Commons:Village pump

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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/2024/11.

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# 💭 Title 💬 👥 🙋 Last editor 🕒 (UTC)
1 Hosting HDR images as JPEG with gain map 1 1 C.Suthorn 2024-11-01 07:41
2 Google's semi-censorship of Wikimedia Commons must end 34 11 ReneeWrites 2024-11-03 15:57
3 I messed up making a mass deletion request 2 2 RoyZuo 2024-11-01 18:57
4 Your input... 13 5 Enhancing999 2024-11-03 21:53
5 Views through mobile phones 7 5 Prototyperspective 2024-11-03 12:28
6 Almost 400k files need license review 25 10 Jmabel 2024-11-05 19:41
7 Obtuse bot created categories 18 9 Gzen92 2024-11-08 12:41
8 Commons Gazette 2024-11 1 1 RoyZuo 2024-11-01 19:15
9 Derivative works (FOP etc.) 6 6 Enhancing999 2024-11-03 10:39
10 Special:Uploads/Claudiupt 1 1 Strainu 2024-11-02 10:19
11 Help needed with a new userbox template 1 1 David Osipov 2024-11-02 11:54
12 Provinces of China by month and year 3 3 RoyZuo 2024-11-02 23:58
13 Edit summary on project chat 6 4 ReneeWrites 2024-11-03 22:35
14 file description pages from IA Flickr stream 1 1 Enhancing999 2024-11-03 14:30
15 New page for establishing textured meshes on Commons 1 1 PantheraLeo1359531 2024-11-03 18:16
16 FYI 7 4 Enhancing999 2024-11-06 21:15
17 New law in Costa Rica: "Public Domain of Information" 3 2 LuchoCR 2024-11-07 01:04
18 Moscow State University Herbarium 1 1 Yann 2024-11-05 15:36
19 {{TOO-US}} 2 2 Jmabel 2024-11-06 19:29
20 Commons:Oversighters/Requests/Kadı 2 1 1 Kadı 2024-11-06 14:58
21 External link detection is now live on Commons 1 1 Sannita (WMF) 2024-11-06 16:36
22 AI generated and licensing 16 6 Belbury 2024-11-08 12:09
23 Invitation to the upcoming Commons Community Calls -- November 21, 2024 1 1 Sannita (WMF) 2024-11-08 10:33
24 Implicit dual-licensing 1 1 Belbury 2024-11-08 11:07
25 Please remove Category:Depreradovich family from Category:Zora Preradović 1 1 OperationSakura6144 2024-11-08 14:17
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June 17

Image Problems

Wikipedia has been having many image problems for the last few hours.. I think all Common files.. where we have to do a purge action, which fixes it for a short time... something to look into. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.146.133.57 (talk • contribs) at 08:42, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thumbnails keep disappearing on the Quality Images Candidates pages (for last couple of days), does anyone know what's causing this? --Tony Wills 19:25, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I did not know this and I uploaded twice an image, how can I delete any of them? --Mavila2
On irc://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-tech it was mentioned MANY times. The first thing that was discovered was that the disk array for the thumbnails was full. This in turn, caused all subsequent re-sizings to render zero-byte images. The disk space was quickly expanded, but a considerable amount of residual damage lingers. Here on Commons, there used to be a tab called [Purge] that would link to an image, e.g. http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:Commons-logo.svg&action=purge. Anyone know how to turn this back on, while this problem persists and the devs look into it? --Connel MacKenzie 01:44, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's in a js that provides extra tabs besides the ones that appear by default. Myself or another admin could look into it, but I'm unsure if there's consensus for this to be made available again. —O (说 • 喝) 02:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the info - I'll add includePage('MediaWiki:Extra-tabs.js'); to my Special:Mypage/monobook.js right now, then. --Connel MacKenzie 02:11, 16 September 2007 (UTC) Whoops! 02:15, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the info, I have found a thumbnails URL and added &action=purge on the end and it indeed shows the correct image, but trying the thumbnail without the &action=purge still doesn't work (and yes, I've cleared my browsers cache). Can't all zero sized thumbnails be deleted (or all thumbnails generated during the period of the problem if there are other types of corruption) ? --Tony Wills 03:27, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The problem seems to be getting worse, more + more thumbnails are disappearing --Tony Wills 03:30, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I really hope this gets fixed soon... can't a server admin simply remove all the empty images? Or is the software still generating empty thumbnails for some reason? Shinobu 14:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Is there something on Bugzilla about this? Funpika 19:45, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What i've noticed seems to be struck really bad are the flags of different nations. They keep going on and off. Anyone have any idea when this is gonna fix up?Cpesacreta 06:05, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]


OK, so what happened is that a disk filled up and therefore thumbnails stopped working. That got fixed. But it seems like maybe there are some ongoing problems. If a simple purging doesn't fix the problem, report it here. Here is a Javscript that is useful if you do a lot of purging: 

includePage('MediaWiki:ThumbnailPurger.js');

Put it on your Special:Mypage/monobook.js and then you will get handy links in the toolbox for image pages. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 10:28, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]


I have added a purge tab in the ExtraTabs.js (onle works in the Monobook skin). Sanbec ✉ 10:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure it is the same problem you are discussing, but a tree picture of mine keeps showing the wrong thumbnail (from a previous version that I uploaded by mistake). Luis Dantas 11:56, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's no the same problem. Actually it's no a problem, you must only refresh the cache of your browser. Sanbec ✉ 12:06, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Not to mention that I'm having trouble uploading djvu files (sometimes I have to upload 5 version before it works), now PNG files are screwed up, too. Image:12 656477H.png says "no proper thumbnail parameters". What the ... ? Jonathan Groß 12:30, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm experiencing problems with Image:SWE-Map Län2007.svg, the png rendition of the svg image is not updating as it should and the link to the svg file still points to that three versions ago. Tried purging but to no use. /Lokal_Profil 19:15, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm gettign the "broken image"-x on the following files: Image:Fjorda, Solvik.jpg (breaks in informationbox on this page: no:Velmunden). I have a swimilar problem with this image: image:Kikut.jpg - Mr. Hill 20:05, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Seems to be working now Finn Rindahl 20:14, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Another problem showing now is that when new versions of the pic are uploaded, the English Wikipedia shows the new thumb, but the Commons pic is the previous version. See Image:Coach USA MCI.jpg as an example. --AEMoreira042281 04:34, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The thumb of Image:Harz map topography.png is not displayed and I could not fix it with "purge". Bamse 07:48, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's too large for the thumbnailer. Use DjVu or maybe JPG instead of PNG. Lupo 07:56, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

19-Sep-2007: Some images would periodically disappear, as though image-cache files were kept on multiple servers, where an invisible cached image depended on which server was being accessed during the period. Also the same images used from transcluded templates might appear for one template but not another, as if each template were linked to a separate cached-image copy. Note that the images selected by a template are usually determined "live" whenever an article is being displayed, not just during editing of articles which use that template: changing a template will affect its next article to be displayed. -Wikid77 11:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It apperas that the rendering problems of Image:SWE-Map Län2007.svg was due to something else, but for some reason when I click the link that's supposed to take me to the svg file it still links to the version from 23:47, 15 April 2007. No clue why and purging didn't help. /Lokal_Profil 14:34, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Image:NAMA Enfant & veillard lisant.jpg not appearing. --User:G.dallorto 12:11, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Purged. ok now? Finn Rindahl 12:24, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Visible by redundant image

17-September-2007: On English Wikipedia, I have set the default "mark=" image file for map pointers as the (redundant) copy, Image:Red_pog2.svg (identical to the original pointer), to bypass the ongoing image-cache problems during September 15-17, 2007. I have changed "en:Template:Location_map" and "en:Template:Infobox German Location" to link "Red_pog2.svg" fixing thousands of articles. Only the original red-dot image (Image:Red_pog.svg) has been disappearing at size 8x8 pixels: the blue dot (Image:Blue_pog.svg) and redundant red-dot "Red_pog2.svg" have been reliable when sized as 8x8 pixels. -Wikid77 12:28, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This picture does not work: Image:Cortina60erJ.jpg. --Alex1011 08:25, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This picture doesn't work, either, and I don't know what the problem is: Image:Linera&Amorim2.jpg--Diotime 17:45, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Th pcture is oke, but the tag image isn't showing up. Image:Coat of arms of Zeist.jpg
20-Sep-2007: For several months, newly-created Wikimedia Commons images have sometimes had a multi-hour delay before being available for reference on English Wikipedia. The delay problem has been so frequent that I would create a new image page and then plan to wait up to a whole day before using the new image; however, some new images were available within minutes. I don't know where else that delay problem has been discussed. Another issue for months has been uploading of revised images that seem stuck on old revisions: now there is a new "purge" tab above each Wikimedia image-description page, so try clicking that tab if an uploaded revision seems stuck on the older data. -Wikid77 06:51, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

These images don' work: Image:Skorpion_WP.JPG and Image:Żandarmeria_Wojskowa.JPG --Raf24 16:13 CET, 20 September 2007

Djvu

Hello, Some DJVU files show an error message: "This file may contain malicious code, by executing it your system may be compromised." The look alright with the djvu plugin. I can imagine newbies frightened... Yann 14:48, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

svg

image:Schiff aus BSicon BOOT.svg is incorrectly scaled, too wide, + clipped. Another svg had the same problem, unfortunately I lost track, which one it was. --Purodha Blissenbach 11:51, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

{{PD-self}} and flags

Hello, I would like to discuss, the use of PD-self, as a license tag for images of national flags. I hope people can take a minute to try to understand my point, also I am not a copyright expert so I may be mistaken or confused on some points.
Hopefully an image of a flag will be as close as possible to the reality, probably even identical.
And we agree that if the user is releasing the copyright into the public domain, then that means he once owned the copyright.

  1. However I'm pretty sure copyright laws expressly forbid the copying of copyrighted material, by any means, including a manual copy (ex: retyping a book, or writing it out by hand doesn't make you the copyright holder). Other means of copying such as digital or chemical identical copies are forbidden also.
  2. If a 2 dimensional work is released into the public domain already, then any copies of it can not be copyrighted by the person making the copy, or else we would come back to situation number 1, and public domain images would never exist.
  • Therefore my question: how were these images of flags created and released as PD-self without breaching either of the two points I just mentioned ?
  • Answer: the user who created the image is a representative of the State owning the copyright. However I have seen users upload several flags from different countries making this hypotheses implausible.

Please correct me if I was wrong with any of the points above, as a comparison think what would happen if you made an exact copy of the illustrations and the text in a book and tried to release it into the public domain. Or inversely if you tried to register copyright on the national anthem.
I hope that if anyone reads this, they will consider if what I said is true or not, and not simply try by all means to defend the long lasting practice.
Example deletion request: Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Flag of Algeria.svg Jackaranga 05:23, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is another case of copyright law differing in various jurisdictions. In those jurisdictions that do not protect copyright in new images created using non-copyrightable or out-of-copyright images, the PD-self disclaimer is immaterial in respect of such new images. The disclaimer is however material if any such image may be reproduced in a jurisdiction that recognises copyright in such images (for example, when retyping a book might thereby create a new copyrightable typographic layout). Belt and braces is no bad thing given the patchwork nature of intellectual property legislation worldwide, I'd suggest. Man vyi 11:47, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the answer. For me though it is simply copyright infringement. If the work originates from a country listed in Circular 38a International Copyright Relations of the United States, then it is illegal for wikimedia to host an illegal copy of it. This is simply due to the fact that disregarding all other laws in other countries, wikimedia is hosted on American soil, is an American registered charity, and must make sure that users abide by US law. If the flag was originally in the public domain, then claiming ownership of a copyright on it is incorrect, and if it was not in the public domain, then no copies of it can be either, and it is a typical case of copyright infringement, identical to copying all the thousands of images that make up a DVD and putting them on internet.
It's not complicated: commons users can not under any circumstance (unless they are an official representative of the government of the country), own the copyright to a national flag, and as such can not release it into the public domain. The fact that the users may have been talking about the copy they created is irrelevant, when talking about a 2 dimensional work. Any copies of a 2 dimensional works must be released under the same license as the original, not "released into the public domain by the copyright holder Joe Bloggs", and in some circumstances such copies can not be distributed on internet without breaking the law. Please see [Copyright Office Basics] for more information. Jackaranga 22:08, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's all very well of course while the images are hosted on servers based in US jurisdiction. The images need to be freely used worldwide though, including in jurisdictions where copyright may subsist in images of national flags or other 2 dimensional works. You'll notice that the PD-self template also covers cases in jurisdictions which do not recognise releases to the public domain, and I'd have thought the wording is wide enough to cover the eventualities that seem to worry you. Man vyi 06:40, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Pertinent discussion ongoing at the Bistro: Commons:Bistro#Copyright_sur_une_reproduction_photograpique. A solution of dual licensing to accommodate US and European copyright law seems suggested. Man vyi 11:38, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If the flag was originally in the PD, wouldn't an obvious solution be to tag it as such? After all, releasing something in the public domain that is already in the public domain is a logical impossibility. Shinobu 14:46, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, this is exactly what I mean, it is absolutely impossible for anyone to own the copyright for a flag, unless he is a representative of the government.Jackaranga 17:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Um well, it turns out I was wrong on some accounts, if the image was created in France, then the author can own the copyright to it, even if it as an exact replica, and this right applies also in America due to the bilateral agreements. So basically what I said above was correct, unless the user made the image in France. As we will never know what country a user made the image in, I guess users can do what they like. Probably the commons is violating American law, by allowing users to apply French law to themselves even if they don't live in France. See Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag#Country-specific rules, I will add France as it's not there yet. Personally I find it rather unlikely that all the users who uploaded flags with this license live in France... Jackaranga 18:40, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My understanding of the PD-user tag is that it simply implies that the user releases any potential copyright they might own for the image, not necessarily that they ever claimed such a thing. National flags are governed by a complex set of copyright laws, national and international, and will be covered by them regardless what we say on this website. --Himasaram 12:27, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Not even that - under many jurisdictions there is a "lower bound" as to what materials can be copyrighted at all. Things or designs not elegible to copyright usually include everything in widespread use, or overly simple, such as single letters, a plain scetch of an arrow, a single colour not put in any shape, etc. - these are not regardes as creative artwork and hence not copyrightable. A majority of national flags are consisting of 2 or three colored stripes, such as the tricolore, or similar. Those are pretty unarguably not copyrightable under such jurisdictions. An excesseive wealth of those rules is "imported" into US regulations by bilateral or multilateral treaties. This in the end does lead to little worries in these cases, since there are only two things to consider: design (no problem) and technical representation by "creatively assembled" bits and bytes (even less a problem, at least under said jurisdictions) --Purodha Blissenbach 12:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

quality.wikimedia.org and wikiquality-l launched

Original message can be found here.
[Please translate this announcement into other languages.]

Wikipedia's roots in the more conservative Nupedia project are reflected by many in-depth discussions we've had over the years about quality assurance, filtering, and labeling.

In her "4 wishes for the year 2007" [1], Wikimedia Foundation Chair Florence Devouard also identified "reliability" as a key goal for the Wikimedia Foundation. Today we're taking two small steps towards that goal:

  • the opening of wikiquality-l as a mailing list for related discussions:

http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiquality-l

Notably, these pages describe our current plans with regard to the "FlaggedRevs" extension, a MediaWiki extension developed by Aaron Schulz and Jörg Baach (with financial support from Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.) which makes it possible to identify revisions of articles that are known to be of a certain quality, and to change the default view based on that information.

The public beta of this feature (initially on dummy websites, i.e. not production environments) will begin as soon as a security review of the current code has been completed (expected later this month). In the meantime, please give your feedback on the quality.wikimedia.org portal, add translations, and subscribe to wikiquality-l to join future discussions about the specifics of any particular initiative.

[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/4_wishes_for_year_2007

Sincerely, Erik Möller Board member, Wikimedia Foundation

18 September

Non-English categories names

What about non-English categories names (for example, Category:Единороги (гаубицы)? Can they exist? --Flrn 12:32, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No. Speedy delete them. --Juiced lemon 13:36, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Slow down a bit - read this discussion first. --BerndH 13:59, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Nice. This is "Speak english or go away" wich one I talk early. I DO NOT WANT TO LEARN ENGLISH. DIXI. You can replace russian categories with english ones (and keep russian redirects), but just remove all (well fited) categories is not good idea. Note. At my opinion this is a perfect sample of english language discrimination. Talk english or speedy delete. Perfect. Is commons really commons or it slavery for others wiki to serve english one? #!George Shuklin 14:10, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My EUR 0.02, as a Dutchman: although English is the working language on Commons, I think it would be wrong to accept only English category names. It would mean making the whole "search structure" in Commons much less accessible to non-English speakers. Having categroy structures in more than one language will not greatly encumber the system, I trust. MartinD 14:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please, chill out. We need a software solution here. Recreating the category structure in 30+ languages is definitely not a solution. Also, English is lingua franca on Commons. It's like latin in the middle ages - you want to talk to the rest of the world, you learn it. --Fb78 15:02, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
See Commons:Language for categories for one of several past discussions. While I think it *should* be possible to categorize using one's preferred language, at the moment it's beyond the technical capabilities of the Mediawiki software, and it would be chaos to have multiple categories, one for each language, each with only a handful of the total collection of images relating to the category's subject. So my apologies to Shuklin and others, English-language categorization is the best compromise option available to us at the moment. And please make the feature request to Mediawiki developers, so they know it's wanted. Stan Shebs 15:10, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Best opinion for people, who can freely speak and write english? I have tried to use english categories but found them absolutly imposible to use. I must understand a thousands words, witch one I barrely understand in russian (f.e. {{ru:Брадкугель}} (image:Пудовые_ядра.jpg), гаубица, мортира, единорог, лафет, передок, etc. Now I just copy a main part to categories. If museum description says that it is a Брадкугель, so let it be a Category:Брадкугели. Simple and rich. For 15-word museum description I easily make a 5-7 meanful categories: type, material (steel, bronze, etc), age, size. For equivalent english desription I lost about hour with translator (without any warranty to get a corrent translation for antique war phrase) - this time I can make 10-15 corretly categorized images with full russian description (for information: ~20Gb museum photos till yet not uploaded, and at this sunday about 4-6Gb will be added). #!George Shuklin 16:05, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
We have a main category tree almost exclusively using English names, but we also have a number of non-English category names, most importantly when it comes to images of specific books. E.g. take a look at Category:Scanned German texts, those names shouldn't be translated. On the other hand, the database system won't work with duplicate category trees. I don't care about which writing system that is used when it comes to the actual file names or what language that is used on the image description pages. Both are minor issues. Mr. Shuklin wishes to donate a large amount of images to this project, and we should be thankful. On the other hand, it is an honest matter saying that you don't understand fluent English. I see two possible solutions: Solution No. 1) : either he simply uploads his images using Russian category names and somebody fluent in Russian (User:EugeneZelenko?) can then go through the contributions list later translating the names into English. This job can be done by bot. Solution No. 2) : Mr. Shuklin, could you give us a list of any words that you find difficult translating into English? Somebody fluent in Russian could then make a translation of this list for you to use. Valentinian (talk) 16:37, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Great Valentinian. At least someone talking with a real commonist attitude. If George is ready and give a sign, translations can be made and the bots can move cats to keep everybody happy. And maybe, in the translation process, this can be documented in English/Russian, so that it can serve other users. --Foroa 18:15, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • I can make another proposion. I continue to put a russian category. You can freely add an english one. (I'm not sure about removing, but adding simulationally russian and english category do noting bad (at my point of view)). I begin use a template {{Англ}} (shorcut for английский == english). You can add category to this template and simply remove template when works finished. I'm think this is optimal solution. If no one do anything, at least a russian caterogy exists. If someone add an english category - all ok. Image could be found by category. #!George Shuklin 18:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The topics structure is the main tool to browse through the Commons database: it is not intended for maintenance. Therefore, if you need categories (in Russian), create them in other Commons structures. However, I think it would be better for you to create galleries in Russian, since that comply with Commons policy. Galleries can be easily renamed, that is not the case with categories, and categories have to be in English. --Juiced lemon 19:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. So, I use the topic structure to helps find an images. If you do not like russian categories, there is two ways: a) non categorized images b) continue russian categories. Simple, isn't it? #!George Shuklin 08:38, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As simple as it is: b. Non-categorized images aren't the way to go. I don't understand how someone, who keeps moving categories on a regular base (as it seems) suggests to avoid categories because they aren't intended for maintenance. Of course, they are. Maybe that's not their #1 purpose, but is is within the top 10 purposes. --32X 10:47, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think galleries with Russian names could be used in this case, and of course the allow redirects from different languages. {{Category redirect}} is temporary solution for Russian categories which duplicate already existed English ones. BTW Category:Орудия XIX века іs not single right variant. What we will do if other user who not agree with George Shuklin will decide to create Category:Орудия 19 века, Category:Орудия XIX столетия or Category:Орудия 19 столетия?
Sure, multi-language issues are one of important technical problem, but unfortunately MediaWiki developers time is not infinite resource.
In some cases (like message templates translation on Russian) George Shuklin could help to improve situation.
EugeneZelenko 14:48, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't like Russian categories in the Topics structure, because the classification process is unworkable when several languages are simultaneously used, and because the accepted language (for most of categories in the topics structure) in Commons is the English language, not the Russian language. Therefore, every category in the topics structure with a Russian name must be deleted.
“Every media file must be categorized” doesn't mean “every media file is categorized anywhere and any old how”. Categorize files in inapproprate category(ies) is worse than no categorization at all, since you'll have to clean all the wrong stuff on top of the correct classification process.
Therefore, if you are unable to find or create the suitable categories to categorize your media files, you have different alternatives:
  1. ask another Commons user to show you or create for you the needed categories (English language) in the topics structure
  2. create a gallery in Russian language (Russian title, Russian descriptions); this gallery can be as well a user subpage or a page categorized in the topics structure
  3. create a category with a Russian title and categorize it in a Commons structure where the Russian language is allowed (that is NOT in the topics structure); this alternative is not recommended. --Juiced lemon 18:41, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fresh example of problem. I definitely don't have anything against Indo-Aryan languages, but I wish to understand what this category about. --EugeneZelenko 14:32, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is there someone capable to hang this Category:Артиллерия loose category three somewhere in the right english cat till we find someone that can translate the associated cats. It seems to be a nice media collection. --Foroa 14:47, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Numérisation de livres en français, Category:Livre en français au format DjVu, Category:Littérature française, Category:Brandade de morue, Category:Opéra de Strasbourg, Category:Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure.... How do Anglophones feel about categories in French? Man vyi 12:01, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try to make {{Category redirect}} from Russian categories.
Is it principal question to use Category:Littérature française instead of Category:Literature of France? Will you understand Category:Русская литература and Category:Беларуская літаратура?
EugeneZelenko 14:53, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And Category:Drapeaux de Bretagne. Man vyi 05:52, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Gallery page into category

Seems to me that the images in US Army Corps of Engineers should all be in a Category:US Army Corps of Engineers (which would presumably go in the same categories as that page, although I have my doubts about Category:U.S. World War II forces, since the Corps dates back to the first days of the Republic), but I really don't feel like hand-editing to make it so. Is there some sane way to get this to happen as a bot task?

I'd really appreciate a central page on the various things that can be done by bots and exactly how to request each. Does such a page already exist? - Jmabel | talk 17:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do you know this page User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands? --Juiced lemon 19:10, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly useful; not sure if it would be OK for this case. But was there any reasonable way I should have found this oddly named page? - Jmabel | talk 17:52, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've started a discussion on the en.wp village pump regarding implementation of a pseudonamespace for exif links. The problem is exif links are fixed to whatever the camera/scanner produces, and these have the potential to clash with encyclopedic redirects. That is really an internal matter for Wikipedia, but if it is adopted the mediawiki files would have to be adjusted accordingly here.--Nilfanion 21:13, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think using the image name space would be a simpler way to do so. --32X 18:12, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

September 22

DjVu documentation needed

I see that I can upload a DjVu image. But I can't find information in Commons on how to use it. DjVu and Commons:DjVu are empty. There is a page selector on the image page, so can I upload an entire document? How do I address each image in a wikilink? (SEWilco 03:44, 22 September 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Incidentally, other images are working but Image:BathhouseRow Fordyce skylight NPS 1985.djvu is emitting a DjVu icon. (SEWilco 04:39, 22 September 2007 (UTC))[reply]
Hm.... how odd that we have so little information about it.
AFAIK it is mostly used by people for Wikisource. And I think the German Wikisource project uses it the most. So perhaps there is some documentation at de.ws that we could get translated... --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 07:14, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing I can find there. We should probably write it from scratch. -- Bryan (talk to me) 09:10, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Damn.
OK, so we should get someone with server-y type access to find out who are some people who upload a lot of these files. Then we need to ask those people how it all works. :) pfctdayelise (说什么?) 04:44, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Just look at Category:Djvu files. Take a file from there and look into the version history, the uploader is linked there. --32X 06:58, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure there is a little documentation in the MediaWiki release notes which added the feature, which I can't find at the moment. The image pages themselves have a nice viewer which lets the user pick any page at random, and for use in articles, I think the standard Image: links can include a "page=45" parameter to pick a particular page to display. Carl Lindberg 16:11, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We now have some basic documentation thanks to a translation from a French Wikisource page: Help:Creating a DjVu file. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:43, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Page SS-Aufseherin

A new editor User:Joannaczopowicz is putting a lot of work into creating this quite valuable page in, it seems, Polish. But there are clearly copyright issues with some or all of the images. Could somebody raise this in Polish with the editor. I do think language problems are at the root here and not all of the files may need deleting. --Simonxag 23:23, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like this aren't copyvios, only the correct attribution/licenses are missing. For example his her Image:Ss-irmagrese.jpg is a crop of Image:Irma Grese.jpg. --32X 00:01, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I wish I could say the same about the paintings at the end of the page. All the artists had to be alive post WW 2 and the names given do not tally with "Self made". --Simonxag 23:50, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

All the portraits seem to be taken before British trials, so the license is wrong and there is no source. The artworks on the bottom of the page ("own work) are copyvios, Helen Ernst for example died several years after the war. Other images are screenshots from a film. The private drawings have no encyclopedic value. ––Polarlys 22:04, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

September 23

Thumbnail problems

I think the only way to have the lost image thumnails back is to re-upload the pictures. I've just done that with the  Info template and it worked! - Alvesgaspar 10:21, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Purging the images so far worked quite well for me. --32X 18:12, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fake images

Hello.

On it.wiki we have recently discovered that one user has been writing articles about non-existent ancestors of his (for those of you fluent in Italian, here's the story): these articles have been deleted.

Unfortunately, the same user has uploaded 8 images to Commons, pretending them to be of his ancestors: [1]

We have identified one of them, namely this one: the man is NOT Vittorio Alberto Balzarotti (the file description has already been corrected), rather prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia (see the real image, and note that the fake one has been altered with Paint to erase one detail).

There are 7 more:

Can someone identify the men in the portraits so that the files can be either renamed or replaced and deleted? It is likely that they are members of the House of Habsburg, or Hohenzollern, or some other German noble family, and that the images have been slightly altered like the one above.

Thank you --Moloch981 12:40, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the Prussian image has obviously been faked. If the rest of these images have been deliberately misnamed as well and/or faked by digital modification, then they're worse than useless to this project (worse than useless since they deliberately try to misinform our readers). Not to mention that the licenses will be nonsense as well, since we have no way to tell whether they come from countries where PD-art applies or not, and if not, who the photographers are. Delete. If somebody one day finds out who these people actually are, the copyright status of the images can be reevalued and reuploaded with correct names / copyright status. Valentinian (talk) 13:15, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is not the only upload that looks fishy. Image:Stemma.Card.Bevilacqua.jpg shows the coat of arms of a Cardinal from Philidelphia. But if this is indeed "own work" by an Italian, then why is the text written in Dutch? His uploads generally seem to have no proper sources or copyright information, but simply nonsense like "own collection". Not to mention that the image doesn't have any information about the name of the person that created the blazon and since this image is obviously created after this person became a cardinal (i.e. no earlier than 1987) it is physically impossible that the heraldic artist should have been dead for 70 years. Somebody needs to take a general look at this user's list of uploads. Image:Schuster.jpg looks like a copyvio as well (I doubt that this uploader was even alive back in 1954 when this person died). And no chance that the same person drew both the coat of arms listed above Image:Stemma.Card.Barbarin.jpg and Image:Stemma.Card.Aponte.Martinez.jpg, the three heraldic styles are markedly different. I also doubt that this person took image:18a-Batoni Ritratto del principe Abbondio Rezzonico.jpg himself. Notice also User:Leopold's talk page. Copyright violations isn't something new here. Valentinian (talk) 13:42, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I requested the deletion of all the 8 images listed above. --Moloch981 19:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And I've found the source of the ecclesiastical coats of arms. They were all taken from the subpages of http://www.araldicavaticana.com/conclave.htm . Given the preceding history of this account, I've marked them all simply as copyvios with indication of the source of the original images. It wasn't even difficult finding the source website given that are rather few websites about the Lithuanian cardinal. Valentinian (talk) 21:02, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A bunch of images of this users were deleted by pftcdayelise after a first discovering of faked images. --Jollyroger 08:53, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OK, this guy has caused enough trouble. He is now banned from Commons and blocked idefinitely. Are there any of his images which in fact should not be deleted? --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:29, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The pictures can remain if they are tagged correctly. The pictures are not fakes but serious historical sources used for a fake. --Historiograf 18:26, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The images could be 'reuploaded with the correct name and source if identified, as long as we don't know who these images depicts, and especially since the only one that has been identified has been manipulated, I say delete all of them. And probably, to be on the safe side, delete all the uploads of this user that does not have a 100% verifiable external source. Finn Rindahl 00:34, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This case reminds me of something else: We need reliable sources for historical documents to enable further usage outside Wikimedia projects and to allow usage of these images in an encyclopedic context as well. ––Polarlys 18:50, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The lot of them need to go. We can bring them back if and when. To the point about reliable sources, I agree, if we can do something in this area it increases the value of the resource. There is a proposal on en:s about this, see s:Wikisource:Scriptorium#We_need_tags_and_categories_for_sources_of_poor_provenance ... ++Lar: t/c 00:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete them all. Other uploaders can reupload the images later again provided that they can provide us with correct descriptions and licensing. And I agree with Polarlys that a lot of images need better sourcing. Valentinian (talk) 22:09, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Betawiki: better support for your language in MediaWiki

Dear community. I am writing to you to promote a special wiki called Betawiki. This wiki facilitates the localisation (l10n) of the MediaWiki interface. You may have changed many messages here on your favourite wiki(s) to use your language for your language profile, but if you would log in to for example the English language Wiktionary, you would not be able to use the interface as well translated as there. Betawiki supports the full core translation of MediaWiki, as well as the translation of messages of over 75 extensions, with 981 messages.

If you wish to contribute to better support of your language in MediaWiki, as well as for many MediaWiki extensions, please visit Betawiki, create an account and request translator priviledges. You can see the current status of localisation of your language on meta and do not forget to get in touch with others that may already be working on your language on Betawiki.

If you have any further questions, please let me know on my talk page on Betawiki. We will try and assist you as much as possible, for example by importing all messages from a local wiki for you to start with, if you so desire.

You can also find us on the Freenode IRC network in the channel #mediawiki-i18n where we would be happy to help you get started.

Thank you very much for your attention and I do hope to see some of you on Betawiki soon! Cheers! Siebrand@Betawiki 22:34, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

September 24

Creative commons issues

This newspaper article: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/09/21/1189881735928.html reveals some interesting issues when a company (Virgin) has pushed the creative commons attribution in a way that was almost certianly not intended by the uploader to Flikr. A bit sobering in the consequences for the subject of the photograph even if all legal. If you are freely licensing you had better mean it perhaps and think about the feelings of your subject if the image is used in ways you dind't anticipate. --Golden Wattle 07:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We'll have to wait and see what the court says. Might be interesting for the question of model releases. --Fb78 09:28, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I gave up dual licensing some time ago with this kind of concern in mind. The "bulkiness" of the GFDL has some weaknesses, but it's a much stronger license. --SB_Johnny | PA! 10:05, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How is that related to CC? The issue here seems to be personality rights, not copyright. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 10:17, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I try to never freely-license pictures of people I know...
The issue is really that Virgin never got a model release and are using the girl's image in a derogatory way. As far as I can see the CC license is irrelevant. I don't know why they were named in the suit. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:15, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
True, but they used a CC license that required attribution, and attribution was never given. If the requirements of the CC license, such as attribution or share-alike are to have any merit, then they must be respected under all circumstances; and the court should rule accordingly. / Fred J 11:24, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I read the article again and he was given attribution. My bad, sorry. / Fred J 11:27, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The thread about it on commons-l two months ago [2] Platonides 21:36, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This thread on Flikr where the usage was revealed to the subject and the photgrapher gives more detail about cc vs model release as per comment's above.--Golden Wattle 01:42, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Which raises the question: Does the Wikimedia Commons require a model release? Is there a boilerplate text available anywhere on the wiki that would be useful for these kinds of things? Titoxd(?!?) 02:45, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This case is rather interesting and should be followed very closely by us. To avoid such problems (if resulting from ignorance on part of the user of the image), all images of an identifiable person should be tagged with {{personality rights}} that produces the following warning:

Personality rights Although this work is freely licensed or in the public domain, the person(s) shown may have rights that legally restrict certain re-uses unless those depicted consent to such uses. In these cases, a model release or other evidence of consent could protect you from infringement claims. Though not obliged to do so, the uploader may be able to help you to obtain such evidence. See our general disclaimer for more information.

-- Túrelio 06:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To Tixotd, about the model release, we don't require one and so far we don't have any boilerplate text for it, but if anyone does find such a sample document we would love to know about it. Ownterms.org (CC-licensed sample legal docs), too. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:52, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have some boilerplates and you can find heaps of them on the Web, but I'm not sure if they can be much help for us. AFAIK, there are countries (such as France) where a model agreement must be specific and state as precisely as possible the type of publication (newspaper, magazine, etc.), the date of publication, the context (advertising/reporting) and so on. I don't know if a very general agreement (granting the right to use the picture for any use whatsoever) is valid. I guess it would be better than nothing, though. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 12:22, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
granting the right to use the picture for any use whatsoever - besides the question of validity, who would sign such an agreement?
Whether or not we can find a solution for the model release, I think it is still important to make it very clear to the image-user that it is his/her responsability to check whether the image can be used for the intended purpose. -- Túrelio 12:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've heard on discussion groups of such agreements for paid models. People generally take "any use whatsoever" to mean "even commercial or advertising use"... Jastrow (Λέγετε) 13:11, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would be wrong to demand a model release for every photo. This would be impossible to get with most of the celebrity photos. So, in this case we could abandon celebrity photos completely, it would make no difference. On the other hand, it could be damaging to place this "personality rights warning" on every image description page. This could be construed at a court of law in non-intended ways. It would be proof that Wikimedia Commons people or the foundation are well aware of the problematic nature. We should leave this case to the professionals and their judgement when they reuse the photos. Furthermore, the case in question on flickr is not decided yet, and the subject in the case in question was depicted in derogatory circumstances (Line: "You can dump your mail friend" or similar, together with a picture of a girl, in an advertisement campaign). This is hardly the case for uses in a Wikimedia project, our uses are very different. The advertisement professional should have shown better judgement, or perhaps they provoked this intentionally. In both cases, they did it on their own peril. Longbow4u 17:09, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Celebrity pictures are quite a different issue. In most countries, the agreement of a public personality in a public place or event is not required. Personality rights do apply, though: the problem isn't restricted to ad agencies, it can also apply to any group or individual with a political agenda or some personal crusade. Anyway, I don't think celeb pics are really a problem here. The concern is about pictures of non-public individuals. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 14:30, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have commented at http://lessig.org/blog/2007/09/on_the_texas_suit_against_virg.html from our (German WP) point of view. Please read the complaint at http://lessig.org/blog/complaint.pdf. This is not only a personality issue. An owner of a trademark (given the logo is'nt protected by copyright) can sue us in the same way if a third party uses a Commons picture violating its rights because we failed to warn the user (we have a warning template in this case so far as I know but you understand the principle - you can also take German Geschmacksmuster, Coat of Arms, Olympic Rings etc) --Historiograf 17:04, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the links and your comment. However, I don't quite understand your emphasis on This is not only a personality issue. Technically this may be true, but IMHO the violation of the depicted girl's personality right (aka privacy) is the main issue here. (Still, even in this discussion there are votes against the "personality rights warning".) Compared to that, the missing attribution is a minor issue. -- Túrelio 21:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category naming

What is the prefered naming of rivers? We have different named river categories on commons, e.g. Category:Fulda (river) or Category:Rhone River. I asked for renaming of Category:Alster (River) to

--GeorgHH 12:47, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would recommend Category:Alster (river), because sometimes "River" "Creek" "Water" is part of the name but here it is not. -- Klaus with K 14:09, 24 September 2007 (UTC) (hasten to add only for the case where disambiguation is required) Klaus with K 09:46, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
 Support -- Túrelio 14:20, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
 Support --84.159.141.88 21:54, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please take this to COM:CFD. Thanks. Siebrand 16:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The prefered naming is the name of the matching English Wikipedia article: Template:W article. In Commons, a disambiguation suffix is NOT used when there is nothing to disambiguate.

 Oppose --Juiced lemon 22:48, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The disambiguation is Category:Alster. --GeorgHH 20:05, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Aspects of the above item, and coincidentally the following item, are covered at Commons talk:By location category scheme, where I think they should all be. Maybe I'm one of the few lucky people to know about that category scheme? Robin Patterson 11:23, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not use villige pump for this. -- Cat ちぃ？ 17:22, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
If you're going to tell people they shouldn't do something here, you should at least mention where they SHOULD do it. :P --> commons:categories for discussion pfctdayelise (说什么?) 06:43, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

English names Vs National names

I have an issue about the anglicization of geographic names.

Let's take an example: Category:Santa_Croce_(Florence) The town name is written in the English form, Florence, but the correct spelling IMHO should be the local one, Firenze.

Since Commons is (or at least should be) a multilingual project, not an anglo-centered one, I can't see the necessity to translate those names in a "wrong" language. Let's stick to local ones, eventually adding the anglicized form if they are in non-latin characters.

Having the name in the english form doesn't add much to understandability, and anyway we could always provide redirects if needed: Santa Croce (Florence) could redirect to Santa Croce (Firenze), and we will be all using the correct spelling without much pain. --Jollyroger 10:34, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This issue is not going to disappear. There are three problems:

  • places referred to in two languages- Firenze, Mailand (Milano, Milan)
  • places whose name has changed- St Petersburg, Pekin/Peking, Burma/Myanmar
  • places who have two official local names Tolosa/Toulouse, Aberteifi/Cardigan, Bruges/Brugge even Brügge.

The advice above is a bit woolly. How do we use the test of understandability in each of these three cases? Whose understandability? I am of the opinion in the short term the priorities must be set, but in the long term we need something stronger than redirection which will have to be hard coded.

If it helps I would use the rule: use the name that the local highway authorities places first on the entry signpost to the village/town/region/land.

Then in the longer term, the category needs a template where additional names are put. A bot will lift these synonyms and create the redirect pages- so as far as the user is concerned they will always see the page in the one of the local languages they are logged in to, or by default English. This has the advantage that for example German users will see the Category Dom Kirche Mailand, if and only if that has been entered in the synonym template, while the default Il Duomo di Milano, will be seen by the rest of the world. ClemRutter 13:43, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Categories are in English, and that includes geographic names. These are the ones which are most commonly used in the English language, and the English Wikipedia is the custom reference to determine the correct usage. Assuming that the subject of Category:Santa Croce (Florence) is this basilica: Template:W article, a correct name for this category would be:
Otherwise:


As the English language article is at en:Basilica_di_Santa_Croce_di_Firenze, (IMHO) the category should be at Category:Basilica_di_Santa_Croce_di_Firenze. -- User:Docu

No. The English Wikipedia is our reference, but we are not bound to use the names of its articles or categories. Besides, you can often find in the English Wikipedia an article and a category with different names, though about the same subject. More, sometimes, an article name don't comply with the naming conventions.
Wikimedia Commons can have different naming rules, since we have no articles: in particular, we can have different disambiguation rules, because the matching rules in the English Wikipedia seem confused.
The Italian name of the basilica is Basilica di Santa Croce. If disambiguation is needed, the custom method for buildings is to add a suffix, a comma followed by the English name of the location, which is Category:Florence in the current case. --Juiced lemon 19:05, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category names for general terms are in English, yes but that is merely a means to avoid duplicate categories ("coins" / "Münzen" / "moneta"). But it is ridiculous to try to exterminate native forms in cases like this. Nobody can be in two minds that we are talking about the same building and this is an international project, not "international" in the meaning that all users must be assimilated into Americans. This is a depository for files to be used on *all* wikipedias, not just the English one and according to Meta's description, this project is multilingual. Valentinian (talk) 22:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Valentinian: Commons is multilingual, why does it have to follow en.wiki?
Using the real local name with redirects from english language would be a good compromise to make the page easy to find and to respect the multilingualisms of the project.
I see no good reason to translate all local names in english, and if there is a policy to do so, I would like to propose a debate and change that since is quite out of the project spirit.
P.S: when speaking of italian churches is always a good thing to add the placename, since you can be sure that there are almost a dozen of churches with the same name. Often, the placename is included in the official name of the church. A Basilica di Santa Croce exist in Jerusalem and in Lecce, while churches are in Verona, Bari and in other cities. So it is strongly advised to add placename in advance. --Jollyroger 08:42, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category names don't have to be in English. Any lingua franca will do. If you oppose to English being the only lingua franca in the world, you may launch a political campaign against the state of affairs but don't misuse Commons for your political purposes. Samulili 06:12, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

what political purpose?
I oppose the fact that Commons is using a "lingua franca" in names where it could easily use the right names thus respecting its own guidelines (multilingualism instead of anglocentrism). No problem with the English for discussion and descriptions, but can't understand why do we have all to use english placenames instead of the right ones.
Please keep these idiocies out of this discussion, we are trying to find an agreement, not a flame. --Jollyroger 07:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If we adopt native names for categories, how can we choose the "right" one in places that have multiple official languages? (That is probably more likely than having a single official language)
How about subcategories, such as "buildings in X"? Should we have "Buildings in Firenze", or make it "Buildings in Florence" or maybe "Monumenti di Firenze"? Either way it will be inconsistent with parent categories, and reduce the very little predictability that the category structure currently has, thus making it even harder to use. (By predictability I mean that if you have some knowledge about the category system, you can guess what the proper category should be. So for buildings in Shanghai you can guess Category:buildings in Shanghai and you are right.)
You also said anglicized form if they are in non-latin characters but why are non-latin-character-using-languages any different case to those that use latin characters? That would basically just be pro-European language discrimination. So maybe we should have "上海建筑" for buildings in Shanghai. I hope you can see how quickly this would destroy the usability of the category system.
It annoys me that Commons is so restricted in using categories, but the wiki software just doesn't have the support that we need, i.e. proper category redirects, or even better a full-on alias system. I really hope we will get a better system one day, but until that happens, I think we should try to make the current system as use-able as possible. Being use-able means being consistent and predictable. I can't think of another system that can incorporate local names but keep at least the current level of predictability. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 09:31, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that since categories can't be in more than one language, it is best to have them in English and be consistant about it. / Fred J 10:38, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The language of categories is not a problem. I am speaking just of geographic names, so "Buildings in Firenze" is ok. Usually, there is one official predominant language, and other secondary, so the problem is not so relevant.
Predictability: redirects are enough, and are needed. Using them, the cat's name is correct with the "official" name, but you can guess. You may guess in your language too with a little effort, so a german user could just guess "Buildings in Mailand" instead of "buildings in Milan". This adds predictability!
Non-latin: simply most browsers screws up using non-latin, and most non-latin languages have also a parallel and official latin charset. Let's avoid tech problems.
Alternative system: That's what I am speaking.
  • "real" cat page -> Buildings in Firenze
  • redirects from most used languages, or from any languages an user bother to create the redirect from -> Buildings in Florence, Buildings in 建筑上上建海, Buildings in that-city-with-chianti-and-chianina-beef...
  • if needed, a bot to update redirects to real page, to reduce server load
I am not trying to start a religion war: simply there is a huge gap between project "spirit" (multilingual) and project "facts" (anglocentric). I am proposing a way to fix that easily. --Jollyroger 11:17, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I know that the discussion here is from a slightly different point of view. But please also have a look at the discussion I started on the status of other languages on Commons. I really seems that there should be a consensus on the language issue. --ALE! ¿…? 11:31, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Many buildings and streets have no established translations and many are impossible to translate into something meaningful. A square in Copenhagen, Denmark is named "Kongens Nytorv" which could hypothetically be translated into "King's New Square" but this is irrelevant since nobody uses such a translated name, and nobody will be able to find such a location on a map. (Google for "King's New Square: 842 hits, Google for "Kongens Nytorv": 444,000 hits). This example was a name where a translation was technically possible but what about "Vimmelskaftet", "Kattesundet" or "Fiolstræde"? Same deal with monuments: "Den Lille Hornblæser": 503 hits, "The Little Bugler": 963 hits but none seem to be about the Copenhagen monument (' "The little bugler" +copenhagen' gives a total of 6 google hits). Constructions: Category:Funkturm Colonius in Köln, Category:Hessisches Staatstheater, Category:Heroldsmühle; at least two of these can't be translated and the last one would be a waste of time. The most problematic case is titles for books, where category names like Category:Buchstabier- und Lese-Büchlein og Category:Hamborger Janmooten shouldn't be "translated" into something home-made nonsense. Valentinian (talk) 20:08, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Valentian, AFAIK no one is proposing that non-English names should be translated when in fact the non-English name is the one that is used by English speakers (as in the examples you gave). The problem is only for entities that have an English name and non-English name(s). If the non-English name is used in English, for that purpose it 'is English.
Jollyroger, you said (category redirects) from any languages an user bother to create the redirect from... this is part of the problem. Creating redirects is slow and tedious and thus most people don't bother. And they WON'T bother.
I also disagree that Buildings in Firenze (ie mixing languages) is not problematic. And the problem of multiple official languages is a major concern that can't be dismissed so easily as "not that relevant". pfctdayelise (说什么?) 06:27, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Copying of image summaries

The description text on Image:Hurricane Ophelia 14 sept 2005 1605Z.jpg is a direct copy of the descriptive text at the source page. There is no copyright concern here as the source page is PD. However, a direct copy like this strikes me as plagiarism and so probably should be discouraged. Furthermore in the case of this image, a fair chunk of the text copied is not actually that useful. A rewrite/summary of the descriptive information as on this image seems to be both better for our purposes and avoids any concerns about plagiarism.

Should we be discourage blatant copying of the source's description in our documentation?--Nilfanion 23:28, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Properly attributed I see nothing wrong with copying freely licensed text. The rub is, is the text useful. This particular text is the sort of folksy narrative you get from the Hurricane Center while a storm is ongoing. It's fun to read at the time, but not very useful later. So I'd remove this particular text, as I would any not particularly useful text, copied or not, but not change policy. If there were a documentation change it should be to encourage people to make useful remarks about the image (properly cited when that matters). ++Lar: t/c 00:51, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]


The source of the text and image are in the source section, so the author of Image:Hurricane Ophelia 14 sept 2005 1605Z.jpg isn't passing the text off as his/her own, ergo not plagarism. Usefulness of the text is another issue. Cburnett 01:46, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have a shoe box with 60+ WWII photos from Poland, no authors, no information if they were ever published before. Polish copyright law valid from 1926 to 1994 puts all published images without copyright tag on the image in public domain (see {{PD-Polish}}). However, I do not know if the images were ever published, so I do not think I should be using this PD template. After looking through Polish copyright law I found that according to the Art.21 of copyright law of March 29, 1926 (valid until 1952) photographs loose copyright protection ten years after picture was taken. So this seems to be a safe bet. What steps should I take prior to uploading? Should I create a PD template?Jarekt 03:46, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think you should get some more input at Commons:Bar and pl.wp to be sure that that law applies in the case, before making a template. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 09:14, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I will do that.Jarekt 12:17, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ID shrooms

Hi, can someone help add the taxonomy information to this image? And if there are people that enjoy that kind of stuff, I have more here. Thank you! Dori - Talk 04:24, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Commons 2.0 ! project : set up a graphic community here need contributors & leaders

User supporting commons 2.0
User supporting commons 2.0
This user strongly support Commons 2.0 ! See GVP-GLab-GA.

Hello, I make an adversing to get contributers and leaders on the Commons 2.0! project, which aim to make a true & active community of graphist on Commons.
The ideas come from the French graphic lab which made alone about 1.300 images creations or improvements in 2 years with about 10 to 20 volunters. On commons, we have now and we talk about 1.000 graphists in the "User abilities" categories, 1.000 graphists ready to help, and already understanding the wiki-syntaxe, the principles of Wikipedia, etc.

I set up this list of projects since 2005. Since I'm now leaving Wiki-commons, I hopes somes actives users may put the energy need to make this project active and significantly efficient for 2008.

So, I encourage all actives users/graphists to involves themselves in the project, all uploaders to make images clean up requests on the Graphic Lab, and to perform clean up if you can, to lead the project toward innovating services. In short : be aware of this Commons 2.0 ! and its graphics Lab, and make the place living !

You can show your support by adding {{User commons 2.0}} on your user page which will be REALLY helpfull to allow more users to know about the project.

More informations and links on :

Yug (talk), the place is your ! 06:21, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

September 27

Dual-licensing

While legally it isn't too much of an issue, I am bothered by images uploaded with multiple licenses at least one being something incompatible such as a combo of GFDL and CC-BY-SA-NC. I hence prompt the issue to be addressed. -- Cat ちぃ？ 17:15, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Could you please explain where you see problems of incompatibities if an image is available under multiple licenses where one license can be freely chosen? Regards, AFBorchert 20:47, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
90% of the people won't understand it (and some upload NC-only-files) and all in all it's a way to license files in a restrictive way. ––Polarlys 21:12, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the question is about combo licenses and not NC-only-files. As long the license can be freely chosen and at least one license is acceptable (like GFDL, for example) what is the problem or where is the supposed incompatibility if a license like CC-BY-SA-NC is added as an alternative to it? Or are you just concerned that people could be confused by such uncommon combinations? --AFBorchert 21:49, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am not concerned, it's an experience (like “Schöpfungshöhe-Regelungen”): People see one simple cover artwork in an article, maybe a black background with a common writing. Then they upload the latest cover by $favorite_popstar and put it under the same license. Furthermore we should discourage people from using restrictive licensing. Reason? The goal of this project. Some of our professional photographers (…) already exploit Wikipedia somehow (please don't lynch me): Bad resolution, high compression, restrictive license and two pages of terms and conditions and possibilities how to obtain a file with better resolution and different conditions. ––Polarlys 22:00, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Borchert: as far as one license is acceptable, can't see anything wrong in a double licensing (not saying it is a smart thing, but is a right of the uploader to choose licenses as he wish) --Jollyroger 08:13, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The first thing you are talking about: I understand what you mean - but there's no good reason to do forbid double licensing with a NC/ND license. It's okay with the project scope, as long as there is at least one free license. People misinterpret it? People misinterpret a lot. People don't understand Fair use, people don't know the difference between a spoon and Mickey Mouse, people think it's okay to upload protected artwork if they find it on the subway, people don't understand what copyright even is. So? What we do is clean up after them and make sure they don't do it again.
The second thing: Professional photographers want to make a living. Otherwise they wouldn't be professionals. Wikimedia Commons does not discourage people from earning money with free content. It's within the project scope, and there's no reason to oust people who contribute with their professional work AND still want to make money. They owe us nothing, you know. --Fb78 08:17, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I never said about banning them. Currently there is nothing discouraging it. Licenses should be kept as simple as possible. Custom licenses should be frowned upon though not banned. Having a CC-BY-SA-NC and GFDL next to each other is a contradiction. It is a possibility that the uploader does not know that images licensed under GFDL is commercially usable. -- Cat ちぃ？ 10:27, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Having CC-BY-SA-NC and GFDL next to each other not is contradiction. You can hand out an image to person A under GFDL, and to person B under CC-BY-SA-NC. Person B can still use GFDL, and person A might want to use CC-BY-SA-NC, if they don't use the image commercially and don't want to print the GFDL license text. This is perfectly fine for all parties.
Oh, and about the "there's nothing discouraging it". People who know what they are doing with licenses also know why they are using double licensing. People who have no idea what licenses are should read the guidelines which suggest using one or two free licenses. We have WAY too many guidelines on Commons and noone reads them anyway. Most of them are just used to give weight to arguments in discussions.
What most people need is basic information what a license even is. Take the above discussion about a lawsuit. The plaintiff claims that Creative Commons neglected to tell him what "commercial use" is! What I'm trying to say is this: People who use CC-NC on Commons know what licenses are and know what they are doing. We should be happy about that and let them do it. Everyone else should learn about what a free license is and what it means and whether they are sure that they know what they are doing. --Fb78 11:16, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To White Cat, this issue has been discussed a bit before, I think on the VP and also on the mailing list. My memories of the conclusions are: non-free dual licenses are accepted, but not encouraged. "Not encouraged" means not creating templates for them, not listing them in the license selector, not publicising the fact that we accept this. It is not a bad idea to confirm with users who dual-license non-free that they do understand the implications of the free licenses. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 06:41, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Artificial Intelligence

is it true that neural networks process information based on a sequencial algorithm?

Yes and no. For a more precise answer, please go to en:Wikipedia:Reference desk. --Fb78 11:27, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

{{PD-Art}} and Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag#Country-specific rules

Hello, I have some questions. My main question is: Is Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag#Country-specific rules, a legal obligation ? The English wikipedia, refuses to acknowledge the existence or validity of such claims. They say that it is OK to violate foreign copyright on the English wikipedia, because the material would not be copyrighted had it been created in the USA. They also claim that the reason Country-specific rules exists is because the Commons has a more global objective, is this true, or does it exist simply because the works are copyrighted in the USA as well ? Jackaranga 12:52, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The general rule on Commons is that a photograph should be free for use under the copyright law both of the USA and of the country where the photo was taken. Hence, a PD-Art tag is accepted only if the image is taken in a country where such reproductions are permitted (as they are in the US). On the other hand, the rule is not used consistently - eg where Freedom of panorama is being claimed, it appears OK here if the photograph was legally-allowable locally regardless of whether or not a similar picture taken in the US would be allowed. What the rule should be is another matter, and to some extent that's a policy rather than a strictly legal issue. The Wikimedia Foundation's lawyer has been asked to advise, but so far as I am aware the Foundation has so far provided no guidance, so the individual sites have had to come up with their own policies. They are not necessarily consistent. --MichaelMaggs 17:22, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag is a joke, as the users participating in deletion requests and the admins closing these requests do not care about it. We should either delete it, or start following it. --Kjetil r 00:28, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any way to bring order to Categories?

Much of the time when I click on a Wiki Commons link in a Wikipedia article (English) I get the message that the category has been deleted. Today I was looking for Minarets (whose catetory has been deleted) and now I find Minarets under Tower -- not an intuitive place to look. Apparently, it does not fall under Islamic architecture or Mosque or Minanert, or the architecture of the country it is in, like Chinese architecture (which the one I am looking for is). Only by going to tower first, can it be found. And not all minarets are found there.

The minnert I am looking for is in China. Apparently the minnert I am looking for (and I know it has a page because I have seen it) is not under Tower> Minnerts. If I try to categorize Chinese architecture in a category so I can find it, someone deletes it. Everytime I tried to categorize galleries in a way I can find them, I get a patronizing message on my user page that my categories have been deleted. I suppose I can spend days of hunting again, but frankly I am getting tire.

I have been told in the last message to me that when I do accidentally find the page I am looking for I should link it to my user page (I guess that is what he means) rather than try to categorize in ways that are useful to me.

What is the point of forbidding people to have useful categories? If I am doing an article on Doors (which I was until the last person deleted my categories and lost my door image) why can't there be a category for doors. And why did the editors here remove the photo of the door I was going to use (now lost forever) from Category:Doors? --WhoNose 15:29, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See Category:Minarets. I don't see anything in your deleted edits regarding a category for Chinese Architecture... when did you do that? --SB_Johnny | PA! 16:04, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You haven't been looking for the Emin minaret by any chance? For some reason that one wasn't in Category:Minarets, but I added it there. Doors are in Category:Doors. I think you will find a door there that satisfies your demands. Maybe the image of the specific door you are looking for has been deleted. If you are looking for doors in china, try Category:Doors in China. We certainly do not forbid useful categories :) --rimshottalk 16:24, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There are two different categories with minarets. There is one with a bunch of minarets from different places but without the Emin minarets. And then that one with Emin minarets. I would have to go back to Wikipedia to get the links I have saved. I don't bother here. No point. I just link to the picture on Wikipedia, so if you screw up the categories, I'll still have access to it. --WhoNose 00:31, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. A minaret is not a tower. Why don't you have church steeples under towers? You seem a little prejudiced here. --WhoNose 00:34, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yikes! WhoNose, we do in fact need help coming up with a consistent category system, but that sort of thing takes patience, time, and cool heads. Are you able to offer any of those things, or are you just telling other people to do things you're not willing to do? --SB_Johnny | PA! 00:39, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) As I have said before, although I am quite successful wih categories on Wikipedia, here my categories just get deleted. So what is the point? I will not try any more -- way too frustrating.

I have not worked on anything regarding India for at least six months. I have been working exclusively with China. But, as I said, I just link every pic I may want to my Wikipedia pages. Since many of the {{commonscan}} don't work anymore on Wikipedia articles since the category links are broken because they have been deleted here (for minarets, for example - that link on the Wikipedia to here is broken in that article now), that is the only way I know to have access to the pictures I want, without spending hours, if not days, looking here and not being able to find a picture I know I saw somewhere here. --WhoNose 00:44, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think you mean {{commonscat}}? My personal (and unofficial) policy on this is to never use that silly template, but use the plain old {{commons}} one instead. If there's no gallery (but there is a cat), just make that pagename redirect to the category. Any admin worth his salt will check "what links here" before deleting, and will correct the redirect if they delete a cat. --SB_Johnny | PA! 00:51, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi WhoNose,
I believe some admins are mistakenly deleting categories that have been "redirected/moved/renamed" instead of leaving them as redirects (so people can at least find the correct category). I made Category:Minaret a redirect again. If you know of any other categories please feel free to let me know and I will undelete them. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 06:57, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In my experience redirecting a category is not a good solution: you end up with pictures mistakenly classified under the redirected category, which are extremely hard to find afterwards. What we need is a kind of CheckUsage for galleries and categories. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 09:21, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for understanding there really is a problem. You are the first person here who has. Every other response to my posts has been defensive and blamed me. --WhoNose 14:43, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Whonose, we all acknowledge that our category system is far from perfect. There are a lot of categories already, so it's difficult to add some without disturbing anything. On the other hand, it's still incomplete and often inconsistent. What we say is: try and be patient. Tell us what precise categories that were deleted, so that we can try to find a solution. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 16:49, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I spent the better part of a day trying to gather all Chinese architecture under one heading (no matter what other headings they were under, like Tower etc. All my efforts were deleted and Chinese architecture is wandering around again. (Why under Category:Mosques do you only have Saudi Arabian mosques, for example?} I do not know where Chinese mosques are, perhaps under Building by function? Or Buildings by country? or Religious building (excluding Saudi Arabian mosques)? I have looked through all those categories so many times for Chinese architecture pix. When I find them it is usually by accident. If I put a category on it to get it in the general realm of China, it is deleted. My wish is that there would be a way of finding pix of Chinese architecture without looking through everything. Further, I wish editors would not delete my categories within hours after I make them without at least consulting me or providing me with another way. There is a category of Chinese minaretS that is not under minarets, for example. --WhoNose 18:02, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Jastrow: redirecting the category is a better solution than deleting it. Deleting it is an incredibly bad idea. Bots can move the images if they are put into redirect categories by accident. But deleting things like singular categories (ie "Minaret" not "Minarets") is cutting off our nose to spite our face by ignoring the usefulness of redirects...i.e, to redirect users to the right page. As WhoNose points out it can also cause of lot of totally dead links from Wikipedias into Commons. Meeting a redirect is ugly, but far better than nothing. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 04:20, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Do bots actually move pictures which are in redirect categories? I find this an important problem. Also, would it be difficult to create a CheckUsage for categories and galleries? This would solve a lot of problems. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 10:24, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure if there are currently any bots that do this; there used to be. Perhaps not anymore. But if there was one once, I think there can be one again. :)
As for a "global Whatlinkshere", it seems to me it shouldn't be too hard, but someone else should answer definitively if they know. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:15, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mosques & minarets

Are you aware that mosques and minarets are related? That mosques may have minarets? Why do you not have Category:Towers > Church steeples. Then have a separate, completely unrelated Category:Religious buildings > Churches. That is the logic behind the way you categorize mosques and minarets. (I repeat, when I try to fix something like this my categories get deleted.) --WhoNose 14:51, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Are you aware that mosques and minarets are related?" - Yes, that is why Category:Minarets is a subcategory of Category:Mosques. Could you try to point out why they do not seem related?
"Why do you not have Category:Towers > Church steeples" - We have Category:Church towers for that purpose. It can be found in the same category as Category:Minarets, namely Category:Towers by function. --rimshottalk 16:47, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies if I make an off topic comment, I've had a few bottles of whine. This is a wiki *and* a community project. If something can be improved, do it. Those who can do, those who can't criticise. </rant> Cheers! Siebrand 17:14, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Don't create category links like the red arrow!
Well, my categories a few days ago were all deleted. We will see if the few I did today will suffer the same fate. No point in putting a lot of work into something that is going to be deleted without notification. I can see you have had a few too many bottles of whine. To try to get help here is just getting whinning answers back. --WhoNose 17:51, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
WhoNose: what categories are you talking about? Again, I see only one category in your deleted contribs, and it was a misspelling ("Architetural elements"). --SB_Johnny | PA! 21:58, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
@WhoNose, please read Commons:Categorization or at least the short paragraph Category structure. A lot of your category-adding in the last days was clearly what is explained as not to do (see graph to the right). That is not a big issue as you might not have known until yet. But you shouldn't react harshly if others try to correct mistakes. Apart from differences in opinion, everybody here sometimes makes mistakes (we all should remember to assume good faith). -- Túrelio 08:42, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

September 30

photographer databases needed / info on Julian Mandel

Help with a translation (and misquotation) of the Aeneid

I am reading "The Thirty Years War" by C.V. Wedgwood.

The support of King James of Britain is solicited to support Elector Paletine's candidacy to become King of Bohemia as against the Hapsburg candidate. Part of the James's reply to the solicitation was to quote (actually ingeniously misquoate, according to Wedgwood) 3 lines of Virgil to the effect that he would have nothing to do with Bohemia.

Below is the "misquote" cited in Wedgwood.

O praestans animi juvenis, quantum ipse feroci Virtute exsuperas, tanto me impensius aequum est Prospicere atque omnes volventem expendere casus.

Is there someone who could explain how the misquote alters the original? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Helaine (talk • contribs)

Your best bet would probably be to ask on the Latin Wikisource Scriptorium. --SB_Johnny | PA! 15:47, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ID this flower

Discussion moved to Image talk:Urbana Illinois park 20070928 img 2123.jpg. Dori - Talk 19:14, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Accepted method for repairing scans of old photographs

Moved to COM:GVP#Accepted_method_for_repairing_scans_of_old_photographs Siebrand 06:07, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to follow what is going on on COM:GVP#Accepted_method_for_repairing_scans_of_old_photographs, you have to click the watch tab on it. --Foroa 07:52, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Template and category

Templates create category links like the red arrow!

Hello, I stumbled on a big problem: categories included in templates are quite general causes for overloaded supercategories. As an exemple the template {{Norwegian coat of arms}}, which includes category: Norwegian coats of arms. Now all Coa's of municipalities of Norway (and other Coa's as well) go also in the supercategory Norwegian coats of arms, overcharging this supercategory. There are several templates having this problem of fixed categorisation. The same goes for the tmplate {{Insignia}} which is often included in copyright templates. There are even user templates, including category templates as well as copyright templates which contain category templates. Who is able to analyse such templates and adapt them properly, so they do not overrule individuel items categorisation? Havang 19:13, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that you will find many places here where you have overlapping categories (which are a red arrow on your drawings). This is unavoidable if you have several category systems in parallel or that overlap. Moreover, the categories are used for rapid browsing too, which, most of the time need a category system that is as flat as possible. I am preparing an article on that subject which I should issue in a couple of weeks. --Foroa 07:57, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, overlapping is unavoidable, but should be reduced towards an optimum, eliminating real redundancies, I think. The classification system should be user-friendly (gebruikersvriendelijk) both for classifiers and for searchers. In this respect templates with semi-automatic categorisations gives problems to later users trying to improve and refine classifications and for users searching in a too big browserensemble. You know that surcategories which contain several times 200 items, do not permit easy browsing. The Search function and the category tree are of good help, and I discovered recently the Catscanbrowser [3] which allows good browsing. It is good you write an article on all this. We all must think about a system that works for the fastgrowing system of millions of items and thousands of categories handled by thousands of users, most of them untrained. See the time it took me to search and regroup just the mills items. Can you give me a signal once your article is ready? Havang 10:12, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that we will find a simple "absolute" rule. But my first position is already: the categorisation system is already difficult enough for users with no or little wiki experience. Templates, although easing sometimes some maintenance aspects, make it completeley uncomprehensible for most image providers. I'll keep you informed about my article; I am still searching some "difficult" to find cases: input is welcome. --Foroa 10:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Do you mean such a case: a user template interesting to study: User:Odejea/Blason following his user page. Or the discussion at Template talk:Blason-fr-en-it? Havang 11:32, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, I have several cases in the defense of so called supercategories. (By the way, I am pretty much sure that categories, even very large ones, take neglectible computing resources and memory space). At first sight, User:Odejea/Blason seems to be a documenting template only, so this is no real problem (unless someone changes it to autogenerate categories in the template or nested templates). The problem cases I am looking for are:
  • templates that are invoked associated with all sorts of parameters, that generate all sorts of categories in function of the parameters in the templates, possibly through a complex set of nested templates. (such as Template talk:Blason-fr-en-it; in short, all things you would never ask to an average user)
  • templates which cannot be understood by an average wiki user without studying more than 5 minutes
  • experiences with wiki objects (cats, galleries, documents, images) that took major time and efforts to find or locate in the commons
--Foroa 14:20, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Concerning Experiences: I used mills as an experience in classifying items, but it turned into an experience of finding items. There were no complications by template classification. Some observations:

  • I first went over the category tree, sorting images by location categories and mill type categories, applying downward refinements and upward dichotomies (or trichotomies). This was fast going and very clarifying about which categories were appropriate.
  • Limitations arose from the restricted number of represented items in the extended category tree.
  • I searched items not in the millscategory with the wikimenu at the left, using searchterms in different languages: (mill, moulin, molino, molen muehle, wassermühle, windmühle etc. - there is a multi-language problem worth looking at). This was the most time-consuming part but rich in discoveries of gallerypages and individual items which were not in the mills category tree. This way I found over 100 items not yet mill-classified.
  • Initially, I tried a catscan search, but at that time I had not the right catscan parameters. Later, I found some 10 more items by using catscan search on mills, windmills, watermills depth 3 to 5. But the catscan search turned out to be limited by the maximum of 1000 items.
  • Once the item is in the right category tree, downward refinemend of classification is possible and permits faster searching. Reactions of other users show that they are pleased by the refinement of the mills category and some have joined in improving classifications.
With what I had learned, I tried classifying Coats of arms. That's were the template problems came.
  • Concerning Template talk:Blason-fr-en-it, I fully agree.
  • Concerning User:Odejea/Blason, I tried to remove at the item page the automatic Insignia category, that was only possible by eliminating /blason from the template, but that changed the applied template in another user template - not wanted - so his contributions remain going into the insignia supercategorie. This is a minor problem, however.
  • There is a category which contains several of the most problematic ones: Commons:Copyright tags. Havang 11:54, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Havang, this is great input for me and confirms several of my lines of thinking. Could you be more precise on:

  • Limitations arose from the restricted number of represented items in the extended category tree
  • Catscan: does it accept substrings (E.g. mill if you want to catch mills, watermill(s) and windmills), limit of 1000 items: in searched items or found items ? Search depth 3 to 5: meaning you can only search in an existing tree to a certain level, not for lost "sheep" ?
  • what is problematic on Commons:Copyright tags (besides de hundreds of different ones) ?

Thank you. --Foroa 12:36, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • At 1): Look for instance the Category:Coats of arms to be classified. This is overcrowded and nobody starts attacking the category: by the time you arrive at K or O, you are occupied 3 to 5 mintues passing the pages one by one, and if you have done a categorisation, you have to start over from the first page, not funny. Category:Insignia at least has an alphabetic index, but that category doesn't work either, because the index is on picture names, which is a big mess as well: compare first letters Arms, Berlin, Blason, Coa of, COAUtrecht, mpt123.png, wapen van Utrecht, wappenberlin, wappen of mixed with military insignia etc, etc.: impossible to browse and a hard job to refine categories.
  • At 2)Catscan takes it al to the depth asked (Mills-windmills-windmillsbycountry-windmills of province-windmill in Berlin plus -watermills-watermillsbycountry-xxx-xxx- etc, (depth 5), but aborts at 1000 images. May-be there are possibilities in Catscan I do not know/did not use.
  • several Commons copyright tags contain an automatic categorisation template, (I gave the arbitrary exemple Norway). If so, they are a source of problems; and even more a problem when inserted in user templates. Most often included is {{Insignia}} which contains includeCategory:Insignia. {{PD-Coa-Germany}} contains also includeCategory:Insignia. Is it of some utility to change this to nonincludeCategory:Insignia?
  • A complication is that people tend to stick to their so genially constructed template, and get easely angry about critical remarks on it. Havang 16:29, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is some real use case to have large cats because we cannot categorise every dimension or detail of an image. I'm working on that, but as a quick example: this insignia cat is great if you are trying to find for example a coat of arms that contains a green cat on a blue background. Don't forget that we are building a media wiki that should allow to visually find things along a criteria that cannot be necessarily expressed in words (for example an insignia that matches nicely with the one of the my grandfather). I think that we have to find workarounds and solutions that allow to handle correctly that volume of information.

Since I made the little addition to Category:Coats of arms to be classified, is it more usable in your opinion ? --Foroa 16:58, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • In fact, categories fail partly in visual search. I did some visual search on mills too. For that, the catscan allows better visual browsing. For one main categorie, itself with not so much images, but having well-defined 10 subcategories with subsub- and subsubsubcategories, jou can make 10 catscans depth 3 for 10x maximally 1000 images you can scroll. For visual search, no category search can do that as fast. But because of the limit of 1000, any too big category overlap blocks catscans searches. A good category tree permits good searching using a series of catscans. And... happely, catscans also search images which lack the categorie but contain the searchitem in texte. Archives are not easily build. I realise more and more we need to look to both sides: which combination of search system and categorisation system gives the best results.
  • Your alphabet is a real gain of time for changing pages, but it doesnt change the basic problem: not knowing what comes up, it is is pure hasard if you find a non-classified coat-item you are able to classify, and there are too many items to categorise. But already the geographic classification of some countries, notably the bigger ones, is a partial chaos; and that should be the easiest to do. (I tried two weeks ago a temporary pre-classifiction by country -see the subcategories at the first page of the cat- very few persons have done further classifications since).
  • As a side remark: I did not yet mention I used google image search as well, combining wikimedia commons with all sort of terms related to mills; I use to make several language choices in google search programs: different languages give really different search results. Often the results were similar to earlier results, but I found a few not mill-classified wiki-items.

Havang 17:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC) I think that we are quite in line in de sense that we see many problems coming together that need be adressed as a whole, such as search, navigate, naming and categorisation. Where I disagree with you (in a hurry, little time now):[reply]

  • there will be always need for real visual (optical) search, as the two examples I gave are not foreseeable, even with the best category system in the world. Even the next generation google will not find oil mills from the beginning of previous century with a red roof and stone feet. sure
  • you should not adapt your organisation because you have relatively tiny technology constraints: this catscan tool and the category display can be significantly improved in a couple of hours (or two days) of work. I hope so
  • If users want to stick absolutely to their templates that costed them a lot of energy, then they most probably a very good and valid reason. I think we have to make more efforts to understand their logic (visual search maybe ?). Yes
  • I've been always completely against the logic that you build only categories if you have sufficient members, for many reasons. For the current Category:Coats of arms to be classified, the job becomes almost hopeless, but is one of the bad consequences of the policy. But for now, we have to live with a system where each overflowed cat is pushed in other subscats that overflow again, and again till you reach the end of a tree. You see, still a lot of work to do. --Foroa 18:24, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I too don't follow that logic, even a (nearly) empty category can be a good category; and huge categories which have an obvious function are wishfull (like PD-coats of arms); but then this should remain a isolated category as a growing list, not to be mixed with the active group of branching and linking growing trees.
  • I have learned to go from the bottom category to the upper one, my attempt is not so much to empty higher categories, but to start with a correct bottom category: it rises up evidently if choices about dichotomies, trichotomies are clear and easily understandable. Unclassified items in huge numbers is the most worrying time-consuming thing and if they are mixed with classsified items it's chaos. That's why higher categories should not be a mix of well-classified and unclassified items. The number of items is not my first concern. That's what is expressed by the red line in the diagram above, that's the policy.
  • I am thinking about a system of two picture names: the name which has been used for uploading and will be used in galleries, not adjustable afterwards; and a name for classification and search purposes, adjustable afterwards, the two names coupled one-to-one. The upload name may be the same as the adjustable name, but may also be different. That should make the system much more versatile, permit alphabetically sortable naming and solve many problems, including language problems. (It will probably generate new but hopefully smaller problems). Good evening Havang 19:10, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The insignia template is intended to be used on images that have some official status, and therefor have restrictions of how they can be used. I don't think the included categorisation is intended to put all insignia in the supercategory of all images of insignia. Instead, I think, the purpose is to collect all images with that kind of restrictions directly in one category. It may be a good idea to have that restriction category separate from the category that sorts insignia into subcategories based on various criteria. The Norwegian CoA template is similar to the insignia template, it categorises all Norwegian CoAs in one category based on the license of the images. /81.231.248.36 19:19, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the explanation above. So this cat is another dimension of the cats: its license restrictions where you basically want the names of the files, not necessarily the thumbnails. Right ? That's a good one!Havang 07:50, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some short replies:

  • Havangs disappointment and loneliness with the category splits in Category:Coats of arms to be classified. We have a major community communication problem here on the commons that I want to adress. I am sure that many people would love to help you with the job but they don't know that you are working on that. For now, I would suggest to hang the temp subcats on the right cats in the concerned country categories and set a message on the relevant cat talk pages. When you have done that, I would launch a general help call in village pump. People tend to be very happy if they have the opportunity to expand and organise their collection. (It's a small scale experiment, I now wait and see what happens next, do not expand the experiment yet, svp. Havang 07:10, 3 October 2007 (UTC) )[reply]
  • Concerning the image names, I am thinking in the same line as you. I am preparing a proposal to add to the images a field called Title or so, that inherits by default the file name but can be changed easily and will be used for all primary displays and sorting.
  • Concerning the supercats, I am still trying to find a workaround to decrease the need of it, such as special search or display function. Need more time to investigate.

--Foroa 07:03, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

October 1

reusing part of image

how (and can I even?) can I use a part of an image? I mean, if there is a picture here, released into Public Domain, does that mean, that I can, say, upload that image into my PC, and, say, that its a picture of a person, so I would just cut out a arm ;p and than I would like to upload it (the arm only) into Commons for further use. Can I do that? and if I can, what do I put as "author" and what kind of license do I give it? thanks. 02:32, 1 October 2007

You can do whatever you want with public domain images. That's the whole point. The best thing would be to link directly to the image so that you establish the source of your image is public domain and to let anyone find the source for whatever reason they want. You can license however you please, since it's public domain, including putting it back into the public domain. You are the author of the derivative work but you, obviously, can't claim authorship on the public domain image or portion thereof. Cburnett 05:19, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
However, specifically images of persons are subject to personality rights and it is up to you to decide whether or not you can use the image for your purposes. -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:24, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I read the personality rights, but I'm not really understanding it... so what does it mean? Can I take a pic of a person, and cut the head only and upload it back, or do I have to ask the author, or what? ;/ by the way, is PD the only license that lets me reuse pictures?, I think all of them do, right?... I dont know how to write the license after reusing a pic,, say the person put the pic under {{self|cc-by-sa-2.5}}, so after using a part of the pic, what license do I put (the same kind?), or more importantly how do I write it? I found something thats says to write {{PD-user|...something}}, but that seems to work only with PD, so how do I do it? Frizabela 17:36, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you take a part of an image that is in the Public Domain and you are not adding anything special to it, you can not license the image with anything but PD (which is not a license). That is, the image stays in the Public Domain. Samulili 18:26, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The image is forever in the public domain, it's the question of the derivative work. The threshold for claiming a copyright is the same as creating any other copyrighted work. Cburnett 00:28, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

but what if the image is not in PD? but in something else? Frizabela 18:36, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • In such case, you look on the license. Generally speaking, there are two types of free licenses: copyleft and non-copyleft. Copyleft licenses are all Creative Commons licenses which have SA (share-alike) in name, GFDL license, GPL, LGPL, FAL. Non-copyleft licenses are pure Attribution Creative Commons licenses (CC-BY) and BSD license. If the license is copyleft, you have to mention the author and give your derivative work exactly the same license and no other. With a non-copyleft license, you still have to mention the author and the original, but you can change license, for example from CC-BY to CC-BY-SA, or multi-license your work. Generally, in all cases if you mention the author, give link to the original and give your work exactly the same license, everything will always be fine. --Derbeth talk 20:37, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that the work is still copyrighted and you can only do what the license says you can do. Otherwise, you're dealing with a copyrighted work. For example, you can just as easily claim fair use on a GFDL or CC image as a work who's author reserves any and all rights. You could also buy the rights. Cburnett 00:28, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

CheckUsage tool out of order

hist Toolserver status
The Toolserver shut down on July 1, 2014.
More information...

Does anybody know when the CheckUsage tool for images will work again instead of producing error mesages? -- Túrelio 10:27, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The tools seem to go in and out of service all the time. If you really want to complain, the best place to do it is probably at meta:User_talk:Duesentrieb/Tools, but in most cases he's probably already aware of the situation, and doing his best. AnonMoos 11:14, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Toolserver has a bad disk again. They are working on it. -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:22, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mostly, it's not the tool that is out of service, but the database - CheckUsage is especially sensitive to this, since it needs all wiki databases. All I can do is make the error message less ugly and more informative in the next version :) -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 09:33, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's back. Or at least an old version. -- Bryan (talk to me) 16:21, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your efforts. -- Túrelio 19:20, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

POTY 2007 preparation

Hello,

Commons:Picture of the Year/2007 preparation should begin in earnest soon. If you are interested in getting involved, please check out Commons:Picture of the Year/2007/Preparation and share your thoughts. thanks, pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:42, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Image Metadata

Metadata for images taken by Canon cameras link to Canon, not Canon. Two examples of images with the wrong tags are here and here. I brought this issue up on Wikipedia and it was fixed back in August. An admin here may want to update it if they get a chance. Thanks. ♫ Bitch and Complain Sooner ♫ 02:08, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to copy what enwp has done to fix it, but it didn't work. I created template:exif-make-value, and in mediaWiki:Exif-make-value I put {{Exif-make-value}}, but it was trying to transclude exif-make-value which naturally doesn't exist. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:37, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed, thanks to Platonides :) pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:05, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Very nice. Thanks a lot! ♫ Bitch and Complain Sooner ♫ 00:03, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

October 2

#REDIRECT on category pages

Commons:Rename_a_category#Should_the_old_category_be_deleted? states that #REDIRECT should be used on category pages. I think this is a very bad idea. I have written some more about it at Commons_talk:Rename_a_category#.23REDIRECT_for_categories.3F. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 09:30, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Freedom of panorama in Italy

A question time was asked yesterday by Member of Parliament Franco Grillini to the Italian Minister of Culture, Francesco Rutelli, to discuss about the urgent creation in the Italian legislation of a norm about "freedom of panorama", following the problems experienced by Wikipedia in illustrating works of architects from Italy in Italy, unless they have been dead for at least 70 years. Wikipedia and WikiCommons are openly named in the request as the main reason to ask the question. If you can read Italian, you can find the text on this sub-page of the it:Wikipedia. http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Alcuni_Wikipediani/Libert%C3%A0_di_panorama#Interrogazione_parlamentare --User:G.dallorto 11:36, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've only skimmed through the text, but this is awesome! How do paliamentary questions work in Italy? Has the minister already answered? Jastrow (Λέγετε) 16:26, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I can find it on the Italian Low House Parliament (la camera) web page. Perhaps it has not been registered yet. By the way the only document I have been able in which the name wikipedia appears in text is on the same exactly argument but filled by a deputy of a party that is definitively very different from the one of the deputy cited above. Interrogazione a risposta scritta (in Italian) -- AnyFile 20:26, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, in fact it may take a few days to be registered. I gave the info on the very day the request had been filed. I shall keep you posted. It may take a few weeks to get anwser from the Minister. The other document deals with another problem: the prohibition to take pictures INSIDE museums (which is another serious problem for the Italian Wikipedia indeed), whereas the new question deals with works of art on a public display, for instance buildings and monuments in the open air. However, they are both problems troubling the Italian Wikipedia...
For Jastrow: we are dealing with a "question time", not with a law, therefore with just a first step. We will see what the minister answers. It will be a very long struggle, especially for the fact that Italian wikipedians do not seem very willing to engage in a political action :-( . --User:G.dallorto 12:13, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, it seams that the word "exact" in my previous post was not the correct one to be used. -- AnyFile 19:13, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

October 4

SVG

How to convert images in other formats (jpg, png, etc.) to SVG format? Please respond, then I can convert my future images into SVG. Thanks --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ walkie-talkie 04:51, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You can't convert raster images into vector. The best you can do is to A) redraw the image in a vector program like Inkscape; or B) find a tracer program that will trace a raster image in vector form. Cburnett 04:59, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Can you give me some examples for above mentioned tracer and vector softwares? Cheers --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ walkie-talkie 05:03, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I use Inkscape for all my SVG needs. You can import a raster image and trace it yourself. I don't know of a tracer program but I do know they exist. Unless the image is extremely tedious you may be better off tracing yourself. Cburnett 05:29, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much :) --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ walkie-talkie 07:48, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Inkscape has a very good tracer built in: Path > Trace bitmap. 24.89.233.235 14:29, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In case of mathematical graphs, if underlaying data is available, I would recommend recreating plots in gnuplot, matlab, R, etc. and saving them as SVG. In Matlab I have done that using plot2svg functions from Matlab file exchange, see Image:Photon Mass Attenuation Coefficients.svg. Similarly one can use gnuplot (for example for Image:Butterworth orders.png image). Drawings creates in excel can be copied to MS Visio and than saved as SVG. In R language one can use RSVGTipsDevice Package. -- Jarekt 17:21, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And, for what it's worth, I have converted that to SVG by changing the gnuplot terminal to SVG: Image:Butterworth orders.svg.
Hasn't anyone bothered to write a tutorial or something for this question showing how to do basically what you just said? Cburnett 23:19, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, in my opinion, the term convert is somehow misleading. Recreate would be more appropriate. Often there is not an automated system that can be applied, it is not just like to resize an image or change the format. Often what you should do is just to create the image as it were new in order to obtain the same image but in svg format. Sometimes to do that you just have to do the exactly same thing done for the png with just a little change, this is the case for example of image created by gnuplot. In some other case some automate or semi-automated system of conversion may exist. It is the case of ps image for example or you can use the trace bitmap function cited above. But usually this semi-automated system can not be able to understand the meaning of the image and so are not usually able to group the svg "command" in a neat way as if the image were create new from scratch. -- AnyFile 19:10, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Nitpick much? Cburnett 05:01, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Question about fair use

Is there a page somewhere where it is explained why Commons doesn't allow the "fair use" of copyrighted material? Some users at the Afrikaans Wikipedia want to allow it (a voting on whether or not it should be allowed ended in their favour, but now they've been squabbling about how the actual EDP should read for a month). I've already managed to convince some of the original supporters for such a policy that it'd be a Bad Thing, but I'd like to learn more about it and why it isn't allowed here.

I've mentioned that, if we ever created a booklet with some of our featured articles and these included such "fair use" pictures, it might fail "fair use" if we sell the book. Another user reiterated that magazines like "Rolling Stone" constantly uses copyrighted images (cd covers, etc.) and get away with it. Why should a booklet with articles from Wikipedia not do the same? Anrie 06:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello new person. Please read the FAQ. Cheers --Fb78 10:21, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Besides the fact that the Wikimedia projects have to goal to use material that is licensed under a free license, it is legally not possible to host fair use material on Commons. When using material claiming fair use, the media needs some content that goes with it and is also possible only on certain legislations (e.g. not possible in Germany). In articles in the English Wikipedia, the image goes with the article so it is not a single works that stands by itself. Since Commons is "only" an image repository, its content must also stand for itself, without going with an article. See also en:fair use and en:Wikipedia:Non-free content for more information. --Matt314 10:31, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The question why Commons doesn't allow fair use and why a local project does or doesn't allow fair use, are two very different questions. Commons simply can't for the reasons that Fb78 and Matt314 explained. Local projects have made different decisions as you can see from m:Images_on_Wikipedia and m:Fair use. If fair use is allowed, it is usually allowed only in some restricted cases. For example en:WP allows some fair use and has a picture of en:Guernica (painting) while the de:WP doesn't allow any fair use and explains the painting in 1000 extra words: de:Guernica (Bild). Samulili 10:44, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the legal problem is that Commons is technically-legally speaking a publication. If Commons had a "secret archive" back-room used to store pictures reserved for wikipedia projects, but not available for public use, it would be legal to store fair-use images, citations, logos,... without relation to a context, as long as it is not legally a publication. The legal solution might therefore be a private.wikimedia.org site with restricted access to registered users (or is it possible to restrict access to registered users only for specific pages?). Michelet-密是力 06:56, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, Wikimedia projects are for FREE content only... free as in speech, not free as in beer. --Fb78 07:51, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is non-free material on commons, though. This is not absolute. Michelet-密是力 20:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Religious art print"

Devi bhakta (talk · contribs) had uploaded Image:Lalita sm.JPG & Image:Tridevi.png which are both images (reproductions, probably) of "Undated version of ancient, oft-rendered religious imagery". If the original images are indeed "in the public domain because its copyright has expired." - does it mean that I can scan such pictures from a book I have about Krishna? Or both images might be a copyvio? Can I upload to Commons an old image, even from a website with copyright mark? Yuval Y § Chat § 23:55, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would actually put those up for deletion as copyvio. They look like the small modern posters you see in homes all over India. To use an example from another religion, if a church commissions a painting of Madonna and Child to give out in flyer form, the church owns the copyright to the image, despite the fact that that motif has been done and redone for centuries. This is of course entirely different from an image that is actually old, in that it was created so long ago that the author's rights have expired, aka {{PD-old}}. - BanyanTree 05:23, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
LOL technically, the church owns no copyright on the Madonna, but essentially it is correct: the author rendering of the picture prevails on the "PD-Old" of the model, if the image has been created recently it is covered by author's rights. Michelet-密是力 20:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, in the case postulated by BanyanTree, the church would own the copyright to the particular painting under the "work-for-hire" provisions of U.S. copyright law, unless some other arrangement was explicitly specified in a legal document. AnonMoos 21:55, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
BanyanTree -- There are several devotional images of the Virgin Mary (often with her Immaculate Heart) which have been reprinted in countless Catholic publications in many countries for many decades (at least since the 1920's, I would think), usually without much apparent concern for copyright or attributions. I wonder if these would effectively be considered to have entered into the public domain? AnonMoos 21:55, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, the key word being "reprint". That is entirely different from a "undated version of ancient, oft-rendered religious imagery", which appears to me to be a modern piece of art based on traditional iconography. Like I said, a deletion discussion so people can try to figure out the date of the "undated" work would appear to be the best option. - BanyanTree 22:54, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I've now downloaded the full-size version of Tridevi.png, and notice that it has a signature "V.V. Sapar" at lower left, which would seem to indicate that it's not really in the same situation as the anonymous Catholic devotional images I mentioned... AnonMoos 07:55, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Image:Stratovarius parche.jpg

Apparently this is a picture of a patch or bracelet with the Stratovarius logo on it (you know, like the ones you sew on stuff). However, since it fully focuses on the logo and not the bracelet itself, I think it may not be suitable for Commons. Any advice on it? Thanks. -- ReyBrujo 02:07, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some images really need citations

A great example is Image:Wicca numbers by country.png. This image effectively makes factual claims, but the claims in question are entirely uncited. - Jmabel | talk 02:53, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Or alternatively Template:Needs a reference. Currently one may use {{Description missing}}, but that is too unspecific. -- Túrelio 12:58, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Now, the uploader has added references to the above mentioned image. -- Túrelio 18:30, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User Patstuart uploaded a version of the map which made the dubious claim that there are more Wiccans in either Australia or Canada than there are in the U.S.! AnonMoos 18:17, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thumbnail problem

Hello I just uploaded Image:Afghanistan admin.svg, the thumbnail is all messed up, it's nothing like what it looks like when you click on the image. http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/thumb.php?f=Afghanistan_admin.svg&w=200 didn't help Any help is appreciated thanks Jackaranga 11:20, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Someone else has the same problem at Commons:Graphics village pump#Chemical structure SVG files not rendering properly?, is the commons broken ? Jackaranga 11:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This SVG has one error according to the W3C validation service. But I'm not an expert for SVGs. You might get better help here. Regards, AFBorchert
I reverted back to the previous version, which is valid. Jackaranga 12:08, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This problem is caused by this element in the SVG: width="100%" height="100%"
Change the width and height values to actual values and it will work. This is a known bug: "Aspect ratio broken for SVG images without size attributes" bugzilla:2691. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:12, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your help pfctdayelise, the bug you mentioned is bugzilla:3691, I didn't know about it. I entered absolute size values in pixels, but unfortunately it doesn't help, the thumbnail is still screwed up. Jackaranga 13:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is there freedom of panorama in Greece?

Can anyone help in settling this doubt? --> Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Georgakis monument in Corfu.JPG. The page in Freedom of Panorama does not list Greece at all. --User:G.dallorto 13:01, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Almost certainly a copyright violation. There are so many on the commons though it's just ridiculous, good luck getting this deleted. Generally people here take the attitude of: "well it seems reasonable to me so lets keep it", or they think "If we delete this it will create a precedent for other images, I had better try to steer the discussion in a different direction, and make it too long for anyone to be bothered reading". If the uploader wants to keep this image it should be up to him to prove there is a Freedom of panorama in Greece not the opposite. But you will find people here like to keep photos unless they violate an American Company's copyrights. If you look at Image:Mona Lisa.jpg and follow the link to the source, it says on it: "© Musée du Louvre/A. Dequier - M. Bard" because in France photos of PD works attract copyright, yet the license on the commons is PD-Art lol. Yet not a single person voted to delete on the deletion discussion. I have similar problems with images, people think like the uploader of the image you are talking about: "And what does it have to do with the freedom of taking any picture you want and releasing it under the GFDL?". Also people think that US law applies all over the world. There is nothing you can do, try to do anything here that could create a precedent and result in more than 10 images being deleted and everyone will just form a mob and vote against you, with the most incorrect justifications, and without even reading the policy. I would like to do something about it and try to make people read the policies, but they just don't and the people who know the policies ignore the discussion, because they don't want to cause loads of images to be deleted. Jackaranga 13:50, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
>Jackaranga: Don't be excessive in your judgments. Image:Mona Lisa.jpg may have a copyright notice, but the "2D-rendering" rule is applied in France, and there is a specific law that states that copying from a database may be OK (under some conditions). So in that case there is IMHO no problem. Michelet-密是力 19:57, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

October 5

Moving a Category: page to the Gallery namespace

...probably can't be done. Still, there is a page, Category:Louisville Zoo, which is in fact a gallery. It is possible to move it to the right namespace? Simply copying and pasting it will deprive it of its page history. Itai 12:34, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Last I knew you couldn't move categories in anyway. So the best bet, IMO, is to copy/paste the content of that page into Louisville Zoo with the edit summary of "Copied from Category:Louisville Zoo" and every image should then be categoriezed with that category. This way anyone researching the history will see that it was copied and can go to the category for further history information. Cburnett 13:11, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Decisions regarding Argentine money

OK, I was going through nominating a large swath of clearly improperly marked licenses for Argentine money. Imagine my surprise,then, when I came across Commons:Deletion requests/Argentina money (2007-03-03) to find that the discussion already happened. So I looked through the results on the page Commons:Deletion requests/Archive/2007/03, and it appears that the moneys with the wrong licenses (e.g., Brazil) were deleted, but ones with correct licenses (e.g., Albania) were kept. However, this page was completely passed over. As such, we have a ton of images in Category:Money of Argentina which are improperly marked pd-old or pd-self. At best, someone needs to find a proper license for this. But, I think this discussion was improperly closed. It was decided that although there was a copyright on these images, we should just ignore it in the name of information. But this is directly contrary to the spirit of commons. Patstuart 20:22, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think will be good idea to open new deletion request if you could make necessary citations from Argentinian law. Previous deletion request are definitely lacked them. --EugeneZelenko 15:30, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Uploads by User:Easyplex

I already addressed this three weeks ago at #Strange filenames and licenses. 20+ of these strange uploads are still here, and Easyplex has not offered any satisfactory explanation since. What to do? Delete them all? Regards --Rosenzweig 11:05, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think we've given it enough time, and favor deleting any and all images uploaded by Easyplex with dubious names, licences, or sources. -- Infrogmation 13:45, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll start deleting/reuploading then, I'll remove EVERYTHING that does not have a waterproof external source, and I'm not going to spend time googling for sources.Finn Rindahl 20:20, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. --Rosenzweig 21:12, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Help request on licensing, permissions and author.

I am a bit doubtful on the licensing, permissions and author of Image:Wojtaszek_Radoslaw2.jpg. I made this image from a PD image found on here (Image:Wojtaszek_Radoslaw.jpg). I would be very grateful if someone could check these for me. Thanks a lot. Voorlandt 15:57, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that all derivative works (such as a cropped image) must hold the same licensing as the original work. In this case, it would be released into public domain under the name of Paweł Suwarski; not Pjahr. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 17:13, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks a lot for your help, i have changed the tags appropriately.Voorlandt 17:30, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Time to really deprecate {{PD}}?

The two-year anniversary of this template becoming deprecated is coming up, and yet it still keeps getting added to new uploads. I think it's time to prevent its use in new uploads so that we can get a chance to clean up the backlog. I'm making a proposal for how this could be done at Template talk:PD#Time_to_really_deprecate_this_template.3F. Please comment there. —LX (talk, contribs) 12:06, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

reloading sound file

I inadvertently uploaded a mono sound file in stereo format. How can I re-upload it in mono? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Keoka (talk • contribs)

Just click Upload a new version of this file link on file description page. Probably you need to wait for awhile if your account too new. --EugeneZelenko 15:35, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Drawings infered from copyrighted photograph

In the case of a famous person not having a free picture, if I draw a picture of him/her with physical features observed from copyrighted photographs (while not drawing a picture entirely based on a photograph), is it a copyright infringement? Wooyi 18:18, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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