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COMMONS DISCUSSION PAGES (index) Commons Help desk Village pump (general discussion) Copyright Proposals Technical Graphics and photography discussion Photography critiques Image improvement Illustration workshop Map workshop Photography workshop Video and sound workshop Categories for discussion Undeletion requests Deletion requests Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard Translators' noticeboard Work requests for bots Contact administrators Vandalism User problems (Dispute resolution) Blocks and protections Bureaucrats' noticeboard CheckUser requests Oversight requests Telegram IRC webchat Commons mailing list (archive) Commons' bugs on Phabricator Welcome to the Village pump This page is used for discussions of the operations, technical issues, and policies of Wikimedia Commons. Recent sections with no replies for 7 days and sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=--~~~~}} may be archived; for old discussions, see the archives; the latest archive is Commons:Village pump/Archive/2024/05. Please note: If you want to ask why unfree/non-commercial material is not allowed at Wikimedia Commons or if you want to suggest that allowing it would be a good thing, please do not comment here. It is probably pointless. One of Wikimedia Commons’ core principles is: "Only free content is allowed." This is a basic rule of the place, as inherent as the NPOV requirement on all Wikipedias. Have you read our FAQ? For changing the name of a file, see Commons:File renaming. Any answers you receive here are not legal advice and the responder cannot be held liable for them. If you have legal questions, we can try to help but our answers cannot replace those of a qualified professional (i.e. a lawyer). Your question will be answered here; please check back regularly. Please do not leave your email address or other contact information, as this page is widely visible across the internet and you are liable to receive spam. Purposes which do not meet the scope of this page: Please do not make deletion requests here: use the relevant process for it instead. For technical support and graphics talks (PNG, SVG, GIF, etc.), please post on the Graphics village pump. To ask for image improvement, see: Graphic Lab/Photography workshop for photographs. Graphic Lab/Map workshop for maps. Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop for other illustrations. To ask for video or audio improvement, see Commons:Graphic Lab/Video and sound workshop. For translation requests, please post at Commons:Requests for translation. For media requests, please post at Commons:File requests. Search archives:       Start a new discussion

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Centralized discussion See also: Village pump/Proposals   ■ Archive How do we organize categories by date (14 May 2024) Proposal to prohibit political restriction templates (5 February 2024) Should PD-CQ Roll Call be used for recent images? (5 January 2024) Technical needs survey (17 December 2023) When does PDART apply to textile works? (15 November 2023) Does this image contain "love hearts"? (17 August 2023) Overhaul of categories by period (5 December 2022) Version of Saudi flag to use (11 July 2022) Concern regarding revocability of KOGL licenses (22 December 2021) Should deleting content from your own talk page be forbidden? (11 November 2021) Revise the COM:FOP Sweden section (1 February 2021) Change technical name of LRs to license-reviewer from image-reviewer(2 November 2023) User talk:湯崩正海#Image Tagging File:青島ビール放尿動画事件.jpgとUser talk:湯崩正海#File:青島ビール放尿動画事件.jpgで議論しています。皆様のご意見を募集しています。是非、ご参加ください。(2 November 2023) Template: View   ■ Discuss    ■ Edit   ■ Watch

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April 27

Is Commons is no longer of any value as a repository of documentary protest images?

I've been contributing images to Commons for the past decade or so, and am at the verge of quitting and deleting my profile.

• Mostly I take wildlife images of Australia - but also cultural festivals and occasional protests that I might see. I'm not a professional, and definitely not a great photographer ... but I do get lucky with some quality pictures, Featured pictures, and #20 spot in the picture of the year a while ago. Capturing images of my community, such as protests, festivals, annual commemorations and international visits such as the G20 conference here in Brisbane and its associated cultural events means that there's a pool of images for future historians and which occasionally also get picked up by academic journals.
• I tried to avoid the underbelly of Wikipedia and Wiki Commons politics as much as possible. I've seen some journals describe the toxicity and why some good people prefer simply not to deal with it. I think most people are well-meaning, but I've seen others who appear revel in those politics and in-fighting ... but I honestly have better things to do. Sadly, I seem to have been reluctantly caught up in it this week.
• My concern that's pushing me to stop contributing is that we currently have a small group of self-appointed guardians who've been deleting images of protests about the war in Ukraine (including two of my images here and here).
• In other cases, they're deleting valid protest images of Abdel Fatah el-Sisi or Women's rights campaigners in Iran. There were also recent Gaza and Iraeli protests where the uploaders have been forced to pixelate signs and photographs of hostages - which really makes the Commons version unusable from a documentary perspective.
• In all cases, the images are of an EVENT. There is a placard visible - giving context to what the protest is about, but the graphic they're complaining about might be less that 5% of the total image area! In no case is it attempting to circumvent copyright. FOP and Derivative works policies appear to being misused - the fact that someone is holding a protest sign doesn't necessarily mean that our photographic images are derivative works ... we're simply documenting a protest event, and people will generally be holding placards.
• Admittedly, one of my images has an image placard taking about 15%. I purposefully made faces in the crowd out of focus as it contained children who I was uncomfortable including ... although the protesters and their Australian plus Ukrainian flags are still visible. The resulting photograph contains an image based on a work by an NZ cartoonist from 2008. After some research, I contacted the Alexander Turnbull library who holds the work of that cartoonist (now retired) - and they have no issue with it. The image is copyrighted but even they see that I was photographing an event.
• Based on the examples that I've seen, and if it continues, I can see that Wiki Commons is set to lose a lot of documentary photographs where there are events at which people are carrying placards with images ... such as these from the January 6 insurrection: ex1 ex2 ex3 ex4 ex5

My feeling is that some of these Commons' policies triggering deletions are reducing the viability and usefulness of Commons as a repository of documentary photographs - or maybe that well-intended policies are being misapplied. These deletions are being pushed by a small number of individuals - so it's hard to tell if it's just them or if this truly was the Wiki Commons community viewpoint. The deleted images are fine on every other platform. My own photographs in Wiki Commons (at least prior to this deletion) have been used in magazines, academic journals and websites, our Australian national broadcaster, and even an Australian documentary feature film. It's just Wiki Commons admins that started making drama lately and saying that they can no longer be hosted because of some hypothetical that no-one else whatsoever has an issue with. Thoughts?? Is there any point of Wiki Commons containing documentary images if they're just going to get deleted?? Bald white guy (talk) 12:20, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

@Bald white guy: Please have the Alexander Turnbull library send permission via VRT.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 13:14, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

What would you suggest as a solution? The problem is that the protestors violate the copyright of the original artist and documenting that copyright violation is therefore a copyright violation too. When we are talking about paintings made by the protestors themself I would agree that we should write down the guideline that holding a self made painting into a camera at a protest is considered as consent for publishing the photo of the artwork. Especially as getting a written down permission is not possible in such cases. GPSLeo (talk) 13:24, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

@GPSLeoThanks ... I understand that there's a challenge. But imagine if the George Floyd incident had occurred in front of a movie theatre and there just happened to be a movie poster on display in the background. Essentially there's an event that needs to be reported but it cannot (or at least not on Wiki Commons). No respected publication or image repository other than Wiki Commons would actually have a problem with it. In the Australian and New Zealand legal jurisdictions, any copyright claim would be moot as they would come under "fair use" which isn't acceptable on this site for some reason. I think there needs to be an acceptable threshold. I think it's dodgy saying that something that occupies maybe 5% of the total image space (and was incidental, and outside the photographer's control) should trigger deletion. It just seems like overkill and, again, it makes Wiki Commons unfeasible for images of protest or other similar events. I'm seriously just losing my love for Wiki Commons over policies or interpretations that don't seem to make sense. Bald white guy (talk) 13:50, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

But background or only 5% has nothing to do with the examples you linked above. At these two examples the main subject of the photo is the poster that is presumable shown without permission by the original author. GPSLeo (talk) 13:59, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Essentially there's an event that needs to be reported but it cannot (or at least not on Wiki Commons). No offense, but Commons isn't a news site. Nor is it meant to be a general media repository that hosts whatever people want to upload here. It's not even good for that purpose either. --Adamant1 (talk) 14:08, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Commons is the media storage site for Wikinews.--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:44, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

And? That still doesn't make it a news site. --Adamant1 (talk) 15:13, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

@Prosfilaes: As acknowledged by the English Wikinews image use policy (en:wikinews:WN:IUP) Commons is only to store freely licensed or copyright free works. Images with copyright restrictions can be stored locally with a fair use claim. If you are involved with another language version of Wikinews that doesn't accept fair use, then you may want to build consensus there to adopt a local fair use policy. From Hill To Shore (talk) 17:13, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree with you @Bald white guy. Be me, a user who has only being 6 months and has being harshly “bitten” and insulted quite a lot by seasoned users even though there’s an explicit guideline against it (literally). So this clique of seasoned Wiki users bend the rules to their convenience. What I do is just ride it out. But that’s me as a new or outsider, in your case it must feel different of course. We at the end of the day, it is a community. Miguel Angel Omaña Rojas (talk) 17:23, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Commons is, in general, a perfectly good repository of many types of protest images. However, because of our particularly strict adherence to copyright law, it is not a good repository in which to document materials that violate copyright, and protest banners and placards often disregard copyright, so those particular images can't be here without a long chain of licenses that is almost never achievable. - Jmabel ! talk 14:52, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

@Bald white guy I agree with J. Mabel here. Personally, I would want Commons to be able to host images of protesters with protest paraphernalia, but unfortunately, almost all paraphernalia are essentially artistic works, like creative placards and effigies. Even one image that I imported from Flickr got deleted recently (I imported it when I still had little familiarity on derivative works). There is of no use of applying Freedom of Panorama in many images that intentionally include such protesters' artworks, since FoP rules in 70+ countries do not typically cover non-permanent artworks in public places (Australian FoP itself does not cover flat arts like posters and tarpaulins). I'd like to take note also that Commons does not accept fair use content. Only content that are licensed for commercial re-uses is allowed, and this is a major reason why images containing unfree artworks cannot be hosted here. Perhaps we are meant to host such protest images to document events, but the commercial Creative Commons licensing means there is 100% certainty of an Australian postcard maker or a web developer misusing those images, to the detriment of the artists who created those artistic paraphernalia. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 16:56, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

@JWilz12345 @Jmabel: You and others make good points. However, I find the copyright arguments misguided. The images aren't seeking to surreptitiously capture those works for commercial gain - they're recording an event. The record of that event may be useful for others at some future point and used to highlight an issue I'd never considered (such as a couple of images that I captured at a May Day parade showing a small group of protestors highlighting the unfairness of the Australian/East Timorese Maritime Oil Lease). They had a graphic. Maybe they drew it themselves or maybe it came from other sources. However, that photo was used to illustrate discussions on the issue in several journals and in a film. That debate triggered change. I'm not saying I was responsible for anything meaningful but I was glad to have played a tiny part. I really appreciate Wikimedia for making the images available. Similarly (although not protest images) I was happy to see my Australian bat images being used early on in journals discussing COVID-19 or other bat-borne viruses. The fact that it's been so valuable is why the deletion of otherwise useful images makes me so disappointed.

Once again - the copyright argument is spurious. As mentioned, these types of images are used by the media and others every day without issue since we do have fair use within our legal doctrine. Even without it, our judges and legal professionals here are very smart and reasonable people (Hooray for us antipodean countries without political judicial appointments :-) ). I had the pleasant experience seeing that first-hand working within the NZ judicial system for over a decade.

The problem is that Commons enforces over and above what copyright law actually requires. Policies are aimed at making everything commercially viable. That's not going to always be the case with documentary images. Look - we know that images with identifiable people can't be used in all commercial scenarios because of Personality Rights, and we've found a way to still include them through availability of the Personality Rights Warning. Maybe something similar is needed to protect documentary images where there's some other potentially copyrighted recognisable image. I have used Personality Rights in my protest images where I have faces that are visible (thanks @Yann for having pointed that option out to me some years ago). Anyway - as per my original post, I see the current round of enforcement will result in removal of many valid images - not just mine. It will purge images of important protests on European and Middle-Eastern issues, and many of the January 6 images with visible banners. In the meantime, I'll need to explore other options for hosting my images. Thanks for the discussion. Bald white guy (talk) 01:17, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

@Bald white guy one possible but potentially tedious option is to contact the artists themselves. I assume that the protesters who held the materials were the artists themselves, and if you have acquaintances with them you may try to ask them to have your images of their artistic paraphernalia released under the free culture CC licensing mandated by Wikimedia Commons. The email template for them to use as well as Wikimedia VRTS email address is at COM:VRTS#Email message template for release of rights to a file. If the artists of the paraphernalia have no plans to gain royalties from commercial re-users reusing images of their works, then it is a green light for the licensing permission to proceed. Note that the permission should not be restricted to non-commercial or non-profit uses only. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 04:11, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

• Remember nothing actually gets deleted, just hidden from view to non-administrative editors. Should Commons display rules change to allow fair-use of protest signs, or Freedom of Panorama copyright laws change, those images will be restored. And in 95 years those images will enter the public domain and be visible. --RAN (talk) 18:51, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

  @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) most protest art are temporary only and are not permanently-situated in public places. So unless the demonstrators decide to permanently showcase their artworks in an open-air museum (to fulfill outdoor requirements of around 60+ yes-FoP countries), FoP is not applicable. And note that there is no chance of Australian FoP extended to 2D flat arts. If some art societies there already oppose sculptural FoP in the Australian copyright law, what are the chances of 2D FoP being introduced there? 0%. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 04:21, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

@Bald white guy "these types of images are used by the media and others every day": absolutely. And we could legally publish them on Commons, under the U.S. fair use doctrine. For that matter, it would be perfectly legal for Commons to publish works that are available under an NC license, since we are ourselves non-commercial. However, Commons policy has been from the outset, and remains, that we are specifically a repository of material that, at least in terms of copyright, is available for commercial use and for derivative works. - Jmabel ! talk 07:10, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

if more people know about cc licences...

if more people know about commons...

if these people will then add a caption underneath their poster art: "released under ccby/ccbysa 4 licence"... :) RZuo (talk) 20:36, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

The idea that a major website would care in the slightest about copyright without an DMCA request is still unthinkable to most Trade (talk) 00:13, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Bald guy, having photos deleted is not at all a slight against nor an attack against. It's just simply an unfortunate side effect of Commons strict enforcement against copyright. My suggestion would be to upload your photos to Flickr as well as Commons. That way people can still access the ones that occasionally gets deleted.--Trade (talk) 00:00, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

yes that's also what i occasionally do. photos of things like packaging, non-fop-covered art... are uploaded to my flickr.

i dont care about my copyright (of my photos), but i dont have the copyright of the artworks i depicted. RZuo (talk) 13:57, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

@Trade @JWilz12345@GPSLeo@Jmabel @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) @Prosfilaes @Jeff G.

Thanks for discussion. Look I'll just let those photos get deleted, and stop uploading. I'll find somewhere else more conducive. At the end of the day, I'm just a contributor, and just want to take photos and make them available to my community. I really don't want mess around with someone else's internal organisational politics and agendas. Everyone says I've gotta do this, or I've gotta do that. They say it's a copyright issue - but I feel that's BS, since it's a complete non-issue for everyone in the media, photo library business or legal professionals.

From my side, I see there's a simple remedy with Fair Use defined in our legal system - and it would be very simple for Commons to set up a tag for this type of image in exactly the same way as has been done already for Personality Rights. That tag would highlight that there might be a copyrighted graphic within the image that might impose some restrictions on usage. However, the powers that be within Commons have chosen to avoid that route. The only defence that I saw was a silly argument that someone (somewhere) might want the right to put my protest images onto a postcard! Seriously?! That's a very weak excuse. I'm not sure what postcard images they have in your part of the world - but here, in Queensland Australia, no rational person would ever put that on our postcards. Our tourists prefer their postcards with cuddly koalas, kangaroos, parrots, dolphins, the obligatory pretty landscape/cityscape, and pretty girls in bikinis on a white sand beach.

Thanks to those of you who've helped me through the years and who've made many great contributions of your own both in uploaded photos and your time. However, with this policy, it just isn't the place for me ... and I'm deeply saddened by the deletion of what I believe to be important images by the documentary photographers around the world whose work I've seen come up in those Pending Deletion pages. The way that its done is very disrespectful - maybe the elements in mine were kinda obvious, but the ones for Abdel Fatah el-Sisi or Women's rights campaigners in Iran were blanket deletion requests never specifically calling out which element was at fault within the image. I saw comments on others but never got to see the images as they'd already been removed. Anyway, I'll find another home for my images going forward. Thanks again. Bald white guy (talk) 11:16, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

I won't try to convince you to stay. You have a fundamental disagreement with one of the key principles of Commons that was introduced at its creation. We can't change the whole project to suit the demands of an individual.

The key reason for me in maintaining the ban on fair use is that Commons files are automatically copied into websites and databases all across the internet through Wikidata and Wikipedia clones. Those sites and databases place trust in Commons to keep its files free of copyright issues (and remove copyright violations as quickly as possible). Allowing fair use images will break that trust and will require a lot more effort than a single warning template to fix.

There was some talk a couple of years ago about setting up another Wikimedia project for fair use files, but I haven't read any updates about it in a long time. If it does ever launch, that may be a suitable place for you.

Failing that, there are plenty of image archives out there to store your files. It is a shame that we can't accept your fair use contributions but we can't be everything to all people. From Hill To Shore (talk) 12:25, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

@Bald white guy "...it's a complete non-issue for everyone in the media, photo library business or legal professionals."

it's not bs. it's not non-issue. pretty sure you can find common law precedents (and quite likely australian ones) when artists sue for compensation for violation of copyright by photos depicting their artworks being distributed without their permission.

see https://www.copyright.org.au/browse/book/ACC-Photography-&-Copyright-INFO011 . RZuo (talk) 08:47, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Agree with Bald White Guy. Why should Wikipedia greatly limit the images it can use, for the benefit of for-profit re-users? We should just clearly tag fair use images as such. It's the re-users responsibility to make sure they actions are legal. We would not be prohibiting them from re-using the images, just making them do a small amount of work to check their status. Ttulinsky (talk) 21:27, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

English Wikipedia already allows fair use images on their site. Other Wikimedia projects had the option to set a fair use policy; some chose to allow them and some didn't. Wikimedia Commons was set up with an intention to maximise reuse of images by excluding fair use. People who want to upload fair use images can do so on the projects that allow them. From Hill To Shore (talk) 23:15, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Allowing for fair use on Commons would at least have the benefit of everything being curated and dealt with on a single site. I don't think it helps helps anyone to have images hosted on multiple sites with as many language specific guidelines and curation styles. I don't think there's much connection or collaboration between the various projects either, which really doesn't help things. --Adamant1 (talk) 23:22, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

@Adamant1@Ttulinsky allowing fair use on Commons only opens a lot of cans of worms. For one thing, fair use is specific to a few jurisdictions only, US and the Philippines included. However, in most European countries, fair use is non-existent, with the limited set of exceptions provided in the copyright laws of UK, France, Germany et cetera (the fair dealing regimes). There will always be a case when the use of protest art is legal for informatory purposes in the US may not be legal in some parts of Europe, especially if the license used in the images is inherently commercial. I agree to RobbieIanMorrison's insight (below) on the matter.

I am also sure that Wikimedia Commons as a media repository site fails fair use. Media repositories typically do not serve to report or inform, but to share and distribute images to widest-possible audiences, under licensing that are advantageous to either photographers or re-users (not artists of works depicted in the photos), making them lucrative.

Lastly, it has been a longstanding principle of Wikimedia Commons to reject anything with non-commercial licensing or with fair use, as it strictly upholds the Free Cultural Works Definition and as the agent of free culture movement of which Wikimedia is part of. Allowing fair use negates the free culture mission and fails Wikimedia Commons' duty to be a steward of free culture. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 00:41, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

@JWilz12345: I don't necessarily disagree with most of that. Except I do take issue with the claim that fair use would be against the purpose of Commons since we already make plenty of other exceptions. I don't really see what's so special about fair use that we can't allow for it while having a multitude of other special licenses and reuse rules for other instances in the meantime. Like anyone can upload an image under the pretense that they have to be created if someone reuses their image. No one says that's against the duty to be a steward of free culture. Even though it clearly limits reusage. The same goes for things like the warnings for banned symbols in countries like Germany.

There's no reason we can't just do a similar thing with fair usage and have a warning template saying it's on the person downloading the image to follow the law. While still being a steward of free culture in the meantime. Fair usage is "free culture." Especially for people who live in countries where that's the only acceptable license for FOP. It's just not the type of freedom that anyone on here seems to care about for some reason. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:54, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

@Adamant1 fair use is not applicable to Commons. The simple reason: Commons fails in at least one of the four factors in fair use.

1. The purpose and character of use.
2. The nature of the copyrighted work.
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion taken.
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market.

Suppose Wikimedia Commons' hosting of images of protest art. It may or may not pass the first factor; we may defend that we are just hosting the images without commercial intent, but we are not hosting the images for criticism, book review, parody, or other limited-use purpose. There is no "transformative" purpose in our hosting of these images; we host these images without modifying for satirical or meme purposes. Nature of the copyrighted work: perhaps Commons may still pass as the nature of the protest art is usually temporary and created to provoke criticism against embarrasing politicians/businessmen/world leaders et cetera, and likely no purpose of artwork exhibition on the demonstrators' part. Amount and substantiality...Commons fails. Having several images of the said protest art as main or intended subjects means this factor fails. Lastly, the effect of use, may or may not be applicable for Commons. If the demonstrators intend to showcase their works on art-related platforms (like Artnet website or the ADAGP-endorsed Who Art You app) so that Internet traffic is meant to be diverted there, then Commons should not host such art; otherwise, Commons is competing the Internet traffic that is meant to be focused on the art-dedicated platforms where demonstrators meant to showcase their works, even if we do not have commercial intent through Internet traffic. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 05:05, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

@JWilz12345: You make some valid points. Especially the last one about not competing with art platforms. That's one of the main issues I've had with AI generated images being hosted on here. I don't think we are served well trying to be an image host for amateur artwork. As there's already plenty of other websites that do it better then we ever can. Anyway, I don't think I'd personally include images of protest posters in any kind of fair usage policy. Although I guess others probably would. But I think there's merit to it at least for images of monuments or buildings that have a high likelihood of being used on other projects. It's not like we can't confine it specifically to those use cases either. There's really no legitimate legal reason not to allow us to host images that are being used in Wikipedia articles or Wikidata entries under a fair use rational even if they are otherwise copyrighted though. I really don't see how doing so would be in conflict with the "steward of free culture" thing either. The issue of third parties using the images being tangential, or secondary, to their usage on Wikipedia or Wikidata though. --Adamant1 (talk) 05:30, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

I have no particular axe to grind as to whether Commons should or should not change its policy of hosting only images that are "very clean" in copyright terms. And I agree that not everything could be hosted here on a fair use basis (and pictures of other people's copyrighted art are one of the things we could least likely defend on that basis). However, we often do get into the amount of commentary that would be needed for fair use. Inevitably because of current policy, any examples I give are actually PD or licensed, but given our generally educational mission, I'd guess the annotations on something like File:Seattle waterfront looking north, ca. 1902 - DPLA - 581559ebec10f91873edf2a8e2b90e40 (page 1).jpg would be enough to put it in "fair use" territory if it were a copyrighted photo. - Jmabel ! talk 14:54, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't really see it. For one, I don't think such annotations are really what would put it in the fair use territory, as they're about the waterfront, not the artwork. Secondly, if whenever we showed the work, we also showed the annotations, there might be an argument, but Commons functions as an image repository where anyone can use our images directly from our servers in their wikis, which would come without annotations. Fair use commentary is when you use it in a larger video or book with commentary, it's not when you offer a copy for use with commentary just on the original website.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:06, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

People do the equivalent of this in classrooms all the time. - Jmabel ! talk 23:38, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Fair use supposedly encompasses "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research." I assume annotations would qualify as at least three of those, comment, teaching, and research. If not also scholarship. Although I agree there's nothing requiring files on here be annotated and people using them for other purposes outside of Commons would be SOL. It's not like those issues couldn't be resolved if fair usage was ever implemented on here. But I wouldn't recommend us hosting images of modern, copyrighted artwork as fair usage. That's not really Commons' strong suit or main attraction anyway though. --Adamant1 (talk) 23:58, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

@Adamant1: See the WikiMedia Foundation Licensing Policy Resolution of 23 March 2007.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 12:38, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

• Likely this was said before in this lengthy thread, but here my take: I had a look at the 5 samples given initially. All but the last one (which isn't listed for deletion), they seem to be images of specific posters or banners rather than protests in general. As such, the question in their deletion requests is correct. If there happen to be posters in images showing people at protests, the question would have been different. Enhancing999 (talk) 14:25, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

  I read this long thread with interest. I occasionally attend open source law conferences and mix with copyright and patent lawyers on a regular basis. As I understand it, the United States fair use doctrine is an affirmative defense related to the specific use‑case in question — and cannot just automatically pass thru to downstream reuse‑cases in other situations with other facts. Other legal jurisdictions — and I live in Berlin — do not support fair use but rather provide an exhaustive list of exceptions.

      The one solution I have been advocating in this context is to prompt protest organizations to add suitable CC‑BY‑4.0 license notices to their placards and posters. None so far have been remotely interested. They do not care how their material may be used and abused, but equally they cannot be bothered adding public license notices to enable use on Wikipedia.

      Similar to other editors, I cannot talk the OP into staying with Wikimedia Commons. But I would encourage them to review the merits of the reasoning presented thus far, reconsider their position, and work within the necessarily cautious legal policies that Wikimedia has rightfully settled upon in my view. HTH. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 11:03, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

April 28

Photos in png resulting in big filesize

i stumbled upon a user uploading new photos in png, so a typical photo takes up nearly 100 Mb (whereas jpg is normally less than 20).

what's the community's opinion about this? RZuo (talk) 14:03, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

examples https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?sort=create_timestamp_desc&search=filemime%3Apng+hastemplate%3Aown+filesize%3A110000

you can find more by lowering the filesize number. RZuo (talk) 14:13, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

In principle, it is perfectly fine. We welcome high resolution images in uncompressed/low compression formats link PNG and TIFF. For the purpose of archiving, the higher the quality the image we can obtain, the more future-proofed we will be as display technology improves. JPEG are good for making thumbnails but the compression can cause frequent artifacts after repeated editing. It is best to copy the original uncompressed file and edit that and then save as JPEG, which produces usable files with no artifacts. Whether I would have gone to the effort of making such high quality PNGs of plain packaging is another question. From Hill To Shore (talk) 14:20, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree with From Hill To Shore. PNGs, TIFs (and lossless compressed WebP files) are very good for archiving purposes (and to edit from them). As interchange format (like embedding images or nominating for QIC/FPC), JPG is better. I used PNGs for the historical cellar of our town hall and TIFs for HDR images, to handle the brightness differences. --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 11:19, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

I think it's ridiculous. I like my files to be 1 to 5 MB or so. I might use PNG for images that are fit for PNG such as maps. Even then they should be smaller than 10 MB for sure. But who knows, maybe I'll feel different after buying a 4k monitor? My monitor is 1680 × 1050 so it's really small. A PNG file sized my monitor size is 2,9 MB at the most. Konijnewolf (talk) 22:55, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Everyone has their preferences. I would not use PNG for "ordinary" pictures (landscapes, people, etc.), but for technology, i.e. File:PC-Hardware HOF1969 RAW-Export 000165.png, I could imagine the use lossless images. Yann (talk) 23:12, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

PNG is typically very useful for cartoons and so, that have large areas of same color. A photo of a processor has no large areas of same color. Konijnewolf (talk) 23:30, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

PNG offers fortunately adding transparency to the image ;) (as I did in recent computer hardware images often) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 10:44, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

You can use lossless-webp for images in high quality and with small filesize. I would do that with my uploads if metadata support on commons for webp was better. C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm - p7.ee/p) (talk) 04:26, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, this comment convinced me to improve webp metadata. Should be better come Wednesday. Bawolff (talk) 20:53, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

I use to scan and upload images of postcards in Tiff format, but it just took to long and the upload would time out. So now I do it in JPEG. I thonk that's a good use for loseless images. Since there's details in the original postcard that can be distorted or lost otherwise. I'm not sure about the benefits of loseless images of packaging though. As there really isn't finer details that need to be preserved. Maybe with the actual CPUs, but I don't think so. But its not like there's a file size limit on here either. So to each their own. --Adamant1 (talk) 23:38, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

@Adamant1: Please see COM:HR and Commons:Why we need high resolution media.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 23:51, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

As time passes by, so do the technical standards. Screens with 1680 × 1050 pixels are out of date for example now, 3840 × 2160 is a standard (I work with two 4K screens for example). I am categorizing the images of CPU, and it is a pity, that resolutions like "720 × 260" were used back then. Might be appropriate for 2005, but now, in 2024, it is far too low. There are so many reasons for and against filetypes, it only depends on the manner of use. For archives, high-quality images are preferred (usually lossless compressed), for use and reuse JPG fits probably best. On the other hand, we have limitations and additions on different filetypes. JPGs compresses lossy, only allows 8 bit per channel, has now transparency, and cannot safe different color spaces (AFAIK), TIF is suitable for HDR images, etc. And I can say out of my experience, 100 MB per image is not necessarily much in 2024. Even JPEGs can reach 60 or even 70 MB with a high-resolution camera --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 10:42, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I created pages with arguments for and against high-resolution/high-quality images in German: User:PantheraLeo1359531/Argumente für große Bilder, User:PantheraLeo1359531/Argumente für kleine Bilder --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 10:51, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

You are right. I'll try to upload bigger files from now on. Konijnewolf (talk) 22:25, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

With the examples you use, you are certainly right. Most of them are reproductions of art work, and, yeah, there is no example more fitting. But you argue with jpgs of 20Mb, not a hundred. And this seems (even for your argument) sufficient.

But for pictures of art, architecture, landscapes and especially scientific images there can't be a limit, they are priceless. But these are mostly made by professionals, often provided by institutions, and serious amateurs. And many restrict their file sizes, so that they remain the (c-) keepers of the original. That's a pity.

In the case of these huge sized formats the question would be, if for the purpose of 'daily use' these formats should be transformed in jpg versions (with minimized compression), since noone wants to unpack huge files on his phone or tablet if he pays for it or the reception is bad. I want huge resolution, but highest resolution is only of special interest, as you rightfully described (e.g. cropping).

Who would do that? One could formulate a disclaimer for such files that asks uploaders to already produce jpg versions. And maybe a note or a link to the original HR image for the beholder. A possible limit could be about 10 or 20Mb. MenkinAlRire (talk) 20:11, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

I kind of buy into the idea of uploading the same image in multiple file formats and sizes. But then it can quickly became a curation issue. There does seem be a conflict (for lack of a better way to put it) between the needs of archivists versus average users who don't have the bandwidth or urge to load 200mb images. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:30, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Exactly. i wanted to stress that too, but forgot. It the question of encyclopedia or archive, and I think the archive part is for most readers the part that remains hidden. The linking from Wikipedia to Commons with or w/out the Media Viewer in between often feels awkward, even for me, who works with/on both. I just worked with interwiki links to Commons to avoid picture overload in the article. But imho the pictures you actually see in the article are crucial. Who isn't somehow already familiar with Commons, will be reluctant to explore it, because it also looks like the archive (and bureaucratic). MenkinAlRire (talk) 22:39, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

It's simple. In an ideal world archival reference files are in tiff, sometimes png formats. Files for display on websites are the smaller friendlier jpegs.

We are an archive, that hosts files for websites.

Certain types of files demand, different formats to these. There's no need to keep multiple format variations, only the most appropriate.

Many historical and art files often don't conform to this ideal, we upload whatever we can get in those cases, at the best possible resolution. Variations in colourisation very often have to be kept as a result. Broichmore (talk) 18:05, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

It depends on the subject of the image. If it's say a scanned postcard then at least IMO it should just be uploaded as a TIFF image and then whomever wants to convert or alter it can do so on their own time. Otherwise your playing a game of uploading the same image in 15 different file formats just to pander to users who probably don't exist in the first place. There's kind of that issue with postage stamps of Russia right now. Where you have instances of people uploading multiple copies of what are essentially the same image in different formats just because they can. Even though my guess is that no one besides them really cares. To the point that it just clutters up things and makes Russian stamps impossible to browse through. See Category:Definitive stamps of Russia, 1992–1995 for an example.

Anyway, in that case they should just upload a single PNG file while skipping the JPG altogether since it's a small file size to begin with and can easily be converted. But thumbnails for JPEGs are slightly fuzzy. So the user just uploads both formats. I'd say the same for TIFFs and JPEGs though. Just upload a TIFF for archiving purposes and let other people deal with the conversation. Except there's still the issue with thumbnails being fuzzy for TIFF files. But at least IMO we are mainly, if not exclusively an archive. One that's linked to Wikipedia sure, but we aren't forced to upload JPEG files just because they work better in Wikipedia articles. --Adamant1 (talk) 04:38, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

May 02

Feedback period about WMF Annual Plan for 2024-25 is open!

Hello everyone! The work of the Wikimedia Foundation is guided by its Annual Plan. We’ve now published the full draft Annual Plan on Meta. Please share your feedback and ideas!

This is really one of the best chances to influence how the Wikimedia Foundation works and what it chooses to focus on and prioritise, as the Annual Plan is the main guiding document for planning what to do. This is a high-level document, as it aims to find the key points for the entire organisation – this is to find the main direction, which will help the teams at the Wikimedia Foundation to find more tangible objectives.

These are the main goals:

• INFRASTRUCTURE: Advance Knowledge as a Service. Improve User Experience on the wikis, especially for established editors. Strengthen metrics and reporting.
• EQUITY: Support Knowledge Equity. Strengthen equity in decision-making via movement governance, equitable resource distribution, closing knowledge gaps, and connecting the movement.
• SAFETY & INTEGRITY: Protect our people and projects. Strengthen the systems that provide safety for volunteers. Defend the integrity of our projects. Advance the environment for free knowledge.
• EFFECTIVENESS: Strengthen the Foundation's overall performance and effectiveness. Evaluate, iterate and adapt our processes for maximum impact with more limited resources.

You can read more about what this means in practice on Meta, where you can find both summaries of what the Wikimedia Foundation wants to achieve and links to more detailed pages.

You’re very welcome to share your thoughts on Meta or here, in your own language, and we’ll make sure they are passed on to the relevant parts of the Wikimedia Foundation and that your questions are answered. We can also set up meetings in your own language to further discuss the implication of the Annual Plan, if needed.

Thank you very much for your participation! Sannita (WMF) (talk) 10:23, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

How is Commons in there? In terms of people, infrastructure cost, enterprise services cost/income, development expenses?

I noticed it mentions improvements of UploadWizard as 2023 achievement. Enhancing999 (talk) 11:01, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I wonder how the Upload Wizard was improved if we can't even upload a new version of an image that is larger than 100Mb. Also a complex process where we cannot enter the details of the files but have to wait for them to be uploaded (even if this means waiting hours until midnight) to then enter the details of title, description, etc. In Internet archive you can upload large amounts of files without problems, why do we have an upload wizard that does not accept large files? Wilfredor (talk) 12:27, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

@Enhancing999 while it's not explicit in the text, some support for Wikimedia Commons is planned as part of Objective & Key Result WE2.3. The implication of this are still being defined by the people who will be in charge of this objective, so I can't go into detail, but there will be some support and development work going around Commons also for next fiscal year (i.e. from July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025).

@Wilfredor Thanks for pointing this out. I'll take note of these two tickets, and see if I can get some answers about them. I do share your feeling that these problems should be fixed, I'll try to give you a response ASAP. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 14:54, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

@Wilfredor: you might want to look at Commons:WMF support for Commons/Upload Wizard Improvements and its talk page. And, FWIW, while Sannita and I have had our disagreements about specifics, he is much more responsive and available than his predecessors, and you really should feel free to engage him, probably on the talk page there, which I think is the main place discussion has been taking place. - Jmabel ! talk 14:59, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

According to your recommendation I have created a section here although I think this will be more hidden: [1] Wilfredor (talk) 16:26, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

@Wilfredor You should try the big files again btw. Some major bugs were found and fixed by various ppl in the last weeks. See also the gazette note here one day ago. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:27, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

No, it not was fixed Wilfredor (talk) 18:38, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

The upload wizard limitation being discussed here appears to be an intentional choice not a bug afaik. I imagine you are already aware of this, but User talk:Rillke/bigChunkedUpload.js is basically the best currently existing choice for uploading new versions of an existing large file. Bawolff (talk) 07:29, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

A section in the plan about Commons would be helpful, even if it says not much is planned. I guess the persons handling DMCA requests mostly work for Commons, so this could be in there.

"Enterprise services" cost/income would be good to plan too. Possibly cost is higher than actual income. Enhancing999 (talk) 10:52, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

@Enhancing999 You're not the only one suggesting this, and I will report that there is cross-wiki substantial consensus to get more info about this kind of data. It is true, nonetheless, that the Annual Plan is a more general document that describes the strategy, while the objectives are defined in the other page I suggested you (and are, in fact, being defined in these very days). Sannita (WMF) (talk) 15:40, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I did read WE2.3. It might not impact existing contributors/contributions that much though.

We could brainstorm on points that should be covered from a Commons perspective and then add to the plan, specifying for each if anything is allocated to it or not.

I guess it's also in your interest, not that you end up being the only person working on Commons. Enhancing999 (talk) 16:18, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Enhancing999 - Thank you for your comments. In the first half of the new financial/annual plan year, we are going to continue improvement work on UploadWizard to help decrease bad media uploads, with a focus on copyright. We also plan to include further user interface improvements to the “release rights” step, and an initial version of logo detection integration in the upload flow - which represents the second largest reason for deletions. An initial discussion about the logo detection model happened on the village pump. We will continue to keep an eye on ongoing discussions on the Commons village pump about issues that need attention for further planning. Runa Bhattacharjee (WMF) (talk) 14:00, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Can you ensure this is detailed in the plan as well and can be readily found from a Commons section of the plan? Enhancing999 (talk) 15:00, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Next 12 months at Commons

Let's list a few points and try to align them with the main ones (infrastructure, equity, safety & integrity, effectiveness)

• ensure system keeps running (infrastructure)
• identify core missing Mediawiki features (infrastructure)
• develop or fix missing Mediawiki features (infrastructure)
• determine staff active for Commons (infrastructure)
• be transparent on cost for Wikipedias, storage, enterprise users (infrastructure)
• provide a safe environment for volunteer and professional contributors (safety)
• assess cost/income from Commons images as an enterprise service (effectiveness)
• streamline mass uploads (effectiveness, infrastructure)

Enhancing999 (talk) 08:22, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

• I think that's all reasonable. I have a very specific thing I'd like to suggest additionally, and I haven't read the document in question well enough to categorize it, but we could really use a paid program manager to help coordinate the volunteers who develop and maintain tools. (Just for Commons this may not add up to full time, but we could share the resource with other wikis.) No one is going to volunteer to be a program manager, and it is pretty evident that we need one. - Jmabel ! talk 15:42, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

  There is just a risk that a headcount for this would reduce resources actually available at WMF for improving Commons directly or providing support for tools written by volunteers. Enhancing999 (talk) 08:47, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

  • @Enhancing999: I personally think that at this point that even if we sacrificed even 1 FTE developer for 1 FTE program manager coordinating our tech volunteers, we'd be ahead on the deal. - Jmabel ! talk 16:01, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand what the costing stuff has to do with commons. Bawolff (talk) 07:35, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

@Bawolff: If they have only so much budget for Commons-specific work, a program manager would come at the expense of some resource currently devoted to Commons. - Jmabel ! talk 17:23, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

I doubt budget is broken down that way. Operational costs are shared with other sites, enterprise is an independent organization (for tax purposes i guess). For most of these things, if money is saved on them it goes to something else in the same department. It probably wouldn't go to something commons related in a totally different department [i dont work for wmf dont really know how the budgeting works]. Bawolff (talk) 18:16, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Maybe some intro for such a section would be helpful. "Commons provides photos and other files for all Wikimedia projects. These are described using standard wikipages with templates, categories, exif and structured data." In the more detailed section we could mention what for these could be improved (even if ultimately it wont over the next 12 months). For wikipages we can mostly rely on what is done for Wikipedia. We could improve category redirects and should make sure hot-cat and cat-a-lot keep working. Structured data has still some basic problems with the interface. Enhancing999 (talk) 08:47, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

We really need someone to maintain the CropTool. It seems like the thing is breaking every other week. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:30, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

The real solution would be to make cropping of files part of the thumbnail generation. Then we do not need any cropped variants. The users just define the crop they need when adding the file to an article. GPSLeo (talk) 19:40, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

@GPSLeo: Have you considered using {{CSS image crop}}, available on some 76 projects?   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 21:46, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

But that is not a crop that works in the regular thumbnail boxes in articles and also not in the MediaViewer. And of course such a tool needs a UI to define the crop. GPSLeo (talk) 18:39, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

@GPSLeo: CropTool can help you ballpark the numbers, with the caveat that they are relative to the bSize/originalwidth ratio.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 12:43, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

May 05

What issues remain before we could switch the default interface skin to Vector 2022?

The current default interface skin is Vector 2010, which is now legacy. I've been trying the new Vector 2022 skin here for a while now, and it seems to be working well. You can try it by changing the interface at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering. The fixed width issue has been a sticking point on other wikis, but since that is motivated by the length of a line of text that is easily readable, and we have a very different use case here since we're dealing with media browsing, I think we have a good case for disabling that part by default. Is there anything else that could be an issue? Do we want to have a vote here about changing the default, or should we just submit a request to make the change? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:52, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

This is what it looks like to me: https://i.imgur.com/GQvAaZK.png (Win 10, Chrome 123.0.6312.107)

The only thing I have a strong opinion about is the ability to continue using the Vector 2010 skin even if it's no longer the default one. ReneeWrites (talk) 12:20, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

I am on the same boat of opinion as ReneeWrites. Just like the current implementation at enwiki, older Vector skin still exists as an option in the user preferences even if the default skin is Vector 2022. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 12:44, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

@ReneeWrites @JWilz12345 Thanks for your comments! It will be possible to use the old Vector skin, after that Vector22 becomes default. You will have to update now your GlobalPreferences to choose Vector10, or change to legacy version once the new default is set on Commons, since the default will change. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 12:57, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

The problem with Vector22 seems to be the lack of easily accessible interwikis.

2022 is already a while ago, so we might as well wait for the next Vector version. Enhancing999 (talk) 20:31, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

 Oppose I have tried the Vector 2022 but I think for Commons it is not an improvement. Because so much space on the right is taken by standard stuff that is useful on sister projects (even when you do not want that stuff, it still takes a lot of empty space), that less space is left for the things Commons is about: images. In the old version there are eight images on a row in a category (on my desk top), in the new version seven (that is four more rows to scroll through when there are 200 files in a category). Same for gallery pages; when the "widths" is set on a larger number than the standard, there are only three or four images left, while in the old version there were five or six. For instance Gallery page Art, with standard width: five images on a row in the new version, eight in the old one. That is why I decided not to use the new version. I would like to grant users who are not familiar with vectors the same experience as I have with the old version. So my plea is to keep the old version as the default interface. JopkeB (talk) 07:23, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

•  Support I originally disliked V22 due to how much space was wasted, either by whitespace or by things I wished would just be out of the way, but figured I'd give it a chance when enwiki switched to it. So I found the settings for fixed the annoying things. Like enabling full-width rather than limited-width (in the preferences pane). Like sending the TOC and tools menus to become collapsed pulldowns rather than being sidebars (the 'hide' buttons), which includes the interwiki links. I just compared Category:Benzene on my small/medium-sized desktop browser: V22 gives the same or even more images per row (depending on exact window width). DMacks (talk) 07:58, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

  It's possible that interwikis aren't of much use if one uses mainly English Wikipedia and Commons and relies on being logged-in. The Commons default layout is already a problem in mobile view. Let's not make it worse for the other 50% of users. Enhancing999 (talk) 14:56, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

•  Oppose I hate Vector 2022, I'll never get the time it took me to switch to Vector 2010 back on English Wikipedia, and I'd like to not have to waste time switching back to Vector 2010 if 2022 becomes the default. Commons layout works fine as is. Abzeronow (talk) 00:18, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
•  Oppose Per others. I don't think the minimal improvements that come with adopting it (assuming there even is any) are worth forcing established users to relearn the interface. Especially since the only improvement from what I can is more white space, which is of questionable benefit on here. Although I think it's good for Wikipedia, but there should really be a new vector style that works with our unique case. Instead of us just adopting one that was clearly created purely for better viewing of Wikipedia articles. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:43, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

the two sidebar design is horrible. it's in no way an improvement. who came up with that?!

hiding all interwiki links in a button-activated menu that requires you to type the langcode is also very dumb. wastes so many more clicks and typing to get to something that just exists on the sidebar in vector2010. RZuo (talk) 11:08, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

No objection, it’s just another paintjob —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:46, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

I also think that Vector 2022 is not yet ready to become the default for Commons. The new design is nice for reading articles but not for handling hundreds of files in categories and galleries with many different tools. The sticky sidebars are nice but not if you need to scroll inside the sidebar and I do not want a drop down menu to access my talk or contributions and files pages. GPSLeo (talk) 10:32, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

•  Generally support. I've tried it and agree with above that the small body width is detrimental to Commons where media is consumed rather than text; ideally the Tools sidebar would be minimized by default and the left sidebar would be smaller. In general though I support moving to a modern interface - Commons is beginning to appear outdated compared to most other Wikipedias and the internet in general. Is there a way to gather more feedback from current Commons users before release, and will it be possible to gather feedback and make further adjustments afterwards? Consigned (talk) 18:44, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

  I think mobile view illustrates that no adjustment are made once it's released and users are plagued with the same problems for years. Enhancing999 (talk) 19:25, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

May 08

How useful is Template:Types of goods?

How useful is this template when even after nine years the vast majority of the links is still red?

1. Do we need it on Commons? Isn't it too theoretical, more something for Wikipedia? Commons is for organizing files.
2. If we indeed need it on Commons, can categories be made for the red links and fill them with correct subcategories and files? Who is going to do that?
3. If we do not need it on Commons, can this template be removed from the categories it is in now, and be deleted (or put on hold or something like that)? Do the blue categories all have proper parents?

Note: I tried to discuss this on the talk page, but there was only one reaction (in favour of deletion), while I think this kind of questions need more reactions. JopkeB (talk) 08:18, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm a highly literate native English speaker, and a fair number of these are terms I've never heard. E.g. Post-)Experience goods"? "Credence goods"? - Jmabel ! talk 18:26, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I think this style of navigation template can be perfectly useful on gallery pages, but are a problem on category pages. I have seen several of these over time which seem to be well-meaning efforts to port over templates from Wikipedias to Commons. This style was designed to be an aid at the bottom of an article page, and similar placement on a gallery should work fine. However, that usage does not push down the main contents of the page, which putting it on a category does. So for that reason, using this style of navigation page at the top of templates is a bad practice. The redlinks are also an issue. In my experience with nav template implementation, redlinks are not generally preferred by most users. Even much black text can get in the way of the mission of expediting navigation to parallel topics, so a compact nav that only lists real destinations is usually best. A parameter can be used to allow redlinks to still show up for special cases or temporarily while building categories, but should be suppressed normally. Josh (talk) 00:48, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Not useful at all. This is a "coatrack" template - it's a mixture of terms from economics (e.g. "club goods", "veblen goods", etc) and unrelated phrases which happen to include the word "goods" (e.g. "damaged goods", "confiscated goods"). Of the few links which do have an associated category, those categories are frequently misapplied and may themselves be ripe for discussion. For example, Category:Public goods is a fairly eclectic assortment of images and categories largely unrelated to the economic concept of a public good; the few supply/demand charts which actually illustrate the economic concept could probably be moved to Category:Supply and demand curves or subcategories. Omphalographer (talk) 03:57, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, @Jmabel, Joshbaumgartner, and Omphalographer: for your reactions. So:

• The template contains unclear concepts and a mix of concepts from economic theory and daily use of the word "good". This alone is reason enough to define it as "not useful".
• A template like this one is only fit for gallery pages, not for categories, and it should not be on top, but on the bottom of a page. My comment: I do not expect to have soon so many gallery pages of the (rather abstract) concepts mentioned in the template, that we should need this template to guide us through them.
• Overall conclusions:
  • [New] An alternative is Category:Types of goods (already exists, but does not contain yet all the subcategories that should be in it and it should have a description).
  • We do not need this template on Commons.
  • This template can be removed from the categories it is in now, and then be deleted. Note: check whether these categories all have proper parents.

 Question Do you agree with these conclusions? Can this template be deleted? --JopkeB (talk) 09:02, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

@JopkeB: If it were me I'd get rid of "goods" altogether and merge things into Category:Products by type since "products" is less ambiguous and more established. There's no reason to have two competing category schemes for whats essentially the same concept though and I assume doing that would involve deleting the template along with the categories. --Adamant1 (talk) 09:09, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

There is a difference between "products" and "goods". Goods are tangible, products can be goods and services as well. So I would like to keep both. Though I must admit that this definition has not always been consistently applied to all the concepts in goods (like in public goods). JopkeB (talk) 09:21, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

"Public goods" is almost a coincidence of words, with a different meaning of "goods" ("things that are beneficial" as against "objects that can be the subject of trade"). - Jmabel ! talk 18:11, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel, Joshbaumgartner, Omphalographer, and Adamant1: I have made a deletion request for this template, see Commons:Deletion requests/Template:Types of goods. Please add your comments there. --JopkeB (talk) 03:53, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --JopkeB (talk) 03:46, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

NARA photos

I've tried to upload several photos from the NARA website: [2], [3] but receive a message that they've failed verification. What does that mean? Mztourist (talk) 12:38, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

@Mztourist Commons:List of errors#This file did not pass file verification? RZuo (talk) 11:00, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Category diffusion, again

When was it decided to diffuse categories such as Category:United Kingdom photographs taken on 2024-03-15 to Category:England photographs taken on 2024-03-15 etc?

What purpose is served by doing so? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:00, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

And others have brought this clear down to London on particular dates. I'm completely against this. - Jmabel ! talk 18:28, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

See also Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/Blocks and protections#Sahaib, battleground mentality, and edit warring and User talk:Sahaib#May 2024. The user really believes that there is clear consensus for splitting the cats. This is the zillionth time it happens (every time with a different user). I believe all these categories must be deleted, and the files must be categorized back. Ymblanter (talk) 19:25, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Because several nations have enormous first-level subdivisions, that are larger than many nations, with the US, India and China coming to mind. The UK's subdivisions aren't huge, with Northern Ireland (the smallest by size and population) being about the size of Montenegro and about the population of Latvia, but given that the UK is the 21st largest nation by population, a division to first-level subdivisions doesn't seem unreasonable.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:37, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Actually, OK for me to have "by date cats" for first-level subdivisions, provided we definitely STOP there. Cities should only have these cats if they are themselves a first-level subdivision (like Berlin), otherwise there is effectively no limitation on notability, given the fact that many cities have only a couple of thousands' population and then one might be arguing that "by date cats" for localities within cities were okay because certain localities have more inhabitants in comparison with some cities... and so on. But of course: should there be an RfC with a consensus to STOP at country level, I'm perfectly fine with this too. Regards --A.Savin 03:24, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm in agreement with others about this. It seems fine to have "by date cats" for first-level subdivisions. As long as it doesn't get further subdivided into cities, towns, consensus designated places, random streets in the middle of nowhere, Etc. Etc. There's barely enough files by date to justify it at the country level as things currently are. Let alone anything beyond maybe states (or whatever they are called outside of the United States), and even that's a reach. you take countries with the population of say San Marino or Monaco though "by date cats" are essentially pointless. -Adamant1 (talk) 03:46, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

But these categories are hidden and are intended to be used in templates. For real categories potentially in use by humans we have "Month in Foo", which can be diffused down to villages sometimes, depending on the number of photos. May be there are also categories "Day in FOO", but I have personally never encountered those. Ymblanter (talk) 06:53, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

• I drafted an RfC here: Commons:Requests for comment/Categories of photographs by country by date, please have a look and amend if you think smth is missing. I am planning to start it running mid-next week.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:08, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

  The RfC is now live. Ymblanter (talk) 10:17, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

take a look at Commons:Village pump/Archive/2023/07#Category:2020 photographs of Hannover. RZuo (talk) 11:23, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

May 09

Quad with tracks

How to categorize this?

Hi, There are several pictures of similar vehicles on Commons (but not so many), but with different categories, sometimes much too board. I am surprised that I can't find a specific category for this type of vehicles. Any idea? Yann (talk) 19:37, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Category:Off-road quads is probably the closest we have. Ymblanter (talk) 20:09, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

None of the similar quads are in this category, so I am confused: [4], File:Can-am Outlander 2021.jpg, File:Can-Am Outlander 6x6 T3 Kokonaisturvallisuus 2015 01.JPG, File:Janske Lazne 2022 P87 Cerna hora Can-Am Outlander.jpg, etc. Yann (talk) 20:17, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Category:Tracked quads B25es (talk) 17:07, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

May 10

Wairau Creek, Auckland

Hi, I found that there are two distinct creeks called "Wairau Creek" in Auckland, one to the north of Waitemata Harbour (meeting Hauraki Gulf at Milford Reserve), and the other flows between Glendene and Kelston in the southwest of the harbour. What would be the best way to name the categories for these two distinct creeks as at the moment, we have Category:Wairau Creek (4 images), Category:Wairau Creek, Auckland (empty) and they're not specific enough, but I'm unfamiliar with local views/naming/best practice. Thanks. -- Deadstar (msg) 10:54, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

@Deadstar, You might want to try opening a discussion on New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board.

The descriptions for the Wikidata items for the creeks might also provide some inspiration:

• Wairau Creek (Q116482199) creek on the North Shore, Auckland, New Zealand
• Wairau Creek (Q112854633) creek in West Auckland, New Zealand

Lovelano (talk) 02:41, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Lovelano, I will move my question there! -- Deadstar (msg) 12:47, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Resolved

Problem creating files in the Data namespace

Hi there, I'm trying to create a map file in the Data namespace. This used to work until at least a few weeks ago, but now if I try to create a file, either by clicking on a red link or going to the URL I get a message I cannot create the file. Has something changed? If there's a better procedure to create these files happy to hear about it. Also, is there a dedicated discussion space for Data or mappers? Milliped (talk) 16:39, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Note that an upload using the upload wizard fails as well, the file isn't accepted eitherwith the map or txt extension. Milliped (talk) 16:44, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

I think the page title needs to end in .map. e.g. a url like https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data:Netherlands/Amsterdam/VluchtrouteDG423.map?action=edit Bawolff (talk) 20:56, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

.tab for tabular data and .map for map data indeed. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:42, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Ah, I get it :-D. Thanks! Milliped (talk) 15:31, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Community Wishlist: Upcoming changes to survey, and work on template selection requests

Hello everyone,

We have two updates about the Community Wishlist Survey:

Update one concerns upcoming changes to the survey. In the new survey, we are experimenting with grouping similar wishes into a problem space known as Focus Area and modifying the way the community votes to complement this approach. We also have mockups of the new wish intake form. Get the full details.

The other update announces the selection of 4 related wishes around template use for fulfillment (e.g. adding infoboxes and bookmarking templates).

Please make time to read the announcements in detail, and join the discussions.

On behalf of Community Tech –– STei (WMF) (talk) 17:15, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

May 11

Is there an easier way to upload PD-textlogos?

Might just be me but using the Upload Wizard is honestly pretty tedious. --Trade (talk) 00:57, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

@Trade: As an experienced user, Special:Upload and a copy-paste-edit approach will probably serve you better. - Jmabel ! talk 03:39, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

@Trade: What's so different about uploading PD-textlogos? If it's about the license template, you could use VisualFileChange for batch changing the licenses. Killarnee (talk) 12:38, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

A lot of needless repetition in things such as description and captions Trade (talk) 14:03, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Nevermind, just discovered the new "Copy" function Trade (talk) 15:26, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Flag of Minnesota

Maybe that wasn't the wisest move. File:Flag of Minnesota.svg is now the new, current flag of Minnesota. But until it was moved yesterday by User:Mateus2019, the file that is now File:Flag of Minnesota (1983–2024).svg was using that file name. The result is that Wikipedia pages or page sections in various language versions that explicitly deal with Minnesota's old flag suddenly wrongly show the new flag, because it's using the same file name. For example, I had to update de:Siegel Minnesotas which basically said "the seal of Minnesota is shown on the state flag" accompanied by the new state flag which doesn't show the seal at all. Of course this was a good opportunity to also update the text to say that it's shown on the old state flag, but I don't know how many similar cases there may be in the many projects that use File:Flag of Minnesota.svg. Gestumblindi (talk) 22:35, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Existing filenames should not be repurposed for new different files UNLESS they carry the {{Current}} template. This causes chaos for any wikis that uses InstantCommons (which includes a lot more than just Wikipedia). User:Abzeronow, FYI. Nosferattus (talk) 21:40, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

@Fry1989: The redirect was moved to the new file after Mateus had moved the file to a different name (that same user also filed a DR Commons:Deletion requests/File:Flag of Minnesota.svg so the redirect could be deleted.) I believe most wikis were using it to show what the flag of Minnesota is and I had believed at the time, there was enough consensus to do the move. I probably could have waited a day or two for the various wikis to change text to prepare for the change in the flags, but I do believe the move was less disruptive than the alternative. However, in the future, I'll wait to verify there is consensus to move the file if a similar case happens. Abzeronow (talk) 21:56, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

When flags have changed in the past, the move of the old flag to include the bracketed years of use and the new flag taking over the current namespace was performed in relatively short order. I find this rather silly. Projects are editable, any "disruption" can be easily corrected. Fry1989 ^eh? 16:59, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

May 12

Inkscape svg drawing no line-hatch shown with Firefox on Wikipedia Commons

I made a drawing and surprisingly the hatches are not always shown. It concerns the line hatches shown on Wikipedia Commons with the browser Firefox. Strangely on other browser(s?) this problem is not shown.

File:Screw_vs_Bolt.svg

Even stranger is that when the image is just open by the browser alone, it is shown without any problems.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Screw_vs_Bolt.svg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Public-Publicity (talk • contribs) 09:02, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Is it from a problem how the drawing was made? Is it a problem how wikipedia commons handles the image? Is it a combination of factors that make this problem occur sporadically?

Any tips how this could be avoided in the future from a drawing making perspective (and maybe some improvements on the website might be helpful also if it is involved in creating the problem)?

Thanks in advanced ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Public-Publicity (talk • contribs) 09:02, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

@Public-Publicity: can you be specific what you are seeing different? I don't see the difference, so you may just have a caching issue or such. You say "the line hatches" but you don't say where in the drawing there is a discrepancy. - Jmabel ! talk 16:23, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

https://paste.pics/39dd784c502950a100401be901883c50

See the link

The issue is that this is also not show within the article where it is used.

For the normal view you can just see the direct link to the file itself:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Screw_vs_Bolt.svg Public-Publicity (talk) 16:33, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

normal view:

https://paste.pics/b119cf11045eeae29f663047b77ea1c8 Public-Publicity (talk) 16:38, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

How it is seen on the article side by me on Wikipedia and with Firefox:

https://paste.pics/c27c7d94bfdec4deac9b4d2f8e8ba134 Public-Publicity (talk) 16:45, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

weirdly, also on Firefox, I see the first difference but seem not to see the second. - Jmabel ! talk 19:14, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

WMF does not display the SVG directly. Rather, it uses librsvg to convert the SVG to a PNG and displays the PNG.

It looks like the left-hand cross hatch disappears when the the image is displayed at a width of 293 (i.e., width used on the File: page). A larger PNG will display the cross-hatch:

• https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/Screw_vs_Bolt.svg/293px-Screw_vs_Bolt.svg.png (293 w: cross-hatch lost)
• https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/Screw_vs_Bolt.svg/612px-Screw_vs_Bolt.svg.png (native 612 w: cross-hatch lost)
• https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/Screw_vs_Bolt.svg/1024px-Screw_vs_Bolt.svg.png (1024 w: cross-hatch visible)

The display of a PNG should be the same on all browsers.

Clicking through on the File page will render the SVG directly. I suspect the browser rendering has more fidelity, so the hatching is visible at the native 612 width.

Glrx (talk) 20:55, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

The SVG file is also complicated. Some patterns use a stroke of 1 pixel, but the x dimension scaled by about 0.02 or 0.03. When used, patterns have cascaded transforms. Glrx (talk) 21:17, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

@Glrx Don't know what you mean.

If there is a pattern of 1 pixel with a very small scale you would not see any pattern because of it small size. It would be seen as all the same, as solid fill. When it is too small why is it only seen with certain methods and not on Commons?

What do you mean with 'cascaded transform'?

(The concerining patterns are just simple patterns made with Inkscape. If there is some lost floating pattern, not seen, with a very small size as 1 pixel and a very small scale than this is not correct indeed but it does not concern the occurring problem?) Public-Publicity (talk) 11:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

It often helps to use simple expressions to represent something. Complicated expressions may get misinterpreted. Software often has bugs, and the more complicated expressions may trigger those bugs.

IIRC, the file's cross hatching is overly complex. Instead of having a simple pattern and scaling it by 0.4, it creates a 1/50 size pattern and scales it by 20. That should work in a perfect world, but the world is imperfect.

Inkscape produces complicated SVG that is verbose and full of pointless attributes. There is no guarantee that simple patterns made with Inkscape produce simple SVG. Inkscape also may also use SVG 1.2 or 2.0 features, but those are not supported by WMF's SVG 1.1 renderer.

Glrx (talk) 19:13, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Excluding templates from a custom search

Is there a way to exclude the text in templates from a custom search without having to just exclude the actual text? Like say by putting "-template X" in the search field or something? Adamant1 (talk) 09:14, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

The search index only knows about the contents of a page before transclusions (raw wikitext, which you can search with the insource: prefix), and the contents after a full parse (what you see on the screen). It can exclude pages that use a specific template, or not use a specific template. For documentation, see https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:CirrusSearch —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:40, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Is there a way to find buildings or places in Japan that need photos?

I am going to Japan using a Japan Rail Pass soon and want to be able to take necessary photos there. Transportation will be effectively free for me at the time, so I can grab a bunch of photos of different places, and I intend on going to a wide variety of locations. I already have a list of shrines but these are just ones that I personally want to go to and I feel could have more photos. Is there anywhere else any of you recommend? Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 19:04, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

You can look at en:Category:Wikipedia_requested_photographs_in_Japan. Ruslik (talk) 19:37, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikishootme should help. Also, this map (you need to ask it to show Wikimedia Commons) shows all geolocated photographs on Commons (there are probably others like this, but this is the one I use). Ymblanter (talk) 20:13, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

May 13

Hard to read PDF

File:The New Orleans Bee 1828 May 0068.pdf is hard to read, there are multiple black stains/spots. Is eligible for Commons? 93.47.36.4 09:08, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Short answer, yes; parts are legible..

If you can find a better copy I would upload it as a new file, using the same filename, but with a suitable suffix. It's likely the newer copy will have random stains too. Hopefully the two can be compared for a full transcript.

The copy we have was likely scanned from originals on microfiche, modern scans would be more accurate, if we can find them. Broichmore (talk) 13:08, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Category:Images requiring rotation by bot

Hi. The bot for Images requiring rotation doesn't work since a lot of time... 8000 files wait for rotation... DenghiùComm (talk) 11:30, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

@DenghiùComm: Sorry about that, blame Steinsplitter.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 12:36, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Never mind. You're welcome ! Thank you very much ! DenghiùComm (talk) 13:31, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Deleting images

Hey all. I've uploaded two recent images from the AFC Bournemouth YouTube channel, which releases match footage under the CC license. It's come to my attention through searching that these images are actually not as free as I had thought, given they're just reuploaded Premier League footage and past decisions have led me to believe they should not be up there. The two images are this and this. I figured I would make it known here as I do not know how to delete images and was wondering is there any way to speedy delete them or delete without going through deletion requests? Apologies for any inconvenience. — Ser! (talk) 14:39, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Just for posterity, I'm also uploading a few images from AFC Bournemouth's channel, but from videos that have actually been released on a CC license and are generated by the club's social media team, so not a violation as the Prem footage was. Ser! (talk) 14:48, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

@Ser!: You can use {{Copyvio}} with appropriate parameters on the relevant file pages. - Jmabel ! talk 19:59, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks, have now done. Ser! (talk) 12:02, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Service categories in the various WikiLoves+ projects

Hello everyone, once again I bother you with problems I encounter in my dirty, very dirty, work here on Commons, and having had good feedback on a categorisation problem by place and date above I try again with the same hope. This time it's about the service categories created, evidently for control purposes, for example during national WLMs, such as the one that has been taking place in Italy for years but which leaves a 10-year old trail, i.e. categories that still remain, which IMO were useful during the counting of images for the purpose of an award ceremony but which IMO have outlived their usefulness, for exemple Category:Images from Wiki Loves Monuments 2014 in Italy needing check (13 518!!!). My latest worry is instead Wiki Loves Africa, a laudable project but where often, if not very often, you find images of little use, without a really interesting subject. Thousands and thousands of people who represent a nation, but at least who are categorized, for example, by ethnicity (but no), hundreds of cars or even more characteristic vehicles (see tuk-tuks), It's as if photographers don't know exactly what to photograph and point their camera or cellphone at random. I'm afraid that these projects don't exactly know how to instruct users on the purposes who, although I am aware that they are all volunteers and that for this reason we cannot demand rigor, then in the end they fill with categories of service images often without the indication of subject, place of shooting, date of shooting, with Exif data that seem incongruous with the image (uploaded in 2023 in broad daylight but which from the data seems to have been taken in 2010 and in full night...). I also find categories of service that do not respond to their function as in the case of Category:Images from Wiki Loves Africa 2020 without categories and that instead at least one category (non-service) has been added over time. I wonder if it is possible to do something or if I have to resign myself to doing everything by hand once again, passing image by image investing a lot of time that I could perhaps invest in more nobler causes. See you later (alligators) ;-) Threecharlie (talk) 19:14, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

So, in short, you are saying that there are some maintenance categories (not even topical categories) that probably aren't much use. If they aren't much use to you, I'd recommend just ignoring them. - Jmabel ! talk 20:07, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but if I am here writing about it and asking for advice, it is not by ignoring the problem that it is solved, I would continue to have it every day that I do my dirty work, finding service categories that should help my work and instead complicate it. IMO ignoring is not a solution. Threecharlie (talk) 07:03, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

You could probably argue a lot of these types of categories are totally pointless. Especially long-term, but it seems like Wiki Loves Monuments has their own way of doing things that we seem to ultimately have zero control over. At the end of the day they can just dump images wherever, use as vague file descriptions as they feel like, create whatever pointless categories, and then just ignore people who complain about it. So your better off just ignoring them. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:54, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that's an answer out of context, I don't need it and it's also exaggeratedly POV: WLM is without a shadow of a doubt an opportunity, if you don't see it as such it's not here that you should talk about it, open a discussion and if you bring home a win fine otherwise it's sterile polemics. Threecharlie (talk) 07:10, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

For WLE in Germany we use these categories for things like monitoring the file usage and to generate statics for example on how the fraction of disqualified und insufficient described photos developed. Of course we do not click through the category page but we need the category for the glamtools or petscan. GPSLeo (talk) 08:15, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Sure. I don't disagree. It can both be an opportunity and have it's own ways of doing things that are sometimes at odds with the wider project's goals and probably won't change. They aren't mutually exclusive. your free to ignore that, but at least IMO your better off just not worrying about it. Or maybe talk to the people who created the categories in the first place about it. I don't think you'll get a better answer here though. It's ultimately on the individual projects to change how they do things. --Adamant1 (talk) 08:19, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Render unto Caesar... Here we are on Commons and there are no projects on Commons, and God or whoever knows how much I feel we need them... Threecharlie (talk) 09:49, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Commons:WikiProject Postcards is pretty active. Although admittedly with only three serious contributors and that's the only one I can think of. I do agree we could use more then that though. --Adamant1 (talk) 10:22, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

i have noticed these cats before and probably written some ideas of mine. i cant find them but i'll redo it.

all these cats ("... to check" or something similar) are obviously only intended for short term use, right before they were even created.

so i suggest, any such new cats should be tagged with a template to indicate when they will become useless. otherwise, they are assumed to be useless 2 years after the event is over. for example, Category:Images from Wiki Loves Africa 2024 to check should be deletable after 2026-12-31. RZuo (talk) 12:02, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

May 14

I didn't find a map with the purpose I wanted

Hello. Have a good week. I did not find any map on Wikimedia Commons that captures the tropical and subtropical oceans of planet Earth. I'm writing about creatures that live in tropical and subtropical oceans and seas, but I don't have a map for it. Mário NET (talk) 00:42, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Do you mean something like the files in Category:Alisov's classification? --HyperGaruda (talk) 18:42, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm talking about a map that has colored much like the killer whale distribution, but a map that marked what are considered oceanic tropical and subtropical regions together and as a whole. I am writing about a genus of mollusk that sails in tropical and subtropical waters (the Argonaut) and I would like to point out where this genus sails. Mário NET (talk) 15:01, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Help with Flickr2Commons import

Hey is there anyone willing to do an import from this album on Flickr for me? I'd do it but I'm busy with other stuff and don't know how to use Flickr2Commons anyway. Everything, or most everything in the album, should be PD. Thanks. Adamant1 (talk) 02:16, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Done! About 70 images were eligible for importing. About 40 of these were imported, the remaining 30 were already on Commons. ReneeWrites (talk) 13:02, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

@ReneeWrites: Thanks! --Adamant1 (talk) 05:52, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Science and technology

Although the Category:Technology category is currently categorized under Category:Applied sciences, I have doubts on whether the parent category is correct. According to Wikipedia, science is "a rigorous, systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world", while technology is "the application of conceptual knowledge for achieving practical goals, especially in a reproducible way." That is, science is the cause and technology is the result, and the two are separate academinc disciplines. If proposing a new category scheme falls under COM:CFD, then I would nominate Category:Technology for CFD. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 13:47, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

See also Category talk:Science and technology (archive of a CFD), where the nominator Ghouston showed a distinction between science and technology, similar to Wikipedia. I found no mention of "technology" in the Wikipedia article on applied science, except a citation and a portal link. Similarly, I found no mention of "applied science" in the Wikipedia article of technology. So technology is not a subclass of applied science and instead of Category:Applied sciences, the correct parent for Category:Technology should be Category:Academic disciplines. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 14:04, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

It is correctly categorized. One can't separate science and technology, the emphasis/subject of each is different but they're inseparable – think of technology as the artificial products and methods that are the fruits of science (a subset of science). For the development of technology, science as you described it is needed and part of it. For further clarity see Engineering. Prototyperspective (talk) 14:18, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, but technology is not an applied science or a branch of science. It is a product of science. So it should not be categorized under Category:Applied sciences. It may be directly categorized under Category:Science, similar to Category:Research. Or the interdisciplinary category Category:Science and technology may be revived to cover science and technology together. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 14:36, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Once there is a technology, it is an applied science. But since it's less clear for technologies that aren't applied much outside a given research endeavor and because that cat is currently tucked away underneath only cat:"Scientific disciplines" it would make sense moving it. I think the best solution would be to have it in the applied science cat and the top-level cat somehow but your explanations make sense so I misunderstood what you intended to do. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:09, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Sub-catting is not necessarily an "is-a" relationship. For example, Eduard Carbonell isn't a surname or a museum. - Jmabel ! talk 17:49, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Image showing as 0 by 0 pixels in Wikipedia but entirely there in Commons

As someone here in Wikihelp told me : < @M F Gervais, ask for help on Commons at their Village Pump. It is very strange. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:M_F_Gervais_Monarchs_of_Spain.pdf says it has 0x0 pixels but links to https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/M_F_Gervais_Monarchs_of_Spain.pdf which is all there. StarryGrandma (talk) 20:05, 14 May 2024 (UTC)>Italic text

So here I am, And I don't understand what is hapening. Can someone help? Was I cannot use this picture, as the others, in wikipedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by M F Gervais (talk • contribs) 20:20, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Fixed by purging the page. Bawolff (talk) 22:11, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Sign up for the language community meeting on May 31st, 16:00 UTC

Hello all,

The next language community meeting is scheduled in a few weeks - May 31st at 16:00 UTC. If you're interested, you can sign up on this wiki page.

This is a participant-driven meeting, where we share language-specific updates related to various projects, collectively discuss technical issues related to language wikis, and work together to find possible solutions. For example, in the last meeting, the topics included the machine translation service (MinT) and the languages and models it currently supports, localization efforts from the Kiwix team, and technical challenges with numerical sorting in files used on Bengali Wikisource.

Do you have any ideas for topics to share technical updates related to your project? Any problems that you would like to bring for discussion during the meeting? Do you need interpretation support from English to another language? Please reach out to me at ssethi(__AT__)wikimedia.org and add agenda items to the document here.

We look forward to your participation!

MediaWiki message delivery 21:21, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

May 15

Freeing the Freedom of Panorama for Mongolia and other changes

Hello community,

I've recently discovered that Mongolia's changes to copyright legislation, enacted in 2021, have granted Freedom of Panorama for architectural works, statues, and sculptures per Article 46 of the revised Law on Copyright and Related Rights (as amended May 6, 2021). The Mongolian original is available here and the English translation of the law is available here. I've updated the following pages with information and the relevant sources:

• The main page: Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Mongolia
• New template: Template:FoP-Mongolia, superseding Template:NoFoP-Mongolia
• Template:PD-Mongolia
• Template:PD-Mongolia-exempt

The new copyright reform also has the following changes:

• Currency is now under works not protected by copyright.
• Article 42 has a variety of provisions regarding "Partial exploitation of works stored in archive, museum and library resources without the authorization of author or without compensation" (this seems to have been the result of an effort by Mongolian Libraries Consortium (see: https://www.eifl.net/resources/copyright-law-fit-modern-mongolia) - I've added this to the "FoP-Mongolia" templates as they seemed vaguely relevant but I'm open to suggestions.

I'm not sure if we have a process to Free the Freedom of Panorama for countries, and was wondering if old images deleted due to FoP rules can be reinstated? Is there anything else I need to do as well (besides updating the map images)?

Regards Chinneeb (talk) 10:05, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

The relevant deletion requests should be in Category:Mongolian FOP cases/deleted. If everything checks out, undeletions shouldn't be a problem (like for Kosovo justa few days ago). --Rosenzweig τ 10:27, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, I've opened a mass undeletion request for currency-related files. I'm holding off on asking for undeletions of FoP cases for now - Please note that a discussion has been opened at Commons:Village_pump/Copyright#Updated_FoP_in_Mongolia to discuss any potential issues with the new FoP rules. --Chinneeb (talk) 11:47, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Name for this kind of images

Hi!

What do you call videos where objects on a turntable rotate once around their own axis? Which category fits? (example: File:S3 Graphics Chrome 430 - 460 Nr. 2.webm)

Thanks! --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 10:18, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Category:Seamless animations? _ Broichmore (talk) 11:26, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 13:21, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Javascript users needed

there are a couple of code changes waiting for review for a long time. can you please take a look:

1. MediaWiki talk:Gadget-Cat-a-lot.js multiple changes
2. MediaWiki talk:Gadget-HotCat.js#Could a warning popup appear when adding a DAB cat while using HotCat?.

RZuo (talk) 11:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Art about Holodomor

Hi, can someone help me with finding better source of this painting? I mean I need more info about this art but I can't find it anywhere except for some facebook fanpage. Kazachstanski nygus (talk) 19:20, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

@Kazachstanski nygus: Can you explain how this would relate to Commons? Stylistically, the image is almost certainly from the last 50 years, so it is almost certainly copyrighted? - Jmabel ! talk 21:16, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

I can't speak fro Kazachstanski, but here it is on Commons, claimed to be from 1939, yet sourced from Facebook. So the veracity of the dating may be questioned. If we could find the original, we'd be able to verify the origin of our own image, and keep or delete it. I guess Kazachstanski asks for private purposes of their own, given how the village pump is pointed out to be the central place to ask all kind of questions. Best regards, --Enyavar (talk) 21:31, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

I can't say that date is impossible, but my gut says it's improbable. Have a look at Category:1939 posters and its subcats for propaganda art of that period, and you'll see what I mean. Then compare (for example) File:MosBeauty89.jpg (from 1989) which looks much more likely to be of a period with this work. - Jmabel ! talk 22:01, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Ymblanter (talk) 05:32, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel Imo this poster definitely looks like something from interwar period or ww2 but whatever, our impressions don't matter here, I just want to find some legit source of info about that art. Kazachstanski nygus (talk) 16:45, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Nordisk Film

I noticed that the film studio Nordisk Film have started to release all their recent YouTube videos (read: film trailers and clips) under the CC license. Is it "safe" to host them on Commons? --Trade (talk) 22:29, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

There were huge discussion about similar cases the last months. They tended to keep them. (File talk:Hogwarts Legacy – Official 4K Reveal Trailer.webm). CC-licensed contents by huger companies on YouTube is not that rare as some people may think --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 07:58, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

As these kind of videos are usually also protected by trademark protection, there are still restrictions on how to use them, but it is not further relevant to this project --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 08:01, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I think these videos can be uploaded if Nordisk Film really owns the content, i.e. if there is no derivative works from other sources in the videos. Yann (talk) 10:41, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Question is whether or not purchasing the right to distribute a movie in a specific jurisdiction also gives them the right to license clips and trailers of it under a different license. --Trade (talk) 20:47, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Of course. If they are only a licensee of the films, they can't release them under another license. Yann (talk) 20:57, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

May 16

Cat-a-lot disabled for search results?

• Browse Category:All media needing categories as of 2023, open Help:Gadget-Cat-a-lot, select all works just fine for me.
• Browse Category:All media needing categories as of 2023, enter "Chicago" for "Search by keyword" (e.g., to get this), select all selects exactly zero files.

Does any one else see this? Is this just me? Seems to me this worked fine as of earlier this month (my last successful use was at 2024-05-01 11:34 UTC) and I've been using Google Chrome on Microsoft Windows 11 for about a year now, but using Cat-a-lot from search results using Microsoft Edge seems to suffer from the same problem. -- DanielPenfield (talk) 11:36, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I have experienced the same problem, for the first time today. My workaround: click in the Cat-a-log gadget on Preferences, and then check the box "Allow categorising pages (including categories) that are not files" (which after months, still not works for subcategories with subcategories, see Commons:Village_pump/Technical#Cat-a-lot_does_not_work_for_categories) and then you can select whatever files you want. I'll add this problem there also. JopkeB (talk) 14:46, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

omg out of the millions of javascript programmers in the world can we not have 1 person to review and approve the code changes? RZuo (talk) 16:17, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Worked for me at [5]. I think it does attempt to categorize the same image twice though. Enhancing999 (talk) 19:31, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

The code change just got released, I think. Enhancing999 (talk) 19:57, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

File:Group with stack of books on steps of U.S. Capitol LCCN2016871332.jpg

Am I correct in assuming that the person standing in the front left with the book "THE NINE OLD MEN" in his hand is Walt Disney? Refers to (Disney's Nine Old Men) GeorgHH • talk   19:38, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

• @GeorgHH: There are two books called "Nine Old Men", this one is about the 9 Supreme Court Justices and their battle with FDR, they held up his New Deal laws so he threatened to expand the court, and then they stopped declaring the laws unconstitutional. See: https://www.biblio.com/book/nine-old-men-drew-pearson-robert/d/1601963957?aid=frg&srsltid=AfmBOop8pQM6InWtCSeQMFRYsQO0q-egvuCzNZQZsMK6Rfwr6dJULUhakxg --RAN (talk) 02:49, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Unidentified pictures

Hi, while desperately looking for pictures of cultural assets in Interlaken, I found a category with falsly identified pictures: ''Category:Unidentified locations in Interlaken''. What I can say for sure: all the pictures were made on Lake Lucerne (Vierwaldstädtersee) in Switzerland, or on its shores, and not in Interlaken (some, probably not all pictures were made in Canton Uri). The pictures were scanned some time ago (old wikiproject). I was able to identify one of the pictures (exactly): the tells chapel. To be able to determine the exact location of the other pictures, someone from this region should have a look. Is it possible to rename the pictures from "Interlacken" into something like "Vierwaldstädtersee - Lake Lucerne" and move them into another category? Thanks Rectilinium (talk) 20:57, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

• @Rectilinium: The simplest first step would be to create a (hidden) maintenance category (e.g. Category:misnamed files in the Lake Lucerne area) for these and add the files in question to that category; then any operation on names can happen within that category. - Jmabel ! talk 21:36, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

But I see below that first step has already been done. Please, in the future, if you are discussing the same topic, stay in the same section. - Jmabel ! talk 21:38, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Its not the same topic. One category is about pictures named "Interlacken" that actually show pictures from Lake Lucerne. In this case both the files and the category should be renamed. Rectilinium (talk) 21:53, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Changed the category of these pictures as you suggested. And - first time ever - created a hidden category. Thanks. Rectilinium (talk) 22:26, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Renaming of several pictures within the same category

I alreay added a request concerning a category of unidentified pictures. At the same time I found a category with several pictures with useless names (all from the same photographer): ''Category:Files of Interlaken with bad names''. First of all, I added all necessary informations about the exact location and asked that the photos be renamed. As soon as this is made, I will edit the categories (remove all pictures form "Files of Interlaken with bad name" and add correct categories. Can someone help to rename the files? Rectilinium (talk) 21:23, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

You can either use the usual method of asking for a rename of each individual file, or you can keep them in that category if there is a pattern to the renames you want (e.g. substituting one string for another, or for a regular expression) explain what you need here. There are tools for doing a mass rename but limits on who may use them. - Jmabel ! talk 21:40, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

I allready used the usual method of asking for a rename of each idividual file, and already suggested new names. But I intentionally didnt change the category yet. Makes no sense before they are renamed. I thought I should mention this. Rectilinium (talk) 21:48, 16 May 2024 (UTC)