Commons:Village pump

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Welcome to the Village pump

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# 💭 Title 💬 👥 🙋 Last editor 🕒 (UTC)
1 FOP subcats by cities 7 6 A.Savin 2023-11-22 13:21
2 (Fake) Grass-covered tram tracks categories 6 3 Tuvalkin 2023-11-22 12:08
3 "Category:Images by person/PERSON NAME" 4 2 Chinmayee Mishra 2023-11-22 19:09
4 Should categories for extinct taxons begin with "†"? 11 8 Nosferattus 2023-11-25 21:19
5 Arabic/Persian/Urdu and Chinese/Japanese help needed 2 2 RZuo 2023-11-23 09:50
6 Will commons become a depository of all movies？ 30 12 Koavf 2023-11-25 19:35
7 Template:PD-AR-Photo 1 1 Jmabel 2023-11-24 00:16
8 Osvaldo Guillermo Torrez Arisaca 12 4 Krisgabwoosh 2023-11-27 06:20
9 Change file extension 5 4 Jeff G. 2023-11-28 13:58
10 500 terabytes (455 tebibytes) threshold exceeded 3 2 PantheraLeo1359531 2023-11-28 16:23
11 Harassment 4 4 Yann 2023-11-26 10:01
12 Special:UncategorizedCategories 4 3 Jmabel 2023-11-29 04:23
13 Role accounts 2 2 Bluerasberry 2023-11-26 13:14
14 Similarity detection and updating of already-existing images 5 3 Jmabel 2023-11-27 03:22
15 Clouds clinging to mountains 1 1 Smiley.toerist 2023-11-27 10:13
16 Heads up: we passed 100 million files (about a half-million ago) 10 4 GPSLeo 2023-11-27 18:13
17 From french Commons Bistro about a Category 2 2 Jmabel 2023-11-27 20:33
18 Protista: SVG image translations needed 4 3 Jmabel 2023-11-27 20:36
19 Notification of DMCA takedown demand — Job Centre Plus 1 1 JSutherland (WMF) 2023-11-27 23:35
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November 19[edit]

FOP subcats by cities[edit]

Concerning:

Is categorizing FOP cases by cities practical and optimal? We already accept FOP subcategories by landmarks like Category:Burj Khalifa-related deletion requests and Category:Danish FOP cases/Statue of the Little Mermaid (Copenhagen) because of usability of the subcategories to keep track of the date of undeletion – years after the architect or artist's death. This is not so for subcategories of cities. In my opinion, these are not practical because:

  • the FOP rules are from distinct copyright laws of countries or unrecognized territories (e.g. Taiwan, Crimea, Abkhazia); cities typically do not have their own copyright laws
  • not useful to track for future undeletion because the subcategories are not specific to one or two architects/artists
  • all case pages are ultimately categorized under "Category:Ukrainian FOP cases/deleted / kept / pending", making these three city-specific subcats redundant.

Ping the subcat creators @Butko and A1Cafel: for this matter. Ping also some of users who frequently visit or participate FOP discussions: @Ikan Kekek, Rosenzweig, Ox1997cow, MGA73, Jmabel, King of Hearts, P199, DarwIn, and Yann: . JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 03:25, 19 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think we create subcat for Donetsk and Luhansk because Russia has the de facto control in these two oblasts. There may be a chance that these two oblasts follows the Russian copyright law instead of the Ukrainian copyright law, just like Crimea. Right now, these two oblasts is still using the Ukrainian copyright law. I have no objections in deleting these categories, regards. --A1Cafel (talk) 04:29, 19 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I think it good to make subcategories by cities if many deletion requests exists in FoP cases category. Ox1997cow (talk) 10:04, 19 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Ox1997cow too much subcategories, which already conceal the real total number of deletion requests that may be needed for some Wikimedians to make decisions or lobbying movements for FoP introduction. The quantity of deletion requests should encourage more Wikimedians to try to make efforts in FoP introduction. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 11:22, 19 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
There might be some use for the Donetsk / Luhansk categories, though I'm not sure how much. I don't see any use for the Kyiv category. --Rosenzweig τ 17:05, 19 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
+1 to Rosenzweig. - Jmabel ! talk 19:00, 19 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

✓ Done Deleted the Kyiv subcat, moved the cases to Category:Ukrainian FOP cases. --A.Savin 13:21, 22 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

(Fake) Grass-covered tram tracks categories[edit]

Should there be a new type of categorie? In hot sunny southern Spain it is not easy to maintain a good looking grass. But can these stil be considered a grass-covered tram track. I disaprove of these type of coverings (better use drough resistant plants), but this is not relevant.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:48, 19 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Smiley.toerist: That's not real grass, for sure. It's either a green carpet or green painted concrete (or some other paving material). I don't think these categories are correct. Darwin Ahoy! 13:18, 19 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Smiley.toerist Looking closely at the other pictures on Category:Grass-covered tram tracks in the Land of Valencia, which feature some real grass covered tracks, it's clear that in that one and in some others in the cat what is used is a synthetic green carpet mocking grass (artificial turf). They must be removed from the ones dealing with real grass. Eventually something like Category:Artificial turf-covered tram tracks can be used. Darwin Ahoy! 13:27, 19 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Murcia
The same thing happens with the tram tracks in Murcia.Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:09, 19 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

In Spain (and in other places with similar climate) grass is green in the Winter, and images showing it can be categorized under Category:Trams on grass-covered tram tracks. Images of the same locations in Summer months can be categorized under Category:Trams on tracks set in the dirt. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 12:07, 22 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Heh, sorry, this is offtopic: I missed the part where it says «fake». -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 12:08, 22 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

November 20[edit]

"Category:Images by person/PERSON NAME"[edit]

I'd appreciate getting some independent comments at Commons:Categories for discussion/2023/11/Category:Images by person/Maryana Iskander, because it turns out that User:Chinmayee Mishra has been creating several similarly named categories, so the issue there is presumably bigger than a single category. Thanks in advance for any attention. - Jmabel ! talk 06:29, 20 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi, Jmabel. First, thanks a lot for monitoring and picking it up. I was trying to club pictures of persons / users under one single category by the person's name / Username. I wasn't aware that this goes against the naming conventions or can create any issue for other categories. I appreciate you highlighting that. Please go ahead and delete the categories which you find violating the standards. Please feel free to share any other feedbacks / tips for more insights on this. --Chinmayee 11:32, 22 November 2023 (UTC)Chinmayee 08:09, 20 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Chinmayee Mishra: Great, I'll do that then. By the way, you really ought to have a link back to your user page in your signature (and probably talk page as well), otherwise someone reading your posts doesn't know what account they came from without reading the page history. - Jmabel ! talk 20:09, 20 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Jmabel: Thanks for flagging it. --Chinmayee Mishra 19:09, 22 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

November 21[edit]

Should categories for extinct taxons begin with "†"?[edit]

Should categories for extinct taxons begin with "†"? I would think not, but four currently do:

Does anyone disagree? - Jmabel ! talk 19:15, 21 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think they should not. It's not part of their name, I do not see the need to distinguish these from others as far as their identity, it's not readily apparent what that symbol is, and it's one more variable that interferes with ease of linking/consistency among naming. If this sort of identity is useful to have at all, then having it as a category is the way to go. DMacks (talk) 19:28, 21 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I would say definitely not. It is ugly for sorting and in many cases a species was considered as extinct but then a new populations is found. GPSLeo (talk) 19:29, 21 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Unless the extinct taxon was overwhelmingly Christian, I’m sure it’s inappropriate, even if found to be typographically acceptable. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 11:58, 22 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The symbol is mainly German and is usually called a "death dagger". It does look rather like a cross, but it is not particularly Christian in its origin.
Anyway, it's pretty clear we have consensus here, and I will move these categories (I'll leave redirects for now). - Jmabel ! talk 16:06, 22 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Category:†Streptochetus was empty, so I'm just deleting it. - Jmabel ! talk 16:09, 22 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
+ of course Acacia is not extinct. Jeez. - Jmabel ! talk 16:13, 22 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Jmabel: It seems MILEPRI and Allforrous made these categories for fossils of Acacia etc. for brevity.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 16:44, 22 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That somewhat explains it, but there's still no clear advantage over Category:Acacia fossils. They're not even useful as shortcuts/redirects for quick categorization via HotCat because virtually nobody will be able to type the dagger symbol on their keyboard. Just  Delete them all. El Grafo (talk) 09:52, 23 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Definitely the names should not include "†", it is not part of the name. Sneeuwschaap (talk) 17:21, 22 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I agree. The category names should not include "†". Nosferattus (talk) 21:19, 25 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

November 23[edit]

Arabic/Persian/Urdu and Chinese/Japanese help needed[edit]

Toward the bottom of https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:UncategorizedCategories&limit=500&offset=2500 are a fair number of parentless categories with names in Chinese ideographs/Japanese Kanji, and a bit above that several in the Arabic alphabet. We need someone who can make sense of these to help with cleanup (hook into category tree, nominate for deletion, whatever makes most sense). I can't really take these on myself because I am effectively illiterate in the relevant writing systems (a tiny bit of Japanese, but not enough to be useful).

Also similar issues for smaller numbers of parentless categories in some other writing systems (Hangul, some Indic languages, etc.). If you read any script that is not used somewhere in Europe, you are likely to be able to help out with some tasks here that might otherwise languish indefinitely; please do have a look. - Jmabel ! talk 01:31, 23 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

i will do some cjk ones.--RZuo (talk) 09:50, 23 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Will commons become a depository of all movies？[edit]

two things are certain:

  1. users have been uploading public domain movies to commons.
  2. as time goes by, new movies enter pd every year.

as i see users discussing increasing file size limit, i wonder:

  1. is commons planning to be a depository for all (or a LOT of) movies? what're the commons user community's views on this?
  2. should commons become such a depository?
  3. what's WMF's view on this?

--RZuo (talk) 09:50, 23 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  •  Support Uploading all free materials to Commons provided that they have educational and/or historical value Юрий Д.К 11:47, 23 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Info When interpreting movies, we can learn a lot about culture, and in case of older videos, history. First of all, older movies give us an idea how movies looked like and how they were recorded. Movies can give a hint to events (historical references) at a time when they were produced. This gives us an idea how people thought about events back then or how they were seen by them. Having several movies over the years, we can see how techniques of cinematography and other techniques changed over years. Sometimes, movie are subject to research. I think these points qualify to be educational, which is a condition to be uploaded to Commons. Culture is manifold and so are movies. Movies don't just record some scenes. Furthermore, the director puts many ideas into this, and this makes a movie special, unique, and often educational. And these point make movies worth to be conserved :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 18:31, 23 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Support Wikisource is transcribing those movies, and it would be nice to see cross-Wikisource translations of transcriptions. I don't see any reason to include books and photographs and paintings and not movies.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:49, 23 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • As a note, several pornographic films, like w:Behind the Green Door and w:Deep Throat are more well known and culturally important than the vast majority of films. The legalization of pornography is late enough that we won't get many films in the PD until the 2050s, at least.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:57, 24 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Please be cautious. A (full-length) movie is not like a photo or a painting, it's often a complex creative process that involves many people such as director, actors, cameraman, screenplay writer, and so on. We can only be sure the movie is PD if really all participated people meanwhile have been dead for >70 years. --A.Savin 22:29, 23 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Well, it depends on the country. For example, Indian movies get into the public domain 60 years after publication. Yann (talk) 22:33, 23 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@A.Savin not at all movies. For some movies like U.S. ones, those become public domain years after publication or first release (many after 95 years due to the copyright extension law by the late Rep. Sonny Bono). One great example is the Steamboat Willie, an animated theatrical short from 1928. It turned 95 years old this year, and will officially enter public domain around 2 months from now, provided that the attempts of Disney and their fellow stakeholders to lobby U.S. Congress for another U.S. copyright extension fail.
We actually should not just include movies in this discussion but also theatrical shorts (cartoons or any other shows) that were originally meant to be shown in movie theaters. Someone should list the public domain dates of Disney, Looney Tunes, and Tom and Jerry shorts. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 23:02, 23 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
OK, however by default it's surely the same as for any other copyrighted work -- 70 years after creator's death. Thanks --A.Savin 23:52, 23 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
There are many countries for which 70 p.m.a. is the law, but plenty where it is not. Obviously we take only what is clearly PD or free-licensed, as with any other media. - Jmabel ! talk 00:12, 24 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
There is no default; more than half the people in the world live in countries with less than life+70 terms, even not including the US. Moreover, according to w:List of countries' copyright lengths, many nations that normally have life+70 terms have 70 or even 50 years from publication for films. Even in countries with life+70 terms for films, I think the set of people who count as creators differs from country to country.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:41, 24 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Support Yes, as said above. Old movies have multiple educational values: history, culture, social, cinema technics, etc. Yann (talk) 22:35, 23 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
 Support as long as the movies themselves are in public domain both in the U.S. and the country of origin. Proper categorization should be taken into account. Treat movies just like any other audio-visual file that we currently have. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 22:56, 23 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
And, second in motion to inputs of Prototyperspective and @Юрий Д.К.. Only movies that are worth for educational and wholesome purpose can be shared here, not porn movies. The inclusion of only wholesome movie in terms of educational, historical, cultural, and other useful purpose should address some of concern on the server space ("trash" like porn movies just consume needless space that should be utilized by more wholesome movies). I think there should be some condition that only users with xxx user rights can upload movies or theatrical shorts. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 12:50, 24 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@JWilz12345: I think that softcore videos like 1980-90-00s erotic films and porn films/movies with professional models also [will be] in scope. Obviously homemade porn videos clearly not for Commons likewise tons of dicks and exhibitionist photos of non-model people. Юрий Д.К 13:30, 24 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Юрий Д.К. that's why I think it is best to implement the movie/theatrical short uploading rights to a specific group of users, like admins, sysops, image reviewers, and autopatrolled users (or those who really deserve some uploading rights). Obviously, users like new users and users with less than (n) contributions should not be allowed to upload such audio-visual works. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 13:41, 24 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Support Movies are for example useful regarding prior imagination, techniques, concerns, cultural viewpoints, predictions, art styles, and so on. Since some people may consider porn videos and porn movies to also be "Movies" and a set of decisions elsewhere on WMC seem like users here would like WMC to become a (non-amateur-) porn site, I think it's necessary to clarify that I don't think WMC is the right place for such media, of which there are many TBs, and do not support that. The Internet Archive also hosts many PD films – if file-size or server-load are an issue maybe it's worth considering whether it's possible that the content is on their servers but embedded here in a way that allows them to get categorized and used as if it was hosted on WMC. The value of movies in this context is similar to the value of other art which is also hosted on WMC. Documentaries may be of special value.
Prototyperspective (talk) 12:35, 24 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
my concern wasnt so much about copyright. all copyright will terminate one day.
i'm more curious about plenty of things that need to be considered if commons really become the netflix or fmovies several decades from now. for example, storage is cheap so probably not a problem, but bandwidth and pressure on servers, if 100 million people are simultaneously streaming 1080p movies from commons. also, it would probably be difficult to set exclusion criteria, which means, although acclaimed movies would be hosted, the majority will be shitty b movies, as long as someone makes the effort to upload them. and the problem of movie ratings and parental control. etc.--RZuo (talk) 13:54, 24 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
This is not a valid comparison. We will never host recent movies. All movies on Commons will always be decades old (probably at least 70 years), with a few exceptions (en:Night of the Living Dead). Yann (talk) 14:04, 24 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
it's hard to estimate how many people watch old movies, but certainly plenty of people do. a magnitude of million or above is not that difficult, considering there will be 10+ billion people on earth.--RZuo (talk) 14:19, 24 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I think that such problems should be solved as soon as they appear. The problems about videos are obviously not ours, for example, a 1990 softcore film can be legally uploaded to Wikimedia Commons in 2111 (120-year rule). Юрий Д.К 14:06, 24 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
i think 95 years after first publication is more common. that means, many Audrey Hepburn's movies will become available no later than 2050s; 1980s movies will become available in 2070s.--RZuo (talk) 14:19, 24 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
also, publication+95y or creation+120y is only valid if us keeps both its own longer duration and rejection of the "rule of the shorter term".
bern convention only requires 50y after first showing or creation. hypothetically if us changes its laws towards the bern convention, commons will be able to host more recent movies pretty soon. RZuo (talk) 14:27, 24 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
or if wmf and servers move to a country that recognises the rule of the shorter term. :) RZuo (talk) 14:29, 24 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@RZuo server migration may become legally controversial, and will always be impossible to achieve. Note some past proposals to have Commons servers migrated to a country with FoP were thumbed down due to potential legal implications in linking and transcluding content (see Commons:Requests for comment/Non-US Freedom of Panorama under US copyright law). A similar forum tackled the same proposal but over URAA reasons (see Commons:Requests for comment/Commons Abroad and related ideas). It just ended up creating the so-called Wikilivres, the freer version of Commons that did not need to respect U.S. laws and was last hosted in New Zealand (that has 50 years p.m.a.), but is now practically a dead website as well as a dead free culture project (proofs: [1] and [2]). No further attempts to migrate Commons has been made after the 2012 URAA RfC discussion. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 16:03, 24 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Yann and Justin: Is there any chance of reviving Wikilivres or making another project with similar goals?   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 14:18, 25 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Jeff G.: There are dumbs of the site on Internet Archive, i.e. [3]. So from that, it could be restored. I can't do that, but if anyone wants to try, it is more than welcome. Technically MediaWiki has become much more complex, and Canada, where it was initially hosted, changed its law. Yann (talk) 15:10, 25 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I hope these are rather dumps than dumbs :D --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 17:47, 25 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
There is not: I gave up the domain years ago and Canadian copyright changed. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:35, 25 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Support Commons is a media repository, and so as long as the movies are freely licensed or public domain in the U.S. and the country of origin, we should host them. Obviously, we should be mindful of copyrighted modern scores of silent movies and new copyrighted title cards with public domain movies. Abzeronow (talk) 17:07, 24 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

November 24[edit]

Template:PD-AR-Photo[edit]

User:Jeff G. and I recently revived a long-moribund discussion about the wording of this template at Template talk:PD-AR-Photo#Public domain in US. The two of us are in consensus on a wording, and I've pinged the people who had discussed it previously in hopes that the will agree with that proposal. Would anyone with an opinion please weigh in within seven days so that this discussion does not go stale again, and can be driven to a conclusion? Thanks. - Jmabel ! talk 00:16, 24 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

November 25[edit]

Osvaldo Guillermo Torrez Arisaca[edit]

I suspect File:Osvaldo Guillermo Torrez Arisaca (Official Photo, 2014) Chamber of Deputies of Bolivia.png is incorrectly tagged as CC BY 2.0. It was downloaded from Flickr. The page there says it is CC BY 2.0, but it sure looks like it's a screen grab off a TV broadcast or something similar, which makes me doubt the copyright status. Could somebody who knows more about this stuff please take a look? This came up as part of a GA review on enwiki. RoySmith (talk) 01:12, 25 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I believe it's just the official portrait, as the same image set is used in the biographical dictionary published by the parliament. Krisgabwoosh (talk) 13:56, 25 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That seems plausible, but how does that translate into CC BY 2.0? RoySmith (talk) 23:23, 25 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
If the Bolivian government (the parliament specifically) owns the rights to a copyrighted work, it also follows that they're free to release it under a creative commons license. Why that specific license, I couldn't say. Krisgabwoosh (talk) 23:42, 25 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm not trying to be a pain here, but the image page says, "The copyright status of the image was undeterminable by the bot, and requires human attention." So I think we really need to wait for somebody who understands this better and is uninvolved to figure out what the status is. RoySmith (talk) 15:03, 26 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@RoySmith: Ah, there's an explanation for that. Since the images are so low quality, I touch them up in Photoshop before I upload them. I used to upload the original image straight from Flickr then override it with the touched up version (Example), but I had another user ask me not to do so. Now I just directly upload the touched up version and tag it as from Flickr. Because of that, the bot isn't really able to detect and always requires human intervention. Krisgabwoosh (talk) 00:08, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Krisgabwoosh: A1Cafel is right, you should upload the touched up ones with different filenames and thus not bother the license reviewers.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 00:22, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Jeff G.: So should I continue uploading as is or upload two separate files each time? Krisgabwoosh (talk) 00:30, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Krisgabwoosh: Two separate files each time if you insist on touching up.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 00:33, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That's fine by me. Krisgabwoosh (talk) 00:37, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Krisgabwoosh: Given that you are your retouching (which is always controversial), I agree with A1Cafel here. A retouched image should almost never be an overwrite. On the other hand if you were (for example) uploading a higher-res version of the same image, overwriting would be fine. However, you should wait until after license review to upload that higher-res image. I do this often with images from Seattle Municipal Archives, where they tend to put relatively low-res versions on their Flickr stream, with a link to their own site for the higher-res version. Typical example at File:Seattle - Aerial of Central District, 1965 (53303991494).jpg. - Jmabel ! talk 03:16, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Makes sense to me. For the time being then, I'll start uploading two images at a time to avoid this issue. Krisgabwoosh (talk) 06:20, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Change file extension[edit]

I want to turn File:Noam_Chomsky_portrait_2017_retouched.png into a jpg, how can I do that while preserving its upload/revision history? Σ (talk) 01:33, 25 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  • @Σ: I believe the only way you can do this is to download, create a JPEG in a tool such as GIMP, and then upload the JPEG to a new file page as a derivative version (linking the two with {{Derivative works}} / {{Derived from}} and otherwise copying the content of the original page; you will almost certainly want to use Special:Upload for this purpose rather than, for example, Special:UploadWizard. The JPEG's file page won't have the history, but the PNG's file page will retain that, and it can be found by anyone who is interested. - 06:22, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
Yes, these are different MIMEtypes, so an extra upload is necessary --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 18:09, 25 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thank you, I've gone and uploaded File:Noam Chomsky portrait 2017 retouched.jpg. Is it possible to turn the PNG into a redirect or is there a script to run to replace the usages across wikis? Σ (talk) 06:29, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Σ Redirecting would require the intermediate png to be deleted - we don't normally do that. For replacing: CommonsDelinker might be able to do that. El Grafo (talk) 09:31, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Σ: I replaced all the usages that were left.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 13:58, 28 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

500 terabytes (455 tebibytes) threshold exceeded[edit]

Hi!

Commons just exceeded the data amount of 500 terabytes. See: Special:MediaStatistics. 1 PB is expected to be reached in this decade. --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 17:49, 25 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@PantheraLeo1359531 Thanks, added to The Commons Log. El Grafo (talk) 09:43, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Cool, thanks :D --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 16:23, 28 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

November 26[edit]

Harassment[edit]

My name is Alie Craig. I am a model and an actress whom is also a celebrity in the united states. About in 2018, I had someone who has recently won an Emmy named Bill Phill 1 make a wikipedia for me. It was then deleted by a user name by the name of jo-jo eumerus. I have to complain because I am worried I am going to be bullied and harassed for this. I am currently trying to make my wikipedia, and I have no idea who this woman is. I looked the name up on Google and apparently she's a singer. I am very scared that my work will not make it online due to people like this. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexandracraig (talk • contribs) 01:15, 26 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  • @Alexandracraig: this is Wikimedia Commons, not Wikipedia; both are umbrella'd by the Wikimedia Foundation, but they are distinct sites
  • I assume by "my wikipedia" you mean an article about yourself in the English-language Wikipedia. In general, you should not be directly editing an article about yourself. Please see en:WP:COI and, especially en:WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
  • User:Jo-Jo Eumerus is a very established Wikimedian (I think an administrator on the English-language Wikipedia) whose native language is German. I'm pretty certain Jo-Jo is not a singer, but I know little or nothing about their private life. In any case, it is very unlikely that they are harassing you, but very likely that they are enforcing the policies laid out in the two pages I just linked and suggested that you read. - Jmabel ! talk 02:54, 26 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
edit conflict...
This is Commons; it is not the English Wikipedia.
The English Wikipedia has a notability requirement. You may not have met that requirement in 2017. Given [IMDB nm5450593], you may now meet the notability requirements of the English Wikipedia. However, some of those entries identify uncredited roles; notability may still be an issue. The English Wikipedia wants to see you mentioned in secondary sources. That requirement can be a high bar.
In any event, you should address the article issue at the English Wikipedia.
I doubt that Jo-Jo Eumerus is harassing you; she is just trying to keep articles up to certain standards. The English Wikipedia is not a social media site, it does not provide articles for everyone who wants one, and it discourages biased and/or paid editing.
A second editor (not Jo-Jo) has rejected your recent draft.
Glrx (talk) 03:02, 26 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Aye, I deleted her article five years ago because folks here thought that it didn't meet our inclusion criteria - I promise you it wasn't because I have any opinion on you or want to erase your contributions. I don't know you at all and can't say if you now meet the inclusion criteria. I am pretty certainly not a singer, though. For reference, the discussion on the draft continues at Wikipedia Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:39, 26 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
 Comment I deleted 2 images which are obvious copyright violations (not uploaded by the photographer, and no evidence of a free license). Yann (talk) 10:01, 26 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Special:UncategorizedCategories[edit]

We now have 2,544 uncategorized (parentless) categories, down from about 8,000 in the beginning of September. At this point, most of the "low-hanging fruit" is taken care of. User:Billinghurst and I have done the bulk of the cleanup, although a few others have also helped in various degrees. We could definintely use more help, most of which does not require an admin as such.

  • Most of the remaining listings are legitimate categories, with content, but lacking parent categories. They need parent categories and they need incoming interwiki links from any relevant Wikidata item.
    • A disproportionate number of these would best be handled by someone who knows Hungarian or Estonian.
  • Some categories just need to be turned into cat redirects ({{Cat redirect}} and have their content moved accordingly.
  • A few categories listed here will prove to be fine as they stand; the tool messed up and put them in the list because it didn't correctly understand that a template had correctly given them parent categories. Many of these are right near the front of the (alphabetical) list, and involve dates.
  • Some categories probably either call for obvious renaming or should be nominated for COM:CFD discussions.
  • Some empty categories (not a lot of those left, but new ones happen all the time) need to be deleted.
  • At the end of the alphabetical listing (5th and 6th page) are about 75 categories that have names in non-Latin alphabets. It would be great if people who read the relevant writing systems could help with these. Probably most of these are candidates for renaming.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give. - Jmabel ! talk 03:21, 26 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm a bit confused about something @Jmabel: I checked the page and some of the categories on there are for example Category:April 2016 in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté (through 2023), but these were created years ago in some instances and already had parent categories from the start. How do categories like that end up there? ReneeWrites (talk) 02:09, 29 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@ReneeWrites: Insufficient follow-through and patrolling, combined with out of control back end processes.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 02:48, 29 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@ReneeWrites: Actually, in this case this appears to be some sort of flaw in the software that creates the Special page. As I wrote a couple of days ago, "A few categories listed here will prove to be fine as they stand; the tool messed up and put them in the list because it didn't correctly understand that a template had correctly given them parent categories. Many of these are right near the front of the (alphabetical) list, and involve dates." It looks like today's run added a bunch of these false positives and that (unlike the previous bunch) they are more scattered through the list. I believe all of the 100+ files that use Template:Month by year in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté are on today's list; none of these were there three days earlier. That probably has something to do with User:Birdie's edits to yesterday to Template:Month by year in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté; those are complicated enough that I have no idea what in particular might have confused the software. The categories still look fine from a normal user point of view, but the software that creates Special:UncategorizedCategoriesn is somehow confused.
Other than that: we're a couple of hundred fixed or deleted categories closer to where we'd want to be, compared to a couple of days ago. - Jmabel ! talk 04:23, 29 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Server-purges should fix this but apparently it doesn't. Some categories that didn't appear last time after purging the cache have disappeared now so I'm more confused as to what the problem could be since the iirc the refresh time was after some pages were updated (it has problems when pages get all their categories from a template). There should probably be a phrabricator issue about this, albeit it's possible things work fine once there are always just a small number of cats there which seems increasingly feasible. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:35, 29 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Role accounts[edit]

Have the unresolved policy issues raised by User:Bluerasberry in Commons:Role account ever been resolved? If so, what has been the resolution? - Jmabel ! talk 05:01, 26 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I developed that policy in the mid 2010s. There is still ambiguity about how organizations can have role accounts. Here are some developments that come to my mind -
  • The advent of Wikidata has probably recruited more organizational staff to contribute to Wikimedia projects on behalf of their organizations than any other effort. One example of a major successful outreach effort was d:Wikidata:WikiProject PCC Wikidata Pilot/Participants, which recruited a lot of university staff and librarians to contribute ot d:Wikidata:WikiCite. In all cases so far as I know, the account pattern has been personal accounts, to individuals, who never share them, and who are under no obligation to design the account to indicate their institutional connection, and whose activity is not anything which has ever triggered a conflict of interest concern. If anyone else from the same institution wanted to pick up a project, they would make their own account. No account sharing here, and no account interlinking.
  • The state of United States GLAM partnerships is in existential crisis as the Met Museum in New York and the Smithsonian ceased renewal of their Wikimedian in Residence programs and consequently, much of their relationships with Wikimedia NYC and Wikimedia DC. While these relationships were not fundamentally critical, it was very helpful in outreach to be able to point to existing, ongoing, long-term, journalist-documented Wikimedia cultural partnerships with high-profile institutions. My own view of what these organizations would have wanted is communication metrics reports of the impact of their Wikimedia engagement, which they cannot get due to lack of software maintenance. I think these relationships could have been saved if there was continuous funding for 0.5 FTE software development for the GLAM space, but there is no Wikimedia community connection to any such development support.
  • Rumor is that outcomes of meta:GLAM Wiki 2023/Program may include conversation notes about potential crisis of institutional partner outreach. I am unsure who might or will post notes. If anyone has anything to say, English Wikipedia's Signpost is a possible channel.
  • Advancement of policy discussion is generally bleak in the Wikimedia Movement. At the last https://wikiconference.org/ in Toronto in November 2023, the organizers got a WMF grant, an additional grant from another sponsor called Credibility Coalition, and the conference was hosted in the city's public library. Despite all this support, there was no money available for video recording most talks, there was little money available for English/Spanish translation to include Spanish speakers in American/Canadian conversations, and the conference lacked money for the normal amount of conference catering. WMF is simply not adequately funding community conversation as a strategic priority through conferences or otherwise.
These are big issues! I wish that we could set in-kind donation of institutional staff time as a strategic priority for Wikimedia outreach. I think the community wants this, but I am unaware of WMF efforts to recognize, measure, track, encourage, and sponsor this activity. Bluerasberry (talk) 13:14, 26 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Similarity detection and updating of already-existing images[edit]

Is there some work ongoing regarding that? Many other websites run checks for similar images rather than only identical images before adding newly uploaded images. Such may be useful here as well – one way it can be useful is that it could lead to more people updating more charts instead of uploading them as new images, especially 'Our World in Data' charts.

One complications is that stats of prior years can in some cases also be useful and one currently can't embed a specified version of a file in articles (maybe that would be a useful feature?).

Having the same file multiple times can lead to many issues such as redundancy, category pages getting cluttered by the same file(s), differing/non-synchronized categories for the same file, unmaintained file-descriptions, articles embedding quickly outdated charts rather than the ones that get updated, and so on.

Here is an example of multiple versions of the same file (some have lower image quality or are outdated): File:Annual-co-emissions-by-region.png File:Annual-co2-emissions-by-region.png File:Annual-co-emissions-by-region (OWID 0055).png File:Global annual CO2 emissions by world region since 1750.svg File:Annual total CO₂ emissions, by world region, OWID.svg. This variant is an example for why it would be better if with MediaWiki one could embed interactive charts (from OWID and elsewhere): File:Ghg-emissions-by-world-region.png.

This may need some long-term code issues (and further debate elsewhere) but maybe such already exist.

--Prototyperspective (talk) 16:43, 26 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Typically, "very similar" images are acceptable on Commons. E.g.
  • Multiple reproductions of a two-dimensional work of art.
  • People's possibly controversial retouching of other user's photos.
  • Maps that disagree in small details.
  • Similar charts labeled in different languages.
  • Similar charts or maps showing equivalent information for different dates.
So there is not a ton automated that could happen here. So far, our policy has been either to link these with {{Other version}} or, especially when there are too many variants for that to be practical (or when they represent a single work of art) to create a category for all the variants. Yes, I agree that there are cases where removing redundant versions would be good, but I suspect it may often be more controversial than it is worth, with different people preferring different versions.
Jmabel ! talk 22:21, 26 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
This is not about whether they're acceptable or not.
Thanks for clarifying that since I missed making that clear. The person uploading may want to know that there are similar images (they'd be shown during upload but uploading regardless would be possible) and also it may be optimal to somehow define which version of a file is getting updated and which isn't and probably also to keep the number of versions minimal, especially in cases when they don't meaningfully vary or one of the image has a lower image quality.
Moreover, please look at the examples and the exemplary issues I listed above that paragraph. A further related issue not mentioned explicitly is that most OWID charts for example do not get updated despite that OWID has newer versions of them. Sooner or later there probably should be some updating process where files selected to be the always-latest get updated. But that also is not a specific proposal, I made this post so these things and issues are discussed. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:15, 26 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Prototyperspective: You may make your suggestion at phabricator or Commons talk:Upload Wizard feedback.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 00:26, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
So are you proposing that there should be a warning on upload that a very similar image already exists? Or, if not, what are you proposing?
In any case, variants of the same image should certainly be linked to one another, which I will do for the examples provided above. - Jmabel ! talk 03:22, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

November 27[edit]

Clouds clinging to mountains[edit]

I cant find a cloud type category for this image. There is 'clouds from above', but this is from the side. Mist and clouds are the same thing. Mist is inside the cloud.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:13, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Heads up: we passed 100 million files (about a half-million ago)[edit]

The 100th million file

Per Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2023/11#We_are_dangerously_close_to_100_million_files--how_should_we_celebrate? and Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2023/09#The_1ooed_millionth_file_on_Wikimedia_Commons (@MasterRus21thCentury: ), we discussed celebrating, but it seems like nothing happened. :/ Does anyone who has rights to edit the main page want to whip up something? Maybe an admin or interface admin can edit MediaWiki:Sitenotice? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:42, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Koavf: Could you find a suitable file please? Yann (talk) 12:38, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
How's that now? A file to put in the site notice for instance? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 12:39, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Here's something that I dashed out that needs some styling fixes to it: File:Commons 100M logo.svg (it renders correctly when you view the file directly, but not in preview...) If you like it in principle, I can debug it and make it prettier with some textpath and gold colors, etc. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:07, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
IMO would be strange to celebrate the 100 millionth file without to know for sure what file it is. --A.Savin 12:56, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Agreed. Someone can do the forensics, but on the other hand, knowing exactly when we had 100 million is a bit tricky, since files can be deleted. :/ —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:07, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Wikipedias and Wikidata celebrate such milestones despite they are also not able to say which article or item reached the threshold. The other thing we should think about is the 20th anniversary of Commons next year. GPSLeo (talk) 15:10, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yes, the 100 millionth file is always an approximation (unless the developers have a magic script for that). It seems we reached the milestone on November 16th, around 19:52 UTC (see IA capture). So pick up a nice picture around that time, and go. I am surprised the WMF didn't issue a press release yet. Yann (talk) 15:27, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
OK, I got one. A nice consensual image uploaded at 19:51, 16 November 2023. Yann (talk) 16:06, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I would not say "This is image 100000000" as it is just not true. This image could be. GPSLeo (talk) 18:13, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

From french Commons Bistro about a Category[edit]

(Google traduction) Hello, a contributor of goodwill created the Category:Fleißkärtchen or Bon point in French (google: hard work cards!) - The article Bon point and Fleißkärtchen exist in French and German, but no article in English. The category names must be in English on Commons, so we would have to rename the category, what name should we choose? - Siren-Com (d) 12:57, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Wikitionary offers us "house point" and "brownie point" while wordreference.com offers "gold star". None of the translations seems entirely satisfactory to me. “House point” is like in Harry Potter with a team reward, while the “good points” are individual. "brownie point" does not really have the meaning of a reward linked to the school environment, it is more in the "good deed" of scouting. "Gold star" seems closest to the idea to me, even if it's not exactly the same thing (the reward is stuck on a board in the classroom). The big problem with "Gold star" as a category name is that it is also used for many other things and in particular military medals. cf. Gold star.

In the end 'Fleißkärtchen' doesn't seem so bad to me, because the only three Wikipedia pages that currently exist for this concept are Fleißkärtchen, Good point & Good note. The only practical improvement that I see would possibly be to create a redirect. Miniwark (d) 11:41, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Have you some idea about ? The solution will be to create an article in W:en about this subject, did this thing is also used in the english schools ? - Thank you. - Siren-Com (talk) 12:47, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
As a speaker of American English, I'd use "brownie point" (if not specific to school) or "gold star" (if specific to school). - Jmabel ! talk 20:33, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Protista: SVG image translations needed[edit]

2023 Apicomplexan

There are a bunch of SVG images (example above) in Category:Openly available illustrations as tools to describe eukaryotic microbial diversity that could do with being translated into multiple languages, and then used in relevant projects. It might need some understanding of Protist biology. Where's the best place to flag this up? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:53, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I do not have a good answer about advertising new images that can be translated. I do not even have a good answer for translating SVG files that are already being used in foreign wikis. A translatable SVG file might include a link to SVG Translate when it is used in a foreign wiki.
Maybe there could be a link like "Random file" that suggests an experienced user consider adding a new file to an article. Maybe that link would be specific to an article: ask the user to consider adding a file to the current file she is viewing. The set of files to consider might be tied to a Wikidata item or templates on the file page. Some weighting function might be used.
If I take Anticomplexan specifically, it leads me to Apicomplexa (Q193030). That item shows many Wikipedia articles that could use the new image. That suggests the file could be used in many articles.
The Apicomplexa Wikidata item also shows a multilingual site, species:Apicomplexa. That suggests putting the image on that page. Maybe someone will see it, translate it, and add it to an article.
For Apicomplexan.svg, there should be more room for translations. The "APICAL COMPLEX" should be further to the right to allow longer translations.
For some SVG file pages, I add some translations pulled from Wikidata. See File:Map_Tenerife_Disaster.svg / Chinese version: airport (Q1248784) → 機場（Q1248784）. Wikidata can work well for some strings (Golgi apparatus (Q83181) → 高爾基體（Q83181）), but it will not work for strings such as "apicoplast membranes (4, secondary red, non-photosynthetic)".
Glrx (talk) 18:53, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The Apicomplexan.svg file is broken. Its text elements are doubled to effect a color change:
<g>
	<text transform="matrix(1 0 0 1 272.6781 246.8251)" class="st34 st31 st32">rhoptries</text>
	<text transform="matrix(1 0 0 1 272.6781 246.8251)" class="st33 st31 st32">rhoptries</text>
</g>
Glrx (talk) 18:58, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Maybe an additional "workshop" for Commons:Graphic Lab? - Jmabel ! talk 20:36, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Notification of DMCA takedown demand — Job Centre Plus[edit]

In compliance with the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and at the instruction of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, one or more files have been deleted from Commons. Please note that this is an official action of the Wikimedia Foundation office which should not be undone. If you have valid grounds for a counter-claim under the DMCA, please contact me.

The takedown can be read here.

Affected file(s):

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#Job Centre Plus. Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 23:35, 27 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

November 29[edit]

Retrieved from "https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Village_pump&oldid=826178653"