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Latest comment: 8 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
In my opinion HotCat should not suggest categories, which are cat redirects, but in at least one case it does this. Where has this behaviour I consider a bug to be reported? --Speravir (Talk)22:41, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
In my experience, if you actually hit Save on a category redirect, HotCat will follow the redirect and insert the real category. So this behavior seems fine - it includes redirects in your search, making it easier for you to find a category, and then follows them for you. For future reference, the HotCat talk page is here. BMacZero (talk) 22:55, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago78 comments24 people in discussion
This hast to change. If I wasn't a Wikipedian, and did the exact same work I was doing, I would - quite rightly - get my work categorised as my work, linking all my work together.
Commons does not allow searches that include uploader, and we had an outright policy for years saying that templates should be used that refer to the uploader.
It is insultuing and wrong that we, for some reason, think hard-working Wikipedians should be denied the credit we give to any other person, famous or not, just for not being a Wikipedian.
I would ask that this policy is changed, because I think that basic lack of respect for contributors is sufficient reason not to allow my work on Commons. I don't have to work for Commons, after all. I can stop.
Actualæly, we can keep this simple. I can use the following template for my files:
The copyright holder of this file, Adam Cuerden, allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that the copyright holder is properly attributed. Redistribution, derivative work, commercial use, and all other use is permitted.
Attribution:
"Adam Cuerden". This may be given any way desired, however, on Wikimedia Commons, the file must appear in Category:Adam Cuerden's restorations, which may not be a hidden category.
@Adam Cuerden: I don't think this non-copyright restriction makes much sense (it feels a bit too specific to me), but other than that, I do not have any issue with your category not being hidden (that is, being visible in the same font size as any other category). In the end, any other file hosting service (Flickr, DeviantArt, you name it) allows their regular visitors easy access to other works by the same user, which is something that we currently do not do. If I might suggest something, I think Category:Restorations by Adam Cuerden would be a bit better (and follow current Commons category naming policies) — and I suggest we leave the current category name as a redirect not to break links. How does that sound? odder (talk) 13:48, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
And, may I add that, when you have someone upset at the lack of basic respect, condescending messages about it is a terrible way to calm them down. Can someone please make it clear to Jean11 to never, ever talk to other users that way? Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:53, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
I'm sorry I'm so annoyed about this. But this shows a basic lack of respect for Commons' contributors, and I think that I am entitled to a basic level of respect. Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:17, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
@Adam Cuerden: I also think that I am entitled to a basic level of respect. Speaking of which, remember when I volunteered two hours of my time to participate in Wikivoices #45, on the assumption that its audio file would be shared with the public. Then, you suppressed the release of that audio file to the public, saying that your bout with "headaches" prevented you from uploading the file to Wikipedia. So, while you're stomping your feet, demanding respect, why don't you go stomp your feet over to the mirror and look at yourself? - Thekohser (talk) 15:51, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
All such categories, which are not the 'creator' of the work depicted in the image is hidden. "Photographs by Flickr user X" is hidden, "Artworks by Artist Y" is not hidden. There's a fine difference of what should and should not be hidden, but there is a good reason too. People might be searching for "Artworks by X" and think of what they might find, however "photographs by Flickr user X" may be different photos of different thing a and no one will search for something like that sibce it isn't a qualifier for what might be in the image. Hope I'm making some sense. As for the 'I deserv this' and 'I deserv that', Wikimedia Commins is not a place you get things from or earn rewards, it's a place we store images. No more. No less. And no, you can't do an attribution thing like that, not applicable with Commons policies of acceptable licenses as well as I would think WMF might then take a position regarding PD-art in refards to restorations. Josve05a (talk) 17:42, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
Restoration is usually much more work that taking pictures. We need to find a consensus satisfying for everybody. I don't have objections about Adam's positions: he is not claiming a copyright, just asking that credit is properly done. Regards, Yann (talk) 18:57, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
If Commons doesn't feel that its creators "deserve" credit in the way they desire, there is nothing forcing their users to continue contributing. But I think that that is a solution that satisfies nobody. But it's one I will do if Commons' official policy is to disrespect its users. Further, I live in the UK. I have a copyright, I just choose not to enforce it, because I think Commons is important. But no work is important enough to feel bad about yourself because the project values you so little they won't allow you even the most minimal credit. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:37, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
Although I've made my own user categories hidden, I don't seem to recall any policy which requires it. Unless we have such a policy, I fail to see why Adam cannot have his own categories non-hidden. I personally do not consider it an attribution issue (if the credit "Restored by Adam Cuerden" was removed, that would be a different story), but if Adam feels strongly about it, if there's no policy then there's no reason not to let him do as he pleases.
And yes, in the jurisdiction where Adam lives he can claim full copyright over the restorations (conversely, for works he didn't scan, the scanner could possibly claim copyright over the scan and derivative works). Just because Commons doesn't recognize his copyright doesn't mean he can't claim a copyright. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:30, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
Have a look at the page that Adam linked in the header. That is a guideline. I said policy. Guidelines tend to have more wiggle room. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Non-hidden categories contain information about the subject of the file, not meta-information about the file. This is what hidden categories are for. And rightly so. Appropriate credit is given to authors field of the information template. You seem to be very angry about a non-issue/misunderstanding of categories. --Sebari (talk) 23:34, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
Commons users are generally non-notable. Hence, user categories need to be hidden. --Leyo00:33, 18 January 2016 (UTC) PS. The category should get rename to something like Category:Restorations by User:Adam Cuerden to make it clear to every reader that Adam is not a notable person, but a Commons user.
Seriouslyu? You're so determined to deny basic credit that you'd rather lose a user than give it? I think I've learned all I need to. Adam Cuerden (talk) 02:41, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Well it might be a nice thing to allow users who have a prominent hand in creating the image (including people who put non-trivial effort into restoring the image, such as Adam) to have their own non-hidden user categories, and I certainly don't have any objections to allowing that, but it seems entirely unreasonable to require such as part of the license. Any license dictating such a specific type of attribution is non-free in my opinion, and should not be allowed [I suppose that point is a little muddled with the whole pd-art thing]. I also fail to see how we as a community have any moral imperative to organize media in any specific way. Ultimately the point of Wikimedia is that people can re-use, re-mix, etc your content in any way they see fit, including ways that you might not like, provided that people keep your name on it, which they have. To conclude, this should be a "what do we all feel like doing" type discussion, not a "you're being evil if you don't do X" discussion. Bawolff (talk) 03:54, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
I'm not asking for a giant splash page on each of my restorations. I'm simply asking fr a category so that people interested in my work can find more of it, something Commons otherwise makes very difficult. If simply wanting easy access for peoople to a collation of your work is too much for Commons, then why the hell should I keep contributing to somewhere that values me so little that <bold>this whole discussion is about how we need to keep people from finding out what other things I've worked on, because creators are meant to be anonymous and unseen on here? You want to deny me the right to provide users access to a list of things I've worked on from each image, in the least obtrusive way possible - a category link at the bottom of the page. If you're going to deny something that little, enough to show that users are actually respected, and niot seen as some tools for getting stuff, that need to know their place, and not adsk for credit, and maybe we should deny them the right to any credit at all, hmm? This is a matter of basic respect. And you are evil if you deny credit.<bold> Adam Cuerden (talk) 04:40, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
This is what gets me about this situation. This is what you're willing to drive a ten-year contributor to Commons over: wanting a tiny credit at the bottom of the page. For that, you're willing to insult me, belittle me, and make it clear that my work isn't valued. I never expected it to end like this. This has gone way too far. It's clear that contributors aren't respected here, and it baffles me that asking for credit for work is what Commons would draw a hard line against.
Hidden categories are not usually "invisible". The are pretty much the same as regular categories but displayed on a separate line on the file page. It'd probably be better if they were named "metadata categories". --ghouston (talk) 06:59, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Adam, I really think you need to step back and calm down. In this thread and on a thread on you talk page, you are accusing people of various stuff that they neither said nor intended to say. And you are being very aggressive about it. Personally, your behaviour and confrontational manner in this thread makes me not even want to consider your arguments. --Sebari (talk) 07:37, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Sebari, don't do this. It is patronising bullshit, doesn't have the effect you think it does. Commons needs to do better to recognise when its contributors are upset and handle that sensitively and wisely, rather than telling them to "calm down dear" or "be mellow". If the tone puts you off, then find something else to do. -- Colin (talk) 09:18, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
I don't agree. An angry tone does not help in any way. Your unfriendly tone does not help either. If you cannot discuss in a civilized manner, I refuse to take you seriously. --Sebari (talk) 09:31, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
It would be one thing if this was a one time thing (Everyone gets angry sometimes), but almost every interaction I've had with Adam, he has been yelling and screaming. This is probably one of the milder interactions. Tolerating these sorts of tantrums creates quite a negative environment for everyone, and also sets a precedent where people become angry to get their voice heard. Then everyone is angry all the time. I think this is a bad thing. Bawolff (talk) 00:55, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
Why are the creatives, who happen to be Commons users, denied a full category for their works? Whereas a painter who may not be notable can be categorised. So the test isn't that Commons users are not notable (as someone suggests) but a prejudice against "users" and a lack of respect (as Adam notes) for their value to the project. Someone who is merely "User:Colin" or "John from Flickr" is viewed as not a real artist. This is perhaps a hangover from the collective Wikipedia mindset that any work uploaded here is the work of a group of people (who derive their words from sources others have written) and who should be individually humble -- and not an identifiable person worthy of credit. Perhaps it is the snobbery one has that real artists paint or sculpt, but photography or photoshop creative skill is not "art". But images on Commons, by and large, are the result of one person. At the most two (such as Adam's restorations, or where someone processes someone else's raw files). The term "hidden category" appears to be a misnomer since it is visible even to logged-out users. Is it perhaps hidden from the search engine? I would support the idea of giving greater prominence to the creative person or people who produced our images, though the main category system. If there are consequences for how our search works, then we can deal with that. I do think that in general Commons does not appreciate content-creators enough. And, btw, if Adam wishes to be credited as "Adam Cuerden" then we should do that (rather than User:Adam Cuerdan) because he's a human being, not an account on a filesystem. -- Colin (talk)
The main reason we have hidden categories, is beacuse there might be a need to find an image somehow, that does not relate to what's being depicted in the file. A better word might have been metacategories, but before they were indeed hidden by default, since they had no relevance for a user lookng for an image based on a subject, which is what categories was made for in the first place.
Another thing, to force in attribution-ways to include a non-hidden category is definetly not ok, since at any time Wikimedia might disbandon the category-approach and start using Wikidata (please, sooner than later!), which mean that it would not be inline with the "free-use" that we require.
Using {{Other fields}} would get my approval. This could also not only mention the restorator's name, but also link to their user category. And it is more visible than a category. --Sebari (talk) 10:07, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
I have several thousand files, which I have been sorting into categories for years. Hidden categories are ONLY visible if you've changed a tickboc in your preferences at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering. They are invisible to those logged out. I don't want a huge splashy link with graphic or anything, I just want a category, clearly linking together my work for those trying to find it. Your solution is to tell me to go over the several thousand files in my history, and manually check and edit every single one. It can't be automated, we'd need to exclude the non-restorations, and I've been editing 10 years. At the moment, I'm resigning myself to leave because this has been nothing but people attacking me. If "other fields" was a solution, I'd have used it, instead of listing the various authors, including myself, under author, stating what each did. Is your solution seriously for me to basically make something like {{Vincent van Gogh}}, and make my name far more prominent, so there's room to fit all the links in? Because that would be ridiculously tacky, and far, far more disruptive than a category.
Finally, you state that you have hidden categories to handle things not in the file. Of course, Category:Félix Nadar, say, contains 99% works that don't show Nadar, as do many non-hidden categories. Using a non-hidden category to credit the creator of a work is standard practice for everyone but Wikipedians, who are being treated as second-class citizens. Adam Cuerden (talk) 10:22, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
I haven't participated in many discussions on this site except, lately, in the Featured Pictures candidates threads, but for the life of me, I can't understand why it's so important to anyone not to have visible categories for different people who restored old pictures. It doesn't really matter whether these folks are famous outside of Commons; whoever doesn't want to use the category as a search term doesn't have to. Wikis are collaborative, but I think most restorations of old photos are not collaborative but done by a single person; is that not the case? So I don't understand the up side of refusing to permit these kinds of categories. Who's injured by allowing them? Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:52, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Adam Cuerden -- Over those ten years, I've observed that you often seem to have semi-strange finicky demands and certain tendencies to self-dramatization, so I'm not necessarily too impressed. AnonMoos (talk) 00:19, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
The arguments against showing the category don't make any sense
Also, can I point out the bizareness of a solution being proposed that boils down to "Make the link to the category far more prominent, because it's fine to have a link to the category, just not a subtle one at the bottom of the page? Is there even any logic behind the arguments against me? Because here's what we have:
You can link the category prominently in the Information template.
You cannot have an easily-missible link at the bottom of the page.
It would appear that the only actual argument being made by anyone for why categories of user works are hidden is that users of Commons are "non-notable", and thus should be treated as second-class citizens. However, even the most obscure photographer or artist can have a category here, there is no test for notability. Even not having a known name is not an obstacle to categorization. Category:Master of the Stauffenberg Altarpiece despite him having no other known works but the Stauffenberg Altarpiece, from what I can tell. Are you seriously saying that categorising him is categorically more valuable? The arguments are nonsense, they basically only work if you accept Wikipedians are second-class citizens, and I do not accept that view, I think we are either valued members of the project, or shouldn't be editing here. Adam Cuerden (talk) 11:01, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Next steps
If the history of the guideline Commons:User-specific galleries, templates and categories policy is reviewed, it can be seen that major changes, in fact most of the text, was added in the last 18 months without a formal process of proposal or canvassing to establish a community consensus. Much of the above discussion treats this guideline/essay as if it were a policy, it is not. Unfortunately the guideline itself reads as if it were a mandatory policy by re-enforcing the guidelines with statements about practices which "must" be used and making other things "forbidden".
Adam Cuerden's complaint in this context is a valid concern, and the guideline fails to give reasonable advice for a user who would like to see their collected works or projects easy to find, nor does it explain how image page credit templates, links to Commons project pages or even links to external project pages might help, if the evolving norm on Commons is to use hidden categories.
I propose two steps forward:
Folks back off from changing attribution or categorization of Adam Cuerden's uploads until there is a solid consensus for the relatively recent changes to the misnamed Commons:User-specific galleries, templates and categories policyguideline. A breathing space of a couple of weeks or months will help discussion to move to the guideline talk page and for the next step to occur;
Interested parties work collegiately with the aim of rewriting the guideline to make it more helpful (and in a less dictatorial tone). It may help to rename the document from "policy" to "guideline" or to separate parts of the document seen as having sufficient community consensus to become a policy, then to propose them as policy.
As a long term contributor to Commons, I recognize Adam Cuerden's work as widely valued, and apologize for the above discussion becoming a negative pile on, rather than the collegiate improvement everyone here hopes for. --Fæ (talk) 11:00, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
I'm confused, since my understanding is that hidden categories are visible by default, even for logged-out users, and that's how it works for me if I log out. You can only hide them by setting a preference (a preference that doesn't need to exist on Commons as far as I can see). I'd also say that such metadata categories should be "hidden" regardless of how notable the person is. --ghouston (talk) 11:02, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Frankly this is a bad tangent. Commons has no accepted definition of who or what is notable or not and therefore "worthy" of a visible category. If people believe this is part of the guideline, then it needs to be rethought, discussed on the guideline talk page and expressed in a more measurable way. --Fæ (talk) 11:08, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Indeed. But let me just point out that the content of the guidelines hasn't changed recently, only some unfortunately worded "clarifications" have been added. --Sebari (talk) 11:41, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Sebari, thanks for the correction. A misreading of the guideline page history gave the impression that most of the text was more recently added. The suggestions for a better consensus still seem a sensible goal. --Fæ (talk) 13:00, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Adam, part of your complaint seems to be that "hidden categories" are not visible to logged-out users. Please can you re-check this as I and several others believe it not to be so. Since they are all visible, the comes down to the prominence within the category listing, font size and perhaps how search handles it. It is therefore possible for anyone to locate your images by your category, though I can't confirm how search would compare. We could all do with some official documentation on community-agreed reasons for using main vs "hidden" categories since much of what I read above seems to be personal speculation stated as fact. I note that the example in the guideline "Category:Photos of London by User:Example" pretty much tells you all you need to know about how broken Commons categories system is. There is no way that "London" (subject location) and "User:Example" (author) should be combined in any healthy category system. So to some extent, an solution agreed here is trying to make the best of a pretty awful legacy architecture that we would do well to move on from. -- Colin (talk) 12:50, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
@Colin: It does show (it didn't in the past, I believe) but I think they may be hidden in other ways. And if they don't, what on earth is the point of having the possibility of hidden categories on Commons?
As for the suggestions - Look, the rules were presumably written in order to allow frivolous User categories, like "Images that User:X likes" or such. And those should legitimately be hidden. However... Adam Cuerden (talk) 15:02, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
I suspect if you are right that they were once hidden but no longer are, then the name is a legacy of that older feature. We could perhaps discuss a rename. But the guideline does explicitly discourage "frivolous user categories" like "User:Example's favourite pictures". We do have other hidden categories that mix users with quality/featured awards which probably are best regarded as of low importance to anyone outside of Commons. A problem is we only seem to have two kinds of categories and one of them is definitely considered the lower one: hence the offence taken when significant (co)author information is reduced to being a second class attribute. Why is "March 2012 in London" (which someone added to one of my pictures) of higher-class status than a category for the author of the work? If the "hidden category" is for internal-commons use tags, then who the author is (or did significant restoration work, for example) does not belong there -- the fact that the author may also be a Commons user rather than an already notable artist shouldn't matter to Commons. We shouldn't be judging whether a creator is worthy of recognition in our category system but instead value all our content creators equally. -- Colin (talk) 15:40, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
The idea seems to be that topical categories are listed separately to prevent them disappearing into the mass of metadata and maintenance categories. Categories like "Category:Photographs taken on 2016-01-18 to me are pure metadata and should be hidden, but when you have Category:March 2012 in London it's mixing dates and location. Ideally I think we'd classify topics, locations, dates, etc., separately and have a user interface that made it easy to intersect them in different ways, but given we currently only have two category types to work with and a lot of intersection categories, it's going to be tricky and inconsistent. --ghouston (talk) 21:18, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Seems overly complicated when we already have 'hidden' available via metadata query and can filter categories by template, parent category and several other qualities. --Fæ (talk) 22:40, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
having a method to set the "relation type" of specific categories is an interesting middle ground between vanilla mediawiki categories and full on SemanticMediaWiki (imo). However it seems like wikidata is the current favourite future solution to this type of problem in the Wikimedia world. Bawolff (talk) 23:47, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
I'd argue that restorations are more than mere uploads, unless the several hours or days (it varies) spent on them don't count. Adam Cuerden (talk) 02:42, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
Restorations are authorship, and authorship should be tracked by standard categories
Fae makes a good comment above, but I think this is actually a more fundamental issue. I'll admit, I was canvassed from Jimbo's page - but only made up my mind after looking at the examples he posted. There is enough work there that the restoration could be wrong; or its style could be different -- hence, it is authorship, even if it incorporates a large degree of previously published material. You can say that Adam Cuerden is a non-notable person, producing work we don't need - if you think so, then you should push to delete the images. But if you believe they are in fact beautiful efforts made to improve the encyclopedia, then you should admit that Cuerden is an author whose works we wish to curate. And it's just basic straightforward encyclopedic order to categorize works according to the author of those works.
I should add that my feeling is that this is the inevitable ugly end of censorship - certain people pushing to crack down on user "porn" galleries, to bully Seedfeeder out of public view etc. You poke one little hole in the balloon and in the end all the air leaks out, even from the far end; you push out a contributor you had no problem with just to stay consistent with policies you never needed to start. Wnt (talk) 01:08, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
I think you're taking for granted that we should "categorize works according to the author of those works", and assuming everyone is fighting over whether Adam is an author - where really, everyone agrees that Adam is very talented and should get credit for his work. The part that's unclear is under what circumstances we should "categorize works according to the author of those works". Many (I would go so far as to say most) works on commons are not categorized according to their author unless their author is independently famous and currently, contributor specific categories are sorted with license categories rather than descriptive categories (Although the two groups of categories are right next to each other on the page, not like its super hidden). Maybe this should change. Maybe every work should be categorized by author. That is what needs to be discussed, not some strawman about if people think Adam does good work, which nobody disputes. Bawolff (talk) 01:42, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
I thought it was even more trivial, whether Adam's category should be topical or non-topical. If you look in Category:Photographs by photographer, there are many entries for Flickr users who are not necessarily notable in the Wikipedia sense, and there's no particular reason not to treat Commons users equally. --ghouston (talk) 03:22, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
@Bawolff: Honestly, I thought that was an inadvertent omission when it happens. I mean, I'm no paragon ... half the time I forget to characterize an upload, get nagged by a bot, and/or stick one category on it to shut it up. So I tend to omit a few possible categories. But when someone does categorize by author, I think of that as being the way it's supposed to be. Wnt (talk) 10:51, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
One more who agrees with Wnt. (And also came after reading Jimbo's talk page!) The examples that Adam cites are sufficient changes that they are as much authorship as taking a photograph of a work of art is - the work of art is likely still recognizable, but you can take a good photo or a bad photo - and I don't see any reason to deny him a category of images that he modified this much. --GRuban (talk) 04:23, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
"User" categories
My understanding about "hidden" categories is that it is displayed in smaller fonts under the sub head "Hidden categories". They are not hidden (now, at least). I've no hard feeling about how they should be; so no comments.
But I'm not a fan of Commons:User-specific galleries, templates and categories policy. It looks to me written to discourage users from too much self promotions. It is OK in that sense; but not OK if adding too much bureaucracy. I remember the failed Commons:User pages and the loss of one admin. Similarly, the "categories" and "templates" sub-heads also look to me written as some "failed attempts" to discourage some promotions.
Coming to "categories", it talks about categories like "Category:Photos by User:Example"; but not about the parent category, "Category:User:Example". It seems we've a practice like creating Wikimedian's categories with the prefix "User:" (hidden) and others without it (not hidden too). And it seems the argument behind this separation is we (some of us) think Wikimedians are not notable (or not deserved to be notable). So my user category is Category:User:Jkadavoor whereas another photographer from Kerala is Category:N. A. Naseer. But we've exceptions too. See Category:Odder, Category:Patricio Lorente. I'm not saying me or Adam is "notable" as those Wikimedians; but it is a difficult to define matter, at least. And IMHO, better no separations as Commons has no "notability criteria". Jee05:29, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
It seems to me that there are three different kinds of categories being discussed:
Categories describing who the subject is (e.g. Category:Odder)
Categories describing someone who had a significant hand in creating the work (Artist, photographer, restorer, etc)
Categories listing all the images a specific user uploaded.
Personally, I think the first two types should be normal categories, and the third should be a "hidden" category, regardless of however notable the subject of the category is (notability criteria seems like a way to have a large number of useless arguments). Bawolff (talk)
Sorry Bawolff, I misread your comment. So you think the "uploaded by" category only need to be hidden which is clearly a maintenance/meta category. That is a nice thought. Jee02:47, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
I'm not sure why some people see the hidden categories in a small font. In my browser they are exactly the same size as the topical categories. In the screen shot above, they seem quite hard to read, which is undesirable. --ghouston (talk) 10:10, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
I'm using Firefox, but I found it: I've set the minimum font size to 12pt in the Firefox preferences. It makes everything readable on my display. --ghouston (talk) 11:37, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
In the link provided by Bawolff above, we can see the suggestion to reduce font size. It is one issue. The major issue is we treat Wikimedians and non-Wikimedians differently. I can understand the spacial consideration to "notable artists" who have wiki pages. But considering simple Flickr users above Wikimedians is not so good. So either both, user categories under wiki users and external photographers should be hidden or visible, uniformly. Jee12:18, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
Commons should not be having these debates on the threat of a user leaving, if such a user wishes to leave they are free to do so, any decisions or discussions should only happen after such threats have been removed and are no longer part of the discussion, also sufficient time should be allowed to pass to ensure no knee-jerk decisions are made Oxyman (talk) 18:44, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
I find any font smaller than 12pt is hard to read on my display. It affects menus in Commons too. I don't know if my setup is common enough for this to be a flaw in the Commons design. However I see no reason for the non-topical categories to be displayed in a smaller font, they are already separated from the topical categories.
I'm not sure if there really is a difference in how Wikimedians and Flickr users are treated. You'll also find Commons users under Photographs by photographer. I'm not sure even if the user categories guideline is relevant, since it only applies to user categories like "Category:Photos by User:Example", not metadata categories like "Category:Photos by Example", and since there's no notability requirement for Commons categories there's no problem with creating the latter as long as there's something in-scope for it to contain.
There are difficulties with categories for non-notable people. Everybody in the World can potentially create a user page, upload a selfie, and add the selfie to a self-named category. There are already many thousands of uploaders to Commons who could do that, and if it started to become popular it may be hard to find the notable people from all the non-notables with the same name. Or people just using the same name of somebody famous online, since we have no way to verify that the names of non-notable poeple are real, or any requirement to do so. At very least we have a disambiguation problem. --ghouston (talk) 21:41, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
I think we're all missing the point, and making a much bigger deal of this than it needs to be. There's no reason photographs/uploads/restorations by editors can't be tracked through standard categories. The difference is quite clear to a visitor: they come across a photo of foobars uploaded by Harry Mitchell; if they want to find more photos of foobars, they'll click through to Category:Foobars, not Cateogry:Uploads by Harry Mitchell. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:36, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
I think it has already proved to be quite useful, with alternative proposals developed that respect users' concerns. Certainly, some people have simply "voted" instead of commenting, even though it's a request for comment not a mandatory referendum, but a lot of people have added helpful suggestions. - Themightyquill (talk) 12:11, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Users are welcome to create user-specific categories. These fall into two types, which have different rules:
User as creator of the content
The user has created the content, whether as photographer, restorationist, artist, diagram creator, 3D modeller, or any other type of work.
These should generally be of the format "Category:Photos by User:Example" (or "Category:Photos by Example", if the user uses their real name). These should be categorised as per normal categories of this type, e.g. Category:Photographs by photographer, but also into Category:Images by Wikipedians or a subcategory thereof.
User is NOT the creator of the content
Other user categories, e.g. "Category:Uploads by User:Example" must be categorised only under the category User categories, and must be a hidden category. This should be done with only one supercategory by adding {{User category|username}} to the category page, which automatically hides the category. Subcategories may be placed in the user's supercategory using {{User category|cat=subcategory}}. Note that, even if the user has created some work, work they have not created must only appear in hidden categories, and these should not be part of the main category tree.
Categories shouldn't be created to collect files based on the opinion of any user (e.g. "User:Example's favourite pictures"). Annotation like this should only be done through gallery pages as described above.
All files must be accessible via regular categories and/or (main namespace) galleries, even if a creator category is used. User-specific categories and galleries, like license categories, do not "count" towards accessibility.
One thought: It may be that we should simply forbid user categories where the User is not the creator of the content. Can anyone give examples of categories that aren't related to content creation that we should encourage?
I just wanted to comment, separately, that the 'real' long term solution to all such issues is the eventual (hopefully) modification of MediaWiki to allow us to track file metadata (such as the authorship of a restoration, in this particular case) by a means other than a category system which I think most people realize is really bad for our purposes. That being said... the proposed licensing template is not acceptable, as it prominently states a 'license restriction' that is blatantly Commons-specific, and has nothing to do with the actual copyright status of the image itself. "I want this deleted as a copyvio because some random person removed category X" is a complete nonstarter, and that's the net effect of such a license. Categories, as they now exists, serve exactly one purpose.... to help users find the content they are looking for. The 'hidden' vs 'non-hidden' distinction, as it currently exists, is fairly meaningless... they are visible to essentially everyone. They only serve to (ambiguously) separate 'content' categories from 'meta' categories, and not in a particularly clear way. I don't think that the suggested category (Restorations by Adam Cuerden) is particularly useful, but that's more because categories, to be blunt, suck. Custom 'license' templates for images', that not only include the license but information about the creator, are a long-standing and well-accepted solution... they do not, however, include such 'license restrictions'. I can't imagine that a 'meaningful' parent category (um, Category:Images restored by Wikimedia Commons editors) that would serve any particularly useful purpose. A gallery of Adam's restorations, linked in the 'non-license' part of a custom 'license template' for his works, would not only serve the same purpose, but also be both 'more visible', and allow them to be displayed in at more meaningful way. @Bawolff: Indeed, wikidata. @Wnt: Most of the Flickr photographer categories should probably be 'meta' categories anyhow, as a person who cares would honestly be looking the the Flickr feed anyhow. They are basically just for maintenance.
@Adam Cuerden: I realize I'm late coming in here, and that your attitude seems to have changed somewhat, but.... if your approach is "this must be my way, or I quit" then the response of the community is going to eventually be "sorry to see you go." I'm not, at all, denigrating the value of your contributions, but wikis work by consensus. You, just like anyone else, deserve recognition for your contributions. If you are contributing for the sake of such recognition, you are destined for disappointment. I'm not saying that your suggested category is 'wrong'... though it's rather a hack for a crappy system (I think a gallery would be better). I'm saying, if it's 'your way or nothing', then you are probably better off avoiding the drama. You don't deserve the 'negative pile on' that Fae mentioned, but this was very much the wrong approach to take. I don't, personally, think letting you (or any other contributor) have a 'restorations by' category is inherently bad, but your approach here has been terribly confrontational. Revent (talk) 11:09, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
January 18
Animal head tilting vs Animals head tilting
Latest comment: 8 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion
My understanding of common practice is that categories ought to be singular rather than plural. In in terms of grammar "Animal head tilting" is the better choice if we recognize that we are being a little bit cryptic by missing punctuation out—it can be read as "Animal, head tilting" or "Animal head, tilting" which have different implications for the content of photographs, but probably not so confusing that we need to change it. --Fæ (talk) 11:30, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Or, really, "Animal head-tilting", where head-tilting would be the noun, and not the sort of noun that commonly gets pluralized (it's a bit too abstract for that, just like we don't say peaces). Anyway, "Animals head tilting" is simply not English. You could have "Animals with tilted heads" or the two possibilities with commas Fæ points out. Categories actually are commonly plural, so if you were going with Fæ's it would be "Animals, head tilting" (but that's a bit awkward) or "Animal heads, tilting". All the ones I've bolded are reasonable. I'd personally go with "Animal head-tilting". - Jmabel ! talk19:04, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Admittedly, the singular/plural choice is complex, and I was focused on this case. The guidelines at CAT says "generally have names in plural form". The best rule of thumb is probably to look around similar categories if you are unsure, for example we should not force commonly used singular descriptions in English into their plural forms just for the sake of it; e.g. Category:Boeing 777 is better than "Category:Boeing 777s" even though the category includes many aircraft rather than one.
By the way, my personal rule of thumb is to avoid debating category names. I see many categories on my watchlist being moved about each week, and I'm just glad to see someone contributing towards making uploads easier to find rather than worrying about whether the language is optimal. --Fæ (talk) 15:09, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks to both for the input. I usually follow Fæ’s approach above, but in this case, since one of them has to go, wanted to be sure we’re retaining the best (or the least bad). Since Category:Animal head tilting can at least be seen as a string of nouns (two adjective nouns modifying a main noun, even though it’s a gerund) while Category:Animals head tilting cannot be shoehorned in the same way (plurals not good for an adjective noun…), I’ll collapse the latter into the former. -- Tuválkin✉✇20:44, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion
rsvg or whatever Commons used it seems can't cope with unusual font substitutions, I've already had to substitute Arimo for the propriatery Furtiger. Can I please have a list of KNOWN fonts installed for Commons, so that I can ensure the SVG's are going to render correctly? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 15:57, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion
As part of an effort at English Wikisource, the diagrams and figures in these PDF's would need to be extracted.
However a problem arises, in that the PDF uses a proprietary font called "Furtiger", which cannot be used on Commons, which means that the SVG render engine makes a substitution which doesn't work, leading to inappropriately clipped images and so forth.
Out of the Known fonts installed ( the list someone provided earlier) appears to be out of date, which one would meet the following criteria :-
Must be a commons compatible font.
Must be a font that can be embeded or converted to paths.
Must be a metric equivalent for Furtiger as far as possible.
Sugggestions? -- ShakespeareFan00 17:05, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Sure it's not "Frutiger"? Anyway, font embedding would not be permissible (and doesn't do anything with SVG files uploaded to Commons anyway, as far as I'm aware), but text pre-converted to paths inside the SVG file is generally considered allowable... AnonMoos (talk) 18:32, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Some quasi-paranoiac interpretations of copyright law would disallow uploading an SVG containing "text to paths" conversions of text in a copyrighted font, but whether right or wrong, such interpretations have generally been ignored on Wikimedia Commons so far. Under United States copyright law, abstract shapes of characters in a text font are considered "functional" or "utilitarian" and are not copyrightable -- only the computer code contained in a computer font is copyrightable (as code). AnonMoos (talk) 01:53, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
Sites with a wikimedia.org address were by mistake redirected to the Wikimedia Foundation wiki on 26 January. This included Meta and Wikimedia Commons. The mistake was fixed after an hour. [1]
Some users had problems logging in and out around 22 January. Bots also had problems and edit previews did not work properly. This was because of problems related to the new component SessionManager. It was undone on 23 January. [2][3]
Because of new problems with SessionManager the latest version of MediaWiki was removed from the Wikimedia wikis again on 31 January. The new version this week will be without SessionManager. [4]
Changes this week
The page history will get a help link. This will go to Help:Page history on Meta. Wikis can exchange it for a link to their local pages. [5]
Notifications will only show part of a page name if it is very long. You will also have another way to mark notifications as read. [6][7]
The Universal Language Selector input methods are now available with the visual editor. This means many who write in non-Latin scripts can now use the visual editor. [8]
The visual editor will now give you more tools to edit tables. You can move rows and columns in a table and copy parts of tables to make new ones. You can also copy and paste more than one cell at the same time. [9][10][11]
The visual editor has a new warning message when you leave a page you are editing without saving. Non-English wikis might need to translate it. [12][13]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 February. It will be on all wikis from 4 February (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 2 February at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
The rest.wikimedia.org domain will be shut down. This is planned to happen in March. You should use /api/rest_v1/ at each individual project domain instead. [14]
I had no CSS styling on edit pages (only on Commons with Monobook) for a little over hour today, and (although that's not exactly unusual), there are multiple reports of the Upload Wizard being broken (Commons:Upload help#Upload wizard not loading) starting around the same time. Is there any correlation? Rotten bits, cosmic rays, or someone's dog at the keyboard? —LX (talk, contribs)21:24, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Above it is said that «You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important.» Good! I have this one bug report, about something that has been damaging all projects imensely and risks further damage down the road, which however has thankfully a really easy and fast solution: That bug is VisualEditor itself — it just needs to be discontinued immediately: unplugged, puff, like it never existed. -- Tuválkin✉✇00:24, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
February 02
Caption Challenge
Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Over the past several years, many videos have been produced to train new contributors. This series will feature VisualEditor and the new citation tool called Citoid. Additionally, the series will include an introduction to the Wikimedia Commons repository of freely-licensed media.
The video series and associated materials will help students and instructors who participate in the Wikipedia Education Program. The series is also designed to assist the professional staff and volunteers of galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs) with understanding how their content gains exposure on Wikimedia sites, and how to document or upload their content for direct viewing on Wikipedia and its sister projects.
The video content will be available in segments that can be viewed, translated, or updated individually.
There are currently volunteer translators for Arabic, Armenian, Czech, German, Greek, Odia, and Spanish. Additional volunteers with high proficiency translation skills are welcome to sign up on the talk page.
We are currently seeking feedback on the outline for the scripts, as well as suggestions for an attractive name for the series. Please leave any comments on this talk page!
This series is funded by an individual engagement grant from the Wikimedia Foundation. A big thanks to the community, the IEG Committee, and WMF for their support.
User:Pine, why the <font size=3> thingy?, why the formulaic intro «We are excited that»? Do you think your message is somehow more important than anything else on VP and therefore needs a bigger text body size? And who is "we"?, since you signed individually? Are you trying to worsen even more the impression that some of us already have about the WMF and other percieved powers that loom above the common user? -- Tuválkin✉✇23:10, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
Also, why so much spamming in favor of VE and Citoid? (Which, thankfully, are not mentioned nor shown in the linked movie) If these tools are so great and “intuitive” why is it necessary to promote them like this? -- Tuválkin✉✇23:13, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
First, I'm not a WMF employee. Second, I am disappointed in your assumptions of bad faith. When you are less angry, please ping me again and I will talk with you. --Pine✉23:18, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the contentless reply, confirming the worst impressions I already had. You still have to explain (not just to me, but to us all) why did you chose to plug this here with a bigger font and why did you use snakeoil salesman language quirks. That’s unrelated to my putative anger and bad will. (Also, comment reply threading — you should try it.) -- Tuválkin✉✇00:23, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
@Tuvalkin: , very little of the existing or proposed video content is targeted at existing users on Wikimedia projects. This is outreach stuff. This is a project from Cascadia Wikimedians. Yes, we got a grant from WMF. That doesn't make this particularly a WMF project, except insofar as all of the Wikimedia stuff is a WMF project. - Jmabel ! talk00:05, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
@Jmabel: (When you’re not the WMF and you manage to post something on VP sounding like the WMF, well, that’s not so good, now, is it?) Assuming that your explanation about this being an outreach initiative (and ditto about threading) why is that an explanation about the focus to VE and Citoid given in the OP? (Besides, the OP is not outreach in itself, as posted here and presumably in other such venues: VP watchers are mostly power users, not at all the target of any outreach campaign.) -- Tuválkin✉✇00:23, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
@Tuvalkin: Right, but plenty of people here participate in the Wikipedia Education Program, do outreach to GLAMs, and are involved in doing translation work. - Jmabel ! talk03:41, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Fair enough. I get why the video was posted here and it’s indeed the best place to attract translators and in general let others know about it. Why mention VE and Citoid in the blurn about a video that doesn’t mention VE and Citoid is what I could not fathom. (And still acnnot think of any good reason for that, although I can think of a few bad ones.) -- Tuválkin✉✇05:23, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
Meh, so much hate and anger. I'm glad that this is fianally on it's way. Good for you guys, I hope it will be a good and useful project you're working on. ow for the rest of you, calm down, back away and stop being such hate-spewing mouths that all you do is complain. Everything that can help new users etc. is good, and this is definetly good. Josve05a (talk) 16:15, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Looks like you don’t know what hate is (tip: questioning one’s typography options and doubting that VE is a good thing for WMF projects is not hate), but then again you also don’t know what "all you do is complain" is (tip: some of us here indeed only show up where there’s conflict and turmoil, but I’m not one of them — Special:Contributions is a handy way to see who does mostly what). -- Tuválkin✉✇05:23, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
@Pine: First, as said above, VE is still crap, although its getting better so pushing that to new users who can edit plain old text just as easy with the click of a button. Everyone knows how to use Microsoft Word, they can figure out this too. It's really not that hard. I think the idea of the video promotions is sound, but unless the WMF and the communities start doing something about the abusiveness and hostile workplace environment on the English Wikipedia by some of the admins and the Arbcom that's driving off editors, it won't matter. Not everyone goes to the English Wikipedia I grant you, but that wiki is central to all the others whether we like it or not. It draws more people, has more edits and gets more hits than pretty much everything else combined.
Recruiting and retention go hand in hand. If you recruit someone to a shitty environment not only will they leave, they tell all their friends and family about how horrible the experience was. So, tricking people into editing a toxic environment with flashy videos might get a few people to do a couple edits, but before long they are going to see first hand what the atmosphere is like and they'll be gone. So my advice is to fix the toxicity that no one wants to do anything about as you are recruiting, if not before you recruit new editors, otherwise your just wasting time. Reguyla (talk) 18:53, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Reguyla I share your concern about inviting new users into a potentially hostile environment. I think that PEarley (WMF) is working on that issue. I'll ask him to comment here about the ongoing efforts to understand and improve the situation regarding civility. Also, when designing the video series, I am including information about how new users can handle conflicts with other users. --Pine✉23:36, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
That would be great, I would love to hear what they are doing. I can help you to understand the problem somewhat simply. The tone of the project is set by its leaders; in this case, the admins and functionaries. So when those admins and functionaries treat others like trash, tell them to fuck off, lie, manipulate policy, violate policy completely, etc., that sets the tone for the entire project. I'm not going to pretend to be unbiased. My situation has left a very bitter taste in my mouth and I have seen first hand just how badly the culture and editing environment has degraded and that has, accordingly, jaded my view somewhat.
Currently there is zero oversight over the admins and functionaries of ENWP. The entire system is designed to favor the admins (one example is the so called Super Mario Effect) and at the core of the problem on ENWP is the Arbcom. Everyone knows that its impossible to desysop an admin outside the Arbcom process (although the rules say the community could ban one, effectively requiring them to be desysopped, but its never happened) and they are basically incompetent at the task so "tell it to Arbcom" has turned into a joke.
If you want to effect change, create an oversight mechanism that holds admins accountable when they screw up, it won't take but a couple times and the the rest will fall in line. I admit some will leave and so will some editors. That's inevitable with change, but the majority of the ones we want to keep, the ones that believe in the project, will stay. Then you will see less admins headhunting and creating problems to make names for themselves, there will be less lying, less manipulating of policy and less assholery in general.
It will take some time, but eventually editors will come back, new ones will join and stay and the projects as a whole will be far better off than they are today. As it is, the community doesn't trust the WMF or the admins, the admins don't trust the community or the WMF, the WMF doesn't trust or seem to care about either the community nor the admins. So at some point, this dynamic needs to be changed, the WMF needs to step up and take charge, the problematic admins need to be dealt with and the rest need to start acting like the leaders of the project they are. A top down approach is the only way its going to be fixed and frankly that may include eliminating or replacing the Arbcom with an effective and unbiased group made up of both editors and WMF employees (probably). Reguyla (talk) 00:30, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
There has been some talk historically of a global "arbcom" type body. There's a lot of difficulties there, not least having enough members with diverse language skills to deal with situations coming from our smaller communities. We'll be running a more focused consult on Meta in a few weeks, moving from the "brainstorming" phase to the "actual improvements" phase. It would be good to see some discussion on governance, and what can be improved. PEarley (WMF) (talk) 00:25, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
I think that will be very interesting to see and it probably doesn't come as much of a suprise that I would love to have some input into that process if I am not blocked on meta before hand to prevent it. My biggest concern and something I think would be a major improvement, would be for a well defined chain of command so to speak that goes all the way from the reader/editor all the way up to god (for the purpose of this, god would be the board via the ombudsman). I doubt that this new body would replace the English Wikipedia Arbcom or several others, but it would be beneficial to have an unbiased review/appellate process. For example, IMO, the ENWP Arbcom if it still exists would be the highest authority on ENWP, then it would fall to the Global committee and finally the ombudsman should be allowed to present the case to the Board itself. That, IMO, should be the final step and if it made it that high, which most probably wouldn't, then WMF legal should review the case as well. This should be especially true of things like global bans. I also think that whenever a decision is made by an individual wiki Arbcom based on secret evidence, that the WMF legal folks should at least be given a courtesy copy of the evidence and the result. They wouldn't have to act on it, but they should be aware of people being railroaded on projects. Its becoming commonplace for the ENWP arbcom to function in secret offline and I think it would be very enlightening to the WMF folks to see just how underhanded and manipulated things are in the projects if they aren't already aware, (I have it on good authority that there are regular discussions about silly things that happen on wiki). IMO a complete overhaul of the current judicial system for lack of a better term needs to be done, starting from the highest level (some of those changes are already occurring) and I would also suggest that this new global Arbcom body not be an optional entity. Reguyla (talk) 01:28, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
All that said this is a good video, and “pitches the sale” (and sorry for my own instance of snakeoil salesman speech) in what I think is more or less the right way. Not perfect, but still like a thousand times better than anything I could come up with. -- Tuválkin✉✇05:23, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
January 27
Are there tools to help people find places on other Wikimedia projects for content in a category on Wikimedia Commons
Latest comment: 8 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Hi
I'm looking for a tool to help people find places on other Wikimedia projects for content in a category on Wikimedia Commons. My specific example is that UNESCO have uploaded 750 images of World Heritage Sites to Commons and I would like to provide an easy way for contributors to see where the images could be used e.g which World Heritage Site Wikipedia articles in a specific language don't have an image but have a category on Commons related to it.
There isn't much that I know about. We have millions of uncategorized, poorly categorized, and undescribed pictures. Many very good pictures are uploaded by automation and come only with a somewhat descriptive filename or a source category, if that much. Seekers of good pictures on a topic seldom find them. As it happens, the pictures in question are in Category:Media files produced by UNESCO needing additional categorisation, and also have a somewhat descriptive filename. This is better than most.
One of my routines is to step through a source cat that is rich in images on a subject on which I have some knowledge but which lack a subject cat. I examine each picture to determine the subjects, categorize it, and do a search in en for articles on those subjects. I insert the picture if I find such a home for it, and add the commonscat template where appropriate. It's a slow process and I don't expect the automated uploaders to attempt it. I do expect them to make a properly categorized source cat, as in the case of these UNESCO photos. Without that, the picture will remain among the millions of lost pictures, or at least remain lost to me and other curators using similar methods. Jim.henderson (talk) 14:22, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Search might help in some cases to get a tighter, country specific subset. e.g. [15] (cirrus search has a lot of fancy options in the meantime). But be careful, not everything is true even from competent external organizations. E.g. File:Historic Centre of Vienna-114402.jpg was put to non-existing Category:Historic Centre of Vienna (also opposed to the existing Category:Historic centre of Vienna), although the real thing is far away from the historic center (1 error on a sample of 3 images). IMHO proper categorization of such images is the best you can do to improve usage over multiple Wikimedia sites. --Herzi Pinki (talk) 13:27, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Harassment Survey showing our sad reality (sysops misusing their tools)
Latest comment: 8 years ago15 comments10 people in discussion
Recently I pass through this reality, sysops misusing their tools, and the most sad, again. The feeling that I'm having here at Wikimedia Commons is like to be under a left dictatorship, were I can't questioned comrades/former comrades/comrade partners, every time that I criticize one posture that sounds fishy or it's a clear conflict of interest, I'm summary blocked, and with no reasonable justification. Like the last time, that the sysop reverted 2 times one edition trying to remove my opinion about another sysop [16], and than he blocked me, not asking to another sysop to see the issue, not talking about it. Same sysop removed a {{Copyvio}} flag of one photo, and opened one deletion request saying that should be kept, and immediately closed [17], imposing his opinion using his administrative tools, not opening any discussion, even WP having a different view, and using the logo by fair use, at the time, so the reasonable posture should be a discussion, not the imposition of his opinion.
And most horrible thing it is not one sysop doing that, it's the others empowering his actions, as [18], [19]. Our when I was blocked by another sysop, just because I wrote that one volunteer was the boyfriend of a sysop, but the reality was that they are actually engaged, and as a punishment, not only I was blocked, but also a third sysop removed my reviewer flag during my block saying that I'm not trustful, not opening any discussion, and as I was blocked, not capable to talk about it.
The administrative tools was created to protect the community, and now the use is to stablish a power of a caste over others, used as a punishment to questioned Your Highness. We need to change in some how the way that are free to use block and protections, at least a opened discussion. Or after one abuse, at least a channel where we can talk without the fear of been blocked again, and some one take some action to inhibit this actions.
The second case exposed here happened in 2014, I'm without the Reviewer flag since then, nothing was made, even being a former OTRS volunteer, and one of the few active Brazilian volunteer that have a wide knowledge about copyright in the country, and always used the tools responsibly. How this is beneficial to the community?
I'm almost sure that I will be censored and have a high possibility of block; but I need to try to start a discussion, this events are absurd, I know that not happen only with me, and can be away more violent with another volunteers, we should take action. Administrative tools should be to protect, not punishment, not to personal uses.
As for the survey: One should note that Unjustified use of admin tools (34%) is of category other harassment (57%), which in turn gives 19%. 19% of experienced harassment is Unjustified use of admin tools. Since Wikipedia and sisters are often conferred to as undemocratic, I had expected a higher percentage in this section. -- Rillke(q?)12:19, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Hi, Frankly, I wouldn't count Unjustified use of admin tools as "Harassment". I know some people like to have a free wheel, and be able troll anyone they don't like, and that IS a much bigger concern to me. Regards, Yann (talk) 12:29, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
The quality of the survey is horrible and honestly, admins "harras" me is often a misused argument when someone disagrees with a block or is unable to deal with fair critisisme. This little essay would have been a lot more usefull if it includes examepls of actual harrasment and not blocks you just disagree wit. (The person being blocked almost always disagrees). Natuur12 (talk) 12:35, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
I have been saying this for a couple years now. Its no surprise that it finally got verified now that someone bothered to ask the question. I would b interested to know of the ones that felt this way how many were admins saying it. I will say that its far better here than on the English Wikipedia where admins are basically given the ability of doing whatever they want to whomever they want as long as its not another admin. So at least commons is a little better from that aspect of things.Reguyla (talk) 12:39, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Unjustified use of admin tools is indeed a threat and stopping block for good people to continue in a community without fear. The atmosphere was terrible when I joined here. Admins and maintenance volunteers ruled everywhere, considering media contributors as grade II citizens. "Fuck the content creators, who cares" was their attitude. I had thought several times, why should I waste my time here. I decided to stay, and protest as bold as I can. I found similar minded people here. Slowly we found some grips; we were able to stop the bulliest people, somehow. They withdrawn to their caves, at least. I have to say the current situation is much promising than what I experienced a few years ago. We need to remember, "The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing." Unfortunately many of our best content creators are very silent on our day to day affairs which give the junks to rule this project. IRC gives them an "underground world" to group together to plan and execute their secret agendas too.
RTA, I don't think your examples are the best; but we have a long road ahead. I wish if our volunteers (including me) are willing to accept these types of self-criticism and review our actions than concentrating only on some anti-wmf agendas. (Off-course, they also need to be more democratic and transparent; but it is a different topic.) Jee13:12, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Jee when we start to think "it's not good, but okay, it was worst in the past", and "Wikipedia is worst" (as others raised), things don't improve.
I was here also (and before), and okay, had some improves, but we are far from our goal, and far from being a heath environment. This examples are not different from the postures of Wikipedia, or from the past, they are here, and as you can see, some people see this as normal, and sysop see himself as a hero who will save the community from trolls, trolls, in his vision, are people with free wheel, and incorrect use of admin tools to impose a fear, is not harassment, and is not worst then write opinions.
This is not normal, one community that have free in their principles don't see this as bad. This monstrously bad, people approved to have the power of block editions attacking free wheel is not acceptable, and no one looking at this and manifesting against it is worst.
Ah, User:Jkadavoor, that must have been before my time. These days I feel it’s distinctively the other way around, with content curators considered as grade II citizens. Which is a bad thing not only on ethical grounds (as any such caste system is) but also on strategical grounds: Commons could survive without its own home-bread content creators (dealing only with free media posted elsewhere and PD material), but without curation Commons would be just a clone of Flickr or Imgur. -- Tuválkin✉✇16:26, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
It still is that way Tuvalkin. Non admin editors and content builders are considered second class citizens on the WMF wiki's and anyone who doesn't think that is probably an admin. Reguyla (talk) 17:19, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Tuválkin, there are indeed some good content curators like categorisors (eg: Roland zh), coders, etc. They usually work behind the screen, unnoticed. They rarely show their nose in (drama) boards. The only moments I find them are when they "touched" my file pages. I enjoy their works and never forget to show my gratitude using the "thank" feature. They too vital part of this community. My (rather humorous) comment was not about them. :) Jee02:41, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
All you really have to read is page 2, which tells you it's a self-selected sample applying their own definitions of everything, including what is and isn't justified use of admin tools. "Other methods would need to be explored in order to validate the information" is putting it mildly. I'm sorry, but this was an utter waste of resources and 4.82 MB of storage. —LX (talk, contribs)20:39, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
I too agree that the tool and methodologies in creating the survey were flawed. We must also take into account that happy people are less likely to waste time on surveys whereas people who are upset or feel they have been wronged in some way like myself are substantially more likely to make the voice heard and take the survey. So I would support a new survey, using clearer and more focused questions based on the results of this one to clarify the results. For example, clear and specific questions about the feelings of harassment and if people feel admins are misusing their tools. This survey had a lot of fill in the blank comments, which are good and should be retained, but its much harder to define and quantify those. So it needs to be made clear what came from the check box and what was mined out of comments. I think this survey touched on a lot of good weak points though, now we just need to address the problems and do it again. Perhaps annually or semi annually adjusting the result each time. I would not support this type of survey being done more than once every 6 months until we get the results refined a little and then annually. People who are interested in the topic will take a few minutes a couple times a year to do the survey. Especially if its at scheduled recurring times. Reguyla (talk) 21:38, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
you can measure it all you want: if admins won't change their behavior; the community won't change the "cultural buzzsaw" it does not matter. rather than jimbo whining about "wikistudy ethics", maybe an implementation plan by admins might restore some confidence in them. Slowking4♡Richard Arthur Norton's revenge22:28, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
NSFW Main page images
Latest comment: 8 years ago31 comments15 people in discussion
I appreciate the female form as much as anyone but we need to be mindful that not NSFW applies to the main page. When I just logged into commons I was startled and had to quickly change my screen. A lot of kids look at our site as well and although I am very far from being a prude, I also think there should be some discussion before these types of images are displayed. Do I need to set my default as my watchlist instead of the main page from now on? Reguyla (talk) 15:58, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
It took nearly 16 hours until someone complained. That is much longer than I expected. (The image is a perfectly fine example of low-key and nude photography. No children will be harmed by it.) --Sebari (talk) 16:03, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Well then in that case I will just remove the main page from my default and default instead to my watchlist so when I log in at work I am not confronted by a naked women, vagina or some other NSFW image. Reguyla (talk) 17:18, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Would seeing that image in a movie "bumb" up the age rating for that movie? I guess it would. To me that is a sign that perhaps it should not be on the landing page here. /Hangsna (talk) 19:06, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
I have been on and off here since 2007, and for many years I had the opinion that NSFW, as well as shocking images were perfectly OK for POTD, because they were in scope and because otherwise it could be considered as censorship. I have also previously defended a NSFW POTD, which received complaints. In recent years I have changed my mind as I think it is a misunderstanding that it has anything to do with censorship to not select a particular FP as POTD. Rather it is a principle of 'editorial judgement' to consider if NSFW images shall be on the front page, and other kinds of images as well, that might be problematic for certain kind of users. Like, I recall a lovely macro of a spider being POTD at some point, and it triggered a strong reaction from a person who had arachnophobia. Maybe it was not good editorial judgement to have that as POTD as quite many people get strong emotional reactions from seeing a photo of a spider? I also opened the main page of commons at work today and I also skipped quickly away from the page, because the nude photo would be in a gray zone at my work place for permitted content, but also because in an open office environment it would just be very awkward to casually browse over a nude photo. Of course, I know there is a risk of that at work, and I could just wait until I was at home. Problem solved. But that would also mean that I would have a barrier at work for re-using just other kinds of media files for work. And nomatter what POTD you have, you can often find someone, who with some cultural background, values, prior experience, trauma, handicap, whatevercould dislike any POTD. And 'slippery slope' arguments will also follow og where the boundaries of 'editorial judgement' or 'low astonishment' should be. On the other hand I find it is very important that it is easy to find such an FP of a low-key nude photo if you actively search for it, because then you will not be astonished as a user, as this is what you were looking for. For this particular image, I would be inclined to say it would have been slightly better editorial judgement not to have it as POTD. -- Slaunger (talk) 19:47, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Would seeing that image in a movie "bumb" up the age rating for that movie? - That very much depends on where you live. In Germany surely not. Jerry Maguire for example has the rating FSK 6, meaning children from 6 upwards are allow to see some nudity. --Magnus (talk) 19:56, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Christian Ferrer: Sometimes you have a lunch break at work...or at your work it could actually be relevant to use media files from Commons for a work-related presentation. And here the natural entry point is for many the Main Page. Just saying... -- Slaunger (talk) 20:35, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
In fairness I am usually working at the same time. I frequently have to run scans on servers and whatnot that stop when they hit an error or compiling code. Its hard to be actively doing other things that require deep thought or take me away from the monitor while its running. I can glance here, then do what I need to do with the error on the other screen and continue on. Sometimes also at lunch.Reguyla (talk) 21:15, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Well, with my job I've not this kind of issue, that maybe explain my lack of imagination regarding this topic. The fact that I already saw some of my colleague surfing on the Web instead of working while me I must work don't help too. No problem. Christian Ferrer(talk)21:30, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
I hardly ever pay attention to POTD. I'm aware that nude women have featured before. Just to assess how heteronormative the majority vote/decision-making process for POTD is likely to be, can anyone work out exactly how many photos of nude sexually attractive women have made it to POTD, or at least, women showing their breasts or backsides, compared to how many photos of nude sexually attractive men have featured? I can guess the answer but numbers would be great. --Fæ (talk) 22:45, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Fae you've raised bias at FPC before and all it demonstrated was your profound ignorance of statistics and the laws of cause and effect. This sort of nonsense demonstrates the kind of 2 2=5 thinking one might associate with the Dail Mail. Tell me, when you set your upload bots off, do you scan every image to ensure an equal distribution of male and female, white and black, young and old, or do you just accept you are completely at the mercy of the distribution to be found out there in the real world. You should apologise to those who select our POTD now for accusing them of bias. -- Colin (talk) 23:15, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
I have made no accusations. Please supply the numbers if you want to assess or discuss the facts rather than just appearing intent on making me look evil at every possible opportunity. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 23:35, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Making you look evil, Fæ? Gosh, I thought all along Colin’s goal was to make himself look evil — and lo, it’s working, too! -- Tuválkin✉✇23:50, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Fæ, of course you make accusations. From your position of admitted ignorance "I hardly ever pay attention to POTD" and vague assertion "I'm aware that nude women have featured before" you charge "the majority vote/decision-making process for POTD" with being "heteronormative", which Wikipedia tells me "is often linked to heterosexism and homophobia". So lets just put 2 2 together and say this is yet another homophobia accusation against the FPC team. Facts then. Of the 8,245 featured pictures on Commons, there are merely 349 pictures classified as "People", about 100 "Historical" pictures of people and about 100 "Sports" pictures of people. So about 550 featured images of people making up about 6.6% of the possible Featured pictures that could appear on the main page. Or put another way, there are 15 times as many featured images of non-people as there are of people. Which itself is an interesting fact, given that one might assume the vast majority of images taken in the world (professionally or otherwise) are of people. Of these 550 people images, we have four nudes. One is a photo of a Himba woman from Namibia and isn't a sexual image. It appeared on the main page on 27 Jan 2008. Another is Michele Merkin and is a glamour photo with partial nudity. It appeared on the main page 5th October 2009. Another is a recumbent female nude which hasn't appeared on the main page yet. The fourth is the image that appeared the other day. So unless I missed any, we've had precisely one previous photo of a partially nude sexually attractive woman. And given that Commons does not commission photographs, but seems to hoover up whatever it finds on the internet or accept whatever amateur photographers choose to photograph as a hobby, pray tell how this data could possibly be used to "assess how heteronormative the majority vote/decision-making process for POTD is". It can't. But that doesn't stop you waving homophobia accusations around and challenging people to defend themselves against them. Shame on you Fae, you are a disgrace to Commons and to the LGBT community you claim to stand up for. -- Colin (talk) 08:51, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
I have made no accusations or allegations, I asked for statistics. Anyone can read from the above that the only person making allegations of homophobia and ad-hominim attacks here is Colin.
From the numbers in Colin's summary, the answer to my original question appears to be that there are 3 attractive nude photographs of women that can be taken for POTD, and no equivalent photographs of men. I propose a moratorium on any further nude photographs of women as POTD until there is at least a history of POTDs achieving at least one nude photograph of a man for every 2 nude photographs on the main page of nude women. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 09:09, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Without wishing to comment on whether the Himba woman is "attractive", the criterion that is relevant is "sexually attractive" and that is not a sexualised photo. So we have just one partial nude and one upper-body nude and zero genitalia that have ever appeared on the main page. Your suggestion that POTD should start enforcing a quota system to ensure equality of sexualised main-page imagery is really very funny while also very sad. There are all sorts of injustices and inequalities one could spend one's time worrying about, doing something about, and accusing people of, but this is not one of them. The community should have topic banned you as a favour -- to stop writing such foolish nonsense. The folk that do the POTD do not deserve to be accused of "heteronormative" actions or any similar and you should appologise. -- Colin (talk) 12:30, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Your personal attacks are cyber bullying, I made no accusations here. Your campaign against me is long term harassment. --Fæ (talk) 12:49, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Fae you are so transparent. Whenever you up to something nefarious, you accuse others of exactly that. It's kind of a Freudian slip with you. Look at what this topic section is about: Reguyla taking issue with unexpected NSFW content on the main page. But you turn up, admitting the POTD content isn't of interest to you ("I hardly ever pay attention to POTD") while at the same time accusing those organising POTD of "heteronormative" bias. So you go spinning off-topic with yet another ill-thought-out charge of homophobia on Commons. The harassment is by you against those at FPC. You didn't need to make your comments. You didn't need to attack the POTD organisers. Stick to File: space, Fae, it's the only area where you make a positive contribution to the project. -- Colin (talk) 13:12, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
I agree, Its ugly, please remove that.. no one wants to come to a site and see some Old guy playing a Sitar ...its disgusting, please remove it ASAP....--Stemoc00:00, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
No comments; as I too never visit the home page unless my login expired or my watchlist highlighted the talk page. Not an important page for me. Jee02:45, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Colin's tangent
I would like to clarify that I have made no accusations against any contributor. Colin repeatedly introduced the topic of LGBT and homophobia; then turned a question about statistical balance into long rants about homophobia, anyone can read the text above to verify this fact. Colin has gone on to deride and humiliate me just for being interested in the "LGBT community".
This is not a safe space with Colin free to turn any discussion on to a hostile debate about Wikimedia LGBT. This level of hostility and personal attack is planned and deliberate, it cannot be excused as some sort of weird misunderstanding. --Fæ (talk) 16:50, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
Consent to nude modeling and model release document
For this image of a nude woman, the uploader provided model consent documents to OTRS. This may or may not be the right thing to do. Another common practice on Wikimedia Commons is to apply the template {{Consent}} with the metadata without sharing any model release document. I wrote more about this model release on a proposal for developing a model release.
I want for there to be some minimal standards for defining consent provided in Wikimedia Commons. It already is a regular practice that Commons uploaders make claims about getting consent from models. In fashion and marketing, doing nude modeling generally requires stricter consent agreements than doing more routine clothed modeling, but in Wikimedia projects, I am not sure there are standards or community agreement for what it means for anyone to consent to have photos uploaded to Commons.
To clarify - I am not suggesting that people should use consent documents on Commons more often. I am proposing that when people feel the need to claim to use a consent process at all, then there should be a defined process in Commons and people should say, "My process is equal to or better than that one." We do the same thing with CC copyright releases; anyone can use those or better releases, but we say that if someone promises to use a release, then they have to at least be compatible with CC-By-SA which is our community standard.
I am working with a legal organization in New York called the Fashion Law Institute. They have proposed to write a model release for use in Wikimedia projects and beyond. To go further, they need some Wikimedia Foundation money for them to draft a release, templates, documentation, and to use their name as legal authorities in the field to say, "this kind of release is a reasonable thing to use, if a model release is used". If anyone has comments (criticism and endorsements) or opinions on model releases then please share at meta:Grants:PEG/Wikimedia New York City/Development of a model release process for photos and video. Blue Rasberry (talk)15:53, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Model releases mostly have to do with assuring that personality rights have been signed away, so an image is open to full commercial use in advertisements etc. "Consent" is about reassuring that an image does not violate ordinary expectations of privacy. Wikimedia Commons is only obliquely concerned about whether images can be used for purposes of commercial advertising (images that can't be used that way can still be uploaded here). AnonMoos (talk) 03:10, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
commons is directly involved in commercial reuse running afoul of privacy rights law. we need a better system of subject permissions, than a personality rights tag. re-users frequently ignore restrictions. OTRS is a work around, need some personality rights enforcement as well. this grant for permissions is needed badly. Slowking4♡Richard Arthur Norton's revenge22:40, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, but if someone uploads an image to Commons not covered by a model release (i.e with unimpaired personality rights), and an outside reuser makes use of it for commercial purposes, then Commons is not directly involved -- the legal dispute is between the person photographed and the reuser. It's pretty much the same as if an external reuser disregards the copyright terms of an image uploaded to Commons -- the dispute there is between the photographer or image-maker and the reuser... AnonMoos (talk) 23:27, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
“Watch changes in category membership” deployed
Latest comment: 8 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion
Proper nouns, such as established individual names, most of these even subject to local protection and thus officially named, should not be translated to English, unlike plural descritive categories. -- Tuválkin✉✇01:49, 2 February 2016 (UTC) and 10:58, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
@Tuvalkin: Not sure what about this is an ANU issue, to be honest. There seems to have been a civil discussion about the CfDs on Tm's talk page. Revent (talk) 10:13, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
This is about an admin pushing against one of the most basic rules of category naming. It certainly needs to be addressed centrally, not scatered in disparate, specific CfDs nor in a user’s talk page (especially not one infamous for being left unarchived for years causing broswer crashes and failed transclusions). -- Tuválkin✉✇10:42, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Comment I agree with Revent. And I don't think this was about an admin pushing against one of the most basic rules of category naming. It depends on your interpretation. --DPC (talk) 12:14, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Comment The Commons categries language policy states quite clearly "Proper nouns which do not have an established English variant are not translated ad hoc but use the original form". A quick look at these categories suggests to me that they do not have abn established English variant and in one case (Category:Aqueduto de Pontes) the English translation is poor to say the least.
Comment I agree with Revent. To me it does not appear appropriate to open this as a case at COM:AN/U when no attempt was made before to contact Cookie directly. Cookie was not even informed about this thread. Please keep in mind that not all users, even admins, are familiar with all aspects of our guidelines. To me this looks as a good-faith attempt to suggest category renamings. There is no threat when multiple discussions are opened. Whenever a missing understanding of our guidelines becomes apparent, the next natural step is to post a friendly message onto the user's talk page, not to open a thread at COM:AN/U. Hence, I suggest to close this as there is no administrative action necessary in this case. --AFBorchert (talk) 18:33, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
(I am informed now. Conflict of edition with @AFBorchert: . Thanks AFBorchert. I hope my explanation can calm things down and have a civic, peaceful debate.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cookie (talk • contribs)
Comment There is no need to take this as an offense, I'm not going against Portuguese categories, neither French, German, Italian nor Spanish ones. I just got involved on these because of a ping received from @Hedwig in Washington: asking for help. And I'm not pushing anything as an admin. As an administrator I could have deleted them, or moved them but I didn't do any of those drastic actions. I just did what anyone can do (admins, common users or IPs), i.e. to put categories in discussion.
The reason is explained in [Tm user talk. According to the policy, a particular individual object, such a specific building, monument, etc. is an exception and can be named in the vernacular language of the speaker, right? But, aqueduct, church, bridge, necropolis... are common names. If the translation "Aqueduct (in or of) Pontes" is poor then Aqueduct of Segovia, Aqueduct of Saintes or Bekir Pasha Aqueduct are poor translations as well. The word aqueduct is just the common name of the structure/monument along with the proper name of the location where this "object" is located. If you have a look at Category:Aqueducts by country there are categories named in English along with others named in vernacular languages. Which ones should be renamed?
I had no idea that merely being subject to a mention in AN/U was such a taint for an admin. There, there, it’s now on VP. Let’s hope it doesn’t have to comego back to AN/U. -- Tuválkin✉✇09:40, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
It is very common that names are based on ordinary nouns. All the same Tower Bridge is the name of a specific bridge, not a description of the bridge or any bridge with towers. Notre Dame is also the (abbreviated) name of a specific church (there are many churches by that name, like there are many Peters, which doesn't change the fact). If the category is named after the name, not just as one description out of many possible ones, then it shall be treated as a name. If there are ad hoc translations, they should be changed to the proper name. Mixture may of course also result from some cemeteries, churches and aqueducts being more well-known than others and a few in fact having English names. --LPfi (talk) 16:08, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
I was involved in a similar discussion about non-English category names last year. For some countries and topics, most category names are in their native language, while for many others, category names are translated to English. If there was a conclusion to that discussion, it would be that there is no consensus to change all category names to English. But yes, it can be a bit confusing, especially when there are both categories in English and in their local language for a topic in a particular country. (For instance churches in Portugal.) Blue Elf (talk) 23:31, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
This photo is of James Wickersham, not George Barnes Grigsby. A while back, I showed the image and file description page to the lady minding the store that day at the local Wickersham House. She was very shocked to discover that such an obvious mistake would originate with the Library of Congress, of all things. I originally brought this up somewhere else in the wiki world, don't remember where exactly, but I can't help but notice that it's evidently fallen on deaf ears. I was reminded of it through a recent Wikipedia thread where the fact-checking standards of a private memorabilia collection were scrutinized, particularly WRT an image of Virgil Earp. This caused me to wonder if we're applying double standards in this case because it's the Library of Congress. The uploader appears to have uploaded a substantial number of images in the same vein, and may not be aware or concerned about inherent factual accuracy baggage, a common problem with coverage of the U.S. Congress due to cherry-picking largely primary sources).RadioKAOS (talk) 19:19, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
Next deployment of "Watch changes in category membership"
Latest comment: 8 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Will every category that I watch automatically have me watch all additions and removal of pages from that category? Is it possible to watch a category (and its talk page) without watching all that is added and deleted from it? I ask this because I watch some categories which have 100s of pages being added to them daily. However for this category I'm not at all interested in which pages get added, I am however very interested in following any changes to the category itself and its talk page. Basvb (talk) 13:42, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
No. You can toggle the visibility of category membership changes on your watchlist and recent changes page. By default it is hidden. You can find a detailed explanation of the feature here. Tobias Gritschacher (WMDE) (talk) 13:33, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
Vandalism
Latest comment: 8 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Can one of you maybe delete Wole.png? It's basically a BLP violation created by someone I just blocked on en-wiki. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 20:44, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
If I remember correctly you were told multiple times that Commons is not the place to promote your political agenda. If you still have not understood this well, a long term block would be in order.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:00, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
It's a clearly politically polemical category. We don't allow those. I don't like Putin one whit, but it's not a valid category in our system. - Jmabel ! talk22:06, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
I don't like that one either. Doesn't seem any more appropriate than Category:Victims of capitalism, which you will notice we don't have. "Victims" of an abstraction? Not so objective. Very different from a category covering who was officially executed in a particular era, or died in a concentration camp under a particular regime. But things involving (for example) who was responsible for an extrajudicial murder by a particular government (let alone an extrajudicial murder motivated by a particular philosophy or political tendency) really don't meet the criteria for Commons categories. - Jmabel ! talk01:27, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Also "victims" itself is problematic. Is this only people who died, or people who suffered in some other manner? - Jmabel ! talk01:29, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Have you asked the other editor for an explanation before throwing around terms such as "political vandalism"? I think you should. Rodhullandemu (talk) 21:27, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
Well, some people only seeing either black or white. This may be good for their ego, but is bad for Commons. --A.Savin22:19, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
Is Khodorkovsky a member of a political party? No. And Kasparov? No. And Navalny? No. The party of Navalny is not registered officially. Probably you could also know that independent politicians in Russia are those who oppose to Putin's regime. They do not depend of Putin's regime. — Николай (talk) 22:27, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
Let me disagree sir: politicians against Putin are oppositioners, not necessarily independent ones. And Navalny's political party does exist. This is the only relevant thing. --A.Savin22:44, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
Oh, and please do not distract from the actual issue. The problem is your behaviour, not mine. I'm feeling offended by your accusations of vandaliusm. Any apology? --A.Savin23:27, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
My behaviour is not a problem. Your problem is my opinion. "Khodorkovsky is actually neither a politician..." - this is an obvious example of promotion of your political agenda. We see that putinism is penetrating to Commons. — Николай (talk) 09:55, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
@ПОКА ТУТ: At COM:VAND is described what vandalism is, a simple revert isn't vandalism. Please remember to assume good faith and stay mellow. I looked into the issue, and i can't confirm your accusations against A.Savin. Looking at your comments here i have rather the feeling you try to push your POV here on commons. --Steinsplitter (talk) 11:13, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Adding PD-ineligible as a license option in UploadWizard
Latest comment: 8 years ago12 comments5 people in discussion
Brilliant idea! See Commons:Upload_Wizard_feedback/Archive/2014/10#Not_helpful for an example instance of a common case where the Upload Wizard is a [wild goose chase|signless maze|maze of twisty little passages, none alike|pick your-dystopian-analogy] for the uploader. A w:use case analysis description for a smart but naive first time user wanting to upload the example image would show the user of the current system likely traveling through a ridiculously large maze of a dozen false starts and dead ends. Anyone else? --Elvey (talk) 04:33, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
It looks like the Upload Wizard was recently changed? Now it offers a flexible option (new since when?):
Another reason not mentioned above
The license is described by the following wikitext (must contain a valid copyright tag): [box to put a tag in ] [preview button]
Unfortunately, "valid copyright tag" links to a page that lacks a ToC and leads to one of the long dead-end paths of the aforementioned maze - with the following mess of a statement:
Depending on what license you choose using the license selector, a so-called copyright tag is inserted into the resulting description page, such as {{Cc-by-3.0}}.
It's a mess because it's unclear what a license selector is and the link provides no clarification whatsoever as to what a license selector is. --Elvey (talk) 04:33, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
The custom license option was there all along. It appears to have been implemented in 2011. I thought you're aware of it. Matma Rex (talk) 10:49, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
Indeed, this is not recent. As for Commons:Copyright tags, it does have a table of contents, and it provides a visual illustration of what is meant by "license selector" immediately to the right of where it is mentioned. The introduction is based on Commons:Upload rather than the Upload Wizard and could do with an update, though. —LX (talk, contribs)00:36, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
I'm skeptical. The overlap between users who have a sufficient understanding of threshold of originality issues to be using this rationale and users who don't know how to use wiki markup to invoke a template is likely small. The current text of MediaWiki:Mwe-upwiz-license-pd-ineligible is "Too simple to be copyrighted". This type of option is a magnet for uploaders who don't understand copyright and cannot imagine that they aren't allowed to upload whatever they like to Commons. It's bad enough as it is – you can hardly get through a page of Category:PD ineligible without stumbling over multiple blatant copyright violations. Here's a very quickly gathered sample:
Thanks for that, Eugene! I wasn't aware of those galleries. As you say, they still need someone to patrol them, and for that to scale to more than one person, there would need to be a documented workflow and mechanisms for marking items/pages as reviewed. I don't see much in the way of inbound links documenting anything like that, so having those galleries is a good start, but not much more. And no matter how good our tools for cleaning up copyright violations are, I still think we should avoid giving undue exposure to options that significantly increase the likelihood of copyright violations being uploaded in the first place. —LX (talk, contribs)18:21, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Hmm, I guess we might not want it, then. It's still available as a "power-user" option by pasting the template into the custom license field, as it was pointed out above. I'll mark the task as declined, thanks for your comments. Matma Rex (talk) 17:11, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
I agree with LX. Extremely unlikely that someone other than Wikimedia editors really knows the threshold of originality. Nemo17:12, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
January 26
Link to other languages VPs
Latest comment: 8 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I own a photo that was taken in 1954 of my fathers Ironworker team that built the Original Tampa Bay Sunshine Skyway Bridge. It was handed down to me and he has since passed away. Since it is a photo of the entire group I would like to add it for it's historical significance especially because the completed bridge is in view behind the crew. However, there is no indication of who originally took this photo or who if anyone may own copyrights. Can this be posted? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theresa.mogard (talk • contribs)
Unless the picture was published before the U.S. changed its laws to conform to the Berne Convention, and it was published without a copyright claim or it was published and its copyright had lapsed, it wouldn't be OK for Commons. I take it from your description that it is probably unpublished, so the rights would still remain with the photographer or the photographer's heirs, and you don't know who that is, so you can't obtain the required permission.
In my view, nothing in this should stop you from making the picture publicly available (with an appropriate disclaimer about rights) on a more permissive site such as Flickr, but it's our intent on Commons that people should be able to reuse all images here in conformance with the stated license without any significant likelihood of a legitimate copyright claimant then coming forward and objecting. - Jmabel ! talk18:00, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Before 2024 comes, files at Category:PD-old-100 should be moved to Category:PD-old-100-1923, by changing PD-old-100 to PD-old-100-1923 and PD-old-auto to PD-old-auto-1923. This is to reduce the warnings made by {{PD-old-100}}. Commons requires that old files must be in the public domain in the U.S. and their source country. So adding a U.S. copyright tag to PD-old-100 files is needed. When I gain consensus, I will run my first AWB bot, BulbaBot. Thanks, ★Poké9508:39, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Oppose. {{PD-old-100}} produces those warnings for a reason. Sweeping the problem under the rug for the sake of suppressing warnings is a terrible idea. The fact that the author died more than 100 years ago says nothing about when their works were published. —LX (talk, contribs)09:10, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
When you get a notification that an edit has been reverted, the notification now quotes part of the edit summary. [21]
RESTBase is now using scrub_wikitext instead of scrubWikitext. [22]
Changes this week
Wikidata will have a new data type called "math". It will be used for formulas. [23][24]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 February. It will be on all wikis from 11 February (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 9 February at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Other sites will be able to tell when visitors come from links on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites. They used to be able to do this until we started using forced HTTPS in June 2015. This is planned to happen on 15 February. [25][26]
Wikidata will have a new data type called "external-id". It will be used for references to external resources. It will be enabled on February 16. Some properties will be changed to the new data type. [27][28][29]
Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
The Wiki Education Foundation is launching a new tool today, the Wiki Playlist (see http://playlist.wiki). With the Playlist, Wikipedia fans, editors, and institutional partners (like universities, academic associations, or GLAMs) will be able to create lists of 3 to 5 English Wikipedia articles, then share it on social media. I’m posting here because it’s a very image-heavy tool, featuring some great photos from Commons.
Wiki Ed sees the Playlist as a way of paying tribute to the longtime effort of Wikipedia contributors who continuously increase content quality. We hope this social media campaign will also remind people that the world of Wikimedia is not all about drama, but about how we all enjoy improving articles, uploading images, and curating content. We're launching this tool in the context of the Wikipedia:Year of Science, a targeted campaign to improve the quality of science-related content on the English Wikipedia.
If you’re interested, I encourage you to visit http://playlist.wiki/ to create and share a Wiki Playlist of articles with photos you’ve taken, articles you’ve written, or just articles you enjoy. Share your Wiki Playlist on or before Valentine’s Day: after all, it’s about sharing love for Wikipedia! --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:11, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes, it is permissible to display this template without authorization from WMF, per "The template is intended to be used by the following user groups: all users" in the template documentation. Riley Huntley (talk) 02:30, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Huge problem with copyright on Mynewsdesk
Latest comment: 8 years ago16 comments9 people in discussion
There is a HUGE problem with pictures from the swedish press-service Mynewsdesk, because the site has CC-license per default, something many press people doesn't realise and thus licensing the pictures unbeknownst and without being the copyright-holders - that means that a huge amount of pictures from Mynewsdesk is wrongly licensed and therefore the license is invalid(!). The staff at Mynewsdesk is also not responding well to questions about the license from users (they don't mention that you, as an uploader, have to have the right to change the license to CC). I propose that we have a zero tolerance for picture from Mynewsdesk until these things have been solved. Otherwise we actually risk destroying the Creative Commons license (if we pump out many pictures that are invalidly licensed, it really hurts peoples trust in Creative Commons). People using pictures from Wikimedia Commons should be assured that the pictures are free to use and that the license has been correctly added. //Vätte (talk) 11:55, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
I seriously doub't that we as a community will be able to forma any form of consensus/policy to ban specific user generated websites from upload, since not everybody uploading images here, are part of the Commons community, hence will not know that this website may be "off limits", and we can't reallty start a DR without some small proof that is isn't their own work...Josve05a (talk) 16:39, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
I don't feel comfortable with this source. We need to ensure that all files uploaded from there are tagged with license review so if a Commons re-user gets in trouble he may refer to this review tag. Someone with athority, maybe from WMF - should contact at least some of the big music companies and ask for clarification.--Denniss (talk) 19:26, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
We have pretty hight standards for written articles when it comes to what sources we deem are serious - so why not when it's about image-sources? Should we not use source-criticism when searching for media to upload? Doesn't any body else think it's problematic for the Creative Commons-license itself (even if we protect ourselves with review tags) if we stand behind sharing pictures that haven't been properly licensed? And I don't think we can hide behind "we cannot be sure if the license is proper or not, so therefore we allow it" when there is for certain pictures being wrongly licensed on that page. //Vätte (talk) 00:01, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
We don't have any standard on article creation here on Commons, since articles are not what Commons does. Apart from that, we already follow a pretty high standard for licensing, called the Precautionary Principle. --Sebari (talk) 12:08, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes, exactly, and for the pictures from Mynewsdesk there is significant doubt that the license is given by the copyright-holders. (And with articles I meant WMF at large.) //Vätte (talk) 20:58, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Info I registered as a fresh user at mynewsdesk.com --> see http://imgur.com/a/P8O48 (from below to above): the default setting for publishing images is "Creative Commons Attribution". The pull-down menu gives more options and a click at the "?" explains the licenses. There is no indication that — choosing "Creative Commons Attribution" — the work may be used/explored by others commercially. And I don't understand why they (mynewsdesk.com) have chosen a CC-BY-SA license as default setting: that could well be overlooked by the image posters --> normally, posting on similar public relations portals like http://www.openpr.de/, you do not expect this. I have my doubts that the image poster were really aware that they are providing CC-BY-SA content — and, when they do so, mynewsdesk.com failed in clarifying about the whole spectrum of the CC-licenses. Or mynewsdesk.com's intents from the beginning were to offer only a CC-BY-SA-NC ( eventually ND) license. Gunnex (talk) 01:38, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Is it any different to other sites that accept uploads, such as Flickr? Some users may upload copyright violations, just like on Flickr. However the license is displayed clearly on the image pages, so there's no reason to think uploaders aren't aware of it. --ghouston (talk) 04:21, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
There are differences, yes. Flickr focus on photographers themselves, people who (mostly) actually have the right to the material they are sharing - whereas Mynewsdesk focus on clients who want to market events, making press-statements and so on (not photographers themselves). Flickr says "Only upload content that you have created." Mynewsdesk doesn't mention that you have to have the copyright to something before changing it to CC. And, Flickr has "All rights reserved" as default and the user has to make an actual choice to change it to CC. I have been en contact with people on Mynewsdesk three times and they always answer the same way "Oh, thank you for pointing this out, we will take this under consideration." but then nothing happens, not five years ago, not last year - and the comment I posted on a thread on their forum a couple of days ago (where the question was about what license to choose and I pointed out that the one uploading can't change license without permission from the copyright-holder), first they answered that my point was very important and they would take it further - but now that entire thread has been deleted. So, I am sorry to say I don't think they will change. //Vätte (talk) 20:58, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Actually checking via catscan, out of the ~3200 images in Category:Files from mynewsdesk.com, approximately two-thirds (2101, to be exact) have not been through a license review on Commons... given the known issues with this source, that's rather bad. At a minimum, the remainder should be marked for review, with the LR's made aware of this discussion. Revent (talk) 10:04, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Just a comment... some of the images I added to that 'with unreviewed licenses' category have since been reviewed... not that it's a big deal (they come up in my watchlist, and I remove it) but if you're watching this conversation, and do such a review, it would be nice to remove them from it as well. It's not something handled by the script, since it's just something ad-hoc I made for convenience. Thanks. Revent (talk) 04:08, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
I really don't think the reviewers will notice if the license is wrong. I guess they see that it says "Creative Commons" on The Wikimedia Commons file page, and "Creative Commons" on the Mynewsdesk file page. The problem is that the files shouldn't have the CC-license on Mynewsdesk to begin with.
I have uploaded some photos from Mynewsdesk because I saw they were under a CC license, but some of the photos were removed from Commons, when the photographers found them on Wikipedia. The photos were copyrighted, but some press people published them with the "standard setting" on Mynewsdesk. -abbedabbtalk16:32, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
@Abbedabb: The issue I created that category to address (images where the license was never independently checked against the source) is a bit different than the issue of if we can 'trust' the license claims from that source, which applies to all of their images whether reviewed or not. Technically, I could have just requested a normal license review on all of them (and, FWIW, I speedied at least a couple of dozen that would have explicitly failed a normal license review - NC or ND at the source - while populating that category). It just seemed rather pointless to dump 2000-odd images on top of the LR backlog before there was a consensus about how to deal with the wider issue (since a significant number might go away regardless). I would assume that anyone reviewing images out of the category I created (since I did not actually 'request' a license review by adding the template) became aware of it from this conversation, and removing them from the tracking category I made (or, even, doing a 'normal' license review) doesn't really prevent us from applying the PRP to all or part of them later. Revent (talk) 01:31, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Looking for reports of users being logged in as someone else
Latest comment: 8 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Hi all,
we had reports of a serious authentication error that resulted in people being logged into the wrong account. We are trying to collect information about what happened, and how many users it might have happened to. If you have any knowledge of such a thing happening in the last few weeks, please tell us at one of these places:
You can find more details at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T126069. It looks like only a few users have been affected, but to be on the safe side, we are in the process of logging everyone out (which takes a while, so it might have happened to you this week, or it might happen in the next few days). Apologies for the inconvenience.
we are in the process of logging everyone out (which takes a while... >> this was deemed unacceptably slow, so we are going to log out everyone at the same time. This is probably going to happen within a few hours, so that we can do it while most editors are asleep. I apologize for the disruption. Please report any unexpected problems (apart from having to log in again) at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T124440 . --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 04:23, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
@Tgr (WMF): This has caused at least two cases (that I know of, and one was me) of people accidentally editing from their IP in an 'identifiable' manner. We might have a rush of people asking for their IPs to be suppressed, not that it's hard to accomplish. Revent (talk) 12:06, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
author, source, categories for combinations of images
Latest comment: 8 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Earlier today I uploaded some images of picea rubens cones that were originally published by the US Fish & Wildlife Service. Nice, but lots of whitespace. So for the purpose of displaying in an article, I thought it would be nice to arrange some of them in a single image. So I picked nine of them, arranged them, and uploaded the result. My question is: what goes in the source, author, and date fields?
Right now I have source set to "own work" mostly because it was the default, but also because the image isn't actually found anywhere else -- just its component parts. So under author I linked to the USFWS Flickr stream, and in the description I credited the photographer and linked to the individual files.
My sense is there's probably a straightforward answer, but I'm not sure what the best way to search for the answer would be.
I'd say add to all the fields both the original author and you as an author of the derivative from these originals, links to the other files could be in the source field (as those are your sources) combined with the own work for the derivative. Date can have multiple dates, author can have multiple authors. Basvb (talk) 20:45, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago12 comments4 people in discussion
Hi there. (I'm not sure that I translated definitions from russian the right way). So, there are a lot of standardized buildings in Russia, which were built all over the country (and I think the same in the whole Eastern Europe). For example, well-known appartment buildings - Khrushchyovkas, series of standardized school buildings, cinemas buildings, metro stations, barber's shops buildings and so many others. The identical buildings of one type were built in different cities. Is there a category tree for such standardized types of buildings? And if there is no such category tree, let's create it? Because I think it would be useful if there was a category, where you could see the buildings of the same series. In russian wikipedia we even have articles for some series of buildings.
//Stolbovsky (talk) 14:04, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
I don't think we have such a category, and we should. Probably plenty of examples in U.S. government buildings, too. I think Category:Standardized buildings would be a good name, but we might leave it a moment for someone else to think of something even better. - Jmabel ! talk16:55, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
And if we create it, the names of subcategories should be discussed too. How should be called? Series of cinemas buildings? Or type? Or what? My english in this area is too poor. //Stolbovsky (talk) 20:19, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
But first of all, there are a lot of other standardized buildings, not only apartment. And not all of them are panel buildings. So it is related, but not the same. For example cinema building in Moscow on a picture. There are several of them of this kind in Russia. //Stolbovsky (talk) 07:55, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
If they are by different architects then presumably they have a different design. You'd need to describe what distinguishes them from other types of cinemas, to make a meaningful category and find a name for it. Are there other examples in Commons by different architects? --ghouston (talk) 21:52, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
I think the additions to the IRTF logo (the extra squares) are getting 'closer' to the point of being a copyrightable arrangement of shapes, but they are not 'clearly' above the line. The PD-USGov license currently on the file is almost certainly wrong, though. Revent (talk) 13:43, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Dubious uploads by User:Merazromero
Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
The uploads, specifically the portraits, by user User:Merazromero are unlikely to be own work: a century of time difference between individuals, variety of quality. I know you can nominate a group of images for deletion at the same time, but I don't know how to do this. I would appreciate it if someone else could nominate them. Xochiztli (talk) 05:54, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
This appears to have been an error made by NARA when compiling the 'select lists', and I would presume the actual "National Archives Catalog", not the "Select List", to be correct. Either way, File:Jesse cornplanter.jpg is a extremely low quality duplicate, and should go away once we have the identification sorted.
@Cygnis insignis: NARA replied promptly, that the 'selected list' is indeed in error, that they were aware of the issue, and that they were reminding their web guys to correct it. Based on this, and it's poor quality, I'll nuke and redirect our misidentified image (File:Jesse cornplanter.jpg) to the better and correctly ID'd version. Revent (talk) 22:30, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Wrong camera date/time
Latest comment: 8 years ago12 comments8 people in discussion
Quite often the camera time is not set correctly: Travel between timezones / summer/wintertime etc. The camera time and date are used by the upload script. When I notice it I deliberately remove the time if I cannot reconstruct the correct time and I adjust the date if needed. With above picture as reference I can correct the time of other pictures taken with the same camera. I am thinking of creating a technical category of these `timeset` pictures (only if there is a difference with the cameratime). Maybe we could write a script to correct the errors. The specific files from the camera/uploader and date sequence can be sorted out. Unfortunately there now also many time and specific categories wich contain the wrong files. This is not urgent but advice/aid would be appreciated.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:35, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
There's another way to deal with timezones (and standard vs. summer time, for that matter): set yout camera to UTC or GMT, and you're done, as the actual local time is retrospectively deduceable. I'd not use a category for a matter that is in the pure responsibility of the photographer, all the more as there are only few time critical picture imaginable (and when you go out to shoot eg. a sports finish or a special nature event, then you would make sure that your devices are set up accordingly...). Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 10:10, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
It would be nice if we had an unambiguous format for machine-readable date/times. At present it's not specified how timezones should be declared, which leaves a lot of uncertainty. On my own photos I write the date/time in UTC and add "UTC" at the end, if I remember, but software isn't likely to know about that. --ghouston (talk) 10:31, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
For files you haven't uploaded yet, there are plenty of tools to batch process files and adjust times in the metadata based on a given offset. I use command-line utility exiftool under Linux. For adjusting the file descriptions of already uploaded files, you can use VisualFileChange with some regular expressions to replace specific strings, but because regular expressions don't really do arithmetic, adjusting the minutes part or dealing with spans of several hours may be cumbersome. Trimming the field down to include just the date will be trivial (but if the clock is off, that might be wrong too). —LX (talk, contribs)10:41, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
My camera is also usually set to UTC. (I live in the UK). I recently checked a contribution of mine taken in Australia with a beautiful blue sky - the time was 00:24! When I spotted that, I added "UTC" to the timestamp.
If you look at ISO 8601, the preferred way to express time is to write 20:57 00:00 for UTC, and to write 21:57 01:00 for Paris. Martinvl (talk) 20:58, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
The ISO 8601 format seems like the way to go. Using Z for UTC seems a little cryptic, but templates could display it as something more readable. --ghouston (talk) 06:31, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
I dont see how this is usefull. Readers only want to see the local time. If the cameratime is not set for the local time, you still have to manualy adjust the time. The upload script can only adjust the time if it knows the local timezone and wich timezone the camera is set in.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:28, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Well, it's not just Z for UTC, you can also specify other timezones using the ISO format. I tried it out on File:Apollo_8_Liftoff_View_(24246227076)_(2).jpg, but it's not formatted very well at present, so it may be confusing. However without specifying the timezone, the time isn't really machine-readable, since it's hard for a program to figure out what the local timezone would be for an image. --ghouston (talk) 11:48, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
That example looks too confusing, maybe even like a timespan. If someone wants to know timezone they can just check by geotag or it can be added as a separate field. --- [Tycho]talk12:45, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
It would be pleasant if Commons had a standard for presenting this information, but of course we would still have to enter it manually since there is no EXIF standard for time zone. EXIF does provide for geographical coordinates, which might help in automating the process. (What, you bought a camera without GPS?) Surely, frequent fliers should set for GMT, so resetting the camera clock need not exacerbate jet lag. But then, smartphones may automatically reset to local time when they make connection, and no, they don't say so in EXIF of their pictures. Jim.henderson (talk) 11:56, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Translate filename ok if also making it less ambiguous?
Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Requesting guidance concerning an unclear rename request I encountered just now. (I've only ever moved or requested to move in fairly straightforward cases).
I know that files shouldn't be renamed just for the sake of translating them, and that the original language should be preserved where possible. In this case, however, the rename request explained that the original title translated to simply "Formula One Boat", and the proposed new title included the identity of the racer. I completed the move but quickly began to doubt myself.
The question of whether moving from "Formula One Boat" to "Jonas Andersson" would qualify under criterion #2 seems to me a little unclear but ultimately acceptable. What I'm much less certain of is whether I should have abstained altogether to let someone competent with Russian update the filename to the more descriptive title, written in Russian -- or whether the request should have been rejected.
Probably should have been rejected. Policy is not to change names just because they aren't perfect, as long as they are meaningful and not misleading. - Jmabel ! talk01:47, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
Russavia
Latest comment: 8 years ago45 comments21 people in discussion
@บริษัท การบินไทย จำกัด: I realize Russavia was banned by the WMF, but it still seems odd to see [30] removal of categories indicating that he uploaded certain files. Is this something that has been agreed upon or something unilateral? - Jmabel ! talk06:01, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Jmabel "* Uploaded by russavia" is being removed because it is leading to incorrect attribution by external users. My user categories are being removed, largely because the various categories are leading to multiple double up maintenance. But the uploader will always be found in the comments section of the file description page. Files placed into Category:Aviation files (check needed) are being gone through by myself (as well as others) and that can be deleted. I would prefer that my categories are non-existent in order for me to leave Commons when that time comes. Cheers, บริษัท การบินไทย จำกัด (talk) 06:29, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
It is the norm (now but not always) to avoid having uploader attribution on the image page separate from the upload history, though it remains controversial to retrospectively mass change these without uploader agreement. With regard to user categories, these should be left as the uploader set them unless they cause a specific issue, and if the uploader wishes to change user categories and has not the wherewithal or access to do so, then it is normal to see their requests being taken up by other editors. If you were concerned that this might be a case of damnatio memoriae, it is not. --Fæ (talk) 09:10, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
To make things worse, some of the latest round of edits may actually be incorrect. For instance File:Slapton Sands (6238844090).jpg is neither an aviation file, nor is a category check really needed.
I think we as Commons should take over this task Russavia is attempting to do. He wants it gone, he provides sensible reasons above (which are to our benefit), and it also saves us (and WMF) work chasing our own tails with the latest batch of sockpuppets.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:26, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Nilfanion, et al. Sure, there are some files like that which are "incorrect". This is due to them being uploaded from Flickr via Jeffrey Pardoen's account -- he's mainly an aviation photographer so they were uploaded into my "aviation" category. Never fear, I'm going through the category to get rid of those as a priority, leaving only aviation files in that check needed category. Golaner (talk) 11:55, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Question Who decided the block of Russavia, the Community or the WMF? I still disagree his block until I know the reasons. --Amitie 10g (talk) 14:57, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Who is secret, why is secret, what the evidence is remains secret. There is no appeal possible, there is no scrutiny of the evidence. Not even Russavia has been told the answers to these questions, probably for fear of the WMF being exposed in some way, so you certainly will not be told. You just have to "trust" the WMF, with no credible system of governance, because they demand to be trusted. --Fæ (talk) 15:11, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Tuvalkin, Russavia was once an admin in good standing, and was an upstanding member of the community. Since he was globally banned by the WMF he has become a troll. Amitie 10g, the initial ban was by the WMF, for undisclosed reasons, but, we assume, because he pissed off Jimbo over the Pricasso incident. I disagree with the initial global block, but given Russavia's extensive socking and other troll-like behaviour in the meantime, I have no compunction against enforcing the ban. -mattbuck (Talk) 16:49, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
I would be delighted to see a community ban to replace the secret WMF office lock, with the confidence that it meets policies agreed by consensus. This gives the possibility of periodic appeal and review. Banned for life, without the opportunity to examine the evidence or challenge it, well it's no surprise that Russavia has since misbehaved. --Fæ (talk) 17:00, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
While Russavia used to be a good admin at Wikimedia Commons until he got globally banned, he has started trolling long before he was blocked, especially at the English Wikipedia. I have seen sufficient of his behaviour from before the global ban to fully support that ban. Jcb (talk) 17:41, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
@Mattbuck: Russavia may not be welcome by you, but the majority of the community is fine with him. So blanket statements saying they are unwanted are not helpful nor beneficial to this project. If Russavia had not been globally banned for dubious reasons by the WMF, he would still be a positive contributor. Just like if I hadn't been banned on ENWP by people who violated and manipulated policy I would be editing there. This is the negative side to banning positive contributors indefinitely for abusive, meaningless, self serving or policy violating reasons. You end up in situations where a person who would be a constructive member of the community turns into a vandal, troll, sockpuppet, etc. Because frankly, at that point and especially with a global ban, they really don't have anything to lose. Some people wanted him banned, well now they got what they wanted and now they have to live with the consequences including a loss of edits to the project and drama from an editor who would otherwise be a positive contributor. Russavia had his flaws but he literally did more for this project than all of the people who wanted him banned combined. Literally everyone knows that the reason Russavia was banned by the community was because of pressure from Jimbo over the Pricasso painting. Of course the WMF won't admit that because its stupid, but that's what it boils down too. So frankly, as long as he is editing positively and making improvements, I don't care how many edits he does or how many accounts he creates to do it. Because the purpose of these projects is the accrue knowledge, not to ban everyone we don't like. Reguyla (talk) 18:23, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
The WMF said that Russavia was not blocked because of the Pricasso issue (although that would be a valid reason IMHO). I am fine with removing categories as shown above by Jmabel. But I am not fine with him trolling on the VP or various DRs. Regards, Yann (talk) 20:43, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Reguyla, I'm not going to undo legitimate DRs just because they were created by a banned user, but if I see a Russavia sock (this thread has had about five in the 15 hours it's been open) I will block it. -mattbuck (Talk) 21:11, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
First, I do not believe the WMF for a second when they say that. Partly because they refuse to say why it is, that being the case, they almost certainly would also say what it isn't for the same reasons. The pricasso thing was almost certainly a major part of their decision even if there were others as well. If you want to block them mattbuck then that's your call. But at this point we should all admit that its not going to stop him, he will just create another. I would suggest its better to have him edit with an account we know, than to guess or assume he is another one and cause a bunch of collateral damage with blocked IP's and waste a bunch of time. But that's just me. I also agree that the trolling aspect can be a little irritating, but that's fruit of the poison tree IMO. It's only due to the no other recourse factor. No matter how friendly a person is, if you back them into a corner and give them no alternative, then they are going to push back. BTW it's also funny that you say he has socked 5 or 6 times in this discussion but you say you keeping blocking them. So really, the reason they have socked 5 or 6 times is because they keep getting blocked and have to create a new account, not that they want to or are doing it maliciously. Reguyla (talk) 21:34, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
One thing about this whole Russavia circus I really don't get. It's been over a year now that he has a global ban and still he spends hours a day trolling around here. Who knows how sad and lonely his real life must be now this trolling apparently is the only thing he lives for? Jcb (talk) 22:00, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
I'm going to soud really naive right now, but where has he actually trolled? We need to stop blurring words meanings Editing files description pages and removing his name from "source"-fiels and categorizing isn't trolling. Filing DR's isn't trolling. Protesting deletion of files isn't trolling. We need to stop calling everything he does for "trolling" merly because he is gbanned. Josve05a (talk) 22:06, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) But, is it really our ban to enforce? He hasn't been banned from the Commons comunity, but the WMF, and therefore it should be they, and only they that should be the ones blocking him. But that might just me my oown naive opinion. Josve05a (talk) 22:58, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
He has been blocked locally on Commons for intimidation/harassment. I'm sure that was discussed extensively at the time on the AN. And in any case, his recent activity is in itself disruptive - its far too fast for a non-bot to be doing.--Nilfanion (talk) 23:03, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
It is the current policy: "Controversial blocks may also be discussed at the blocks and protections noticeboard after they have been applied. To avoid wheel warring, they should only be lifted by another administrator if there is consensus to do so, even if there is no clear consensus in favor of the original block." Why not initiate a discussion as suggested by the policy than questioning it here? Jee13:42, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
His block on commons is a personal vendetta by Yann, nothing more but alas you can't point fingers on admins on this wiki or you get blocked next....not much different than enwiki i say..--Stemoc00:45, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
(BWC)Please be aware that in case of Russavia there is a lot more than what you can see on Wiki. But I will give you an example: Russavia presents himself as a representative of our projects, then gets some general releases from photographers for all their work and then telling those photographers that they should revoke their release and that they have to do so via OTRS. Jcb (talk) 22:57, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
This was discussed last year at the AN and the ombudsmen commission was asked to take a look about it, but I never got any feedback from them, so apparently they didn't see it as a violation of the confidentiality agreement. Jcb (talk) 23:17, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Again, you all are giving examples of stuff that Russavia did after the WMF forced a global ban on him. Has he created a lot of accounts? Yes, but they wouldn't be needed if he wasn't banned by the WMF. Do some accounts like the ones mentioned above amount to trolling? Sure, it could be argued they do but even then it wouldn't be done if he could edit. Did he ask photographers to revoke their release after worked with them to get their approval and after his ban? Maybe so, I doubt he did this before his ban but I don't really know about that for sure if he even did this at all. Again, as far as I know it was after his ban and if we/the WMF do not want him editing, then that is the price we pay. When someone is banned, then that means that their work is not wanted. So, if they choose to go back and revoke that after we ban them then IMO they are free to do that. I did some of that with ENWP as well. They lost a lot in donations and other stuff because I asked people whom I had asked to donate not too and suggested there were better tax write-offs than Wikipedia that is no longer interested in creating an encyclopedia. Again, a few on ENWP do not want my edits and feel that they speak for the entire community and the projects and just as Russavia does here, I continue to edit on ENWP and no one, not even the WMF is going to stop me from doing that until I choose to stop. I am not going to be bullied out of the project by people who haven't done half of what I have to build it and neither is Russavia. So these bans comes at a cost and again, unless someone can prove he did this before he was banned, then I don't see it as a problem because the WMF told them they do not want them to help. And he still edits, so all of this is irrelevant because none of us are going to stop him from editing, clearly. Reguyla (talk) 23:41, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Please forgive my interruption - I have a question concerning the "Uploaded by Russavia" cat: I often see it when going through the "bad named aviation files", shall I remove it when a renaming is done? The category related statement above is not fully clear to me... Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 02:39, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Comment To me it looks like we love to solve not important matters ... honestly seeing us fight on all the Russavia case is just sad. --PierreSelim (talk) 12:49, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Hi P-S, it's a mistake to think this is just about Russavia, or getting him unblocked. No doubt that by now Russavia has burnt so many bridges and upset so many good faith contributors that his account should be blocked, and you know that the Commons community has adequate policies and processes for sensibly managing that. The underpinning ethical issue that causes drama here, is whether the WMF should control Wikimedia Commons accounts and content, and by implication our consensus supported policies, by using the threat of unaccountable office actions. This case shines light on the fact that the process is so bizarrely secret that the banned person does not even get to see any evidence, or any chance to discuss it, so is a failure of natural justice. Fairness and natural justice must be seen to apply especially when the majority of contributors believe a person is guilty of breaking community created policies or may have been stupid enough to repeatedly challenge Jimmy Wales.
This case went a significant step further than past office actions, as up until this point either the banned person had both a known criminal background and was acting in a way that should be reported for police investigation, or they had the opportunity to discuss the evidence with the WMF and then quietly went away, agreeing that it was in their best interests to do so.
It is well established that all bureaucracies will grow forever in scope and authority unless firmly governed. What is missing here is any credible governance process that can reassure the community that the outcome is ethical and fair. For these reasons the WMF office action should be replaced with a community managed block and subject to the same rules and processes as the rest of us are happy to be held against. --Fæ (talk) 13:17, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Bans are less secret now
Harassment Survey 2015
In the past I have also wondered about bans from the Wikipedia community. I have no comment on what ought to be done except that I like the idea of a transparent process for managing bans.
Amitie 10g - you wanted to know who manages the block. This is the group. Fæ - as you say, there are secrets, but the "who bans" is no longer secret. This team is taking responsibility whereas before no one in particular did except "the WMF". I do not know what will come of this, but I appreciate having a group to contact for these issues. Blue Rasberry (talk)15:34, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Here is what I think is going to happen based on what I am seeing on multiple projects. The term harassment is going to be used by some admins and others to get rid of some adversaries. They are going to use the term "harassment in the same way they do "disruption" in block summaries because its the new catchphrase of the hour and it reduces the amount of scrutiny by making it appear like they are dealing with harassment. The Harassment survey shows in several slides exactly what some of us have been saying for a while, that there is a problematic group of admins on multiple projects that act like bullies and intimidate editors into getting their way. Its more of a problem on some projects than others, but that survey shows that its clearly a problem.
I would also disagree that bans are les secret. The English Wikipedia Arbitration committee for example is using secret offline evidence more and more on cases and the recent The Devils Advocate case is a perfect example. Not only are they not telling the community based on secret evidence, they didn't even tell TDA what they were being accused of prior to the indefinite ban they implemented out of thin air and without a proper case. Just we decide they are banned. Reguyla (talk) 01:13, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
The above text spends more time talking about blocks than the actual original discussion. It is clear that Russavia wishes for his category to be removed from the images he uploaded, his sockpuppets have been flooding RC at a speed of 50 epm or higher doing so. Is there consensus for this to be done? If so, I'll file a BRFA under RileyBot. I'd rather a flagged bot be doing this than RC be flooded.. Riley Huntley (talk) 04:42, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
And with "speed up" and "check", you probably mean "blatantly remove". A bot can't check this. It isn't just about categories that category is ment to track for maintenance. Josve05a (talk) 09:33, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
So tens of thousands of pages can be blatantly added, but not blatantly removed? Interesting logic. Even though, as said on the BRFA, categories would be added in addition to removing the tracking category. Riley Huntley (talk) 09:57, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
If they came form one "check"-category, to another, yes. And as I said before, it' more than just categories that needs to be checked. It's title-speelling, description-editing, crop-requests etc. We can't just assume it is to add a category and more on. Josve05a (talk) 16:08, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
@Riley Huntley: Wait, before we run a bot that will automatically remove all Russavia's uploaded files from his own category, we should ask him first what files are going to be completely removed from his category. I saw some edits showing that he moved some files to his "fix needed" category (and at the same time, he removed those files from his own main category). ★Poké9512:52, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
I think Russavia really wants to remove all his files from the category above. Should we have a bot to do this, so that the RC will not be flooded and patrolling will be easier? If yes, then I will request at Commons:Bots/Requests to run my first bot, BulbaBot. I think there will be no problem if we will remove his files from the category stated above, and I think this will be a bit beneficial to all of us in Commons. ★Poké9509:40, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
I've stroken out part of the above comment. We are still interested in determining consensus, Pokefan would just not be operating the bot per his bot request being withdrawn. Riley Huntley (talk) 01:50, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion
Hi, although some might consider to ban a user and to extinct his/her work as much as possible a good idea, and although even sockpuppets of this user tend to think this is a good idea, it is not a good idea to clutter about 16000 files with {{Check categories}}, most (all?) of them having been categorized before properly. This puts a much too high burden on the community just for the sake of punishment. So my proposal is to remove all the last edits done by this particular user (who was already blocked). What do you think? --Herzi Pinki (talk) 11:34, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
To someone, as you claim, fairly new to world of wikis, you sure really look like as a veteran, knowing how to sign your posts, use user talkpages and village pump
What? I know how to sign my posts, use a talk page and the village pump? It's hardly rocket science, User:Tm. How many links do you think I clicked to find out where to ask the community? (It's the fourth link down on the left in case it's still a mystery). You're talk page was linked from the history pages. On your talk page is a nice clear box that says "Please sign and date your entries by inserting four tildes at the end." What a bizarre way to answer a question - make the questioner look nasty, to cover up inexplicable knee jerk responses. Yes, I did vandalise those pages but only out of curiosity. I should have gone back and changed them but I forgot which ones they were until I saw the tiny little link at the top that says "contributions". So again I ask, why is it ok for you to remove perfectly good descriptions? 188.29.164.12918:34, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
I think we generally respect the image creator's description unless it is factually incorrect rather an add our own interpretations. And if you want to add four tildes without inserting a signature "<nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>" is the way to do it. Rodhullandemu (talk) 19:08, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
Can we leave aside my initial bad behaviour for a minute? Why do you have a page that says the above and a secret policy which goes against it? Have I stumbled into some strange 4chan-esque website? Let me rephrase the question. "What is wrong with a clear description?" 188.29.164.12919:22, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
First my apoligies to mention you used the word bitch, in one image as it was on the image but was added by a previous ip as vandalism.
But that doesnt change the est, so i ask you again, if your new to the Wiki world, how do you turn from a vandal to a "good editor" in a matter of 4 minutes and only after being reverted in all your vandalisms? I reverted your editions as they are either vandalism or are describing nude models as pieces of meat, with descriptions in such detail and language, that given your first editions with mentions to models not having a day job, free porn, tits, etc are worrysome and troubling. Tm (talk) 19:13, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
Apology accepted. User:Tm, I am new to wikis. I am not new to computers and the internet. I am a highly educated (albeit occasionally childish) person. I'm not sure what you are on about regarding the "vandal to a good editor" thing but I'm genuinely sorry that I wrote those bad things. I don't know what it is that you are looking for. I have apologised several times and still you persist in changing my edits. Is this a website for children or uneducated people? I do not understand why a good description is unacceptable to you. Perhaps you can explain without constantly referring to the bad remarks I made? 188.29.164.12919:28, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
February 14
OTRS: Gare de Liège-Guillemins by Santiago Calatrava
Latest comment: 8 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
I now see that there is an OTRS permission for this category. Am I correct in assuming that all pictures taken of this station are permissible? Not that they have to be individualy OTRS approved? In the past a lot of pictures of this station where removed because of no-Fop in Belgium. Can they be undeleted?Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:36, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Doubtful, and in any case I would not have accepted this ticket as is. The language forwarded from the architects is "For us the pictures are OK, but ... " (going on to stipulate permission must be asked from the station). No mention that any photos are OK, just "the" photos, whatever those are. There is no clear license statement or release anywhere I could see in the ticket. Is it possible that the architects noted the need to get permission from the station because they sold the copyright to the station? In any case, that was not followed up. Difficulty may have arisen because the ticket is in Spanish, German and English. Pinging ticket submitter and ticket owner. @Smiley.toerist: linking to what you're talking about, mentioning the ticket number, or posting in the right place will increase the chances of a prompt and accurate reply in the future. Storkk (talk) 11:00, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
As this station is build with public money, the public authority should demand in the construction contract that any pictures taken are free of restrictions. But I dont know if the condition was imposed. There are building a similar Calatrava station in Mons.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:07, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
Watchlist
Latest comment: 8 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Can someone correct the TemplateData for {{Information}}? There are zero "required" parameters, because "required" means "the template will break if you don't include this parameter". The main ones should be marked as "suggested" instead. The handling of TemplateData on this template is fascinating (and when you get this translation system refined, I may want to swipe it for the Haitian Wikipedia, which regularly uses four languages in the project pages), but I can't actually figure out how to edit it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:46, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
The template essentially breaks if you don't include source, creation date and description. An upload without these essential information is just incomplete, not just not useful but most likely problematic for verifying the file's copyright status. This is just may view; apart from that, you can edit the documentation, including the template data at Template:Information/doc. There are parameters like |5stat=optional which are responsible for how VisualEditor behaves in the end. More on Template:TemplateBox. Please note that changes to {{Information}} will most likely degrade site performance, so avoid any edit wars and suggest your changes first. -- Rillke(q?)23:05, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
February 10
SVG to PNG rendering
Latest comment: 8 years ago10 comments4 people in discussion
The preview in the upload step is a preview on your local computer, and thus is a preview of the actual full size SVG file. It is not yet uploaded, not a PNG and not thumbnailed, just sized to fit. (if the SVG were 20MB, it would be all 20MB's of it). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:20, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
But the main point is how is it that someone messed up the png generator last May and it still has not been fixed? Just going back to what was used then would be better. Delphi234 (talk) 22:41, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
There is no preview on upload now for svg, although I think there used to be one. But when you upload a replacement image there is one. I do not know why Template:SVG Chart is using font sizes less than 1 px, but it used to work fine before, and does not fool the browser, but it is only the PNG rendering that is messed up. But yes this is a new problem that started showing up around May 2015. Everything uploaded before the change is fine, and when you re-upload the exact same file from that period it is now trashed. Take File:Residential Electricity Price in Finland-en.svg for example, which I re-uploaded as File:Test.svg with no changes. There are many files like this that I can not update because they will simply be trashed if I do. Delphi234 (talk) 19:32, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
If the problem is small font sizes, is someone just not doing calculations to enough digits? Rounding px values to 0.01 or 0.001, instead of to six or eight digits, for example? Inkscape uses a lot of digits, and can have odd things like "stroke-width:0.40000001". Really? Not 0.4? Delphi234 (talk) 20:21, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Ok, seems indeed "new", but look this example File:Fonttest-Kerning.svg. It seems this bug was temporary fixed, or something other happens, I don't know. However this bug should be get the most priority to librsvg fix. @Preview: I mean I also don't see it on upload a replacement image. ↔ User: Perhelion20:49, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
February 11
New tag/tempate
Latest comment: 8 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Wikipedia has a template {{Orphan image}}, that allows to identify orphan files. Is it possible to enter such template in the Wikimedia Commons? All files marked with this tag, will be displayed in a separate list, so users can identify them easily. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ігор Пєтков (talk • contribs) 10:41, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
By the nature of Commons, most images here are "orphans" in the sense of not being displayed anywhere other than their own file page, so it's hard to see the point of such a template. - Jmabel ! talk16:37, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Building D
Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
This picture is taken from the Dockland Ligth Railway on the Woolwich branch. Does anyone know this building and what its purpose was? I dont know if its still there.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:59, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
How to delete a non existing category mentioned with an image file?
Latest comment: 8 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
While working on the "Media needing categories" I saw the file File:سد أضرعه.jpg. A non existing category "Photographs taken on ٢٠١٤-٠٤-٢٦" is mentioned. In the code I see nothing about that category. If I want to delete that category, how to do that? Thanks, Wouter (talk) 07:55, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago8 comments4 people in discussion
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
You can now edit pages on the mobile site version without JavaScript. [31]
A few editors might have been logged in as someone else because of a bug. For security reasons everyone was logged out on 9 February. If you have seen this bug, you can report it. [33][34]
Changes this week
There is a beta feature that adds links to the subject on other Wikimedia projects. The plan was to have it leave beta testing and be enabled for everyone in January. It will happen on 16 February instead. Wikis that don't want this can decide to have it disabled. [35][36]
Cross-wiki notifications will be available as a beta feature on Wikidata, MediaWiki, Commons, and all Hebrew and French wikis on 19 February. [37]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 February. It will be on all wikis from 18 February (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 16 February at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
The search function on Wikimedia wikis will get a completion suggester that tries to find the right pages as the user is typing. It will also recognize some typos. This will probably happen in March. It is currently in beta. [38]
Could these standard reports which are not Commons-specific, be posted somewhere other than the Commons Village Pump, and still be considered well communicated? Perhaps a we need to create a specific sub-page for technical discussion and notices where contributors with technical passion to contribute at Phabricator can watchlist and then raise any issues that seem worth wider attention at this level? As a more "technically minded" contributor who keeps track of some tasks on Phabricator, I am convinced that the vast majority of contributors that read and write to the top level VP will not be interested in reading these regular tech reports. I see the same information flagged to me on 3 different communication channels every week and I rarely take the time to read them. --Fæ (talk) 17:13, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
@Fæ: They're posted here because of me, I added this page to the delivery list a month ago: [39]. They were previously only posted to Commons:User scripts/tech news, which AFAICS basically no one reads and no one watches. I think these are useful to less technical contributors too, or even primarily. If y'all disagree, feel free to just revert that edit I linked to, and there'll be no more Tech News on this page next week. I wish there was a more tech-specific village-pump-like discussion page here on Commons, it'd probably be a good place for these too. Matma Rex (talk) 17:22, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
I do find it useful (although I'd also be fine with a separate technology village pump), but it would be more useful if
someone in a position to provide actual insight and to do something meaningful with feedback would read responses from the Commons community
@LX: I read the responses :) There weren't any ones that could be acted on so far (there was some general grumbling about the WMF being evil, though). As for missing content, please complain at m:Talk:Tech/News or add it yourself (m:Tech/News#contribute). I don't really have time to maintain it, I only sometimes add mentions of things I work on, sorry. Matma Rex (talk) 20:29, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for responding, Matma Rex. Surely you're joking about the "add it yourself" part, though, right? Information to the volunteer community about what the WMF techies break and fix can't come from the volunteer community. I don't know why Phabricator was down or what was done to fix it and reduce the risk of it happening again. I don't know why the CSS broke on edit pages or what was done to fix it and reduce the risk of it happening again. I don't know whether the increase in reports of the Upload Wizard coinciding with this degradation was coincidental. That's what I'd like to know. That's why I asked (and answering that question would certainly be actionable). —LX (talk, contribs)20:57, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
@LX: I don't understand what made you think I am joking, I was serious. Volunteer developers are free to add or correct information in tech news, and I imagine many WMF employees read it too, it's not just "from WMF to volunteers". I was also serious about complaining about the missing informations directly on the talk page, I know people read it (it's mostly Johan maintaining tech news these days) and I imagine if that's what people expect from tech news, it could be included in there.
Documentation about the Phabricator outage is available at wikitech:Incident documentation/20160204-Phabricator, but it's a pretty secluded corner of Wikimedia and the outage was brief, so I guess tech news maintainers haven't noticed (or noticed, but considered it not important enough). In general, information about ongoing outages can usually be divined from wikitech:Server Admin Log (there are a few notes about that event in there too).
As for the other outage, it seems that the mw1253 server broke at the time and did not serve requests correctly. It doesn't seem to have been documented as an incident report, but there's a note in the Server Admin Log, and some more information in the #wikimedia-operations IRC channel logs for the day. Since there seem to be at least around 150 servers just like mw1253 (and possibly 500 or so, I'm not sure how to read the configuration files at [40]), this affected no more than ~0.7% of users for a brief time, and presumably went unnoticed by anyone other than ops and those affected. The UploadWizard issues were likely related (both styles and scripts are server by the same servers).
I hope you appreciate this answer (and the time I spent finding this all out), and we can go back to the main topic of the discussion ;) Matma Rex (talk) 23:14, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Thank you again, Matma Rex; I do appreciate the answers. The reason I thought you might have been joking is that, as you say, it took you – someone with quite a bit of prior knowledge about ongoing activities and where things might be documented – some time to find these answers. I – a volunteer with a focus on the contents of the project and only a utilitarian interest and superficial understanding of these things – wouldn't even know where to begin to look. It seems like every week I find out about one more wiki page, mailing list, IRC channel, external status dashboard, Twitter feed or dead drop that I apparently should have kept my eyes on. I guess what I'm saying is I like it, I'd just like more of it. What was the main topic of the discussion again? ;) —LX (talk, contribs)17:53, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hallo semuanya, salam kenal
Sebagai pengguna baru saya belum banyak mengetahui banyak hal tentang Wikipedia Commons khususnya tentang tata tertib penggunaannya.
Oleh sebab itu mohon masukkannya tentang cara aman agar saya tidak dianggap melanggar aturan main.
Atas tanggapanya saya ucapkan terimakasih — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaketkulitmurah (talk • contribs)
Ran this through Google translate, and this seems to be asking for someone to somehow put Commons in some sort of "safe mode" so (s)he can't accidentally violate rules. I don't really think there is anything we can do there. - Jmabel ! talk02:44, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
Caption challenge..
Latest comment: 8 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello, i want to upload images that were previously deleted. Now i have received e-mail from creator of these images. He said, that i can upload these images with license CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. Maybe I must send this e-mail to someone before i upload images. (I don't know mailbox address )
Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi all,
I've been working on a project to improve the categorization of pictures in the Upload to Commons Android app as part of the Outreachy Dec '15 program, which is soon drawing to an end. To summarize, 3 new features have been implemented in this app:
1. If a picture with geolocation is uploaded, nearby category suggestions are offered (based on the categories of other Commons images with similar coordinates)
2. If a picture with no geolocation is uploaded, nearby category suggestions are offered based on the user's current location. This is optional and only works if enabled in Settings.
3. Category search (when typing in the search field) has been made more flexible, whereas previously this was done solely by prefix search. E.g. now searching for 'latte' should be able to return 'iced latte'.
The latest version of the app is v1.11 and can be downloaded here. Please feel free to leave feedback or bug reports on our GitHub page.
The above Featured Picture has been on Wikimedia Commons for nine years, being used as a Picture of the Day in 2007. There never has been any doubt about its public domain status, being a U.S. Air Force photograph taken during a public humanitarian operation in Pakistan. There is a push retrospectively to apply a hypothetical interpretation (from a legal perspective) of Photographs of identifiable people, so that almost any portrait of an identifiable person at public events or using public transport where there is no explicit model consent for the photograph may be subject to this form of courtesy deletion even when there is no external request for removal and no interpretation that the photograph could be reasonably thought to be demeaning or problematic in an obvious way. If this interpretation becomes the norm for Commons, this project will become a highly unreliable host for newsworthy images of people for journalists, or for modern archives that include photographs of people, as they may be subject to haphazard courtesy deletions years after release.
Please add your viewpoint, alternate case studies and interpretation of legal requirements as well as Commons policies to the deletion request.
Latest comment: 8 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Hi, this is my first visit to commons, so please excuse if I'm posting this on the wrong page. There a couple of images like [41] and [42] where I wonder whether the stated license is actually correct. Meaning, I saw these images elsewhere as copyrighted material, and therefore I wonder if the companies that prepared the figures actually know, they are on here "free to use". If I should have asked this somewhere else, please let me know. --MathiasNest (talk) 12:07, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
The first one was a clear copyright violation, and also the second image appears to be non-free. I've tagged the latter for missing permission so it may be gone soon, too. De728631 (talk) 22:05, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Non-hidden hidden category
Latest comment: 8 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
What's going on with Category:Brick buildings in Williams County, Ohio? It's not appearing in either of its parent categories (Category:Buildings in Williams County, Ohio and Category:Brick buildings in Ohio by county), it doesn't appear in the Cat-a-lot menu (e.g. if I'm in Category:Williams County, Ohio and navigate down to the buildings subcategory, Brick buildings isn't listed as a subcategory, even though Houses is), and if I type its name into Cat-a-lot, I get a new-for-me error message, Error: Unable to get property 'length' of undefined or null reference. I can't see anything wrong with the category itself; if I click on either of the category links at the bottom of its page, I end up at the parent categories, and it doesn't have anything that would transclude __HIDDENCAT__ — and even if it did, I've picked the "show hidden categories" gadget. I made a dummy edit at Brick buildings in Ohio by county, so it's not a job queue thing, but it's still not showing up there. Nyttend (talk) 15:12, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
Actually I could see the problem yesterday and made a null edit on the new category. Afterwards, the category showed up in the parent categories. --Magnus (talk) 08:38, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Groups of Wiki awards barnstars
Latest comment: 8 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
What category are we supposed to look at to understand its scope? Could you explain a bit more what you mean by "first, second and third groups"? --rimshottalk07:12, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Thank User:Rimshot. Premise: we had time ago one only category category:Wikimedia barnstars. Now we have also Category:Awards associated with Wikimedia users and both are currently being depopulated in sub categories but there is still a bit of mess. First, second, and third is a contributions ranking or Gold silver and bronze like Olympic medals. Users or sub-projects (like history-project for instance) sometimes use to create groups of 3 very similar awards to give to wikimedian contributors according to the obtained results. But often these triplets are broken up into category:wikimedia gold barnstars, category:wikimedia silver barnstars and category:wikimedia bronze barnstars. This is a correct categorization but can't be the unique one otherwise it's is not easy to find a complete group and impossible to realize that there is this kind of groups by users that don't know it. So i want to create a category of these groups of ranking related awards. I Hope i was clear--Pierpao.lo (listening)08:37, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
I'd call such a group of barnstars a set, so it would be Category:Wikimedia award barnstar sets or simply Category:Wikimedia barnstar sets. I suppose this category will contain a number of sub-categories that will contain only three files? A gallery page might be more helpful here, as it would be possible to group the barnstars by topic and then order them by value (gold, silver, bronze). We have Barnstar, but that's already a very large gallery. A gallery Wikimedia barnstar sets could accompany it. The term "set" doesn't really imply a ranking, someone else might come up with a better name. --rimshottalk21:35, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
February 18
Coat of Arms of Pakistan
As I think, State Emblem of Pakistan is not in official color and it also needs some changing in its current version. Community is highly encouraged to take part in discussion so that coat of arms can be turned into its original form. All are requested to check the color of coat of arms. Here are some references about official color and official form:
Firstly, official color is not #014102 (Dark Green). Rather it is #00611c (Light Green or Parrot-like). Secondly, version of the file that was uploaded on 09:34, 12 August 2014 by Baba66 is superior but it also needs changing in it's color. Vector graphing experts are requested to review it again and make correction in file. Thanks! Wárrãich šÁhißtalk
Please vote for Wiki Loves Africa 2015 Community Prize
{{category:Monument to Johann Sebastian Bach, Zhabei District}} is transclusion syntax and it is used on all these file description pages, that, btw. could be cleaned up to use {{Artwork}}. -- Rillke(q?)22:19, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
That was a half-baked attempt to solve a major issue that we have with artwork description. Images of artwork are supposed to use {{Artwork}}, but when the same artwork is pictured in many files, editing every file just to add a small bit of info/translation etc. is an insane waste of time. I think it's pretty clear the only sensibe solution would be to use data from Wikidata, but afaik, there is still no announced date to enable "arbitrary access" on Commons, and I don't know what should be done in the meantime. -Zolo (talk) 19:17, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
@Leyo: {{Object photo}} and {{Category definition: Object}} are an ugly hack, IMO, but 'quite' widely used... (based on a transclusion count of both templates, 20,000 is a fair guesstimate). I personally think using 'Artwork' gallery pages is a better solution ({{Art Photo}} can transclude data from galleries with that prefix, and they are in the main namespace so wikidata can link to them) but there seems to be no consensus for it... only a couple of dozen cases exist. WikiBase will hopefully make the point moot, in some way, 'Real Soon Now'. Meh. Revent (talk) 11:26, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
February 15
Category:Hipsters
Latest comment: 8 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion
Is "hipster" a pejorative term, and should we be categorising photos of people as Category:Hipsters if we (or a Flickr user) think they look like hipsters? Following the lede of Category:Rednecks (which just has a cartoon and some guys in joke T-shirts), I cleared the category out of all photo portraits yesterday, but User:Tm added File:Bike to Bar Big Star.jpg back, arguing that "This is not used mainly as a pejorative term", and has now added all the other photos back as well. Is "hipster" a pejorative? --McGeddon (talk) 22:05, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm not suggesting the deletion of any categories, just that if a term is (per that Wikipedia link) "often used as a pejorative" in the present day, then Commons shouldn't be using it to describe identifiable people, per Commons:Photographs of identifiable people#Defamation.
(Category:Rednecks had the same two images of a cartoon and some guys in joke T-shirts when I looked at it the other day. I just added it to a supercategory when I realised my link above was red.) --McGeddon (talk) 22:40, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Did you even read the article, much bigger than this passage, and specially the sources of this passages, that do state the criticism that outsiders give this subculture but do not state this term being used as a insult? Hippies, rednecks, hipsters and others subcultures are not pejorative terms, even if sometimes they are used as insults! The defamation is not present in this categories, and the users that added the images to this category are not defaming someone. You only defame someone if you call gross and clear insults like thieve, moth☆r fuc...., "white trash", prostitute, or other clear and universal insults. Not what might, in some countries (in my country the term is not a insult, but could even be a compliment) ornin very specific persons and situations be constructed as could being an insult. Tm (talk) 23:20, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Agree with Tm. I have never heard word "hipster" used as a pejorative so that one should be OK, but I also agree with McGeddon that when we start labeling people with subjective labels based on apprentices we might step out of line in some cases. Terms like nerd, hippie, jock, redneck, homeboy, brainiac, skinny, overweight, short, even gay, etc. could be a seen as insults by some while for others could be labels they proudly self identify with. I could imagine any of those terms be on a t-shirt with "... and proud of it" following it. It is probably OK to label images of people you can not identify but if we have categories for any of those terms than only images of identifiable people should be images where subject self-identified as such. --Jarekt (talk) 19:58, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
Self-identification does seem to be the key here, and even something as mild as "Category:Nerds" seems to be largely restricted to photos of people in fancy dress costumes, with just a handful of "I found this photo on Flickr and I think they look like a nerd" (most of which look nothing like nerd stereotypes). There are dozens of photos in Category:People using computers which could be categorised as "nerd" if Commons was okay with that.
Latest comment: 8 years ago7 comments6 people in discussion
I need a tip please to find someone who is currently making coats of arms of nobility and royalty for Commons. Any help would be appreciated. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 16:38, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
May not apply to you, but this site creates downloadable CoAs in .png format from descriptive text; there used to be a software tool called Blazon but I haven't used it for a while as it was pretty clunky. HtH. Rodhullandemu (talk) 16:56, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi Commonists,
The Multimedia team has been hard at work building a new extension, and we believe we now have a workable demo running on Labs! You can find it on our Multimedia Alpha Wiki, where there are also instructions for testing.
Note that we have a list of known bugs and failings on that wiki, and we are working on getting those fixed before we push the extension into any kind of deployment - our next steps will likely be to put it on test2wiki, then to push a BetaFeature to Commons if all goes well. We will keep you updated with the status of the project as we progress.
If you find more bugs, or have concerns about this extension, you can share them here on the Village Pump. You can also file a Phabricator task against ImageTweaks if you prefer to be in more direct contact with the team about a technical issue.
Both with a wrong author and license statement, both with wrong date indication. Especially the wrong date is often be seen, when the file once has been transferred from a Wikipedia. --Speravir (Talk)23:22, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
Oops, forgot to ask the question: Can I make corrections without discussion? It seems in both cases rahter clear to me, that there has to be a PD-license template, and the date is given for one file and could probably found out for the other one. --Speravir (Talk)23:26, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
A common method of making corrections is the BRD cycle. Bold change, Reverted by someone who disagrees, Discussion of what should be changed. So if you are reasonably sure of a change, it can be made with no prior discussion, I would say that at least 99% of the corrections I make are without any prior discussion. When in doubt, just bring it up on the talk page and wait a while to see if anyone responds. You can also post a notice here or on the help desk for advice on what you were thinking of changing. Delphi234 (talk) 17:04, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion
This page was removed in the past (redirected to COM:Redundant) with reason. I mean the current availability of an talkpage-link (which page don't exist anymore) as policy is not an appropriate means for an official policy page. So I mean it's time to delete or substitute this link. The primary problem however is, that this talkpage get sometimes quoted (cited) for decision reasons (by admins and users). Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Jumping_Wikipe-tan.png (@KTo288) But the most seems not understand what that sentence meant, because this sentence alone, is completely generalizing and ambiguous. So in fact that sentence "This image has been superseded" is not a sufficient reason for deletion!" is used to completely withdraw an "official policy". In fact my example is not an single case. In fact my example can't get higher, because it's an exact copy and normally COM:DUPE applies too. So in the end it is absolutely idiotic (annoying) to made an DR with Redundant reasoning (with this decision-reasoning, so for me, this activity has gone completely superfluous). Sincerely(OT: Sorry if my English is bad, you can correct me) ↔ User: Perhelion23:36, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
A lot of policies on Commons were written without thinking through all possibilities. For example, we don't want to delete the source images of SVGs (one type of superseded image), but where we have several tiny versions of an image now available larger, or, for example, a halftoned version of a photo we now have in proper form, or a black-and-white copy of a colour image, or the like, that kind of superseding might well mean the much-lower-quality one should be deleted. We've seen this before: a former ban on captions (written to discourage people from adding captions to their photos) was regularly used to strip captions from Victorian cartoons and other such illustrations, ruining their usability, or at least harming their encyclopædic value. That one's been clarified; perhaps this one needs to be as well. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:32, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes, thanks for response. What I want is the only simple rational way (to solve the chaotic, annoying and in the end destructive circumstances, may be expressed about significantly) is to improve this lot of or first only one Commons policy. So what is to do for this? Must be open a RfC !? ↔ User: Perhelion03:53, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
(To be a bit (more) generalizing pathetic:) I can not believe that this no one cares, this is the basic source of never ending unnecessary debates, injustice and resultant hatred here. ↔ User: Perhelion12:43, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
"A lot of policies on Commons were written without thinking through all possibilities." I mean this is only an unfortunate paraphrase of the situation. What I mean are basic possibilities to this policy. If an policy can't always valid, it is not a valid policy. The best practice rule of Commons is ignorance. ↔ User: Perhelion16:22, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
February 13
Commons official Facebook group
Latest comment: 8 years ago12 comments5 people in discussion
Could someone explain who manages the Commons facebook group https://www.facebook.com/Wikimedia.Commons, perhaps there is an on-project page that explains how to get involved or ask questions about it? Though I'm a high volume contributor I was not previously aware of it until it was mentioned in an email on wikimedia-l today.
It appears to be a page rather than a group—ie it's used for posts promoting Commons rather than extensive discussion. And I would imagine it's run by the WMF comunications people; the equivalent page for Wikipedia is. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:26, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
As it is not on the above meta page in the table of pages officially "owned" by the WMF, I believe it is run by someone else. I would hope as it represents Commons, that it is run by some of our regular unpaid volunteers. it's a bit odd that it is hard to find out.
I have tried a message via the page, but I get the automated reply "This page is only for promoting Wikimedia Commons; for support use the help/questions page of Commons, please! Thank you!" --Fæ (talk) 19:35, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
How about you stop the wikidrama and the wikiconspiracy and use the search >> Commons:Social media/Facebook? It's under a Commons Namespace and under social media, and you never heard? You a high volume contributor that don't how to find things here? Actually none here?
And I already started a thread not long time ago here about it...
Just to clarify, WMF have a staff administrating the page, and have some volunteers (around 7 volunteers), only one active and not paid. This was created by some volunteers, you can see the owners at the FB page...
Oh, please. Fæ asked what seems a perfectly reasonable question and, as you can see, several other people couldn't readily find the answer either. Please don't go creating drama while accusing others of doing the same. - Jmabel ! talk20:55, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
The page on Commons you link to, you created two months ago (whereas the Facebook page looks like it has been around for many years), I missed any discussion about the new on-Commons page, probably because it was too close to Christmas. Checking https://www.facebook.com/Wikimedia.Commons/info/?tab=page_owners (which I also missed as I have no idea how Facebook is organized) I see two people I don't know as page owners. If a member of WMF staff is administering it, does that make it a WMF owned Facebook page, or is it run by volunteers? --Fæ (talk) 21:00, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
So before you all start to speculate about paid contribution, start to make a public rage against other volunteers at Wikimedia Commons page [44], you should come home and try to find and "fix" things here.
And yes, I created, because I just entered two months ago, after a second discussion about FB page, do the search, and probably you will find more mentions about this page here at Village Pump.
Is it run by volunteers? Yes! The same volunteer that requested ideas to the page, and tried to clarify the cc-sa issue, and received no new ideas.
4 fb admin, just one WMF staff, 3 volunteers, I told you that just to guarantee that WMF knows the page and have a staff there.
I did that thing just to quick show you why people behind the Commons page don't have their name opened, because you don't like to be associate to the Wiki name... that also answered "I see two people I don't know as page owners"
Let me explain one thing about WMF, the "hierarchy" is something like Wikimedia Movement > Wikimedia Foundation, not the opposite. If WMF created something, it bellows to the Movement, they don't have the ownership of anything, anything at all, WMF was created to manage fund-raising and hardware maintenance, and that's it. Got it? -- RTA21:23, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
I would support a call for more contributors that enjoy hanging out on Facebook to join the (unofficial) group and use the account to post matters of interest on Commons, as well as celebrating our content. Leaving it to one or two people is unlikely to be representative or a good idea long term for sustainability. Perhaps this would be worth a site notice to promote as threads on the VP are not everyone's cup of tea? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 10:00, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
Fæ I made the call for support and ideas, nothing, even from you that know now about the page, so... and of course that it's not sustainable.
The idea of not being representative and unofficial it's enormously stupid, if we put that this is the FB page it's, end of the history. And if we put content of Wikimedia Commons, it's "representative", but why this should be "representative"?? To be representative, we would need to put this conspiracies, dramas, megalomanias... on that, this is not attractive...
This FB page is more a propaganda than anything, this is not for volunteers, volunteers are here keeping up, pages like that are to promote Commons.
Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion
Has anyone else tried to get Windows 10 to display all languages? When I was using Windows 7 I only needed to install one language package to support over 100 languages, and then only needed to individually add a few missing languages, but for Windows 10 I am presented with not just 141 separate languages to add but dozens of variants to choose from for some of these. I have a feeling that instead of an hour it is going to take weeks. I tried to go back to the image that I am currently translating into about 150 languages, and I discover that the spreadsheet that I was using will not load, nor do most of the languages display properly. I got around the spreadsheet problem by creating a new one with just the remaining items that still need to be translated. As Windows only offers 141 languages there are others that will still be missing. Delphi234 (talk) 02:46, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
Still working on getting everything to display, but one glitch is Chrome has a notice for Armenian - "Google Chrome cannot be displayed in this language". Part of the page displays but not all of it. Firefox, Opera, and Explorer are working though. Delphi234 (talk) 22:50, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
AIDS education posters under deletion review
Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Example AIDS poster that is copyright ineligible and can be saved from deletion. Italian language, Swiss Federal Office of Public Health & Swiss Physicians.
Save some HIV education posters on Commons! The posters are in many languages and targeted at all sorts of groups, from young gay clubbers through to pregnant women.
If you have some time to take a walk-through of the some of the 2,700 posters in the above check category, it would be really helpful for our future ability to illustrate articles about the history of and education about HIV in various languages. A number of the posters are copyright ineligible or we may be able to get a CC-BY release from the original copyright holding organization (the Wellcome Library is the archive, not the copyright owner). If you identify any posters that may be exceptions please make a note in the deletion request, and do change the copyright license if you know which template to apply.
The posters are up for deletion after a review by the Wellcome has resulted in a necessary change to a more restrictive copyright licence. The deletion request will probably be closed at the end of this month.
Fortunately all of the posters will still be available for educational purposes from the Wellcome Library's website even if deleted from Commons, though they will not be useable on Wikipedia unless there is a good Fair Use rationale to support a local upload.
Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Please see meta:Requests for comment/Fair Use on Commons.
Note, please, that this would not, itself, change Commons policy, and is completely nonbinding. It's asking the WMF Board to, themselves, 'allow us' to create a very limited EDP allowing for fair use 'outside' of actual files, for the purposes of discussion and documentation. It was likely not the intent of the WMF to actually prohibit such use, but they have done so. If it happens, it would still require Commons to actually write such a policy (or, more likely, add a section to the existing licensing policy).
Please have discussion there, not here. This is just pointing at it. Thanks. Revent (talk) 03:36, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Cross-wiki notifications available as a Beta feature on Wikimedia Commons by February 19th
Latest comment: 8 years ago17 comments6 people in discussion
Dear Commons community
Collaboration team is please to announce that Cross-wiki notifications will be available as a Beta feature on your wiki by February 19th at 01:00 UTC.
Cross-wiki notifications will help you know about some activity on another wiki. How does it work? Imagine someone thanks you on any Wikipedia - the next time you open a page on Commons, you'll see that notification from that Wikipedia! We hope this will help everyone who is active on multiple wikis. You will find more information in the documentation.
Of course, this is a Beta Feature. We have tested many possible cases, but you may experience some problems. If so (and we are sorry about that), please report it on the dedicated page (in any language).
To activate the feature, go to your preferences, Beta tab, and select the "Enhanced notifications" checkbox. You will then receive Notifications when they happen on any other wiki. You will receive these notifications only on the wiki where you have activated the feature (Beta testers: Wikidata, MediaWiki, Commons, all Hebrew and French wikis). If you do not activate it, nothing will change on your Notifications panel.
@Trizek (WMF): Thanks for the notice. If this ever becomes non-Beta then I'll be opting out, as we can already opt to get emailed when things we want to watch get changed on any wiki.
In terms of priorities for WMF development time helping Wikimedia Commons, rather than the focus being on socializing features, could we have some attention applied to getting the Commons API to handle basic image rotation in the same way that the Internet Archive has for several years? Relying on unsupported amateur bots to do this in various ways that are likely to break in the future because the WMF does not support them, is not a smart solution. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 11:31, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
(Edit conflict)
Thank you for your comment, Fæ. Cross-wiki Notifications have very positive feedback for the moment, and people who are active on multiple wikis are really happy about it. Also, I understand that some people don't think this feature is that useful to them and plan to disable it when it will be out of Beta. We respect that and, of course, an opt-out option will be provided. This feature is important IMHO: when it will be released on all wikis, it will be easier for people working on a Wikipedia to know that they have a message on Commons concerning a picture they've uploaded (one example on may). This will help (I hope so) to solve endless talk pages full of warning messages without attention from the uploader.
Your request concerning files rotation can't be included on Collaboration team's roadmap. But I'll do my best to give a voice to that request: as a community member, working sometimes on Commons, I know that we need it, so as thousand little other things. Be sure I'm a daily defender of non-Wikipedia attentions and improvements. Best, Trizek (WMF) (talk) 13:48, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
I know some people think I only complain but I am actually looking forward to this. This is one of the features I had been asking for and I know a lot of others have too. As someone who participates in several of the WMF projects I think this will be a great improvement...but has it been tested thoroughly? It's not going to be another Visual Editor fiasco is it where it tells us we have a message but don't, doesn't clear once we have read them, etc.? Reguyla (talk) 19:38, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
I want to say straight away, that i agree with Fæ's comment about the rotate stuff. @Trizek (WMF): Something like [[File:Test.svg|rotate=20]] is not helpful at all. The rawfile itself must be rotated. But i explained that to multiple staffers in the past... --Steinsplitter (talk) 12:12, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
I have only briefly examined the code in Git for Extension:ImageTweaks, if the API has basic image manipulation commands to losslessly do simple rotate-90 and preserve the EXIF data in the process, then that's a win. At the current time I cannot tell if this is the use case being aimed for. If in doubt, please refer to the way the Internet Archive have implemented their API commands to return (simple) manipulated images.
Lastly, whatever is implemented, please ensure enough time is put aside to writing up the end user manuals, so that naive autodidactic API users like me can save a lot of volunteer time when getting it to work. There are no WMF supplied free training courses for this stuff (at the moment) as WMF funds are used for much more important things, like paying consultants and lawyers to facilitate closed board discussions. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 12:33, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
@Reguyla: Cross-wiki Notifications have been tested on test wikis. As I've written in my initial message, we did our best to find all bugs. But only an IRL test will show us all possible bugs. That's the purpose of that optional Beta feature. Did you experienced problems?
@Steinsplitter & Fæ: do not hesitate to contact directly the team in charge of that rotate extension. They will answer all your questions better than I do. And yes, I know that saying it again is boring but the more you will repeat in a nice and constructive way it the more people listen to you. :) Trizek (WMF) (talk) 08:18, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
@Trizek (WMF), thanks for the clarification. If that's the case and you only used the test wiki's then you are probably setting yourselves up for failure. It should be tested on a real wiki by some users who volunteer to use it for a short while (It's called user acceptance testing IRL). I would be happy to do it since i participate in multiple projects and I am sure others would as well but I can't do anything for on on ENWP. I am also familiar with using Phabricator. Reguyla (talk) 12:26, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Well, I'm not sure to understand your point, Reguyla. As explained on my initial message, Cross-wiki Notifications are currently released as a Beta feature. that mean they are currently being tested by some users who volunteer to use it on real wikis (Wikidata, MediaWiki, Wikimedia Commons, all Hebrew and French wikis). And tests have been conducted on multiple test wikis to seek problems (we find some) and fix them before releasing the Beta feature. Cheers, Trizek (WMF) (talk) 13:08, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Thank you very much, I actually didn't know that it was already available as a beta feature. I just enabled it. Do I need to enable it on each wiki or does enabling it on one allow the WMF sites to know I want it crosswiki? I assume it only currently works on wiki's that are set as a test? So not on ENWP or Meta yet? Reguyla (talk) 17:28, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Correct: that feature works only on the wiki you enable it. But you will receive on that wiki Notifications from everywhere else, incuding wikis where that feature is not enable or available. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 18:27, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Ok, then may I suggest a possible change and I realize it may not apply once these are out of Beta. At least I hope. Perhaps if the user activates on Meta, or checks an extra box...or something, it could then, using the global account authentication process, associate to all the other wiki's? It seems a little silly to have to manually activate on what could literally be dozens of wiki's for some people and call it laziness but I really don't want to have to manually do it on all of them individually. I doubt others do either. If this hasn't been suggested I would be happy to submit a phab ticket. Reguyla (talk) 19:25, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
The plan is to activate it by default, as an integrated feature to Notifications. If you don't want to see Cross-wiki Notifications on your favorite wikis, you will have to opt-out on your favorite wikis. I'm guessing most of users are active on a dozen of wikis top (sot that's not a big deal to opt-out manually), plus that opt-out option has been suggested by only two people at the moment (versus two dozens of people who love Cross-wiki Notifications in a "how complicated my life was before that" mode). :) Trizek (WMF) (talk) 19:39, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Oh ok thanks. Actually rather than opt out (which I do agree should at least be offered) is that I don't want to have to go to every wiki to activate it. But as I understand what you are saying that will no longer be required post beta release so it's not big deal. I would say most folks are only active on 2 or 3 max. Very few are active on more than 5 honestly, depending on how you define active. Unless they are a steward or a few other roles, most folks have one they spend most of their time on and then a couple others they participate less actively. For example I edit Wikisource and Simple occasionally but I wouldn't consider myself active although some might. I am pretty active here, Wikidata and meta though and I would be at ENWP if building an encyclopedia was still the purpose there. I also agree it's much better and a long overdue improvement. Reguyla (talk) 20:11, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
February 17
Why is geotagging so hard.
Latest comment: 8 years ago6 comments5 people in discussion
Rhetorical question but I am looking to provide a simple one line explanation of the correct method to geotag an image or en:page. It must work on linux, Rasbian, Android, Apple noob Windows at newbie training sessions. So far I have got this:
Find a file nearby- look at its geotag (as above)- click on the numbers and then click on Open streetmap - zoom in and click at the target spot- you can pick up the coordinates from the box top left.
commons camera location {{location dec|51.3959|0.4913}}
en wikipedia {{Coord|53.494|-2.451|display=inline,title|format=dms|name="Arrowsmiths Mill"}}
Take the coordinates from the template:Starting at the right on the template-
Google Earth- throws an error message about no knowing what to to do with a .kml file
Open Streetmap- works a dream showing a map with spots locating other photos ([46]) but there is nothing to press to get the 51.3959|0.4913 tuple we need for our templates. <<<growl: yes I can take it from the url and strip it- but newbies>>>
the raw numbers- excellent. It leads you onto our fantastic GeoHack Tool. For several hours there was a useful map on this page that could be used for the purpose- but that has gone. We are left with decoration to the right, and two top options. Google Maps, and Open Street Map which is entirely different to the one called above.
OSM -Here you zoom out the map- and double click on your target then press where am I (remember to close the search before doing a second one or you wont see where am I!) Voila- the tuple but formatted as a comma separated pair. <<<Growl, why cant coord and location be recoded to a accept a csp, or a num in the first positional field?>>>
Google Maps- here we have to double click on the target, then right click (choice What is here)- click on the new window with the tuple, then copy the tuple from the left top search box. it is in csv format.
the little globe opens our own wikiatlas- but there is no way to extract a lat/long tuple.
So why is it so hard to do a simple task- such a absolutely basic task? But more to the point how do we start getting it changed: so the complexity of the task matches the ability of our new editors.--ClemRutter (talk) 23:41, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
On a PC (running Linux/Windows/OSX) start JOSM, find the place where you took the photo, create a node there, select the node (if not already selected), go to "Edit–>Copy {{Location dec}} template" and just paste copied template into the proper place on Commons. I assumed that the image is already on Commons and it has no GPS data in EXIF. If it has GPS data in EXIF, just insert {{GPS EXIF}}. Of couse this method will not run on crappy platforms such as smartphones and tablets where JOSM most likely will not run. --jdxRe:03:15, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the confirmation that I am not alone. The problem is there- we have control over some excellent tools- but there is nothing focused on the newbie- or the guys trying to involve him. This seems to be a fundamental problem of philosophy or the sixth pillar of wikipedia, Wikipedia is configured to make it as difficult as possible to do the simplest tasks so that existing editors give up in total frustration, and new editors don't hang around. No one owns wikipedia but it is necessary for secret priesthood guard their own existence. This needs to be reversed and resources committed to solve the actual problem encountered by the user before flying new unrequested schemes.--ClemRutter (talk) 19:59, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
As a newbie I pasted the template of a nearby picture, then adjusted the numbers until Bing Maps hit the right place. Crude, tedious, but it worked. Now I usually tag beforehand with MS Pro Photo Tools or Google Picasa. Others, I am confident, will work as well. Basically, Mediawiki wasn't designed for geography, or even for pictures. The hacks that make pictures work are so mature now, they're not really hacks anymore. The ones for coordinates are still in what I hope is their childhood. I'd hate to see these squabbling, recalcitrant brats go on that way for another decade. I mean, a well integrated drag map for geotagging new uploads, old images and WP articles would work wonders for newbies and even be useful to us old-timers. If it can work somewhat smoothly. Jim.henderson (talk) 22:54, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia is configured to make it as difficult as possible to do the simplest tasks. Yes, that's because of our "Everything you could possibly do should be available for every single person in the community to try"-ethos. That creates very complicated solutions for simple tasks. We could fix some of that with smarter UI, but most people are volunteers, so investing extra time in those areas that 'already work' is often skipped in favor of working on things that don't yet work. If you want to see real progress on this, I advice you to write a 'product concept', with stories about how something like this should work from an 'editor's perspective'. Then we can collect something like that, and another person might use it as input to build an improved tool. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:59, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
February 20
Report of active Commons users with more than 10,000 edits
Latest comment: 8 years ago15 comments9 people in discussion
Oh sorry, I see the word "recently" (less than 180 days). PS. Meaningfulness: The user 1989 is known for made ca over 100.000 crap edits. ↔ User: Perhelion00:30, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I was surprised to see that at a modest 36, 000 edits since I started editing in 2014 I am at 440 and a lot of others including admins who have been here for far longer have just enough to make the list. I don't even think I have even been all that active. Reguyla (talk) 00:59, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I think my own count is over-inflated because of bulk moves done with cat-a-lot etc. One can get hundreds of edits for something that's really only a single change. --ghouston (talk) 11:45, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
It's also worth mentioning that the majority of "Admin" work is tracked by logged actions and not edits. For example, protections, blocks, deletions, etc. is a log action. Reguyla (talk) 17:24, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Administrators with low edit counts
As a thought experiment (in the middle of the night when I could not get back to sleep), I was pondering the reasons whether it was good for Commons to have any administrators with low numbers of edits to Commons, what "low" would look like, if that means they make a minimal number of edits each year just to "keep the hat" and their motivations for behaving this way. Here's an interesting table to flesh that thought out (see quarry):
Name
Edit Count
Wikimedia Commons Administrators with the lowest edit counts:
Though there are five times more admins on the English Wikipedia, the identical query there gives a very closely matched spread of # admins vs. editcount ranges
Administrators inactive/on sabbatical for more than 6 months (zero edits) quarry
So there are 64 Commons admins that are not included in the 10,000 edits 'active users' report; which is about ¼ of all admins. Other admins who have not edited in the last 30 days will also be excluded. --Fæ (talk) 13:17, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I have not dug into an analysis that would demonstrate a meaningful relationship between edit count and which admins 'do 80% of the work' a la Pareto. I suspect that there are exceptions and there may be some admins that specialize in a tricky area which does not rack up edit counts. For example I recall spending several weeks helping someone with a problem via OTRS, which involved double checking my understanding of the privacy and copyright issues, plus looking at image usage across multiple Wikipedias and deciding how to avoid a Streisand Effect from any action; the number of edits on Commons would have been trivial. So though I think that an admin with fewer than 5,000 edits on Commons is not "well-rounded" and gives me pause, I would not jump to the conclusion that to be in the 20% of admins that do significant work and probably demonstrate community leadership, that an admin should have more than 50,000 edits or even 20,000...
By the way, a more meaningful analysis could be done, that would mean looking into a breakdown of log actions and drawing out some metrics to test. But I think that's a poor use for my time when I have a long list of more interesting stuff on my personal backlog. --Fæ (talk) 13:45, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I agree with Fæ that number of edits is often a poor indicator of someone's involvement, but I guess that is the best indicator we have. In the days of various tools like Cat-a-lot or VisualFileEdit it is quite easy to concentrate on tasks that rack up edits. --Jarekt (talk) 14:10, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
To filter out some of these tool-edits a possibility would be to look at the number of unique minutes in which an edit was done. That's not perfect but gives a much better estimation of unique edits (most of the cat-a-lot or visualfilechange edits derived from a single click are within 1 or 2 minutes of each other). Gr, Basvb (talk) 22:44, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
There was no new MediaWiki version last week. Changes that were planned to happen last week will happen this week instead. This is because of a bug that made saving pages take longer time. [49][50]
Changes this week
After February 23, you can use Wikidata for inter-language links on Wikiversity. [51]
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 23 February at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Latest comment: 8 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
A few minutes ago I got the 403 («forbbiden») error when trying to acess Commons (while at least wp:pt was okay); now it’s okay again (or else I could not be here), but I’m showing as logged off in wkt (after repeated refreshes). -- Tuválkin✉✇21:36, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I believe the 403 was due to trying to cleanup some old symlinks that people thought were no longer being used, but actually were. The mistake was rectified quickly. No idea about the logout thing. Bawolff (talk) 03:26, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
Edit filters activate 'block' in Russian Wikipedia
Latest comment: 8 years ago10 comments7 people in discussion
The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
Unrelated to commons. User keeps requesting to create task in Phabricator with no clear indication of the reason behind such request, and refusing to write in their native language. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 14:11, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
Please either write in Russian (?), or provide a better translation to English. / Пожалуйста, напишите на русском (?) языке. Или нам нужен лучший перевод на английский язык. And please see the guidelines. --Malyacko (talk) 10:19, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
GFDL disclaimer simplification proposal
Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
A long time ago, someone added the words "subject to disclaimers" to the GFDL template on English Wikipedia. Other projects translated the disclaimers and replaced the link with a link to the project's local disclaimer. The disclaimer has since then been creating lots of extra administrative work: GFDL says that the disclaimer must be "preserved", so we can't translate the disclaimer or change the wikilink. Thus, a file which is "Subject to disclaimers" is not the same as a file which is "Subject to disclaimers" (the wikilink differs) and we currently have different templates with different disclaimers, for example {{GFDL-en}} and {{GFDL-ja}}. The template on Italian Wikipedia, it:Template:GFDL-con-disclaimer, provides a good explanation of the problem. It gets messier if you wish to combine a file which has one disclaimer with a file which has another disclaimer: then you have to quote both disclaimers, for example "Soggetto a disclaimer. Tätä koskee vastuuvapaus." Very user-unfriendly and confusing.
At some point, I found that someone had imported a file from a non-WMF project, and that project also had a disclaimer in its GFDL template, but with a link to a page on that project. I found that there was no standard GFDL template I could add, so I had to manually insert wikicode for a GFDL tag and separately list {{Cc-by-sa-3.0-migrated}}.
Can we simplify the disclaimer problem by adding disclaimer parameters to the standard GFDL template? For example, {{GFDL|enwikidisclaimer=yes}} if the file has English Wikipedia's disclaimer, or {{GFDL|itwikidisclaimer=yes|metawikidisclaimer=yes}} if it is a combined file which needs two disclaimers (the one from Italian Wikipedia and the one from Metawiki). There could also be a way to add {{GFDL|custom disclaimer=Subject to some other website's disclaimers.}} This would make things a lot easier if a file needs two disclaimers or if we do not currently have a template with the correct disclaimer. --Stefan2 (talk) 20:38, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
@Jmabel: . If you've been browsing the block log, you'll notice a lot of blocks that came because vandalism and spambots were triggering ru:Special:AbuseFilter/138. Blocking the addresses has become a rather large chore (because we want to block them as soon as they are identified, since they might later try to evade the filter), and it would of great convenience if the filter could just do the blocking automatically. Technically, because these are 6 hours all IPs, infinite user block durations would be required, but can be configured for IPs separately from accounts. The filter has been very accurate, but to further guard against false positives, it would warn before blocking the IP. The change requires community consensus in favor of it. --2607:F7A0:1:100:0:0:0:607:29, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
As the user also filed other requests for other projects in Phabricator that did not make much sense and repeatedly ignores requests, I'd wait for the user to explain their behavior. See phab:T127962#2059979 for the longer version. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 15:21, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
The user created a lot of disruption on Wikidata a couple of days ago, so that they had to be blocked (some of the IPs), and the Project Chat protected.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:09, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Whilst having another discussion about the diffusion of useful image tools and preparing some preliminary wikimetric analysis, I've realized that there are some users who are active on commons but not on wikidata.
Maybe they don't like wikidata, which is fine, but maybe a part is simply unaware that wikidata requires "image maintenance" as well. I think that they will be interested to know if there are tools that can be used to fill the gaps about image properties on wikidata.
A very simple analysis can be performed to find the active users with AP rights (=experienced) on commons but limited activity on wikidata and inform them about the image tools that are already available. To be honest, I could leave them a message directly on wikidata, but I guess it is better if the commons community agrees with me. I was thinking of a simple targeted message with a list of tools such as wdfist or wikishootme. With the right title people can skip it if they are not interested.
Perhaps you could list Wikidata image tools here? I do use Wikidata occasionally but I don't think I know all or even most features related to images in Wikidata. MKFI (talk) 07:28, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
ok we should create a summary page as well, I agree! I am laving for a travel and I will be in China so don't worry if you don't see me too much but I will come back with a more structured plan asap (a sandbox) and I will read your comments for feedback.--Alexmar983 (talk) 12:45, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
Audio files
Latest comment: 8 years ago6 comments5 people in discussion
How do I get to a page for single audio source where I can see all information (attribution for example), just like we can with images like this https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tawny_Owl_(4747324404).jpg?
For example at the end of this page https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strix_aluco there is a sound recording, but I can only play it. How can I see the url of the file and get attribution data for copyright if I want to use it on my page? My second question, if I can use this files, can I use them by directly linking to Wikimedia url from my page, or do I have to download and upload them to my server?
I readily found it by going in to "edit" mode: it's File:XN Strix aluco 003.ogg. But I think there is a licensing problem if there is no easy way to click through from the player device to the page itself, because there is no easy way for a naive user to see how it is licensed or from whom. - Jmabel ! talk20:58, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
I think it's worth raising a task for on Phabricator. I had noticed this 'feature' of the media viewer / audio player, but was not sure if it was just me. --Fæ (talk) 21:03, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
As far as I can see, Media Viewer doesn't have anything to do with this. When you link an audio file like this [[File:XN Strix aluco 003.ogg]], you get which at least has a "menu" that leads you to the file description page. The problem with the example seems to be that the sound file is embedded in <gallery> </gallery> tags, which, for some reason hides the menu (as well as the closed captions). The same problem exists for categories (but there the file is linked below the "gallery item"). Probably has to do with the player dropping some of the controls when there's not enough space for all of them. Not sure whether that's a bug of the player or the gallery, though … --El Grafo (talk) 16:37, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
This has been like this since 2009. It's because the 'thumbnail' is so narrow, that it drops the menu, in favor of more 'useful' controls. BTW. If anyone has good ideas to do better, more visible attribution for especially the audioplayer, and especially in narrow layouts, I'd welcome to hear about those ideas. Even better would be examples of other players doing this in a useful/acceptable way. I've yet to find something that I like for the player TNG that I'm working on. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:47, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
@TheDJ: Well, in a gallery view, the player doesn't even use 1/3 of the available space. Instead of trying to fit all the elements next to each other, why not use the empty space above and below and just stack them vertically? Sorry, don't have an example at hand. --El Grafo (talk) 11:02, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
uses most of the space
lots of space left above and below
Info For an interim solution it is possible to activate links to the files in the gallery, adding <gallery showfilename={anything}> which results in:
Yes, it appears to focus on "freely usable" without being as careful to note that most of them require attribution. I would remove this sentence in the introduction as totally useless. "All images in this guide are available on Wikimedia Commons, all credits, licenses and sources can be found on the last page as well as all the links provided in the guide." However, each image used in the guide that is not PD, such as the first image, need to be attributed. I see that is planned but has not been completed. Delphi234 (talk) 04:43, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
Category:Uploaded with UploadWizard includes a lot of Media, of course, but there are a few Pages as well. Some of them are indeed pages, e.g. User:Ahm masum/test2, but four of the ones in Pages in category "Uploaded with UploadWizard" are in the File namespace and have associated images: 1, 2, 3, and 4. Can anyone suggest why these are showing up in the wrong section? Is there any chance of there being some sort of bigger underlying problem with these images? I can't see any reason why they'd be doing this. Nyttend (talk) 13:13, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I just thought folks who aren't on the mailing list might like to know that Lila has resigned as Executive Director. Her last day will be March 31st. She announced it on the mailing list here and also on her page at Meta here. Reguyla (talk) 20:51, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
Too many prepositions
Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Wiki could improve its texts by eliminating the overuse of prepositions common in the USA. For instance, "upcoming" is just one syllable too many in front of "coming," for both mean the same. And "fall down" means the same as "fall" -- there's only one direction for falling. Just as there's only one direction for rising, so "rise up" is overload for "rise." You get the idea. ... Sent by W L Felsen, out there somewhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.160.40.245 (talk • contribs)
Actually that sorta already exists. If you look at Words to watch for example it shows some things to avoid and several of the ones you mention would probably fall into that. Reguyla (talk) 22:02, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
February 27
Photos distributed by White House
Latest comment: 8 years ago17 comments9 people in discussion
I looked at the archives, and am still confused whether there are restrictions on loading certain White House photos to Commons. Consider a photo like File:Barack_Obama_with_artistic_gymnastic_McKayla_Maroney_2.jpg, which states in metadata: This photograph is provided by THE WHITE HOUSE as a courtesy and may be printed by the subject(s) in the photograph for personal use only. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not otherwise be reproduced, disseminated or broadcast, without the written permission of the White House Photo Office. This photograph may not be used in any commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House. Does this imply only the subjects of the photo may use the photo, and it is not suitable for Commons? Does the "may not be manipulated ..." verbiage restrict it from being on Commons? I was under the perception that Commons only wants photos that can be freely altered and redistributed.Bagumba (talk) 01:15, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Really good question. Pete Souza took the photo; he's Chief Official White House photographer for President Barack Obama and the director of the White House Photography Office. That presumably makes him a federal government employee, so I have serious doubts about some of those restrictions. Non-copyright laws to restrict the use of images of the president for many narrowly commercial purposes (e.g. advertisements) or in a way that implies a political endorsement, but I doubt that they can legally restrict manipulating or disseminating the photo. Anyone have actual expertise on this? - Jmabel ! talk02:25, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
There was a 'known issue' a several years ago back (mentioned in the press, even) with the copyright claims being made on White House photos... it was actually behind Flickr's creation of "United States Government Work" as a license option (see http://www.wired.com/2009/05/flickr-creates-new-license-for-white-house-photos/ for an example of it being in the media). The simple reality is, if it's a work made by a US Government employee in the course of their official duties, then outside of very rare exceptions (like NIST) it's in the PD regardless of what they actually say, and the only restrictions that we really care about are those related to personality rights. The White House got a fair amount of criticism at the time for making invalid claims, but images with those claims in the metadata are still around. Revent (talk) 04:23, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
this is common. institutions persist in putting NC or ND on PD works. in some ways, commons leads the way in separating out the false restrictions upon the public domain. most people don't care. and not "distributed" by white house, but work for hire by the white house, a branch of the US government. Slowking4♡Richard Arthur Norton's revenge03:43, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
Proposal: We should have a spam-filter rule that warns (or blocks?) on attempts to upload images with this bogus boilerplate that directs uploaders to tools to strip it from the metadata, and not include it in file descriptions. --Elvey (talk) 04:59, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
Related to the above discussion: "The photograph may not be manipulated in any way. Also, it may not be used in any type of commercial" has 16 file hits. All seem to be tagged with {{Korea.net}}, which includes an OTRS ticket !?! e.g. File:Military_Guide_Tour_for_Foreign_Correspondents_25.jpg. This boilerplate contradicts the CC license the files are tagged with (it's not -NC). See, e.g. Commons:White_House_photostream and the Wired article noted above for more on the legalities. Let's reach consensus on what should be done with the 16 files found here. I figure we should remove the bogus boilerplate as we've done for the Photos distributed by White House. Do we have consensus? Mentioning this thread at Commons:OTRS/Noticeboard.--Elvey (talk) 06:22, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
The last discussion trailed off without an actual consensus about what to do, exactly, about korea.net images. The issue seems rather complicated by language issues. It seems that it is intended that all of the images on Flickr are supposed to be CC-BY-SA, and the text can be removed, but... (sigh). They should likely all use the source-specific licensing template, and many seem not to. Revent (talk) 10:56, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
Seems unnecessary; Russavia's information makes it clear that as with the Commons:White_House_photostream, commerical use implying endorsement is the only thing that's not OK. Secondly, it's a fact that should be clear to all but those that are uninformed that CC licenses are not revocable. (I refer to the use of the word "irrevocably" on any edit page, including the one I'm using now.) Thus, if you dual license something under a CC license that makes it free and another that doesn't, its' free. So, if you say "The photograph may not be manipulated in any way" and you release it under a CC license that makes it free, the statement, "The photograph may not be manipulated in any way." is, legally speaking, totally null and void.--Elvey (talk) 02:57, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
Strictly interpreted, the OTRS ticket implies that we should only accept those images that have a commons-compliant license, e.g. this one mentioned explicitly in the ticket. There is a back-and-forth about new images in the Flickr stream with bad licenses, and a response of essentially "oops, sorry, check the file again". The flickr account seems to be amenable to commons-compatible licensing, but they seem to need prodding. Storkk (talk) 09:30, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Huh? Should be clear to all: 1)The image mentioned in the ticket still has the bogus boilerplate. 2)CC licensing is NOT revocable. --Elvey (talk) 02:57, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
I don't see anyone disagreeing with the need to remove the bogus boilerplate as we've done for the photos distributed by White House. So, I'm going to remove it.
Google has opened an API for image recognition
Latest comment: 8 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion
That definitely looks interesting. There were 516,011 uploads last month. If we were to run "Label Detection" every image that gets uploaded through their api (And use the results to cluster/categorize/search through images), it would cost about $1032 $2580 per month. If we wanted to do OCR, Landmark detection, or "Image properties" (not clear on what image properties actually is), that would cost $309 $1290/month (each) [This assumes that WMF can't work out some sort of deal being a non-profit and all]. All things considered, if their api has high accuracy at labeling images properly (big if), that could very well be worth it. Bawolff (talk) 19:32, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Of course there is ideological concerns about becoming dependent on something not only open source but also up in the clouds where the vendor can change the price or discontinue the service on a whim. Bawolff (talk) 20:32, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Is it also possible to use Google's API to locate other copies of our images elsewhere on the Internet? It would be useful to combine that feature with a bot which adds the {{Copyvio}} template. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:05, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
user:DrTrigonBot didn't perform as good as such a service but it wasn't that bad (it did well identify humans and image colors) and it built upon open source software. All that was needed was a structured was to save this data. -- Rillke(q?)21:06, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
In general I like the idea. Perhaps having an extension with different recognition providers but common database extension. And this extension should also allow somehow search, of course... (might or might not be implemented through category-membership). -- Rillke(q?)21:06, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Hi everyone,
just as I did with the crowdfunding campaign for Jee, I think it important to let you know that a crowdfunding campaign is currently running to support one of our contributors, photographers and administrators, Rehman; @Azeez is the organiser and author of a truly fabulous video presenting Rehman's work on energy-related subjects in Sri Lanka. The campaign is being run on Indiegogo's Generosity site, and was co-ordinated at User talk:Rehman/Campaign (in case anyone wants to comment). I'm sure that Rehman will deeply appreciate even the tiniest of donations, if anyone is willing to support his campaign. odder (talk) 22:07, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
Thank you User:Odder, User:Azeez, and everyone else involved in making the campaign possible. I deeply appreciate it. And also, a very heartfelt Thank You to the two good folks who has contributed to the campaign so far. Warm regards, Rehman14:38, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, I left some comments on the talk page. Do we know what the effects have been of the other funding campaigns? I gave a look to [53] but of course that says little. Was Adobe Photoshop bought in the end? Nemo14:36, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
THIS IS FILE PRIVATE FILE OF WeenZy Production and Owasome Production
KNOWN BY HIS STAGE NAME Lil WeenZy,Girish,Shinchan PLEASE DO NOT USE
THESE FILES WITHOUT OUR PERMISSION IF YOU DO WE STRICTLY WILL TAKE ACTION ON IT.
The files do have the standard licensing information them, but is it allowed to state that the files may not be used (not to mention the veiled legal threat)? --Auntof6 (talk) 04:03, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Plase could you take a look at the contribution of this user. They are pictures of a schoolboy, they are IMHO out of scope and in some of them you can see also a nazi gesture.
I am 99% sure they should be deleted. I ma just not sure what is the best procedure in this case? A bulk deletion is it ok? I just want to be more "prepared" in the future.--Alexmar983 (talk) 05:08, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
The issue may not be the 'images' are of a minor but the fact it looks more like an attack as the uploader may not be the person in the pics..and also, 'Kaiser6' seems like a 'nazi salute' to me.....its in commons best interest to delete all the pics and hard block the uploader..--Stemoc05:58, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
Wikimania 2016: call for posters, discussions and trainings
Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi people,
the calls for posters, discussions and trainings for Wikimania 2016 are
officially opened, you can find all the relevant links on the conference
wiki:
Posters will be reviewed just to make sure that there aren't things
which are too much out of scope. Since we have a whole village we will
surely find places to attach them, even if we they will be a lot!
Discussions will be managed by a guiding committee who will work on the
wiki to meld all the proposals and suggestions.
Trainings will be reviewed by the programme committee. Please note that
we request that each training has at least 3-5 interested attendees in
order to be put in the programme.
By the beginning of April we will have a first list of all the accepted
proposals.
If you have questions we suggest you to ask them on the discussion pages
on wiki, so that everyone will be able to see them (and their answers,
of course).
There are a lot of images. So, it is difficult to provide the definitive answer without checking all of them. I just checked a few images and they appear not to have any author, source or copyright information. Such images are unlikely to be accepted here. Ruslik (talk) 12:27, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
For a very large number of those files, the problem isn't just lack of information, but that if any information had been provided, it would be clear that the images are completely non-free.
Non-free images.And I have submitted a request for delete them locally
Images available on Commons
Images can be transferred (historical and personal work).And this group includes low-quality images.Can I transfer these images to be reviewed here Or ask for delete them?Tank you --ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 06:48, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
Ah, thanks for pointing that out. I don't read Arabic, and I didn't run the headings through Google Translate initially. It's good to see someone on a smaller project with a lot of problematic files taking the initiative to clean up some of the mess. :-) I'd say the first order of business should be to delete the obvious copyright violations, and that should be done before discussing which of the remaining files can be transferred here. (I see some copyright violations and duplicates in the last section as well. For example, arz:File:Qo(m)asjid.jpg is grabbed from http://www.panoramio.com/photo/31993173, and arz:File:المجموعة البافارية للسيارات.jpg is a raster duplicate of File:BMW.svg.) —LX (talk, contribs)17:57, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
The Capiunto extension is installed on test wiki. Capiunto provides flexible infobox functionality for Scribunto and generates HTML for infobox features such as headers and rows. It is designed for clean and modern infoboxes that are driven by data from Wikidata, easily usable across different language versions, and easily extensible.
The visual editor now follows the TemplateData format setting announced in November. When you edit or add a use of a template, the wikitext will be laid out in one of the two ways. [54][55]
The order of parameters and format defined in a template's TemplateData will be now respected. [56][57]
Changes this week
On wikis where the visual editor is available in single edit tab mode, red links may open the visual editor instead of the wikitext editor, depending on user preferences. [58]
Anonymous editor warning is now displayed as a warningbox for consistency in both the visual editor and the wikitext editor. [59]
Parsoid has been updated to fit some HTML 5 specifications. [60]
Meetings
Resigning executive director Lila Tretikov is taking questions at Knowledge Engine FAQ regarding the much talked about project. [61]
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 1 March at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
fixed by User:Mattbuck — thank you! -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 00:19, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Fixed It turned out to be the server cache at Template:File renaming reasons/render. -- Rillke(q?) 13:00, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 February. It will be on all wikis from 4 February (calendar).
You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is expiring watch list entries. The meeting will be on 3 February at 22:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Comment: Link to File:Wikipedia, an introduction - Erasmus Prize 2015.webm, since somehow the gallery layout links directly to the file, instead of to the filepage, as it does for the image files. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 23:04, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
Why even bother with the Flickrwashing if you're going to claim that it's ineligible for copyright protection?
Oppose. {{PD-old-100}} produces those warnings for a reason. Sweeping the problem under the rug for the sake of suppressing warnings is a terrible idea. The fact that the author died more than 100 years ago says nothing about when their works were published. —LX (talk, contribs) 09:10, 8 February 2016 (UTC)byMartinWessely.JPG)
Info I registered as a fresh user at mynewsdesk.com --> see http://imgur.com/a/P8O48 (from below to above): the default setting for publishing images is "Creative Commons Attribution". The pull-down menu gives more options and a click at the "?" explains the licenses. There is no indication that — choosing "Creative Commons Attribution" — the work may be used/explored by others commercially. And I don't understand why they (mynewsdesk.com) have chosen a CC-BY-SA license as default setting: that could well be overlooked by the image posters --> normally, posting on similar public relations portals like http://www.openpr.de/, you do not expect this. I have my doubts that the image poster were really aware that they are providing CC-BY-SA content — and, when they do so, mynewsdesk.com failed in clarifying about the whole spectrum of the CC-licenses. Or mynewsdesk.com's intents from the beginning were to offer only a CC-BY-SA-NC ( eventually ND) license. Gunnex (talk) 01:38, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
wikimedia.org
Question Who decided the block of Russavia, the Community or the WMF? I still disagree his block until I know the reasons. --Amitie 10g (talk) 14:57, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
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--Fæ (talk) 17:40, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
Like Good news (my semi-automated account is also there, lol)! 
--★ Poké95 03:41, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
Support --Jarekt (talk) 14:24, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
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