limitation of the WMF, it's conceivable that things could get out of hand very quickly. Who would be the one to handle a cleanup script for old orphaned files? Micahmedia (talk) 08:46, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] OTRS permission confusion?

Could someone check whether the OTRS permission for File:Sabrina Deep adjusted.jpg is for the cropped version File:Gram4.jpg, as it seems that the "adjustment" here was to resurrect the uncropped version. Is it acceptable to do this without checking with OTRS? Note that the cropping occurred immediately after upload of File:Gram4.jpg. Carcharoth (Commons) (talk) 08:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Easy way to list images in category that are in use?

Is there an easy way to list which images in a category are currently used in wikis? I tried catscan and gallery details, but neither seems to list file usage. MKFI (talk) 13:34, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

There is the Tool Bad Old Ones to handle deletion in Category:Unknown. That tool has this ability. Example for Category:Sandy_Bay,_Gibraltar: http://toolserver.org/~magnus/bad_old_ones.php?category=Sandy_Bay,_Gibraltar. Not the best sollution but maybe it helps you for small categories. --Martin H. (talk) 14:43, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
http://toolserver.org/~magnus/glamorous.php? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tryphon (talk • contribs) 14:54, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
This tool has a bulk mode (usage of list of images (potentially coming from Catscan)). --Foroa (talk) 14:56, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Tryphon for that tool, didnt know it so please forget about my lousy attempt ;) Great tool. --Martin H. (talk) 15:14, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. MKFI (talk) 10:19, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Great but seems only to work with categories --Foroa (talk) 11:32, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Redundant categories

Hello fellows!

These categories seem to be redundant: Category:Males with firearms and Category:People with guns. These cats must merged or linked somehow. Does anyone have an idea. --High Contrast (talk) 18:41, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Are women not people? -mattbuck (Talk) 19:09, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Are males not people? --High Contrast (talk) 19:33, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Actually, the problem is Category:People with guns is redundant with Category:People with firearms. Rocket000 (talk) 19:38, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Exactly. Mattbuck didn't want to recognize this. --High Contrast (talk) 19:45, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes check.svg ResolvedCategory:People with guns was redirected.

[edit] Oh Maria

I uploaded the following File:Maria in station Flaminio.jpg. I am surprised that I could not find a category of Maria statues. Smiley.toerist (talk) 19:44, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Category:Statues of Virgin Mary Rocket000 (talk) 19:51, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] July 29

[edit] Which license

I uploaded File:Annals of the World.pdf, but I am not sure what license to use. It is a PDF version of Annals of the World on Wikisource. Can someone give me some assistance? Arlen22 (talk) 02:04, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

There's no reason for a mechanically generated copy of Wikisource pages to be on Commons. It can be regenerated as needed from the Wikisource files, and the regenerated version will contain any recent fixes found in the Wikisource files, unlike this PDF.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:09, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Plenary chambers

What are Plenary chambers? Would this include council chambers and parliamentary chambers? What else might it cover? Man vyi (talk) 05:31, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Odd term to me, but a "plenary" is when a body meets as a whole, as against in committee, so I presume it would be the place where a legislature (or a house of a bicameral legislature) or a similar body meets as a whole. - Jmabel ! talk 16:14, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] The Tansey Collection of Miniatures

Hi. The Tansey Collection of Miniatures have a large collection of 17th, 18th and 19th century miniature portrait paintings in high resolution. The paintings are definitely within our scope, and would be a great addition to the commons. I have therefore uploaded some of them here, but since there are so many and the frames needs to be cropped to make them eligible for PD-Art, some help would be appreciated. Cheers —P. S. Burton (talk) 10:36, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

You can try a request for Commons:Batch uploading. I assume mostly paintings of known people or by known artists would be in scope. --Jarekt (talk) 14:14, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
I would presume the frames are mostly contemporary with the images & wouldn't need to be cropped. - Jmabel ! talk 16:16, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Generally we've done because frames are 3d-objects and thus photographs of them are potentially copyrightable. There may be a bit of copyright paranoia there, but those making copies of old paintings and photographs are potentially hostile rights-claimers and historically strong ones, and cutting out those frames cuts out a potential legal argument against us.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:31, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Ah, yes, that makes sense; I wasn't considering that the photos are third-party. - Jmabel ! talk 06:24, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the answers, I will try asking at Commons:Batch uploading. —P. S. Burton (talk) 17:23, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Dictation category

I found a picture here that was of dication (File:Dictation of the Guru Granth Saheb.jpg) and was surprised there was no mention of dictation in the categories. Therefore I added it to Category:Dictation in Art (new), and added that to Category:Dictation (new), which I then added to the writing category. I also added Category:Dictation machines (not new) to the Dictation category. Just a heads up on these new categories. I have often had trouble finding what I want because of incomplete categorizing, so I hope this helps. Arlen22 (talk) 13:07, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] MOTD

Commons:Media of the day

I think we have to talk about the missing MOTD templates this month. Some may think, we don't have enough media data in stack, and some may think that there is not put much emphasis creating a MOTD template. On the following days of July 2010, we did not have a MOTD template: 16 · 17 · 18· 23 · 26 · 27 · 28 · 29

Why is it like that? Maybe a lot of admins are on vacation ... (see also MOTD disc.) --Mattes (talk) 15:12, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

On the days there is no MOTD, it shouldn't really appear on Main Page (Talk:Main_Page#.22No_media_of_the_day_today.22_.282010-07-17.29). Unfortunately, the admins doing main page maintenance are on holidays too.  Docu  at 04:09, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Mattes, the MOTD can be chosen by anyone. If you notice one is missing, you are very welcome to choose it. It's just like selecting a POTD from amongst the Featured Pictures. Docu, I personally don't mind showing the message "There is no Media of the Day today." I think that will actually encourage people to find one. That's why I didn't respond to your request to hide it, but maybe another admin will. --99of9 (talk) 05:05, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Hello 99of9, I really would like to create the templates (lots of ideas). But I'm not enabled to do so; they are editprotected. Except I was doing something wrong ... --Mattes (talk) 05:08, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
99of9: apparently it didn't on 16 · 17 · 18· 23 · 26 · 27 · 28 · 29 --  Docu  at 05:11, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Losing secure connection going between Commons and Wikipedia

I have a unified account and usually log in to Wikipedia using their secure server (i.e. an HTTPS connection). When I am at Wikipedia and I click a wikilink to Commons, I am automatically logged in to my unified account at Commons. But when I go from Commons back to Wikipedia I lose the secure connection (i.e. it goes from an HTTPS connection to HTTP). For example, if I add a wikilink from here to Wikipedia's main page using [[w:Main page]] like this w:Main page, the wikilink is an HTTP link instead of HTTPS. Is there a way to make a wikilink stay secure (i.e. maintain the HTTPS connection). Thanks for any help. - Hydroxonium (talk) 21:44, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I can reproduce the problem. I remember the same issue was fixed at de.wikipedia some weeks ago: de:Wikipedia:Fragen_zur_Wikipedia/Archiv/2010/Woche_04#Secure-WP_und_Interwikilinks. The mediawiki config needs to be changed - I have asked de:User:Merlissimo if he could do the same here - or give hints how to do it. Probably you could also write a hack in your monobook.js to replace all http://xx.wikipedia.org links by their HTTPS equivalent. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 00:31, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply, Saibo. I just noticed that when I go to the Wikipedia login page and click the link for the secure server, I am transferred from en.wikipedia.org to secure.wikimedia.org. If I then go a category, such as w:Category:Insects and click the "Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Insecta" link, then I am still at secure.wikimedia.org as opposed to commons.wikimedia.org. I am certain that's why I was automatically logged in to Commons.
I ran some tests and this seems to be an issue for all the interwiki links. I ran a test on Wikipedia and created the wikilink [[commons:Category:Insecta]], and again I was taken from the secure server to the regular one. Please note that the commons wikilink does not work here at Commons, only over at Wikipedia.
I am not too concerned about myself, but I'm thinking this could be a security issue for others, such as people in China or other parts of the world. I'm not sure what can be done about this, but I think people should be aware that they can go from the secure to standard server when going between the different WMF projects. Thanks for the help. - Hydroxonium (talk) 02:04, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
On dewiki all links to wikimedia projects are changed to secure by using javascript in Common.js [3] by subscript de:MediaWiki:Common.js/secure.js Merlissimo (talk) 08:04, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Similar for English Wikipedia en:MediaWiki:Common.js/secure.js. TheDJ (talk) 11:12, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Thank you both! Of course it's not prefect since enabled JavaScript on the user's browser is needed for this workaround. But better than nothing: Could a Commons' admin please do similarly for Commons? --Saibo (Δ) 15:50, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] July 30

[edit] template feedback / help

following the last community chat I finally got around to creating a new template for media which is illegal down here in Aus. (it's one of many of these tags).

I dropped a note to a collaborator for feedback and a wee bit of help, but obviously timed it badly - D doesn't seem to be around this week. So I thought I'd swing by here for feedback, and to ask if someone might be interested in popping the template on media within Category:Erotic_activities_involving_children - which is a pretty clear application. I strongly agree with the commons practice of warning downstream users of their legal obligations, and advising them where accessing material may involve breaking local law. Privatemusings (talk) 00:25, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Be very careful with the 'illegal' language. We are no lawyers, so the category should be 'Possible illegal images in Australia'. That en:Child pornography laws in Australia article needs some serious work btw. Like it doesn't even refer to/name the actual laws themselves. I would also not call it a legal disclaimer, it is a warning. I'd start with the 'plain' reader targeted language, and end with referring to the specific Australian legal requirements. Would also be nice to refer to something that covers Australia (not just NSW). Possibly add that the materials are hosted in the US, subject to US law. TheDJ (talk) 01:22, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Obviously feel free to dive in a make any changes you think would help, DJ, I think your points are good, so I'll try and incorporate them myself too.... btw. because we'd seek to cite a specific law, the template possibly should be called something like 'media which contravenes australian child pornography laws' - ie. there may be other material which is illegal for other reasons. That's a bit of a mouthful though, and maybe a bit incendiary, I dunno - any other ideas for the name? Privatemusings (talk) 01:40, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
I would leave any "legal disclaimers" up to the Foundation's legal counsel. If we keep playing lawyer pretty soon every file will be marked with all kinds of dubious warnings based on what some non-lawyers interpreted the law to be. There's too many countries and too many laws. There's a reason why we say "The laws in your country may not recognize as broad a protection of free speech as the laws of the United States or the principles under the UN Charter and, as such, Wikimedia Commons cannot be responsible for any potential violations of such laws should you link to this domain or use any of the information contained herein in anyway whatsoever." This is not our job. In fact, it may even be legally dangerous to do this. If we have all kinds of warnings, people will have reasonable expectation for us to warn them about all legal issues and when we fail to do that (which is inevitable with sheer amount of laws around the world and that fact that this is a user-generated site run by volunteers) and something happens to the unaware reuser, there can be lawsuits brought against the WMF. Of course, I'm no lawyer either but it doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Rocket000 (talk) 08:44, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
We should follow en:Wikipedia:No disclaimers in articles. Multichill (talk) 16:33, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Replacing a file I'm the author of

This is actually a multi-part question, but it's all related...

I would like to replace a file that I am the author of with a higher quality version. How do I do that? There's probably a procedure for that and I'm not sure where to find it.

Second part: somebody else uploaded the file from wikipedia, not me. Does that pose unique problems?

Thanks in advance, Micahmedia (talk) 08:03, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Somewhere on the description page there is a link to overright the old with a new version. --Mbdortmund (talk) 08:56, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Well, if you are properly credited as the author and copyright holder, and it's just an higher resolution version of that image, I can't see why you shouldn't. On the file page, just below the thumbnails displaying version history, there's a link to upload a new version of the same file. If by "higher quality" you mean an higher resolution version of the same image, I'd say there shouldn't be any problem, except that image annotations won't display (because of the size change). On the other hand, if by "higher quality" you mean something else, please consider uploading under a different file name, and perhaps declare the former image superseded (via {{Superseded}}). --Ianezz (talk) 09:14, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
I am properly credited on both here and WP, but I uploaded it to WP and somebody else copied it over to here. Yeah, a little larger and higher quality setting for the jpeg compression. I don't see the link to upload a new version. All I see is "edit with external..." Thanks for responding! If I can't get it going tomorrow, I'll just upload and mark the old one for deletion/superseded. Micahmedia (talk) 10:18, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Usually, new users need to wait four days after signing up to be able to upload a new version of an image. I've just transferred you to the "confirmed" group of users, which will give you the rights you need. You should now see a link "Upload a new version of this file" in the File history section of the image page. Pruneautalk 12:21, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks everybody! Mission accomplished. Micahmedia (talk) 20:11, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Correction of a template needed

Hi,

please let me know if I am not posting in the right place. The template {{PD-GallicaScan}} needs some updates specifically in order to correct the link to the Gallica website. Could an administrator handle this? More information was provided by Tachymètre on the template discussion page. Thanks by advance. Badzil (talk) 08:49, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] SVG translation guide

Based on this question... I tried to search for SVG translation/internationalization but nothing appeared in Commons namespace. I think will be good idea if folks with related experience will create guidelines for this topic. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:52, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Maybe {{Translation possible}} is a help. It's linked from COM:SVG. --Saibo (Δ) 15:55, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Misunderstanding (?)

I've recently uploaded some pictures of DJ Sava and Heaven and now i don't understand why they're going to be deleted... I officially manage these artists (virtually) and i have received the rights to use the photos legally. What am i supposed to do now? - Divercitycafe (talk) 14:58, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

The notice that was added to File:Dj_Sava.jpg indicates what you need to do to clarify permission. See COM:OTRS for more details. The problem is, of course, anyone could have uploaded this image that is already on the web. We need an email with clear and explicit permission. - Jmabel ! talk 15:59, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
(ec) First of all: thank you for uploading! I think best is if you could send an email as described here: Commons:Email_templates. This is needed to be sure that you are the copyright holder. Do you own really all rights of these pictures? Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 16:04, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Further question

Divercitycafe's confusion above raises a question for me: shouldn't {{no permission since}} include a link to COM:OTRS? And, if not, why not? - Jmabel ! talk 16:01, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, it includes a link to Commons:Email templates. Sufficient in my eyes (and includes a link to COM:OTRS). COM:OTRS is not very helpful to a newbie, is it? Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 16:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Microscopic organism images needing articles

Hi folks. I'm looking for images of microscopic organisms that need articles to be created for them. Is there an easy way to search for those? Please give me any advice you can here. Thanks very much. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 17:12, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] More Tropenmuseum images

Hi everyone, I just finished uploading another batch of images as part of the Tropenmuseum partnership. The latest batch contained mostly images of objects in their collection like shields, swords, wayang and a lot more. Most of the images are still in one or more temporary categories. If you feel like helping: Please find real categories for these images :-). Thank you, Multichill (talk) 19:35, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

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