Commons:Village pump/Archive/2005/08

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Copyright status of signs?

A discussion with Solipsist on Image talk:Wfm x51 extraterrestrial highway.jpg leads me to ask this - what is the copyright status of a photo of a sign? This particular sign, rather unusually, actually contains a copyright message - but I think it's safe to say that most of the signs listed in Category:Signs are copyright too. I guess for a street scene that happens to contain a few signs we can say they don't make up a sufficient part of the image for it to be a derivative work, but in all the category:signs images the sign is the subject, so that claim is rather harder to make. Fair use is, naturally, assertable for all (but naturally that makes them ineligible for Commons). Has this been discussed before? -- Finlay McWalter 00:40, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify: I guess basic street signs (like "Main Street" on a plain background) are too simple to count as creative works. But ones either with a fancier design or a significant wordcount, which covers most of category:signs, are surely sufficiently creative to be copyrightable. -- Finlay McWalter 00:47, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It should be noted that this particular sign is unusual for having drawings on it (someone in the Nevada State Highways division got their crayons out). As you say, the get out for most street and road signs might be that they are not sufficiently creative. A similar question came up on the en:Wikipedia about the photograph of the drive-through menu board for a fast food restaurant. The view then was that it was a derivative work of a copyright sign and so couldn't be GFDL'd, although it did have quite a bit of text on it. -- Solipsist 11:31, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

At least in germany, anything that is permanently visible to the public may be photographed and used at will - this is called Panoramafreiheit. There are some restrictions, however: the image must have been taken from a publically accesible spot without technical help (no ladders, etc), and the image must show the object in question in context (but it may be the main content of the image). I.e. you would be allowed to take, show and license an image of a copyrighted sign, if it was mounted permanently, and the image show it as being a sign.

Similar laws are in effect in many countries, although the limitations are different (AFAIK, the US is even less restrictive than germany). But some countries, like France and Belgium, do not have such a clause in their copyright law: that's why there are problems with the Louvre pyramid and the Atomium, for example.

If the sign is not the main subject of the image, but just happens to be there somewhere in the background, this would be OK in any country I know of. -- Duesentrieb 11:41, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed most countries have, either in written or common law, an understanding that you're free to take pictures in public places. But I suspect in lots of places that's a freedom akin to fair use (i.e. they're not saying a photo isn't a derivative work, just that you have unlimited rights to take one without fear of being billed or stopped by the owner of the sign). Normally this distinction is entirely academic, but Commons' insistance on GFDL poses something of a question - how much fair use material can exist in an image before it becomes incompatible with the GFDL? Both extremes are unpallatable:

none: I guess photos of signs, cars, buildings, even people wearing clothing with copyrighted designs (which is almost everyone), statues, monuments - any pictures of a copyrighted work would be inelligible. That would make a considerable proportion of Commons images invalid.
no limit: then someone can take a photo of a copyrighted painting, photo, etc. and claim it's still GFDL - which clearly isn't the case.

So, clearly we have to draw the line somewhere between the two - but how do we do this in an objective way? -- Finlay McWalter 12:12, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, with respect to French law: a recent decision by the Court of Cassation denied copyright over postcards to the designer of a work of art installed on a public plaza, because the postcards did not display the work of art specifically, but the whole plaza (the work of art in context). The legal consequence is that architects etc. cannot claim copyright over photographs of buildings or works of arts if these are displayed as part of a larger scene. So, a picture of a specific building with "artistic" design may pose copyright problems, but not a picture of the area in which the building appears. To me, this would mean that a photo of the Louvre as a whole, including the pyramid, poses no problem – but a photo of the pyramid specifically might. David.Monniaux 12:58, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and that's why 2 picutres of the Louvre pyramid are still problematic (see Commons:Bistro). Traroth 12:39, 16 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Protect image

Image:John Garang.jpg. To be on the en main page; this is a major story and other Wikipedias may also be interested in the photo as well. Thanks.--Pharos 07:31, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Done. -- aka 08:18, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Note that since w:Image:John Garang.jpg isn't protected, having the image protected here has absolutely no effect. dbenbenn | talk 12:35, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I unprotected it (and deleted the copy I uploaded from Commons for safety) because it is now off the en main page.--Pharos 19:11, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The image may still be being used on some 'In the News' main page sections on other Wikiipedias, so one might hold off a day or so on unprotecting it. Also please protect Image:Fahd bin Abdul Aziz.jpg, which I have taken special precautions about on en but which is posted without any protection on fr main page and probably a number of others.--Pharos 19:17, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Done. dbenbenn | talk 19:34, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Image:Flag of Mauritania.png is now on the MainPage of English Wikipedia. Please protect it. Thanks. -- PFHLai 16:22, 2005 August 3 (UTC)

Image:Flag of Mauritania.png is no longer on the MainPage of English Wikipedia. Please consider unprotecting it.

And Image:A-bomb dome closeup.jpg will be on the MainPage of English Wikipedia in about an hour. Can we have this image protected, please ? Thanks. -- PFHLai 22:57, 2005 August 5 (UTC)

Protection

I've created a {{Protected}} template which I think is neccessary so any (non-en main page) images which need protection can have a proper notice about it, due to an issue raised (see above) where one party was not aware the page was protected. -- Joolz 13:17, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps it should have a single parameter so the user has to specify the reason for the protection: e.g. {{Protected|Vandalism}}, {{Protected|On de.wikipedia mainpage}}? -- Finlay McWalter 16:05, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea, I'll change it in a few moments :) -- Joolz 23:06, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've updated it, it can be used for example {{Protected|of vandalism}} :) -- Joolz 00:34, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Internet Archive Films

I am thinking of extracting snapshots from the public domain films of the Internet Archive, e.g. the famous "Duck and Cover" film. Question: Is it legallt possible to upload them and claim PD-USGov? I think so, but would like a legal OK from someone else too. Väsk 13:07, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if the film is really PD, it's welcome on the Commons, in part or in whole (well, ther's the upload limit, but other than that). Just make sure the film is really PD, and note that PD-USGov only applies if the film was created by members/employees of the US-Government or military in their official capacity. PD-USGov does not apply to works that have been created for or licensed by the US Government - in that case, the "normal" rules for PD apply, i.e. for the US that would mean 95 years after the death of the last of the people who created the film.

As you can see in the details about Duck and Cover at the Internet Archive here, the film was produced in 1951 by Archer Productions, Inc.[1], which would indicate that it is not PD - the Internet Archive however states it is... so, maybe Archer released it explicitely? Or the US-Gov had the exclusive rights and disclaimed them? My be best to ask Archer or the Civil Defense people. -- Duesentrieb 14:01, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it's much more likely the company just never bothered renewing the copyright. Who would have known that thing would become a cult hit?--Pharos 19:01, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Films with copyright not renewed are an odd US thing and probably should not be on Commons. eg Fritz Lang's Metropolis is PD in the US but nowhere else in the world because of the non-renewal thing. Although Commons is hosted in the US I would be against this. I guess if you tag it PD-USonly it might be ok. Justinc 13:22, 16 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, Image:Duck and Cover.gif is an animation of stills from that movie. If you upload a bunch of snapshots, you might want to add that one to your category or gallery page. dbenbenn | talk 19:30, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My personal favorite example of a work that has been produced under contract of the US government, but not by employees of the US government, and whose copyright the US government owns, is the official manual of the ADA programming language (1983). I have seen a copy proudly saying it was copyrighted by the Department of Defense. David.Monniaux 16:52, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Translation

Image:Katana (shema).png ist innen Deutch, which is useless for en. Is there a Image text translation-request process set up? -Stevertigo 16:50, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hallo, möchte ich mich für das Ereignis der Bilder entschuldigen, aber ich verstehe nicht englische Anweisungen für das copyright. Ich kann bei den Artikeln auf Spanisch helfen, weil meine Muttersprache ist. Bluecrescentmoon

Actually, rather than a German-English translator, one would do better to find an English-speaker knowledgable about katanas.--Pharos 03:29, 6 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Redundancy alert

A certain anon put a message on wikt:ja:Image:Wikipedia-trans 135px ohne text.png about its "redundancy", but the URL to another image can't worked, so it is doubtful if another image is available at a glance. It seems to be generated with a boilerplate, so fixing tweaks will be recommended. Currently the alert cannot give the exact URL so somehow discourage to reduce pointed redundancy. --Aphaia 09:29, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Screenshot of a copyrighted movie or television program on a photograph of a display

hi, i want to use this pic en:Image:ISDB-T.jpg in the german wikipedia, and there i want to upload this into the commons. BUT on the description page, there is a note, that the picture on the display could be a problem. so i do not know, if it ist possible to upload this pic into the commons. could anyone please help? thx in advance, --Andreas -horn- Hornig 12:32, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is somewhat ambiguous because the photo isn't entirely of the programming on the screen, but it mainly is. Because of that, this qualifies as fair use and shouldn't be uploaded to the Commons. I suggest you just upload to to the German Wikipedia instead.--Pharos 04:52, 4 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think thats a good idea, deWikipedia does not accept fair use images and it should be possible to take a photo of a screen showing free content. -guety 20:06, 4 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Is the screen showing free content? Does this broadcasting station in fact put out non-copyrighted programs?--Pharos 07:02, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think so. But it should be possible to take a photo of a screen showing free content. -guety 01:55, 7 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

But if the program is copyrighted, the screen isn't showing free content. The whole purpose of the photo is to show the copyrighted content on the screen; hence it can only be justified under fair use. Therefore, I can't see how it's apprpriate for Commons, or, if what you say about their policies is true, the German Wikipedia either.--Pharos 06:21, 7 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

hi again, perhaps i found a way to avoid theses copyrighted "screenshots" in these pictures. would be a way, to to do a photomontage and cover the bad parts with blur, black spaces, or other free pics available in the commons? i mean, if the licence the original pic is using besides the fair use licence allows it, we could change the pic in a way, we can use it in the commons and do not get into trouble because of showing band content, we only leave the original pic where it is and just link from the transformed pic to the original. how about that? greets, --Andreas -horn- Hornig 21:01, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds OK. -guety 02:02, 27 August 2005 (UTC) (Sorry for being late)[reply]

Yes, this would deal with copyright issues, but what exactly do you want to use the image to represent on the German Wikipedia if not the quality of the picture in this form of display? I would instead suggest getting another photo of a monitor of this type displaying a public domain NASA photo or something.--Pharos 17:58, 22 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

hi and thx for your reply. firstly, I want to use it for the german wikipedia article of isdb and for for interactive tv features, as it is displayed on this display. the disply itself is nearly unimportant for me, the most interesting part is the displayed interactive menues on it. so if there are no problems in transferring the isdb-t pic from the en.wiki to the commons I will do that (after some time, to give you and the admins in here a chance to reply in here). greets, --Andreas -horn- Hornig 00:45, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Portuguese location maps

Hi all,
About the location maps of the portuguese cities, that were uploaded some months ago and then deleted because wasn't GFDL. Well, the creator of the maps has announced that he have spoken to the creator of the map, and that the same has agreed to publish the maps under the GFDL. So, the maps can now be uploaded to Commons.

Best regards, Get_It • 21:35, 3 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Does this include the maps of portuguese regions and portuguese municipalities that also have been deleted? Thuresson 13:47, 4 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If you are refering to the maps uploaded by Herr Klugbeisser (to commons), then yes. -- Get_It • 15:46, 4 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I was rather thinking of the maps of portuguese subregions and portuguese districts (here and here prepared by Jorge Candeias. Thuresson 23:40, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Potd/2005-08-15

IMHO, the description of Template:Potd/2005-08-15 is incorrect. As far as I know, this picture was taken on Sept. 2nd, 1945, on USS Missouri, at the Tokyo Bay. But the description in English did not say anything on this. --User:Captmjc

Indeed, it's rather misleading. Japan unconditionally surrended on the 15th of August but only signed the terms on the second of September. The difficulty lies because the image was chosen because of the significance of the date, I've clarified the English description (I don't know about the other ones unfortuently) -- Joolz 22:17, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Dual licencing under to CC licences

Is it possible to dual licence under two similar cc licences? For example a national variant of cc-by-sa and cc-by-sa-2.5? Peregrine981 12:39, 4 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely. If it's your own work, you can add whatever copyright tags you like. dbenbenn | talk 12:42, 4 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Out of curiosity, what would be the point of dual licencing under two CC licences? And if there is a point, why shouldn't I multi licence it under ALL of the national variants of the licence? Peregrine981 11:42, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There is a point of licensing it under both a CC1.0 and a CC2.X license because while CC2 licenses are compatible they are not compatibelte with CC1.0. I.e. wikitravel.org can use CC1.0 material but not CC2.5 material. Wikitravel might eventually switch to CC2.X but that will be difficult. --Elgaard 14:11:01, 2005-08-05 (UTC)

Actually, if you release under cc-by-sa-2.5, that automatically releases under all the national variants, as well as all future versions. See #Template:Cc-by-sa-all above. dbenbenn | talk 16:18, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, future versions, but not past versions. So if you want i.e., WikiTraval to be able to use a work, also lincense it as CC-by-sa 1.0. --Elgaard 23:23:48, 2005-08-13 (UTC)

Did I get it right???

I read the article about en:hand-truck, and as I understand it, it's a thing like the one I just uploaded, handtruck. Could someone verify it and eventually link ti the artickle if I am right? G®iffen 21:05, 4 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, Image:Handtruck.JPG is what I would call a hand-truck or dolly. dbenbenn | talk 23:20, 4 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I put the pic on the English Wikipedia article.--Pharos 07:10, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Protection

Could someone protect Image:Robal.png, which is due on the en:Wikipedia tomorrow. Thanks. -- Solipsist 20:47, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

done :) -- Joolz 22:06, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Respectful request for caution when deleting

Discussion moved to: Commons:Village_pump/Deleting_of_images

Would the "helpful" sysop here on commons *please* restore the correct version of Image:Wikimedia without text-35px.png. Just a gentle reminder: please never use "delete all revisions" unless you are absurdly certain that no web site anywhere on the web references the image. If a vandal uploads an image, first restore the correct version, THEN delete the vandal version.

There are many Wikipedia projects. There many times more Wiki* projects.

If you are going to relegate the commons to being a useless way station where critical stuff is deleted, there is not much point in continuing to share our audio content on the commons!

--Connel MacKenzie 18:50, 6 August 2005 (UTC) Admin page[reply]

Ask User:Paddy why he did this without properly checking the usage - at least the second incident he generated this week --Denniss 19:53, 6 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well then. Commons:Administrators#Requests_for_de-admining. --Connel MacKenzie 21:01, 6 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Please see my comments at Commons talk:Administrators. -- Joolz 21:53, 6 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion moved to: Commons:Village_pump/Deleting_of_images

Creating a nomination for a featured picture

Hi there, Sorry if this is an FAQ-type question, but I've been trying to figure this out and I just don't get it. Could someone please explain in plain English how I go about nominating a picture. I am trying to add a photo I have taken. I have uploaded the picture but that's as far as I've got. I have not found the Help section on adding a new page in Support or the text embedded in the Featured Picture nominations page to be at all helpful, so respectfully please don't direct me there... I'm either really stupid or really tired, either way I would appreciate a little help... Thanks. VanessaL

Logo vanished again

Discussion moved to: Commons:Village_pump/Deleting_of_images

Just now I visited Wikimedia:Home and found Image:Wikinews-logo2-35px.png deleted. Guys, I want you strongly not to delete any Wikimedia logos until you find a much smarter solution to detect "duplication" you call......

Please upload it again, Thank you. --Aphaia 20:30, 7 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Just, replace with Image:Wikinews-logo.png |35px| sorry I had big problems and did not know how to change it. --Paddy 21:50, 7 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your effort, even if it doesn't work. Please see Wikimedia:Home again. You changed the front page of Foundation official site as vandalized. Please upload it as 35px version, not the huge one. And never delete any logos. Thank you. --Aphaia 15:13, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS IMAGE IS GONE AGAIN! ONLY ONE WIKTIONARY'S TEMPLATE WAS FIXED - THERE ARE AT LEAST 143 OTHERS STILL TO BE CHECKED! WHY IS THIS IMAGE GONE AGAIN? PUT IT BACK AND LEAVE IT ALONE FOR A YEAR!

YOU KNOW THAT avatar'S HELPFUL SOFTWARE DOES NOT CHECK WIKTIONARIES! YOU KNOW THAT RIGHT NOW IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO EVEN KNOW IF THE IMAGE IS USED OR NOT!

AFTER HOW MANY HOURS ON IRC AND SKYPE YESTERDAY? ALL DAY? AND MOST OF THE NIGHT? AND THE IMAGE IS NOW GONE AGAIN?!

The top ten Wiktionaries *ALL* referenced what you call "incorrect" images. I thought after all those discussions that you realized these were front page images?! You even agreed that fixing only a couple hundred images would not solve the (dubious) disk space problem but does have the effect of making all wiktionary sites look vandalized!

YOU DO NOT HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY TO EFFECT A FILE REDIRECT! THEREFORE YOU MUST NOT DELETE FILES UNTIL YOU DO! YOU CANNOT DELETE FILES AS ARBITRARY DUPLICATES WITHOUT SOME KIND OF REDIRECT-FOR-FILES!

Even with all those rational points aside, this shows that the image in question is still used very extensively.

--Connel MacKenzie 00:02, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My statment to that: Commons:Administrators#Requests_for_de-adminning greetings --Paddy 15:14, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion moved to: Commons:Village_pump/Deleting_of_images

Breaking the language barrier

I think I've come up with a solution for language-neutral illustrations on Commons. We just have lines pointing to the left and right at regular intervals where the language-specific labelling can be provided by a local template on top. Here's a illustration of the concept:

Part A
Part B
Part C

Part D
Part E
Part F

So, what do you think?--Pharos 01:53, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The word "part" is not really language-neutral. ;) --62.206.65.6 07:11, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously this post is in English :); the point is that the label text can be in any language (and can be wikilinked too, which is a major advantage), while using the same image on Commons.--Pharos 07:15, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Here it is, for example, with the original French labels, now textified and prettified by bolding. Note how much more useful the wikilinks make it.--Pharos 07:28, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Massif

Plage arrière

Hélice

Barres de plongée

Plage avant

Sonar

Hm, nice effort, but the placement of the text depends strongly on the browser, the font and font-size, the monitor's DPI setting, and so on. This simply does not work for everyone. Something like that would be nice, of course. I'm personally thinking about automatic internationalization of SVG images (when they are finally enabled). This will need some mor thought though, and some additions to the software. -- Duesentrieb 17:15, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You will excuse my lazy coding above, but if you look at the reformatted table below you will see that it should work under any conditions. We don't need new software to do this.--Pharos 18:11, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Massif		Barres de plongée
Plage arrière		Plage avant
Hélice		Sonar

Thank - well, this should work for most people, but under some circumstances (like very large fonts or a very narrow window), it will not, as the screenshot below demonstrates. This could however be a usable workaround until we get a software solution -- Duesentrieb 18:39, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible with clever CSS to a) position text at a given (x,y) coordinate position (in pixels), and b) set the font size to a particular height in pixels. I don't know how, but I'm sure it can be done. dbenbenn | talk 19:29, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Why doesn't use numbers in the picture and a legend under the thumb. Ok, it's not so easy to read. but it works.Kolossos 17:53, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I use a larger font size, and the CSS-positioned text does not line up with the submarine diagram at all. Numbers would also difficult. Perhaps a better solution would be colored spots or bullets? 24.99.22.14 11:25, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Brasilian maps

anybody know what the legal status of maps published by the brasilian government is? AFAIK they are public domain but maybe somebody can figure this out. http://www.transportes.gov.br/bit/inmapa.htm

Works by the Brazilian government are not in public domain by default.

Image:CardinalMarks.png

Can somebody help me with that? The image is obviously there (see here), but does not display via [[Image:CardinalMarks.png]]! --Reinhard 20:22, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, the upload-server says the peview file isn't there (at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/CardinalMarks.png/763px-CardinalMarks.png , where the link directs).

In the server admin log they reported forgotten mounts of upload directories, perhaps this is a related problem.

Uploading again didn't help.

--Ikar.us 01:58, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The image was simply corrupt, "Too many IDAT's". MediaWiki probably should have detected that it was a broken PNG image ... Anyway, I've uploaded a fixed version. dbenbenn | talk 02:16, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks -- Reinhard 16:32, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Lossless rotation request

I haven't been able to find a free Windows program that allows a lossless rotation of jpg-images yet. Currently i need these images rotated. Can some do this, or tell me how to do it myself?

Taka 20:18, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Irfanview (or at least one of its free plugins) is capable of that, maybe you like to give it a try. --Reinhard 20:31, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'll do it tonight if no one else has first. <smugly superior>My operating system comes with a tool to losslessly rotate out of the box.</smugly superior> (In general, you can tag with {{Rotate}}, though listing here will get it done quicker.) dbenbenn | talk 21:19, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Done. dbenbenn | talk 23:23, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

theres a nice windows gui app called jpegcrop that despite its name can perform all sorts of lossless transformations on jpegs. Plugwash 01:18, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Along the same line: maybe the mediawiki software could read the EXIF info and rotate digicam pics as needed, as well as displaying technical data (exposure settings etc) about the photo? --Luke Bales 20:34, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Auto rotating based on EXIF data sounds like a recipie for trouble if the exif data happens to be wrong. Plugwash 23:37, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

XNView a concurent of Irfanview, but for Windows and Linux and MacOS/X (free but not open source). In French, English and German. --Serged 16:29, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Commons deletion policy

There continues to be disagreement about the Commons policy of deleting media files which admins feel are "redundant". This is actually a two-part problem:

Duplicate files are uploaded.
There are two reasons for this - the original uploaded image was not found, or there is a specific reason for the duplicating file. In the former case the files will, for all intents and purposes, be exactly same including image dimensions and file size. In the latter case it is likely there will be significant differences, especially in image dimensions and file size.
Files are deleted without a specific justification.
Although ease of management, and searching, and so on is an important ideal to work toward, this is not one of the goals of the Commons project¹. "[I]ts primary function [is] as a supporting project for the other Wikimedia web sites," according the Wikipedia article. Deleting media files which might be currently in use is specifically not supportive; in fact it is something which is potentially so harmful to the projects they reserve the responsibility to very trusted community members.

Commons is becoming an untrusted community member.

Of course commons must manage the archives with limited volunteer time, but they must keep in mind that hundreds of sites are giving them admin priveleges on their sites, and should act in the best interest of *all* wikimedia projects and not only for their own convenience. Just as each project reserves the right to remove admin status from those who abuse their priveleges, indiscriminate file deletion will continue to cause projects to host files locally, creating massive duplication of effort while at the same time wasting copious amounts of precious server disk space.

I strongly suggest that Commons change the deletion guidelines such that so-called "redundant file" is not a justification for deletion. Until Commons has a tool to check all WMF sites, this should also cover exact duplicates because you cannot ascertain where a file might be linked from. - Amgine 08:06, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion moved to: Commons:Village_pump/Deleting_of_images

link to user, new pictures, and edit help

As a newbie to Commons I have some problems. I have done some editing in Wikipedia and found it easier to use than Commons in some respect. This may be due to the little time I have been here but question 1) Going to Cities of Chile, I find an alphabetical bullet "list" with B and S. the B contains one city and photo. But S under which comes Santiago de Chile , contains a box with several photos most begining with letters other than S..eg Arica and Iquiqui. Hoping to correct I looked at the edit mode and in that page I expected to see the images listed there.. but as they are not , I assume the category that plants them there is on the individual photos?

I wish to insert my photo of a city, Concepcion there under a new letter C. As in edit mode on this page I only see categorys (bracketed) and no letters, how do I go about it?

Question 2)When I was in Commons previosly I found links to 'new or recent photos' and also a link to photos under User name. Where are these links as I'll be dammed if I can find them now?

Suggestion: Could it be possible to have new links from the Content page to search by user and new photos? Everything else is listed ...places, people, by photographer etc.

Conce 07:56, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

1. Pages are odered on category pages by their name or an order word given after it. On page Thispage, [[Category:somecategory]] will place it under the letter T, [[Category:somecategory|differentposition]] will place it under the letter D. Pictures are alphabeetically ordered in the gallery, but not with visible letter headings.

2a. On the user page, You find a link to contributions of this user. But only as link list. There isn't a gallery of photos by a user unless he creates and maintains it on his user page or a subpage.

2b. In the standard skin, under goodies, I find a link "latest files", which leads to Special:Newimages, which contains the letest images, even as a gallery! I didn't know this by now, because the menu item seems to be missing in alternative skins and/or languages.

--Ikar.us 17:15, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. :-Conce 20:26, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Image deletion in commons

Short: User:Paddy deleted a Wikimedia-Logo which was labeled as redundant. But sadly this picture was used by many wiktionaries. Some people were very upset by this and started Commons:Administrators#Requests_for_de-adminning. Because I think that the problem (deleting/moving images in commons) needs discussion/clarifying and that the former location is no good place to do so, I moved the discussion here. --Avatar 08:19, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Can the deleted images be store to a back up storage for limited time (say 6 month) before be purged. This will help admin to restore if need be.Yosri 11:57, 12 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimania images

Hi

I made a deal with Jan Bart from Kennisnet, so that he upload images of wikimania from Flikr. Those are images taken by editors mostly. He will tag them, but maybe not perfectly. We may have to check with a couple of people in case of uncertainties. Jan Bart is aware of cp issue, is one of our partner, and is certainly acting in good faith. So, if something is not perfect, please tell me or the user account used for upload. Do not delete on sight if something is not perfect. He will only upload images with the following scheme :

TAG = wikimania
Licensing = Open

Thanks Anthere 08:32, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

maybe it would be a good idea to put a template on all of them saying they where automatically harvested from flickr or something. -- Duesentrieb 17:12, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Temporary Images

I would like to propose a tag ( category) for images that should be kept on the commons only temporarily. This is inteded for images that are used in discussions and bugreports (wp-screenshots, etc) and similar things. The tag should have a parameter for specifying a date or condition for deleting the image.

The point is that images like that may simply be forgotten when they are no longer useful. As an example, see the screenshot I made for the "breaking the language barier" discussion above.

So, please tell me what you think -- Duesentrieb 17:12, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this is a very good idea. a) A picture is in use. Then you don't need such a tag. The discussion about the language barrier will go to the archives. If someone read the archives in a year, it will be not very good, if the pic is deleted. b) A picture is not in use. If you notice a picture isn't in use anymore then you can decide if it may be usefull in future or not - if you think it's not, it's getting deleted. --Avatar 17:49, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Image of the day request

(I hope it's not been asked already) Could the image of the day be in exactly the same place every day? (e.g. http://commons.wikimedia.org/iotd.jpg) this would make it easier for people to grab the daily image with scripts (for setting as their wallpaper or whatever) or for hotlinking it (shock!) onto other sites.

Nope, that would require uploading the POTD to whatever title every day. Too much work, and not reliable. Anyway, other sites really shouldn't be hotlinking images from here.

Getting the POTD with a script is pretty easy anyway. It's always at Image:Kefermarkt Kirche Flügelaltar Geburt 02.jpg, that is,

[[:Image:{{Potd/{{CURRENTYEAR}}-{{CURRENTMONTH}}-{{CURRENTDAY}}}}]]

dbenbenn | talk 23:42, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

bug or feature with multipage categories?

The multipage Category:Panoramic shows 'Articles in category "Panoramic"' on the first page but "Subcategories" on the "(next 200)-page" only. Apart from Category:Panorama and Category:Panoramas now being REDIRECTed onto Category:Panoramic, why does the latter listing show up on the second page only? On shorter pages like Category:Multiple_units the sequence is Subcategories - Articles in category "Multiple units" - Images. -- Klaus with K 10:28, 10 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The alphabetical list of subcategories is split up so that the relative number on each page is similar to the distribution of images on the pages. If the subcategories are near the end of the alphabet, they are all on the second page.

I regard it as bad solution anyway; if some subcategories are shown on the frist page, the user won't expect that some are hidden on subsequent pages.

Not an implementation bug, but a bad idea in concept. --Ikar.us 10:52, 10 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

ACK As images usually take up most of the space, why split smaller sections as well?

There are other shortcomings of the Category concept anyway, I wonder whether one should fix this minor issue now when major works might be around the corner anyway (see Commons:Images on normal pages or categories:Vote). It works fine for wikipedias but less here in the Commons as Galleries almost duplicate Category Pages. My thinking goes towards an automatic inclusion of Page as a chapter inside Category:Page and then possibly removal of duplicate image entries. -- Klaus with K 12:54, 10 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

~~P.S. could someone with non-truncating browser remove the spam link near the top please~~ Thanks

Using Public Domain Images

I am so grateful for your site. I have found some fine art PD images that I'd like to use commercially. Can you explain how some images of PD art can be copyrighted? When using PD images what exact info do I have to give about liscensing and where do I need to put it? Do you have any other great sources for high resolution fine art images of paintings? Thank You, Alison

If the images are really PD, you don't have to give any credit: "Public Domain" is, per definition, the absense of copyright. It would be nice however to credit the photographer or museum, if known. Also, please make sure that the images are really PD, i.e. the artist has been dead for long enough (70 years in europe, 95 years in the US, see Commons:Licensing for more) - we work hard to find incorrectly tagged images, but mistakes are made. -- Duesentrieb 13:24, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's a tricky topic. There are two issues: first, the copyright of the author of the original work of art (which can be transmitted to his or her heirs); second, the copyright of the person who reproduced the work. On the first part, copyright of a personal work of art (as opposed to a work of art produced by a company), in most jurisdictions, elapses a number of years after the death of the author. This means that even "historical" works of art may be still copyrighted. Some heirs just don't care, but some others will sue (or they may have assigned the rights through some corporate body that will sue). In addition, the rules for the duration of copyright can be tricky depending on the jurisdiction. On the second part, "technical" reproductions (i.e. using a copy machine) cannot be copyrighted, for they are deemed to have no creative content; but "creative" reproductions (i.e. taking a photo of a statue after choosing lighting, angle etc.) are copyrighted by their author. The delimitation between what is creative and what isn't depends on the jurisdiction.

To summarize: if you intend to take yourself photographs of really old works of art (i.e. done before 1850), please do so. In other cases, you may want to ask more precise questions. :-) David.Monniaux 17:00, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

quirks uploading PDFs

I uploaded a PDF, but the file caption looks funny, like so:

Amtsblatt der Europäischen Gemeinschaft Nr.C 190-119 18.Juni 1987.pdf (

200KB, MIME type: application/pdf
)

I acknowledge that the world won't crumble because of this formatting quirk, yet: is there a fix? --Marek Moehling 23:58, 10 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, i don't know where the linebreaks come from - the text is from MediaWiki:Fileinfo, but the linebreaks are not in there. Maybe i'll have a look at the source code that creates this message later. -- Duesentrieb 13:18, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This bug is rooted deeply in the workings of mediawiki - see bugzilla:3117 for more info and bugzilla:3119 for a possible solution. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 23:56, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There are no linebreaks anymore, thx --Marek Moehling 00:17, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Brion fixed it. All praise brion :) -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 20:41, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Commons files not likely to be usefull to wikimedia projects

To what extent source this archive be used to store things that has a compatible licence and would be of use to people but is unlikely to be usefull in wikimedia projects?

I had a hunt though the villiage pump archives and I found a few comments leaning each way on this.

Specificly, my interest is in computer game materials. Myself, and others have copyright on a number of resources such as game graphics which were created for projects that were never finished. I would like to release this under a commons style license and encourage others to do the same.

Is the Wikimedia Commons an appropriate place for this? Some comments led me to feel that Wikimedia Commons is as much a repository of free material as it is a source for Wikimedia projects. Some comments led me to feel that this would be discouraged.

The informal definition of "wikimedia project" is pretty broad, possibly including things like travel guides and cookbooks. The formal definition comes from the Wikimedia Foundation, who ultimately does thumbs-up/down on specific proposals. I think if you were doing a new computer game, you might be able to argue for keeping the artwork here rather than on sourceforge or some such, but it would be harder to make the case for unfinished dead projects, since no one is likely to write about it. It occurs to me that sourceforge would still be a reasonable home for the material, just create a new project and advertise it as a resource for sourceforge's other game projects - artwork is always in short supply for those, and you will likely be greeted with huzzahs. Stan Shebs 11:58, 12 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Searching for music in the Commons is confusing

Hi.

I'm not shure if this is suposed to be this way, but when we start searching for music in the Main page, we find:

By Type

Sound: Music · Pronunciation · Speeches · Spoken Wikipedia

If we click music we find almost no music, and a lot of photos, drawings, ... Is this suposed to be this way ? If I click on a link on By Type > Sound > Music, I expect to find Music, not other stuff.

Well, the Main page is protected, and I'm not shure how the comunity would like it to be done. Does someone want to fix this? --OsvaldoGago 12:12, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. The category you want is Category:Music sound. Thanks for pointing this out! -- Duesentrieb 13:10, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, that was quick. It's much better now, thanks. --OsvaldoGago 17:09, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Adding categories to images

I've looked far and wide for help on this subject to no avail. Can someone tell me how to add my images to specfic categories? And if I had not asked this question where would I have found the "How to" for this problem? Sveden 20:35, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

To add an image to category Foo, add the following link to the image's description page: [[Category:Foo]]. This is a "magic" link, which will a) appear in the category box at the bottom of the page and b) cause the image to show up in the category.

I'll put this into the FAQ, the question comes up quite often. -- Duesentrieb 21:48, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Also note, that if you preview your edit, your change to the category section will appear right at the bottom of the page, below the main preview and below the edit box. This often confuses people when they first edit categories. -- Solipsist 23:01, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Also note that all information about visual placement of items is subject to the skin you have chosen.

Also note that there is a concurring image categorizing system here with article pages containing galleries, where one can insert the images in the usual way.

(And sometimes I've found that after saving an image page, the categories still dont'a appear. I had to reload if first.)

--Ikar.us 13:52, 12 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Much thanks everybody. Sveden 01:03, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"This file is a shared upload and may be used by other projects."

Hi. I'm an admin at the interlingua wikipedia, and I have a question.

Recently, an user somehow 'uploaded' a file to the Interlingua wikipedia without uploading it: ia:Imagine:Flag of Uzbekistan.png. However, this is problematic, because neither the GFDL template nor the credits are in Interlingua, and nor can they be translated into Interlingua. I tried to edit the image's page, and, well, now there's two GFDL templates.

Is there any way to solve this?

--ia:User:Almafeta

The image isn't at interlingua-wikipedia, it's uploaded to Wimimedia commons and included in a page at interlingua. Probably it wasn't uploaded by tht useres, rather he just insludes an image that was alread there.

Images on commons can be included in pages on every wikimedia project. This is the proper way, rather than uploading redundant copies of the same file to each wikipedia. Especially in the case of a national flag, which will be shown in the article about the respective country in every language wikipedia and looks the same everywhere, this is obviously a straight forward way.

An additional description page can be created on the projects, which contain only a description, but not the image itself.

Since the image page is more technical (it always shows the image history), the original part shouldn't be too disturbing.

If you dislike the included descriptions from commons, you might configure your project so that it doesn't include the central image descriptions, but rather links to them, like it was in older versions anyway.

Perhaps in a future version it will be possible to have templates in the commons page that are expanded locally, this will be a more elegant solution.

--Ikar.us 13:47, 12 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

User categories

I'm having trouble finding recommendations on categories. I've uploaded a couple of hundred photos of my own now, categorized them, and added them to English WP articles, but it's getting difficult to maintain even a representative gallery on my user page or to even remember if I've already uploaded something. Is it acceptable to create my own category as in [[Category:Tysto]] to help manage and maintain my photos? Or is there a better way to see a gallery of those pics I've uploaded (not just "my contributions," which includes every page I've touched) Also, if I do go into each one to add my own category, I'm considering making them all public domain at the same time. I just don't care about how they're used, and it's the simplest sort of license, but I rarely see it on modern images. Thoughts? --Tysto 13:59, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Category:Tysto is fine. Make it a subcat of Category:User galleries. dbenbenn | talk 14:29, 12 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, terrific! I never knew those existed. Thanks! --Tysto 14:34, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

HELP! User:AndreasPraefcke has marked my category for deletion. What's the deal? Categorizing my photos versus creating user sub-pages with multiple galleries can't make a difference to Commons performance. And without categories, managing the two hundred photos I've taken and freely offered to the Wiki community would be much more difficult and would significantly curtail my future submissions. Besides, isn't categorizing photos by photographer useful to everyone? --Tysto 15:38, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Disappearing thumbnails

Any idea why three thumbnails at Krakow#Wawel Castle and Cathedral (as well as several others in the same article) seem to disappear from the gallery tag? Not only does my browser not load them, they are completely absent from the HTML code. What's up?

I added several of the ones that don't work, but some didn't work when I came, and some of mine work.

--Leif Arne Storset 05:59, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I see 7 images in the gallery, and 7 listed in the page code. dbenbenn | talk 16:14, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

PD?

Image:Atlas V 401.jpg and Image:Atlas V (401) - HellasSat.jpg from http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/ have been marked for speedy deletion. I changed them to Template:PD-USGov-NASA. Please correct if I am wrong. Thanx --Paddy 14:56, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly the "Credit: Lockheed Martin" at the bottom of the source pages means the photos are copyrighted? dbenbenn | talk 16:16, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

JPL is not part of NASA but part of CalTech. --SPUI 23:34, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"Credit: Lockheed Martin" absolutely means that these photos are copyrighted by Lockheed Martin. Those rockets putting up commercial satellites weren't launched by NASA, which is why they didn't take PD photos of them. So, I reverted and put speedy delete back on. BTW, this has nothing to do with JPL.--Pharos 23:50, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Done, they are gone! For reupload they are still on the website. --Paddy 00:03, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

WTF!!!!!!

Sorry for the language, why the h-ll is there an obscene picture of a man with a bottle in his anus at the main page (today's featured picture) ?????????

--Konstantin 20:53, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Not anymore, uploader blocked, photos deleted. Thuresson 20:58, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Please block User:Nigglesnitt and revert that user's vandalism. Thanks.--Pharos 06:22, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for cleaning this up, Avatar.--Pharos 06:49, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome. I missed this discussion, but saw the vandalised main-page :-/ --Avatar 19:12, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Please block User:Solidbrass and revert that account's vandalism. Thanks.--Pharos 07:12, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The same goes for User:P'too.--Pharos 08:11, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Done. dbenbenn | talk 15:51, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Block that template! A.J. 19:00, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I laughed when I was it, but that's just my sick sense of humour :) —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 13:37, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Might it be an idea to protect images when they are on the main page as happens on the English Wikipedia? Thryduulf 19:00, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Texas-roads

Started on en:User talk:Bellhalla, moved to here by Kolossos. --Avatar 19:09, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, is it spam or is it useful to have over 600 new image like that? See all in Category:Texas Highways. Is there anywhere a discussion? Or look today at Special:Newimages. Need we every street in the wikipedia?

I would say, delete it. Kolossos 17:32, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- My understanding is that the uploader created all the images himself, and intends to use them to illustrate articles in the wikipedia about Texas highways. How does that constitute "spam"? -- Finlay McWalter 17:47, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Somehow I doubt he will use over 2000 images to illustrate an article. There are not very large though and don't use that much space. startaq 18:27, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Don't be fooled by the term - many of the "farm roads" are significant in their own right, and will easily justify their own WP articles. Of course, the uploads may be intended for a completely different wiki project... Stan Shebs 18:56, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's hard to believe, that this signs are all needed for usefull articles. --Avatar 19:09, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is not the way a project like this should be done. These signs keep flooding in, and I doubt their usefulness, too. I recommend: build Farm Road Sign files for those Farm Roads that already have an article, and note on the description page: If anyone needs another Texas Farm Road sign, I'll be happy to provide and upload one. Please ask on my discussion page. --AndreasPraefcke 20:43, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

One man's flood is another man's resource. As long as the license is fine I see no reason for removing these images. You just have to think on a larger scale. Why shouldn't Wikipedia eventually have an article on every single road on the planet? Dori | Talk 02:45, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As for the utility of the sign graphics: Farm Roads and Ranch Roads (FM and RM) are all state highways in the state of Texas in the United States. Many other states have articles about all of their highways; Texas happens to have a large number of highways, hence the large number of graphics. Many Farm Roads are the only highway link to some small towns in Texas. Do I honestly expect an article about each and every highway? No, but the graphics are also useful in other articles. (See Texas State Highway 40 or Texas State Highway 47 for examples.)

As for my method: Was batch loading them the best way of handling the situation? Perhaps not, but I am between semesters at the moment and had the time to create, batch process, and batch upload the sign graphics now with computing time that I wouldn't have available at a later date. Also, I seem to be the only Wikipedia user actively working on articles about Texas highways. I felt that by creating the FM and RM sign graphics (just as I created graphics for all of the primary Texas state highways, SH series) it might encourage others to join in. --Bellhalla 13:21, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Reading this, I am wondering though, if we need 2000 images that only differ through their numbers? --Fred Chess 19:17, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My only concern is, why flood Category:Highways instead of creating a new sub-category? Thuresson 02:59, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. The logic behind the files, as mentioned above is certainly there, plus I doubt that a slew of 8k images is going to break the site, even if there are 3500 or so, since the demand on one or many of them at any given time will be very low, if not zero: most farm roads only connect to other farm roads, so one will not see them in the road connections box until a connecting route's page is created anyway. I say it's no harm done, but a subcategory might be best. (As an aside, Bellhalla, I've left a note for you on your Wikipedia talk page.) --Kinu 04:14, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, the signs should go in something like Category:Texas road signs, which can be a subcategory of Category:Texas and Category:Road signs. dbenbenn | talk 19:48, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It might be a good idea if someone could split the texas roads pictures into subcategories so that it's easier to search them. If you say, put 1-999, 1000-1999, 2000-2999, 3000-3999, etc. in different subcategories- searching for a specific image could be greatly speeded up. -DC

goobledegook

I was browsing through the categories (maps) section and found the category - Category:Sub-national entity locator maps. I note that government bureaucracies in some English speaking countries now are attempting to cut out similar jargon with the aim of making things simple for the layman. As this is a page of categories to help people locate maps, people who come from all walks of life and nationalities, I would make the suggestion that this title be simplified. Perhaps something like "Regional locations". Whilst it might not sound as impressive as "Sub-national entity locator" and some might argue that it is not as precise as "Sub-national entity locator", it would be sufficiently descriptive for most people. Conce 04:39, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Where to go, if apache/php reports an error?

nowhere did I find a hint where to go, if me or someone else has to report an error, that occured while apache/php trie to build and send a page....

'Here's the message:'
calling --> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Greece
answer --> "Warning: rename(/mnt/wikipedia/htdocs/commons/upload/thumb/3/3e/106px-533px-Ganymede_with_cockerel_and_hoop_-_Louvre.jpg,/mnt/wikipedia/htdocs/commons/upload/thumb/9/9e/533px-Ganymede_with_cockerel_and_hoop_-_Louvre.jpg/106px-533px-Ganymede_with_cockerel_and_hoop_-_Louvre.jpg): Not a directory in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Image.php on line 965"

May be, an Admin should have found it on his/her console and I only have to wait longer than I did (2 days).

thanxs
ulrichstill

It's a known bug with the upgrade from MediaWiki 1.4 to 1.5. It will be fixed eventually. dbenbenn | talk 15:44, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. Thanxs. Yet still: Is this forum the right place for messages like that?
ulrichstill

Yeah, I think so. Eventually bugs have to be reported at bugzilla, though discussing here first can't hurt. dbenbenn | talk 00:13, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Picture of the day

The photo Image:MaoZedong.jpg is the picture of the day, but it's also being discussed for deletion. I have no idea what the result of that will be, but I think it sends the wrong message when a chosen picture has a deletion request tag; it looks as if we don't really care about licences if we really like the picture. Cnyborg 18:07, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Translating the interface?

It is possible to make versions of the interface in different languages, adding /languagecode (example: MediaWiki:Sharedupload/no) to the MediaWiki message name. Since Commons is a multilingual project, I think this should be done. Many interfaces use the basic languageXX.php files, which are really out-of-date (I use the Norwegian interface right now, but I see a lot more English than Norwegian), and therefore needs to be updated. So, do you think it should be done? (Oh, to edit MediaWiki pages, one needs admin access; one way to solve this without getting tons of admins, is perhaps to add a new permisison level that allows people to edit MediaWiki pages only?) Jon Harald Søby\^{no na} 18:53, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Hej Jon, for the most important part, you can first copy the english version of sharedupload and translate it perhaps on a new page like User:Jhs/Sharedupload. When you're ready some admin can move it easily to the right place. The other thing is that you may directly request temporary adminship for translation of the MediaWiki namespace. I think this won't be a big problem. Otherwise it would be more useful if you really translate and update the basic language.php (perhaps ask on meta or irc #mediawiki for that). Greetings --:Bdk: 04:09, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I'll try to translate the languageXX.php first. Then I'll apply for temporary adminship to translate Commons-specific messages, like Mediawiki:Recentchangestext… Jon Harald Søby\^{no na} 19:19, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

I can help out with the translation, of course. I'm not as good with all the technical stuff as you, but if you want to divide the work, just leave links to the thins you want me to translate on my discussion page, and I can save them on subpage of my user page, as suggested above (my request for adminship looks like a lost cause, so I won't be able to save them directly). Cnyborg 20:17, 22 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Image:Wikisource.jpg

Could someone please take a look at the main page and Image:Wikisource.jpg. I've reverted, but got error messages several times, so the image history is a bit messy now, and the main page looks wrong (but it is at least free of that infamous bottle stuck where no bottle is supposed to be). Cnyborg 20:27, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and User:Puljer Titz (geddit?) is begging for a ban. Cnyborg 20:28, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's repaired now. ♦ Pabix ♮ 21:21, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, as it turns out someone else was taking care of the template at the same time, which is why I couldn't find the link in it and fix it. Cnyborg 21:36, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Cleaned up the image history. --Avatar 00:44, 19 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Trouble adding username

I have seem to be having trouble linking my name to the files I upload. I don't know why this is. [Example], my name keeps coming up as {{{user_name_link}}}. dirtyliberal 06:27, 19 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Your user name in the upload history is fine, you just did not fill in the user_name_link parameter of the template (user_name does not exist - maybe the parameters changed?). This line does the trick:

|user_name_link= [[:en:User:Dirtyliberal|Dirtyliberal]]

HTH -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 07:22, 19 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a list/how to with the these parameters, I was using the template from [spoken article] on wikipedia. Is there a slightly different one on Commons.

dirtyliberal 16:17, 19 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I changed the parameter name in Template:English spoken article, since it has a slightly different meaning from the parameter in w:Template:Spoken article entry. The version at EN automatically links; the version here doesn't. dbenbenn | talk 01:06, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

House of Cards

File:Poker072-011-As.png

I've balled this all up. Help! — Xiong 熊 talk * 16:55, 19 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Now I'm balling this up, too. But that's okay; sooner or later, I've got to see daylight. — Xiong 熊 talk * 02:51, 2005 August 28 (UTC)

Vandal

Where is "Vandandalism in progress" on this wiki, anyway User:Pepe La Trene is a vandal. Please stop him or her. Thank you. --Aphaia 17:28, 19 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Upload warning

When uploading Image:Wilde bertram 16-08-2005 19.26.18.JPG and others I received an ""upload warning" with no spcification about what i was warned against. Any suggestions? 15:28, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

I suppose it is a warning that the name has changed, only the text of the message is missing TeunSpaans 18:09, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's fixed now, see MediaZilla:3216. --:Bdk: 03:59, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

How to categorize my file / PDF file caption quirk

I uploaded a file containing a British court ruling of 2000, how should I categorize it - and how do I create categories?

What about: Court rulings -> Great Britain -> 2000?

Besides, there's a quirk with the PDF's file caption, the img's link is OK, but the file caption's URL is wrong: "http-noparse://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/D_Irving-vs-D_Lipstadt_1996-I-1113.pdf". The "noparse" doesn't belong there. --Marek Moehling 17:44, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have no ideas about the categorization, but I did notice the pdf format. This format is propietary, isnt it available in a free format? TeunSpaans 18:13, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's available as Microsoft Word 97 HTML-document containing internal links - 867KB btw. I tried to integrate it to wikisource.org, but the needed conversion was too much trouble. Plain ASCII would lose useful features, so I converted it to PDF. As queen_irving.htm is linked by an article and the hmcourts-service.gov.uk database was off when I checked it once, I thought it was a good idea to protect it from linkrot. Besides, the file contains a link to queen_irving.htm.

The http-noparse has been reported as bugzilla:3210. dbenbenn | talk 18:23, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

@dbenbenn: Crown Copyright - I didn't know, but Jimbo seems to be quite clear about it; so there's nothing to be done to prevent deletion? --Marek Moehling 20:42, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Alas, it doesn't look like it. dbenbenn | talk 22:26, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Austrian postage stamp copyright

Does anybody have specific information on how copyright applies to Austrian postage stamps? There are a number of scans of recent stamps on de: characterized as PD, but poking around Austria Post and elsewhere, I haven't found an explicit statement from an official source (or else my German is insufficient to recognize the big words). Stan Shebs 21:25, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There is no, for Germany and the Faroe Islands permisson has been obtained by users (de:Wikipedia:Briefmarken), but not for Austria. -guety 01:10, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Unprotecting images

Will an admin please unprotect Image:Fahd bin Abdul Aziz.jpg, Image:John Garang.jpg, Image:Johnbrownfortmove.jpg and Image:Teller-Ulam device 3D.png as they are no longer on the English Wikipedia Main Page.--Pharos 00:20, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Done. dbenbenn | talk 02:29, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks.--Pharos 02:29, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Image:X-Men Extra 21.jpg

What do you think of this license given to a crappy photograph of a computer game cover? I think it's just a copyvio, but the uploader thinks it's not. --AndreasPraefcke 18:32, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It is a photo of a 3D object in the sense that it's a photo of a comic book, but it's clearly intended to show the cover image. In my view, that makes it a photo of a 2D, copyrighted image. Cnyborg 21:57, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, sure looks like a copyvio to me. dbenbenn | talk 03:12, 22 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

CV of course. --Avatar 05:07, 22 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What is a CV? --Huebi 06:46, 26 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Blockade and request for help

I've just blocked User:Schaengel89 for 2 days (personal notification in german and block log), because I've seen, that he has uploaded many Wikimedia logos with wrong information (wrong author, no accurate source, no history) after he was advised to be very careful many, many times (not only on Commons). With the blockade I want to prevent further stuff like this by the user who seems to be ignorant concerning all requests that he doesn't touch Wikimedia stuff and should be more accurate. We had already a lot of confusion with his work on the sister project templates and also trouble with his (probably well thought but mainly destructive) trial to unify different versions of the logos (transparent, non-transparent, with text, without text, small, big ...). That even lead to unwanted deletion of several images, because their versions were mixed up and nearly all were marked as redundant.

The current reasons for the blockade were images like Image:Wikipedia-logo-lv.png, Image:Wikipedia-logo-mk.png and more. But that was only the last straw that breaks the camel's back.

It will take some time now to restore and tidy up what he has messed up for other users, especially admins (this is the other reason for the 2 days blockade: to gain time). Schaengel89's inadequate behaviour is not useful at all (even if he made a lot of edits) but very annoying in my opinion. We already know that from de.wikipedia. I'm not able to check his last edits now (I've to go to bed now) but will look after this case later.

I hope someone can help in the meantime. In addition I would prefer if we can establish a little group of interested and reliable (!) users who will take care for the main Wikimedia stuff, think about and discuss a clever sorting and then do their work (several logos are or should be protected due to vandalism, anyway). I also want to suggest that Schaengel89 is asked by bureaucrats or another defined group of users to stop his work on Wikimedia files in here completely.

Thanks for reading and helping. Greetings from :Bdk: 03:50, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

What's the problem with Image:Wikipedia-logo-lv.png? Schaengel didn't provide the original title on Meta, but he did provide the original uploader's name, and regardless, the logo is {{Copyright by Wikimedia}}, so attribution isn't required. dbenbenn | talk 14:25, 22 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've unblocked Schaengel. Your notification at his talk page occurred at 3:08 this morning, 13 minutes after you blocked him. You should discuss any problems you have with him before blocking, not after! dbenbenn | talk 14:33, 22 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Dbenbenn, it is totally irrelevant if I've added the notification 13 minutes before or after the block, because it was right in the middle of the night and Schaengel89 was sleeping at the time certainly. And I can't help if you don't realise, that he gave wrong author names, see diff (he knows the correct author of the puzzle ball and he knows that he has to be careful with these information).

So I gave everybody an open explanation what my intention was to block him and why I didn't pointlessly discuss with the user before (he wasn't awake at the time, anyway). If you, Dbenbenn, don't get what I wrote in German, why don't you ask me for further explanation? Is there any reason to distrust my decisions? --:Bdk: 15:12, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

I have blocked User:Schaengel89 again. @Dbenbenn: If you have questions abouts bdks blocking, so ask her first and if you not agree with her, then unblock a user. Not first unblock and ask then. --DaB. 15:25, 22 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The point is, Bdk, you should have pointed out Schaengel's error, then waited for him to respond, etc. Blocking should be a last resort if the user refuses to listen to reason, not the first response when you find him doing something wrong. Note that at meta:Image:Lv-wiki-logo.png, meta:User:Node ue claimed to be the author of the logo; Schaengel merely copied this information. (I won't unblock again, but I still feel Schaengel's block is inappropriate.) dbenbenn | talk 15:30, 22 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, I have pointed out the errors (you didn't get them clearly at first, ok). As I said, it is fairly pointless to discuss with him (not only for me), I've tried it several times within the last months in a friendly and above all factual way (as I'm well known for on the projects). And I already have the bad experience to get impertinent answers from Schaengel89 combined with persistent wrongdoing. I won't give up hope that he might be willing to improve his work, of course (even though my hope is decreasing with every new case). But please see this block also as a corrective detention (hope I found the right expression for what I want to say ;-) Thanks.

My point is, that he copied descriptions "without thinking". And he did this after he was asked - not only once - to be more careful and he was informed that it is not sufficient if he's just copying foreign information (nearly blind) without checking. Would you really believe that one and the same logo is released under different licences only because there's another language text below? (just giving another case) --:Bdk: 16:03, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Quick legal question

...do I need people's permission to take pictures of them and more specifically, to upload them to Commons?--Orgullomoore 06:35, 22 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. — Xiong 熊 talk * 10:53, 22 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on the laws of the country where the photo is taken, and/or the country where it's published. As a general rule, you need to get permission, but in many countries persons recognized as public figures (such as politicians, celebrities etc.) may be depicted freely, and there might also be other rules that apply, i.e. if the person is not the main subject of the photo, if the person is recognizable or not and so on. More information about this should be added at Commons:Licensing#Country-specific laws; I've described the Norwegian law there. Cnyborg 15:20, 22 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Let us try a few examples.

There are many cases about taking pictures of people. Basically, this is what French law, for example, allows, and I think that is valid for most countries:

Taking pictures of public characters in their public environement is fine, you don't need to ask for permission. e.g. Whatever president during a public conference, a very well know actress at a public event. As long as these people are within a "public frame", where they are there representing their public function/job, you're fine.
Taking pictures of public characters in their private life is forbidden. e.g. the same president swimming at the beach with his family, the same actress as above shopping at the mall. You might want to try and get their authorization, but I doubt you'd get it. :-)
Taking pictures of unknown people and uploading them here requires you to get their approval. e.g. if you take a picture of some folk in a public place, and their face is recognizable, you need to get their approval.

I guess that's about it for now. There are probably a hundred different cases for this, but sticking to these rules, you're probably safe.

Best, notafish }<';> 15:31, 22 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm somewhat unsure about your second point. Certainly, it is illegal to publish, say, pictures of an actress semi-nude by her private swimming pool. But photos of somebody, even famous, shopping at the mall? David.Monniaux 21:32, 24 August 2005 (UTC)'[reply]

Some countries have quite strict laws driected against paparazzis; I seem to remember that France introduced some new laws after Princess Diana's death, so I wouldn't discount the claim above without checking further (I don't read French, so I can't really go directly to the source). In other countries, anything goes as long as the person in question is of public interest. Cnyborg 22:21, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

AP-guy

I do not know if you noticed it but this is a vandal that uploaded many disgusting pictures on commons and has overwritten reverted images, logos, etc. Therefore this proposal on bugzilla.wikimedia.org. Please vote. --Paddy 15:05, 22 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My own work, what license to use? (in English please!) :D

I took a few pictures that I uploaded to the English wikipedia for use in articles. I left them all in the {{CopyrightedFreeUse}} tag, so they still belong to me (I think) but anyone can use them. Now I found 2 of my photos in wikimedia commons, which is supposed to accept only copyleft and public domain works... Not to diss whoever uploaded them here, but I'm somewhat sure the license I released my photos under does not allow them to be uploaded here. Or does it?

I'd like to contribute to wikimedia commons, but at the same time I'd like to retain as much, shall we say, control, as possible. So I'm asking for the expert opinions of those here at the commons, what license(s) should I use that allows my photos to be uploaded here but at the same time with me retaining de jure, if not de facto, control over my photos? (If such a thing is possible.)

I'm not a lawyer, so please explain to me in English. Thanks! :D -Miborovsky 06:16, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If you take a look at Commons:Copyright tags, you'll find {{CopyrightedFreeUse}} listed there. The reason is that while you reatain the copyright, you allow anyone to use it for any purpose, and that's what Commons demand. In practial terms, that license is just as free as Creative Commons or GFDL. Cnyborg 08:38, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, CopyrightedFreeUse is even more free than the copyleft licenses: it does not require attribution, and it does not require derivative work to also be free. While you technically keep the copyright, you have granted all rights to everyone, without restriction or conditions. If you want to be attributed for your work, you should use a copyleft license that requires attribution, like {{GFDL}} or {{Cc-by-sa-2.5}}, or, even better, both. If you don't care, use {{CopyrightedFreeUse}} or {{PD-self}}. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 12:26, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I see. That explains a lot. Thanks for the help! -24.17.141.99 20:25, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, copyrighted free use does require attribution. Ausir 00:29, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Arthur Oscar Freudenberg

Excuse me, I'm rather new here. I just found this site Arthur Oscar Freudenberg and many others linked to it. Is this okay? Can people just have their personal family genealogies hosted by Wikimedia Commons? --134.34.34.117 10:26, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Undecided at the moment. Commons is support for all wikimedia projects (not just wikipedia), including ideas not yet developed, so one could imagine a wikigenealogy project that does original research to develop family histories. But I think User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) is taking a bit of a chance here, because if the Wikimedia Foundation considers the issue and decides against genealogy projects, then there will be some mass deletions. In the meantime, I think it makes sense to have one or two persons experiment with the idea, but not unlimited numbers. Stan Shebs 12:42, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't this also a matter of privacy? I wonder if it's ethically correct to publicly display the lives of other people, deceased or not, including their jobs, diseases, addresses and social security numbers, most likely without asking them beforehand? --Fb78 13:29, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Never heard of a deceased person's right to privacy, witness newspaper obituaries and the like. In the case of living persons, it's usually not the case that they can control the availability of public documents, such as title deeds, court records, etc. Stan Shebs 23:38, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

how can I change my username?

I applied for a different username at en:Wikipedia:Changing_username, is that possible on commons, too? --Marek Moehling 13:16, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Technically, yes. I don't think we have an official policy for that yet, or a better place than here. Just tell us what name you would like, and why. Maybe someone comes along who is able to do this. Note that Special:renameuser requires a higher-than-admin status, i.e. beurocrat or stuard, i guess. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 13:25, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to change my user name to Tickle me for security concerns - I did so on en: and de: already. I've been engaged in controversial discussions there, signing as Marek Moehling - which is my real name. If it's too much trouble, I won't mind; just tell me here and I'll create an new account. --Marek Moehling 18:06, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Black and white

Should I desaturate monochrome images or upload them with the slight sepia tint? Nichalp 15:12, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Its easy to add a sepia filter to the image, a lot of programms offers something like that. But it is very complicted to remove such a filter. --Huebi 19:07, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think he's asking wether he should apply a filter to '#remove the sepia tint... -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 19:30, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Uh, you're right. Nevertheless, the original should be available in the commons.--Huebi 19:40, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I the answer depends on the individual case. Please uploade the images (or, if they are many, a few examples) as they are, so we can look at them. It's easy to overwrite them with an altered version later. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 17:37, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Um, I just wanted an opinion. I plan to upload images from here. The images are in PD (>60yrs). Nichalp 18:10, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

If you decide to desaturate the image, please upload the original version first, then simply overwrite it with the modified version. That way people can see how you changed the image, and improve on your modifications. dbenbenn | talk 22:45, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thanks everyone. Nichalp 06:14, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Protection sought

Please, for Image:HugoChavez1824.jpeg, currently on front page of w:en. Thanks, Hajor 22:04, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Done. But note that without w:Image:HugoChavez1824.jpeg being protected, protecting here is useless. Fortunately, I was able to protect both. dbenbenn | talk 22:42, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Public domain

I would like to raise a question. It is "Image:Juan Negrin en la Sociedad de las Naciones.jpg" in the public domain? If we consulted the copyright information of its source I believe that the answer is not. PACO 22:37, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The United Nations provides the photos contained on this web site, including reproductions of items from its collections, for non-commercial, personal, or research use only. Any other use of the photos [...] without authorization [...] is strictly prohibited.. So the decision is really simple: This picture is not public domain, nor another license is avalable for commons which fullfills these restrictions. So the picture must be deleted. --Huebi 06:42, 26 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Featured pictures candidates

~~commons:Featured pictures candidates not display [edit], bug?--Shizhao 02:48, 26 August 2005 (UTC)~~[reply]

Please delete this redundant image...

I've uploaded this image Image:STN1.gif, but there was already an equal image in wikimedia Image:STN1.png.

Please delete STN1.gif

Done. dbenbenn | talk 20:06, 26 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Extracting an image from a PDF

Does anyone know how to extract an image embedded in a PDF? In particular, anyone have an open source program to do it? I know how to open a PDF in the Gimp and crop, but that method isn't very good. dbenbenn | talk 18:46, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind. pdfimages, which comes with xpdf, does the trick. dbenbenn | talk 18:57, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Activities

Perhaps I've overlooked something, but there seems to be a rather large hole in the scheme. ArticleType is the parent of all encyclopedic content -- all that we offer to the world. Correct? And there are, at present, 13 subcats, which seem to cover the ground very well. But where are Activities? From a human point of view, perhaps there is little difference between a photo of a bear -- an illustration of the animal itself -- and a photo of a bear fishing. But there is quite a difference between a photo of a man, and of a man fishing -- when the purpose of the latter is to illustrate the activity of fishing itself. Indeed, there might not be a man or woman present in the photo; yet the photo is not of a fishing rod or a fish.

This seems a rather peculiar blind spot to me. None of the 13 subcats offer any promise, either. People has many subcats of different kinds of notable people, and a few catchall cats, like Women. Events has many notable events, but none common and everyday.

Gambling is an activity, but its only parents are subcats of Objects. That can't be right! Bodily functions should surely belong to Activities in general, though I might not contest its appearance as well in People.

Commons:Categories is sadly in disarray; I'm of a mind to repair it, but that's another issue. At present, Other is shown as a subcat of ArticleType, which it is (as a category); I see a number of subcats shown which suggest activities -- but in the actual categorization tree, Other has no children at all! (Please see next comment.)

Well, I'll Be Bold and create the second-level Activities now. Please don't jump salty on me (or it) if I don't rush to populate it. I can see there is a mammoth, augean job ahead of straightening out the category network, and I'll want to proceed with some method.

— Xiong 熊 talk * 00:02, 2005 August 29 (UTC)

I started at national parks in the united states, and the situation was very worse and still is very worse. A lot of users implemented a lot of categoeries eg Utah parks and monuments and Utah National parks. A lot of categoeries are double, and not two states are the same in categoeries. Do we have a template saying someting like "Do not put a picture here, choose a suitable subcategory"? In my opinion, only the leaves of the category tree should contain images.

--Huebi 06:49, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Erm. You're right; it's a mess. I'm starting to think I should spend more time cleaning up, and defer uploading yet more content into the whirlwind. But I've invested considerable effort into getting an upload-and-cat scheme set up for Playing cards, so I at least want to get a little use out of it before I move on. (Current goal: All 63 individual small PNG poker playing cards. Extended goal: At least a few representative images in other cats, to populate and lead the way.)

I disagree with you, though, about images only in leaf nodes. This is not strictly a tree. It's a heavily cross-linked tree, at best; really, just a network. (That's a Good Thing.) And many cats are properly the lowest point at which a given content item should be placed, even though that cat also contains subcats of its own. I should not like to see the network normalized to the point that every cat either (a) contains content or (b) contains subcats, but not both. That would force creation of a bevy of "Other" subcats, which we really don't need.

That said, I agree with you in spirit. There are way too many items catted far too close to root -- not to mention outright miscats. Fortunately, this is a wiki and everything can be fixed. But oh, how I wish we had some sort of modern interface -- perhaps not 21st Century, but at least something as recent as 1984. Then we could drag-and-drop.

I wonder if there is even any point to cleaning up miscats until we get a modern interface. The problem is probably growing faster than any realistic effort can correct. — Xiong 熊 talk * 09:06, 2005 August 29 (UTC)

Unfortunatley, not evrything can be changed (by normal users). In my vision categoryies and pictures do nat have a name, but just an ID. and this ID is linked to a language table, names for more then one language an be stored. So, the category 4711 has several entries saying the name of this categoy in english is United States of America and the name of this category in german is "Vereinige Staaten von Amerika" and so on. But now, its too late to implemt that. Not impossible, but its a hard work. For the enduser nothing would change except he cann see picture names und category names and so on in his language. But this is just a dream for my own. --Huebi 10:16, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Large-scale changes can always be accomplished by bot scripts if needed, so it's never too late to take advantage of a feature added to the software (such as multilingual category names). Commons doesn't get quite the organizational attention it could use because a lot of people just treat it as a "virtual shoebox" - once they have the image uploaded and a reference to it in a wikipedia article, they consider themselves done. So in the absence of a 300-IQ person coming along to deliver us a brilliant organization, we just have to muddle along as best we can. One of reasons I suggest borrowing category structure from en: is that although still not perfect, it has gotten much more thought and discussion. As for activities specifically, categories like Category:Leisure have a number of activity-related subcats. I'm not sure how useful a new toplevel category will be, but if everybody likes the idea, you'll be able to tell because uploaders and organizers still start using it on their own. Stan Shebs 12:11, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

So how can i proceed? I also want to change the upload form, instead of only having a textfield a drop downlist wirh licences would be interesting. A list of categories too, but for that, i have no idea haw to do that so its useable at the end (remeber the large amoutn of categories). --Huebi 12:48, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Other -- the toilet at the end of the Universe

Other is an oxymoron. I'd be tempted to explain this in metaphysical terms, but I'm not sure what kind of objection anyone might hold to this assertion. Ideally, there would not be such a thing. Items that might belong to Other are simply those that do not belong to any other category -- and I'd rather not admit defeat when faced with any task. Surely our exhaustive scheme can find a home for any imaginable content.

It is even worse to see other categories placed under Other. Thankfully, this is not the case in fact; although Commons:Categories does show such abominations.

I'm tempted to beg for its deletion, but I don't want to set a precedent. Besides, it will only be re-created, sooner or later. At least all the bad apples are in one barrel. I see that, at present, most of those bad apples are not even a long stretch from ArticleType. This is certainly the wrong place to put the barrel.

So, I shall Be Bold and move it to be a subcat of CommonsRoot. From time to time, we can dig through it and find homes for anything unlucky enough to end up there. I believe I shall edit the cat page itself to include a stern note.

— Xiong 熊 talk * 00:16, 2005 August 29 (UTC)

Category:Templates

Yet another top-level hole! There seems to have been no cat for templates. I can see why this might be; catting a template body cats all pages where it is used -- not a Good Thing. But I see definite value to catting template talk pages as stand-ins for their templates; of course, no value to stuffing every template into the root template cat, but good to cat into various template subcats.

There are about 60 templates used on this page, many of which fall into obvious cats.

Done! The cat chain is: CommonsRoot → Commons → Commons maintenance → Templates. — Xiong 熊 talk * 09:17, 2005 August 29 (UTC)

Cant this be solved by <includeonly>...</includeonly> and <noinclude>...</noinclude>?--Huebi 10:20, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose it could - and that would be a good thing. On the otehr hand - why not just use the namespüace filter of Special:Allpages? Here's a list of all templates. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 10:40, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's just another tool. If we were all really, really clever, we'd endeavor always to create related templates with adjacent names, as I have done with {{Ct}} and all its (potentially) hundreds of daughter templates. Then, a quick browse through Allpages would show related templates in neat little clumps.

As it is, though, if I want to see all the templates that relate, say, to water lilies, even Plants, I don't believe there is any browsable hierarchy or central list. The matter is more acute when fairly general templates are considered. There is a central page that lists licensing templates, but I think it is is human-maintained, yes? (Although I grant that the cat mechanism requires human attention, too.) Before I create or import a general-use template, I'd like to be able to drill down the template cat tree to see whether there seems to be anything already that does the job.

I don't think any templates themselves belong in Category:Templates -- only subcats. — Xiong 熊 talk * 04:20, 2005 August 30 (UTC)

Help needed with a movie file

I've taken an .avi movie file of some gaita players and would like to upload it, but I need a video-savvy person to help get it into shape. I understand we prefer .ogg movie files here. The file is about 1.7 megabytes. Would someone be able to 1) shrink or compress it and 2) rotate it 90 degrees (my camera refuses to do so)? - user:Montrealais (currently in Santiago de Compostela)

Hoax Article in 57 languages

en:Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/The Flowers Of Romance
en:The Flowers Of Romance and en:Tony Blackplait the nonsence is virtually everywhere!
en:April 24 (Tony Blackplait)
en:List of anarchists (Tony Blackplait)
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Löschkandidaten/29._August_2005#The_Flowers_Of_Romance
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Löschkandidaten/14._März_2005#The_Flowers_Of_Romance_.28erledigt.2C_.C3.BCberarbeitet.29.

The Flowers of Romance

I would advise administrators to delete the article and somehow to block those pages.

I'm not sure these articles (the English versions, anyway) are (were?) candidates for speedy deletion. Tony Blackplait and the new band calling itself "Flowers of Romance" may or may not be noteworthy, but shouldn't that go to Votes for Deletion instead? The anonymous editor had made early attempts to make the new band look like it was somehow related to the original. I confronted him about this, and cleaned up the articles in question (or in some cases he did so himself), but only the English articles. -- Gyrofrog 19:19, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The article has in the meanwhile deleted in lot of the other Wikipedia. There is enough reason to believe that the complete article is an utter lie. For example the various language entries all present different lies. In one article it is claimed that the Band played in new york (which can be proven wrong), in another article it is claimed that it made a Top Ten hit (which can be proven wrong too). It is very obvious that a group of people with too much time on their hands tried to play some tricks with wikipedia. The lies in the articles are not even consistent between the different languages. Enough to discard the whole article. -- Kju 21:46, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and the article about the frontman of the group (en:Tony Blackplait) is full of lies too. All the movies and books listed in that article are fabricated. -- Kju 22:20, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Some Estonian Wikipedians have cleared this up on the VfD page. As they include two long-time, registered users I am going to assume on good faith that they are not part of the hoax. -- Gyrofrog 02:20, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify: The part of the so-called reunuion in 1999 until today by Tony Blacplait is utter garbage. The part of the 1976/1977 punk band is ok. The en:, fr:, de: and most of the it: version are ok. I'll check more languages, but these are the ones I can at least understand and most internationals should be able to read either version. --Sig11 09:22, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Update: all the cleaned up articles should now link to each other via interwiki links (expect it: which seems to be protected). The 1999 band is probably this one et:Vennaskond (ansambel), the memebers seem to be the same and their webpage seems to be real. Also some of the pics on their webpage seem to show the same persons on the famous promo-pic here. nn: and tl: seem to have decided to keep a seperate article for the 1999 band and should be renamed and heavily cleaned up. Seems this band played quite a bit of anarchy with WP ;-) ... --Sig11 14:34, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And another update (if anybody still cares): The Estonian band "Flowers of Romance" is probably somehow real, too. They are certainly the same as "Vennaskond". Just compare the tour dates : [2] and [3] or the live shots [4] and the gallery I gave above, or even better, the band logos : [5] and [6].

But the band seems to have performed in Berlin as "Flowers of Romance" on Nov 3, 2004 - see waybackmachine from end of October 2004 of www.wildatheartberlin.de. How I see it, the band "Vennaskond" sometimes performs as "Flowers of Romance". Therefore, if this information should go in any WP, it should do so under the name "Vennaskond" and the auxillary name should be mentioned somewhere. --Sig11 21:14, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This was kind of my point, if anyone sees my defense of the article(s) as some kind of "crusade." I personally don't think that Blackplait/Trubetsky and Co. are very relevant, at least not outside Estonia. (For what it's worth I don't find Coors Beer or Britney Spears to be particularly relevant, either, but I don't propose they be removed from Wikipedia.) However: the original (1976) Flowers of Romance is very relevant, at least as far as punk rock history goes, and if some band really is out there falsely presenting themselves as such, then it is worth mentioning. If they perpetrated lies (or "jokes" or whatever), then fix it in the article, the world (or the portion that finds this relevant) should know about it. If not in its own article, then certainly in the one(s) about the original band, and/or Vennaskond and/or Trubetsky. For a sort-of similar example, read about the Ink Spots: at one point there were numerous groups simultaneously claiming to be the Ink Spots, most of whom had no connection whatsoever to the original group, incl. at least one all-Caucasian group. Thank you for your time and patience, those who've read this far. -- Gyrofrog 02:20, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting: There was a Greek gothic group called Flowers Of Romance which formed in 1981 and published 4 or 5 LPs and some singles until 1998 when they disolved. I saw only the title of the article and thought it was about that band! --Geraki 14:57, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it sounds possible. el: (or any other WP which deems this band relevant) certainly could have 2 articles with similar title. --Sig11 21:14, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

New feature: Licensing drop-down

Ævar has written a new, long called-for feature: a drop-down licence selection box. It's currently in HEAD and should be live RSN. We will need to edit MediaWiki:Licenses. Hopefully this will be an aide to reducing the amount of un- and mis-categorised media files uploaded.

James F. (talk) 17:59, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's now live, I've added a few licenses to MediaWiki:Licenses but more need to be transferred from Commons:Copyright tags. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 18:26, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot avar! Well, while we are at it: I would suggest to have a radio-button for "own work" vs. "work of/from". If the latter is set, input in a field for source/author should be required. Per default, none of the options should be checked, so the user is forced to do it explicitely. For the "own work" case, the uploaders name should be added to the description in some way - ideally, the name and the license tag would be combined with the {{Self}} tag or some such. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 19:11, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, coming to think of it: if the image is the uploader's own work, the choice of licenses could be greately reduced... this would make it easier for inexperienced users to choose a license, but would require a buch of JavaScript, and a way to mark the options for own work in MediaWiki:Licenses. And for multi-licensing... oh, well ;) -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 19:18, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Instead of having one long list i'd would like to have one for all the GFDL derivates, one for all the PD derivates one for alle the cc derivates and so on. --Huebi 19:21, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you programmers. I have been awaiting this feature.Fred Chess 19:48, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is a great step forward -- and although I suppose we can all think of ways to improve this feature, just having it at all is a blessing. — Xiong 熊 talk * 04:04, 2005 August 30 (UTC)

Copyright/trademark question

In Category:Confectionery, there are a ton of pictures of things which are clearly licensed trademarks and a number of 2-D representations of near 2-D copyrighted images (i.e. Image:Nerds box.jpg). Are we sure these things are kosher enough to be kept on commons? They look a little too derivative to me... -- User:Fastfission (not logged in)

I understand what you mean. Close-up photos of company logotypes have been listed at Commons:Deletion requests before with various results, eg. Image:Volkswagen sign.jpg. Some people think that any photograph taken in a public place is OK, others that they infringe on trademark law. There doesn't seem to be any quick answers here. Thuresson 06:43, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

AP Photos?

Can I use AP photos in articles on Wikipedia? Can I upload AP photos to Wikimedia Commons? -- Ferretsage (unsigned)

Almost certainly not. — Xiong 熊 talk * 04:22, 2005 August 30 (UTC)

Thank you for the information; I will think twice before uploading any AP Photos. The only reason I asked in the first place is because I am new here and was uncertain regarding the copyrights of AP Photos as I see them posted everywhere on the Internet in user's webblogs. --Ferretsage 04:33, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bloggers, at least in the US, can probably get away with fair use, which is not approved here. Besides, a lot, of not most, bloggers seem to have very vague ideas about copyright issues; some of the more successful blogs are just lawsuits waiting to happen. Cnyborg 08:32, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What are AP Photos? --Huebi 06:09, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"AP" = Associated Press (webpage). AP is one of the biggest press photo agency, they have a lot of very good pictures, some of which can be used by news media free of charge. Those images are, however, not free in the sense of Commons:Licensing - see their terms of use. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 08:25, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

gpoaccess.gov

I just tagged Image:Phof93v2.jpg as a copyvio - its from www.gpoaccess.gov, see notes on images at [7] "For many of the images on GPO Access, GPO has purchased the right to use the image. GPO is licensed to use these images on a non-exclusive and non-transferable basis. All other rights to the image, including without limitation, copyright and all other rights, are retained by the owner of the images. These images are not in the public domain."

People are a bit over eager about US government PD, as much of the content is PD, just not the images in this case. I suspect that there may be more of these, will look later when I get a chance. Justinc 10:29, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I took the picture from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Rabin_at_peace_talks.jpg and trusted the licence there. If it is not PD please delete ist -- Necrophorus 21:22, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Poker problems 2

I've completely overhauled my entire approach to playing cards -- and things are going fairly well, but for a few rather nasty bumps. I'd appreciate hard looks directed at Commons talk:Category scheme playing cards#Unruly cats. Thank You! — Xiong 熊 talk * 15:03, 2005 August 30 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm getting impatient, but it's nearly a week and still no help. Sure could use a hand -- passage of time has not made the problem go away. — Xiong 熊 talk * 02:49, 2005 September 4 (UTC)

Can't see uploaded image - Why? And what do do?

I've uploaded some images that i cant see. What's the problem and what to do? See: Image:Politiken building.jpg and Image:Lars-Ivar Ericson.jpg. /Henrik Reinholdson 17:13, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I can see both of them without problems. --Huebi 17:30, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Today afternoon I noticed that for a few minutes the upload-server (swhich also serves download of image files) didn't respond.

Otherwise, the fact that the image files have a different hostname than the including page makes some stupid filter programs block the images.

--Ikar.us 18:15, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Editing pictures and saving the result under the same name is vandalism

My opinion: if someone changes the contents of an image and saves the result under the same name, this can be considered as a destruction of the original, and therefore as vandalism. -- 62.45.140.164 23:32, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on content and intent. There's no hard and fast, simple rule.

A day or so ago, I uploaded an image of the Ace of Spades from a Poker deck, and went on to the King and Queen; I mean to upload the whole deck, and then start on some Tarot cards. But before I got as far as the Queen, Somebody (with what appears to me to be a grandiose user name) upped a new picture on top of the Ace -- and it was hardly a playing card; a round button that looked about right for wearing to a punk rock concert. I rolled it back to the real Ace -- and flagged the action as possible vandalism.

On the other hand, I might up a really crappy photo of a 1995 Corvette -- grainy, out of focus, too small -- and name it Corvette.jpg. You happen to snap a much better picture of a 'vette, and although yours is a different year and color, from a different angle, it is in focus, of decent size, and well-composed. Thus it is a better representative of the photo's title than the first image. I say, up it right away, and if you like, under the same name. A more descriptive title might be a better choice, but that would hold true whether there was an existing image with that title or not. That's not vandalism; that's improvement.

The clincher is that the original, nasty photo is not destroyed at all. It is still safe in the database -- like everything that is ever added and later removed. Nothing is ever lost in a true wiki. If the original uploader wants to yank his out and upload it again under a new name, he can -- and he may be able to justify the action, too. Perhaps the original photo was of a rare model, or J-Lo is seen driving it. Maybe next time he'll up the photo as Image:J-Lo driving a 'vette.

In general, I like to caution against charges of vandalism, bad faith, or other hostile actions or intents. People certainly do exhibit bad behavior -- often, indeed -- but I don't know that it always helps to attach bad intent to poor action. And I often think the problem of users criticizing each other in a hostile tone is a greater threat than the sum of all the bad actions themselves. — Xiong 熊 talk * 06:34, 2005 August 31 (UTC)

Editing a picture is exactly the same as editing an article that was started by someone else - the need to re-upload it is simply a technical limitation. Just like with articles, the edit may be helpful, disputed or malicious. Just like with articles, the edit can be reverted or discussed on the talk page.

Keep in mind: this is a wiki. If you don't want others to use and modify your work, don't contribute. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 10:44, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It is not exactly the same, Duesentrieb, you're taking the easy way out here. I saw, what has now been removed btw - the history of images is not trustworthy anymore as you seemingly can cover your tracks if you're a moderator here - Image:Kelderman_painting_2.jpg which is a painting. This was "freshened" by a german user within 10 minutes after uploading it, in a way that I wouldn't be surprised if the original artist would have failed to recognize his own work.... What's next - Andy Warhol with colours made to look normal?
I deeply regret this - but the more I see of the conduct here at Commons, the more I resent the whole idea of the Wikipedia. It's plain rape and molestation, under the flag of "feel free - it's wiki". This has nothing to do with wiki and cooperation, while it has everything to do with people abusing the work of others without being impaired by any knowledge whatsoever. And you're right - I won't join this kingdom of hell, what I will do is my utmost to discourage all use of commons after seeing the way you communicate and act here. 80.127.158.134 19:55, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What you say proves my point: it's exactly the same as with articles. Everything can be edited by anyone, and that possibility can be, and often is, abused. It's easy to revert it. As to "covering your tracks": sure, admins can delete things and make belive their version is the first one - as they can with articles. The should not do that, of course - it's clearly an abuse of the admin previleges. If you notice something like that, please tell another admin/other people about it.

If color changes to painting etc are an improvement is debatable - old paintings are not supposed to look gaudy, but on the other hand, compensating for bad lighting or decaying colors is a good thing. I think it's quite OK what User:Quistnix did to Image:Kelderman_painting_2.jpg, and he clearly acted in good faith. If you disagree, just talk to him, or to other people here on the pump.

I'm sorry if you think i'm being rude - I'm just trying to be plain. Have you ever looked at the bottom of an edit-page on the english wikipedia? it says: "If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it." Well, the same applies here. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 20:55, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not thinking you are rude... What you write, how you understand what I've written, that you don't seem to go further than the Wikipedia warcry proves my point. I did get Quistnix' original reaction to what happened to his picture. To put it bluntly, User:ArtMechanic turned a maiden into a whore, while reducing the picture to about 1/3 of the original. That's really sad. He could just as easy have talked to Quistnix (as you told me to do) instead of showing his ability to misuse a computer. It's beyond me, that you can accept this kind of "artistry" as being normal behavoiur instead of labelling it as the vandalism it really is.
It may also be easy to revert. Then you could have a revert-war on your hands, is that the norm of building an encyclopedia together? Declaring war because of different opinions?
There is at least one big difference between text and images, and it saddens me that people just are refusing to see that. For text we've got NPOV/POV, which is much easier to identify - while images are victims of subjective judgement and lack of respect for each others work. With text we often talk and check why something has been written the way it was. Not here.
A couple of screens higher, I read how dbenbenn seems to have altered a picture - and he can't understand why the uploader hasn't talked to him when she(?) didn't like the changes. He didn't even grasp the idea that he could have been the one that should have started communicating as he wanted to change the picture? Oh no - it might have inhibited his urges.... And another one seems to be deleting as fast as users upload. Anything from childrens drawings to Wikipedia logo's. What kind of behaviour is that? In the end it'll be a fight between people tugging at the same picture and Commons will prove to be a kindergarten.
"Covering your tracks" - who would you believe? A fellow moderator or just another user? I don't believe in moderators being any more neutral than users, and reporting an abusive moderator / admin - nah, I don't think it would help. Sorry - but I'd expect to get one of the following answers:

Argumentation similar to the one of user:Quasipalm calling one of the correspondents a crybaby? (You can find it here at the village pump. Or
"If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it." Well, the same applies here.. Your words - exactly.

Again proving my point. Maybe I'm sounding rude, what I really am is despondend. 80.127.158.134 22:20, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I would generally caution against replacing an image with another one of the same subject because you don't know how that image is being used or if specific aspects of it are important to places where it is or will be used (this is made worse by the fact we still don't have proper information on where an image is used). OTOH edits to color balance, jpeg artifact cleanup, replacing with a higher quality copy of the same image, removing poor edges etc are fair game. Plugwash 23:50, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ok now...

replacing an image with a completely different one is a bad idea in most cases. In some cases, it can be considered vandalism.
replacing an image with a new version with changed colors / compression / etc may be helpful or a bad idea - that depends on many things...
The size of Image:Kelderman painting 2.jpg was reduced to 1/3 in bytes, the pixel resolution stayed the same. I don't see any artefacts produced by the better compression, so no problem there. The color change is debatable, but was clearly don in good faith.
I'm not sure how NPOV applies to images - as long as they are not maliciouly manipulated, they represent facts.
I don't think it's neccessary to ask the creator of an image before modifying it - somethimes this could be very time consuming or even impossible. You don't ask before editing articles, either.
When conflicts arise, a compromise should be looked for. Accusations and sneering is not helpful.
Admins are people: they make mistakes. Some of them are nice, some not.
Admins can see who has deleted what - that way, it's easy to find out if another admin is telling the truth. You can too, btw: Special:Log.
Child's art and Wikipedia logos have been up for deletion, and have been voted to stay. A request for deletion just asks the question if an images should and can be kept on the commons - this is a very important question to ask. I have often seen people requesting deletion of images they actually like - because of base licensing, etc.

I strongly belive we should respect other people's work - this applices to everyone, and specially admins. On the other hand, images you provide to the commons are not "yours" any more than an article you started. Noone has to ask you before using or modifying them. You can request that, however, and I would encourage anyone to follow your request.

That's all I can say to this. Sure, sometimes bad things happen, somteimes people are rude. To personal experience however, the commons is much better in that respect than many a wikipedia. Did you ever hang out in the #wikipedia IRC channel? Read the mailing lists? Had a look at the deletion candidates on en:wp or de:wp? What's going on there is much much worse... That's one of the reasons I spend most of my time at the commons. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 11:17, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Duesentrieb, I'll follow in your tracks with the numbering here...

1-3: I think we're more or less on the same track here.

4: Concerning images and NPOV, you say "I'm not sure how NPOV applies to images - as long as they are not maliciouly manipulated, they represent facts." It is the manipulation as such I am opposing. An "over the top" example is that some people love the work of Andy Warhol and Picasso, while others can not stand it. This also applies to photographs or other works that are uploaded here. If I uploaded a picture that I had manipulated in a "Warholian" manner because it would suit an article, I'd be quite sure that someone else would change it due to i.e. unnatural colours. Where I like black - someone else hates it, and wants it to be red. This are often almost undiscussable subjects as it has everything to do with personal taste. Pure text, not discussing the style of it but the facts, is depending less on that kind of taste. It's often closer to being binary than whether a colour should be greenish yellow or pure yellow.

5: As far as I'm concerned, there are cases where I would ask before changing a text. I'm not God, therefore I do not have sufficient knowledge to change all at will. Neither do I know all discussions that might have preceded a certain layout. I'd also talk to people before moving large "lumps" of text around, there could very easily be a reason for writing it like it has been written, which I do not know. And - I also appreciate people behaving like this, so why shouldn't I? Typo's are another subject however.

6-7-8: What can I say? You say the things we all say when there's no conflict at hand, in a conflict it's often enough a different story alltogether...

9: I ony quote what I saw here at the village pump. One user having uploaded 4 child's art images missing 2 within a short timespan Commons:Village_pump#Files_disappeared. The logo's - an identical story, the removed image of the logo Commons:Village_pump#Logo_vanished_again - was one of the threads. Therefore I'd say that I don't agree with you, I give examples of admin behaviour, you answer with generalities.

I agree with you on what you say regarding respect, but again, images are often more personal than a text, and therefore I cannot agree to this comparison. Text is one - images something else. We're dealing with elements subject of very subjective judgement. Have a look at the page where there are votes for images - and the reasons users give. Many of the reasons are not to be explained in a rational way, because images relate more strongly to our feelings than texts do.

I used to hang out at different wiki's, amongst others the nl: and the scanwiki's - and I find that commons and the behaviour of the artcritics here are hell compared to the others. I spend time here now, hoping that I might be able to get people to think further than their own likes and dislikes. And I'd also like to compliment you with the way you wrote this last text, this is to me less of a standoff and more of an effort to connect :) Thank you! 80.127.158.134 18:56, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If you want someone else's opinions, here are mine. I wish that people respect others images and creations by not removing things the original upload has intentionally put in the image. This includes watermarks...

However, things that are flaws of the image can (should?) probably be improved and reuploaded to replace the original by those with the knowledge and skills. I've done this with many images, e.g.: Image:Igelösa_kyrka,_exteriör.jpg. I don't think it is subjective whether you want to be able to identify the object of the photo or not -- photos are intended to show what they depict.

If your improvements are more of a subjective kind, then -- if you believe yourself to be well intended, you have nothing to fear from informing the original uploader on his user page and informing them of the easiness of reverting the modifications. I modified Image:MagnusSteendorff.jpg, then informed original uploader on User_talk:FredrikT, who chose to revert. I will now proceed by uploading my improved version with a new name instead.

Fred Chess 13:58, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I fully agree with what you said.

A few comments about watermerks, though:

removing watermarks is rude, IMHO.
removing watermarks is legal by all licenses acceptable at the commons.
thus, watermarks are pointless: even if we would make it official policy not to remove them, anyone outside the commons could remove the watermark and publish the image without it, legally.

Chears... -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 16:24, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't the policy be to remove them? How do watermarked images benefit the project? — Omegatron 15:01, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Interface translation

Hello, I've translated main page into Aragonese language, but I want to translate all the interface into Aragonese (menus, system messages...) too and I don't know how can I do it. --Willtron 09:45, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Messages are stored in their pages found at Special:Allmessages. It seems that you see this page in your active language, so you can simply edit them. You have to be admin, of course. --Ikar.us 11:31, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, but there are two problems: Aragonese isn't available as Interface language in preferences so I can't select it and I can't edit the messages (this is the main problem), I have Spanish as active language at the moment and I'm not an admin. --Willtron 13:28, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Upload page

How many language Versions do we have for the upload page? I miss a hint, that if someone is mentioning the source, that there should be no back-reference to any wikipedia. Often i find pictures with a comment like "from the en/de/fr/xx Wikipedia". If now the picture is deleted there cause its now in the commons, the real source might be gone. I think a hint in the upload page can reduce this problem. --Huebi 10:36, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oups, i saw i cant change this special page... so who can elp me with that? --Huebi 10:37, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What a pity that no one cares about od ideas or people who wanna invest some work. It really seems to be a black box to throw pictures in from user side, a a place to haven admin title und doing mostly nothing. I'm now really in doubt to invest more work than necessaray too keep my articles in other wikipedias in a proper manner. --Huebi 05:37, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The text that is shown on the upload page is at MediaWiki:Uploadtext, but you have to be an admin to modify it. You can post your modified version to the talk page there, and then ask an admin to update the message page - or just post it on my talk page. I can't tell you how many language version there are, but ther's MediaWiki:Uploadtext/de, MediaWiki:Uploadtext/fr, MediaWiki:Uploadtext/es, MediaWiki:Uploadtext/ru, etc. Thanks for helping out!

PS: I will personally only change system messages in languages I understand (english and german), so I can verify the content. You'll have to fine someone else for other languages - maybe User:Rama, he know a lot of languages and hase been voted admin recently. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 10:37, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]