Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive 1

This noticeboard

Let's do our best to make this noticeboard where admins can collaborate to improve the Commons, and resist any moves for discussion to degenerate into attacking one another. Remember more than ever our collective commitment to multilinguality, and what that implies - acceptance of multi-wiki practices and multi-cultural understandings. So let us be quick to inquire but slow to judge. Share information and suggestions, and refuse to accept personal attacks. Readily admit mistakes and correct them, and allow everyone the opportunity to learn from them. Viva la Commons. pfctdayelise (translate?) 15:52, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. We should work together, always. Wikilove and all that.

OTOH, I'm happy (oh boy, am I so going to regret this) to offer my expertise related to dispute management.

James F. (talk) 16:50, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I hereby nominate James F. for ArbCommons ! :) Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 17:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Notifying everyone about it would be a good idea... Alphax (talk) 16:16, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Boardvote intro outdated

The text displayed in Special:Boardvote/vote is outdated (by default the text in MediaWiki:Boardvote intro is about second election). In en:MediaWiki:Boardvote intro you can find a new version. Please update. --Prevert^(talk) 09:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Platonides fixed it. Alphax (talk) 15:26, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Not at all. I fixed the English one, but if you have it on other language, it shows the outdated english one. I think it should instead fallback to en:Mediawiki: :( Platonides 16:47, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I copied the french one right from fr.wikipedia... so if that was right, then it wasn't a translation at all. I'm not sure about the other languages. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 16:51, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

A solution is to create MediaWiki:Boardvote intro/Lang (like MediaWiki:Captchahelp-text/Lang in MediaWiki:Captchahelp-text):

Deutsch | English | Español | Français | Galego | Italiano | Português | +/−

next, copy and paste from local Wikipedias: es:MediaWiki:Boardvote intro to MediaWiki:Boardvote intro/es, gl:MediaWiki:Boardvote intro to MediaWiki:Boardvote intro/gl, it:MediaWiki:Boardvote intro to MediaWiki:Boardvote intro/it, pt:MediaWiki:Boardvote intro to MediaWiki:Boardvote intro/pt and so on... Thanks --Prevert^(talk) 18:04, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

• done--Lmbuga ^{gl, pt, es: contacta comigo} 21:18, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I've added: als, ar, ca, cs, da, eo, fi, he, hu, ja, nl, no, pl, ru, sl, sv, uk and zh.--Nilfanion 21:19, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Requests for Undeletion?

User Rtc suggested we implement something like Commons:Requests for undeletion. Probably a good idea. Comments? / Fred Chess 09:17, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Surprised we don't have it already. Angr 09:39, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I support this idea to appeal deletions.--Jusjih 13:14, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

With an addendum: users cannot use it to appeal a deletion in which they took part in the discussion, without bringing a new argument to the discussion. [For copyright related deletions. For content related deletions, it has more to do with admin discretion I guess, so I am not sure how we should handle them.] And obvious cases like "this user didn't log in for six months and their images were deleted for having no source, but now they're back and they have a legitimate source", should be speedy undeletable, if we can say that. I also support the use of temporary undeletion in order to transfer copyrighted images to projects that accept fair use. The requester should be a user of one such specific project and the image should be re-deleted after a set period (say, 2 days). pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:56, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Also it should be a (theoretically) multilingual page, in the manner of COM:DEL. COM:UNDEL. :P --pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:57, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I started it, a bit of help setting up, please? pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:17, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I wonder if it isn't too complicated. There's a period of at least 7 days but the page (still) only talks about temporary undeletion which, imho should be much more agile:

User requests temporary undeletion. Admin checks project fair-usability, and a good rationale is given (and user is sysop) and performs it (TODO: create {{Temporary undeleted}}).

If there's a problem with the request then further discussion may be appropiate.

I also see another problem which is that it's difficult to discuss if a file is or not appropiate without knowing the file itself (plus, the requester may only know the filename). This would restrict almost all discussion to sysops. It'll probably need a procedure to temporary undelete while discussing (e.g. more than 3 users ask it to be shown).

Platonides 14:56, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, of course. OK, I don't even consider we need to write policy, because to me it is obvious. Temp undelete for fair use transfer. Undelete no source at uploader's request (but re-tag {{subst:nsd}}). And consider other cases on their merits [which, frankly, I have never yet seen]. But it seems it is impossible for people to just ask other people for some attention, and instead they need a big formal page with big formal instructions. So I try to create this but honestly I feel it's not really that necessary.

ANYWAY... yes you are right... I was just making it up as I went. Help me improve it!

As for discussion: I feel most discussion will be limited to admins and the uploader anyway. If desirable, it is possible to restore the image description page without the image itself. pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:09, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I have made request. William Avery 19:41, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Special:Import

I've noticed this (sysop only) special page isn't enabled on Commons. I think it would be helpful for us if transwiking through it was possible. I deleted this page as an encyclopedic article. It is probably a copyvio anyway, but it might be usable on en.wp; it would be worth transwiking for that community to decide if they want it, and I suspect there are similar instances fairly frequently. Likewise, it would be helpful for incoming transwikis, when someone edits a local image page instead of the Commons page. Would it be worth poking whoever (the stewards?) to get it activated for us?--Nilfanion 23:16, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Another example is here [1]. Thankfully in this case there is an article on he.wp with the same name. However, if there wasn't transwiking would be appropriate (assuming the admin cannot read hebrew).--Nilfanion 00:25, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Not worth the trouble imho. If someone starts an encyclopedic article here, delete it and advise them on their talk page, if needed undelete it if they wish so. The probability that it will be added and/or changed is low, so just reposting on a different wiki shouldn't be a problem as there's only one author, imho. NielsF 00:35, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I support enabling inporting function, but Bugzilla Bug 6338 has a concern of forging page history when importing through one's own disk.--Jusjih 04:22, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Template:Wait : Stop Vandals who uploads series of copyrighted pics

Please help to improve the Template {{Wait}}, creat to inform and block " new users uploading series of pics probably under copyright ". Many vandals work by this way, just uploading many copyrighted pics. Block such users stop their uploads, limit the task of deletions, and keep more time for other task. Blockage of 1 day should be enough.
Improvements and discussions welcome !

Welcome to the Commons, Administrators' noticeboard/Archive 1!

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Wait checking It seems that noticeboard/Archive 1 some of your contribution(s) may be not allowed on commons, probably because of Copyright violations. Your account and IP are temporaly blocked and unable to upload files to commons, to let time to check if your uploads are under free licenses, and so allowed or not on commons. Sorry for this precaution, your ability to upload files will be back after the check.

Yug (talk) 16:33, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Break the "Edit" should be great. Improve my Frenchglish too. Yug (talk) 16:43, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I think, this is a good idea. I had created {{Blocked}} a while ago, to inform a user that he has been blocked in various languages. But the problem is, that with that template it isn't possible to translate the reason and period a user was blocked.

I suggest that this template:Wait be incorporated with the other blocking templates {{Blocked}} and {{Blocked User}} (for permanent bans), similar to the system on English Wikipedia where there is a host of "test", "test-2", "test-3", and many different templates for all kinds of purposes. Probably the period of a ban should also be hardcoded into the template once and for all.

Fred Chess 17:50, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Commons:Message templates

We had a discussion on message templates on IRC today and Nilfanion and I started to collect templates we have and templates we need. We're trying to keep the page short but please feel free to add new ideas for templates there, too (and remove unnecessary ones). -Samulili 20:40, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

There is one other template that I'm missing here. When warning a problem user that he/she is on the path to getting blocked, it's best to give a personal warning, but in many cases we have no idea which language(s) the user understands, and a template with links to different languages might be a good idea. That would also help for instance those of us who are "hispanically challenged" to give an understandable warning without having to look for another admin to do the work. Perhaps a couple of different warnings, for inntance one for repeated upload of copyvios and one for missing license/source information. Any thoughts on this? Cnyborg 00:35, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that i18n is important. All the templates should have links to the same template in different language, such as {{Delete/lang}} -Samulili 10:03, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh yes, has anyone worked out why we have so many Spanish copvyio uploads? Is it because w:es disabled uploads, or what? Alphax (talk) 00:16, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The upload file link on es. is to Commons. Pt - another heavy offender has it in the toolbar but complementing the local upload. I suspect it is just that (we are getting all the es. copyvios).--Nilfanion 00:28, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Could we perhaps get some cooperation with Spanish Wikipedia on copyright awareness? I don't have anything concrete in mind, but perhaps some basic information in a welcome template, and some follow-up on users who are inserting obvious copyvios in articles. As it is, a very large proportion of the images I delete or tag for missing license or missing source (usually with a {{Copyrighted free use}} tag) are uploaded for the Spanish Wikipedia. This actually disrupts that project too; they get lots of images pasted into articles which then have to be removed, and I'm guessing the uploader rarely does that, it's either us or "the cleaners" there who have to do it. I'm sure some of the Spanish-speaking admins and regular users here are also active on the Spanish Wikipedia, and trying to grip this problem by the root could really help. It won't go away - with so many millions of Spanish-speaker there's bound to be a certain amount of problems - but just reducing it by a third or so would actually be a noticable difference. I have to say that we have a similar problem with images for the Norwegian Wikipedia, since that too has a direct upload link, but since there are so few Norwegian-speakers Kjetil r and I between us can usually keep it in check; that was one of the reasons I was nominated for adminship. That's just impossible for larger languages, and we should perhaps think in other directions than just trying desperately to keep up here. Cnyborg 02:11, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, all new accounts here are automatically welcomed after making one edit or upload. The bot cannot guess who is a Spanish speaker, but I encourage people to change the welcome template to the appropriate language if they notice a newbie is not an English speaker (delete all the English stuff, and put {{subst:welcome/es}}, or whatever language). If you know someone speaks Spanish, I suggest posting warning messages to them directly in Spanish, eg {{Image source/es}}, {{Idw/es}}, {{Copyvionote/es}}. I imagine es.wp had this problem at their wiki before switching to Commons. So for them, it's much the same (in terms of images being deleted); just the burden of work has shifted to us. What kind of "other directions" were you thinking of? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 15:41, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I've tried to think of something more concrete since yesterday:

• A more prominent note on the Spanish upload page ( this is perhaps the most effective thing to do)
• A more prominent note on copyright in the Spanish welcome template
• Asking Spanish Wikipedia to add a more prominent note on copyright to their welcome template (I assume they have one)
• Encouraging admins in the Spanish Wikipedia to inform problem users on their side (it's often easy to spot someone who keeps uploading copyvios here, since it means that images from articles they work on are frequently removed).
• And of course, as pfctdayelise says, using Spanish template when we know that the user is Spanish-speaking.

These aren't "other directions" in the sense that it's something new, it's just a small shift of focus from constant clean-up to prevention. Cnyborg 16:46, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Please help to reduce dramatically the open discussions on Commons:Deletion requests/Older Discussions

Please help to reduce dramatically the open discussions on Commons:Deletion requests/Older Discussions. With the introduction of the new deletion scheme on Commons:Deletion requests we still need to reduced our large backlog of deletion requests. Any help is welcome. --ALE! ¿…? 15:30, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

My browser doesn't like the page - but I guess that's part of your point :) At some point the idea was to split the issues by date. Now that has been done subpage-wise but maybe we need a structer where Older Discussion has links to individual days instead of displaying them all. I'd do that if I could. -Samulili 17:02, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Samulili, you can still do that. Just type in yourself, eg Commons:Deletion requests/2006/09/12. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the page is a lot easier for admins to manage now. The page isn't reloaded everytime you close an entry! You can either do one date, like pfctdayelise said, or load the page once and open the requests in separate tabs. / Fred Chess 07:50, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore it would help to explain the procedure of the new Commons:Deletion requests/Superseded section on the page Commons:Deletion requests. Thank you! --ALE! ¿…? 12:05, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

There are still old discussions dated in July 2006, but I cannot easily decide.--Jusjih 13:46, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Please! - Help is urgently needed! I can not do the work alone. Especially because also on Commons:Deletion requests almost nobody is checking or deleting the files. --ALE! ¿…? 14:33, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Since yesterday i check this category and specialy delete images or list images on the deletion request page which tagged but not listet there.--GeorgHH 22:59, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Ale, you're doing an important, hard work and I know it's not your fault, but... I would like

• to be able to see the older discussion one day at a time without having to edit the address bar on my browser
• to know how to archive.

-Samulili 15:01, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

From {{Deletion requests/Older Discussion}} - check out:

• {{Commons:Deletion requests/2006/09}}
  • {{Commons:Deletion requests/2006/09/7}}
  • {{Commons:Deletion requests/2006/09/18}}
  • {{Commons:Deletion requests/2006/09/21}}
  • {{Commons:Deletion requests/2006/09/27}}
  • {{Commons:Deletion requests/2006/09/28}}
  • {{Commons:Deletion requests/2006/09/30}}

Alphax (talk) 13:07, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I trimed your list to remove completely closed debates. --Cat out 23:05, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Pantone

WMF is in receipt of a warning from Pantone regarding the publication of the page Commons:Pantone_color_chart, which it believes is infringing. I am taking the page down now. There needs to be a full discussion of the risks and alternatives *with the page down* among the community which will serve as a premise for the discussion with WMF and potential legal action, should we decide to repost it. Please comment here. If you don't understand the implication of posting something that is copyrighted and the subtlety of this argument, save your breath and go edit something else. Please.--BradPatrick 21:59, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I've blanked/protected the page under Wikipedia:WP:OFFICE per Brad's request on IRC.--Nilfanion 22:02, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Does this page even fall under Commons' scope? It can't be directly used in any Wikimedia projects... ~MDD4696 23:45, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Pages in the Commons: namespace aren't intended for use in Wikimedia projects, they are tools for the running of Commons. The page can be a handy tool when creating graphics, so it's something we might want to have if the copyright issue can be handled successfully. Cnyborg 00:47, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I've deleted the page, restored the latest revisions, and re-protected. Alphax (talk) 05:52, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Handiness for graphics creation hardly seems worth a fight to the death. :-) My understanding is that exact Pantone colors are mostly important for accurate reproduction of corporate logos and and the like, seems unlikely that it's ever going to be an activity that is going to be favored over the use of the limited-resolution images that we have now. Stan Shebs 18:13, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

What we had in the past was a giant table full of pantone shades that were in the RGB format for us to use. It was useful for helping us getting flag images correct. But, most websites I run into release the Pantone color codes anyways, and I will just whatever program to just get the colors right. While it will take some more effort, I trust Brad's judgement on this one. As for the OFFICE deal, I think in this case, the blanking and deleting and protection is fine since Brad told us to take it down. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 06:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Maybe OFFICE it if someone tries to recreate? ++Lar: t/c 15:52, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I do not recognize Pantone's intellectual property claims over this repertoire of colours. It is a widely-used standard, and intellectual property assertions have no place in ubiquitous standards. The "Pantone" label only applies because Pantone originated this list.

As for other websites offering lists of Pantone colour codes, they tend to contradict each other. One website has one hex triplet for a certain Pantone colour, while another has a completely different hex triplet.

I will continue to offer a house standard for Pantone colours on the Wikimedia Commons, but through e-mail only. If you wish to have a copy of this standard, just e-mail me (do not put a message on my talk page for this purpose) and I will e-mail you a GIMP-format palette with the colours. -- Denelson83 08:09, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

As a note, given that Pantone colours are for print and not display, most of the colours cannot be reproduced accurately for display purposes. Any display colours we might have are merely estimates, regardless. Cary "Bastiq▼e" Bass ^demandez 17:02, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

What I will personally do is just use the Photoshop table of Pantone colors and use that if there is no official statement of CMYK or RGB colors. It is still sad to see it go, but if Pantone wants it gone and Brad agrees, then it needs to go. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 23:52, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

But I am using Corel's table of Pantone colours, and as we have seen, it does not agree with the Photoshop table. However, from most of the flag images I've seen, they seem to refer to the Corel list of Pantone colours. So, if we still don't agree, I guess we're back to square one. -- Denelson83 01:08, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

delinker bot

As many people have agreed on the commons-l we urgently need a bot for delinking images in local wikis. Thus we now need to ask the foundation as this bot necessarily will have to break usual bot rules as it needs to run in every of the 701 Wikimedia wikis: See the draft of the call at User:Orgullomoore/delinker. Feel free to comment. Arnomane 22:20, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I strongly, strongly support this action, but I think contacting the Foundation is unnecessary and won't help. I very much don't think they will do anything. It's not like they tell projects to have a bot policy anyway. And I think they have no easy way of contacting each wiki any more than we do. I think it's just going to take some tough legwork... but we need it. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 02:55, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

What are the alternatives? Get the foundation to say ya? Get the devs to say ya? Contact a responsible admin or bot approver on all 701 projects?... none of those seem very workable to me.... The best thing to do may just to be bold, (or rouge if you like) and just start it running. Write up why it's needed, write up that it's justified because it's an inbound reference to this project that is being corrected, and do it. I may be missing a nuance here but that seems reasonable to me. ++Lar: t/c 16:07, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Note that there was a section for signatures in the proposal (which has a very good writeup of why it's needed and why it's justified, in my view) so I signed. Hope that wasn't premature. ++Lar: t/c 16:14, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

The nuance is in not pissing off wikis to the extent that they decide to do something silly, like "boycott Commons". pfctdayelise (说什么?) 16:41, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Er, not pissing off wikis? That's a doable thing with 701 different ones??? You're smoother than me, I bet. But ya. ++Lar: t/c 18:27, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I have now moved the final version into meta (was not really easy finding a right place for it). See meta:Requests_for_permissions#Miscellaneous_requests and the full request at meta:Requests_for_permissions/CommonsDelinker. Please all people that are tired of time consuming human delinking in every wiki and that want to get rid of our copyvio backlog efficiently sign there. Arnomane 17:40, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I've publicised this with the en:wp bot approvals grouup here Their positive support should help! Suggestions wehre else to publicise this gratefully received. Mentioning it in IRC on various project channels may be helpful. ++Lar: t/c 18:27, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

It will only be 700 now; you have my support to run though Chechen Wikipedia with the bots. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 09:15, 24 September 2006 (UTC) (CE Wikipedia Admin)

voting is closed now

Dear colleagues, voting is closed now. So, could anyone replace the header notice with "The Election for the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation is now closed." or something like that? Thanks. Dr Bug (Vladimir V. Medeyko) 12:10, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I removed text. --EugeneZelenko 14:22, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Template:Logo-Germany deprecated

I've deprecated Template:Logo-Germany because it goes against Commons policies, and it was confusing too. I wanted to say this here, just to make sure that no-one disagrees? / Fred Chess 16:42, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't disagree, but it does go against the conclusion in a quite recent deletion discussion (see Template talk:Logo-Germany). Has there been a new discussion about it somewhere else supporting this conclusion? Cnyborg 20:41, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

No, there has not been a new discussion.

Well, as I see it, the previous discussion Template talk:Logo-Germany was mostly based on votes and people who actually have no say on what Commons accepts and doesn't accept. IMHO it was closed prematurely by Shizhao. Please correct me if I am wrong.

On the (now closed by me) Commons:Deletion requests/Template:Logo-Germany, there are statements by several members of the adminship and other trustworthy users.

There is actually no support in policies, no support by any of the "elder" (if one may call them that) Commons users, such as user:Eloquence, for the template.

Fred Chess 21:01, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I've been away for the weekend and missed the new discussion. I'm satisfied with the result of that one, the first one does indeed seem to have been a count-and-forget decision. Cnyborg 22:56, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

superseded images

Please see my comments on Commons talk:Deletion requests/Superseded --ALE! ¿…? 11:49, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I often use some of the so called "superseded" images and I will continue using them for personal reasons. I do not accept anybody telling me what my choices of images should be on the grounds that they are not scalable or because some web browsers do not display them properly. If I wake up one day to find that all the"superseded" images I have been using all over Wikimedia have been replaced by a bot I will consider it the end of my days in Commons. The Statue of Liberty is all rusty green, why not replacing all that dusty copper with a brazen, sleek aluminium replica? --Piolinfax ^{(Tell me)} 14:42, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Picture deletion request

This picture has a public domain licensing tag, when it is obviously a false statement. The picture is from 1975 and thus it does not pass the threshold of 70 years from publication. Hansi667 (talk) 21:21, 24 July 2015 (UTC)