Commons:Village pump/Archive/2022/12

Ornitologists

Hello, do we have a contributor on board with knowledge of ornithology or even better, an Ornithologist? Thanks. Lotje (talk) 10:32, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

• @Lotje: Unless there is a reason this is specific to Commons, you might ask at en:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds. - Jmabel ! talk 16:16, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

  @Jmabel: , there was actually a specific reason: File:The birds of Africa, comprising all the species which occur in the Ethiopian region (1896) (14753266334).jpg but MarcoSwart at Wiktionary was able to trac it back, so I added the category herE. Thank you for your time. Lotje (talk) 16:43, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

WD mismatch

At Category:Co-orbital objects, the WD item on the left of the page does not match the WD item transcluded through the Infobox Wikidata template. No idea why. Kwamikagami (talk) 07:27, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

• That is really weird. - Jmabel ! talk 16:21, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: I think this is just the infobox trying to track down the main Wikidata item for the topic. Category:Co-orbital objects (Q15216182) has its Commons sitelink and its Commons category (P373) pointing at Category:Co-orbital objects, but its category's main topic (P301) is co-orbital moon (Q1707270). The main topic is generally where the useful information in Wikidata will be, so the infobox points to that rather than to the category. --bjh21 (talk) 18:04, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Okay, didn't know if this was something that should be "fixed". If you're happy with it, I'll leave it alone. Kwamikagami (talk) 18:09, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Warren Commission

Hi, Could someone confirm that Category:US National Archives series: Numbered Exhibits is OK as subcategory of Category:Warren Commission. If yes, then all files which are in both categories can be removed from Category:Warren Commission. Thanks, Yann (talk) 20:58, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Also what's the point to have Category:US National Archives series: Numbered Exhibits, 11/30/1963 - 9/24/1964 (hidden category) in addition to Category:US National Archives series: Numbered Exhibits, with some images of the same item in one and some in the other? That's very confusing. Yann (talk) 15:05, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Posible duplicate

File:218 137-8 DB City-Bahn Lackierung - DB Museum Koblenz 13.06.15 (18651127679).jpg and File:218 137-8 (Flickr 18651127679).jpg are the same but one has been 'optimized'.Smiley.toerist (talk) 13:13, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

 Done. --A.Savin 20:22, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

banner showing link to vote in last year's Picture of the Year

When reading a page on the English Wikipedia (in fact my own user talk page), I am seeing a banner at the top, with a slideshow of various photos and a link to "help choose the best image of the year". The only trouble is, it is for 2021. I guess that the relevant input that produces this is somewhere on Commons, so am reporting it here in case someone knows how this can be updated. (Note that this banner appears above the page title, so it is clearly not part of how the talk page's own wiki content is being rendered.) Dani di Neudo (talk) 16:01, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

• Isn't that exactly correct? Aren't we currently determining the best picture of the previous year, not the current year? - Jmabel ! talk 16:17, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

  @Jmabel: Yes, that is exactly correct. We can't judge what happened in 2022 until it's over and all the votes for all the FP nominations for all the uploads for 2022 have been tallied. The nominating, voting, and tallying for FPs takes months.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 18:48, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks for clarification. For some reason, also the link wasn't giving me the opportunity to vote, so I assumed that it was last year's competition. Tried it now (on a different computer) and it was fine. --Dani di Neudo (talk) 05:06, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Mark for manual license review?

1. File A is from Flickr with license review passed.
2. File B is a derivative work of File A, but it is lacking proper reference to the original File on Flickr
3. I add that information and mark File B for {{Flickrreview}}
4. The bot detects that as of now the File on Flickr is all rights reserved and marks file as a non-pass (which I reverted for now)

•  Question Is there a way to request a human license reviewer to have a look at this (other than posting here)?
•  Question What happens if I as a non-license reviewer just copy the successful review from File A to File B? (i.e.: do we have any mechanism in place that prevents non-license reviewers from just putting a reviewed by bot template on a file description page?)

Thanks, El Grafo (talk) 09:07, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

• @El Grafo: No idea on your first question, but on your second is there any reason {{LicenseReview}} wouldn't work? - Jmabel ! talk 16:26, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

  @Jmabel I don't know, I assumed the bot would jump in and reject it again since there doesn't seem to be a parameter in the template to stop it. --El Grafo (talk) 08:34, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

• Question for the community in general: any problem with someone just marking File B as a derivative work of the already-approved File A, and leaving out file review entirely for File B? - Jmabel ! talk 16:28, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

  I think that's a perfectly reasonable approach. The point of licence review is to have a second, trusted person record that the file really is available at the source under the licence specified, because we can't trust that the source will keep it available. Where the source is Commons itself, this isn't really useful, because any admin thinking about deleting the derived file can look at the history of the purported source file to determine whether the derived on is correctly licensed. --bjh21 (talk) 17:44, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

copypaste the original review template. you're not forging it so it's ok.--RZuo (talk) 20:01, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Categories of Intangible Cultural Heritage

I have started work to import all items in UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists (Q4435332) and we are working to make a global effort to bring all items in the national inventory of intangible cultural heritage (Q113040113) to Wikidata. When the data is added, it can be used to power contests about these traditions. The activities are related to the 20th anniversary of Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (Q5166256).

The data and the structures are entangled on all Wikimedia projects. The UNESCO lists, their subsets nationally and the national inventories are mixed up with list articles and other arbitrary items. I have started working on arranging the structures on Wikidata in the WikiProject Intangible Cultural Heritage (Q112898263), but I notice that also Wikimedia Commons categories will need rearranging. I created a quick class draft, and I would be willing to correct the references created during the Wikidata cleaning process to corrected Wikimedia Commons categories. I would need to rename and create categories. What are your concerns about this? – Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 08:53, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

• It is very hard to answer this with no clue what we are moving away from and therefore what current information might be lost. Can you give at least some examples of what you propose to get rid of? Adding new categories like this is certainly fine, but the question is what existing categories would be removed. - Jmabel ! talk 16:52, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks for the response! I will try to briefly note some problems:

  The name of Category:Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and the subclasses might be misleading, as it refers to intangible heritage elements inscribed in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists (Q4435332). The categories include heritage elements that are subsets of elements on the lists, but also elements in the national inventories as well as other intangible heritage items.

  We are working on a global effort on Wikidata to create items for all national inventory of intangible cultural heritage (Q113040113) and import the elements on those lists. The fused content of the Commons categories and misleading naming make it hard to match equivalent Commons categories to the Wikidata items, and to create guidelines to follow. I would like to accommodate for a substantial amount of new, accurate information. – Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 08:12, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

  The Category:Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity mentioned in the introductory passage is not related to the national inventory of intangible cultural heritage (Q113040113). It is the precursor of the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists (Q4435332). – Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 08:32, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

  I have created a hierarchy at Category:Intangible cultural heritage to display how national inventories fit in. The subcategory Category:Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity remains as is, but needs more work with renaming, moving content related only to the national inventories or other lists or no inventories at all, and renaming categories accordingly. – Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 11:02, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

sorry i'm a bit lost. what's the different between Category:Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in Finland and Category:Intangible cultural heritage in Finland? also there should be a consistent cat tree (using the same preposition), unlike finland using "in" while others use "of".--RZuo (talk) 07:33, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

This is the point I am making: Not all intangible heritage is Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity that is listed in the UNESCO lists. Some are official national inventories, and some are intangible cultural heritage without an official status (notice caps in the other and lowercase initials in the other). I think we should consider that as well. The name does not reflect to all these use cases.

I made a draft/proposal of changing the naming scheme from "of" to "in" to communicate that this is some of the intangible heritage in the country, not all. But as I think more closely about this, the UNESCO inscribed elements are finite, and therefore the name of the category that ONLY includes UNESCO inscribed elements could have it written with "of".

Previously it may not have been necessary to make the distinction, as there has been so little information to make base it on. But with this upcoming effort, I think it is only fair that the category structure can be made to follow the actual structure of the elements. – Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 11:33, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

revision merging railroad maps from different years into one file

At Help Desk a user wants to merge the files for the Vienna light railway system from different years (with different lines in the different years) into a single file (as the earlier version will still be in the file history). Them gives the file File:NYC subway-4D.svg as example. It is an featured picture and picture of the day, it is used in multiple wikipedias in multiple articles and it has over time been changed to include new stations and changed lines. The rationale is, that all the articles should include the current railmap by changing the existing file. It is really meant to work this way? --C.Suthorn (talk) 17:46, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

i think we should come up with a guideline (named like com:updatable images). does one already exist?

basically, i think there are two ways to handle continuous updates to a file, very often a map, logo, flag...

1. an official version should be updated to the latest version and bear the official name, e.g. File:Flag of New Zealand.svg
2. (significant) historical or alternative versions should have separate files, e.g. File:Flag of the United States (1912-1959, 3-2 aspect ratio).svg.

a map obviously can be designed in many different ways unlike logos/flags, so technically there is no official version, but ofc there should be a version constantly updated that will be utilised by other wikis to show the latest reality.

significant alternative versions, such as flags in different aspect ratios or colour schemes, should get separate files, just as different/historical graphic designs of the same thing should get separate files.--RZuo (talk) 07:33, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

POTY mistake

Well I unknowingly voted for a picture and I don’t know what to do, since I’m not registered before 2021. It is at this post where I voted. Jellyfish picture —-SikiWtideI (talk) 02:32, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

@SikiWtideI: you can unvote by clicking the button. if you're concerned about your eligibility to vote, you dont need to worry, because that's determined by software. even if you're ineligible, organisers of the vote will take care of that. you dont need to do anything.--RZuo (talk) 07:33, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Voting on the Wikimedia Sound Logo is about to begin

Dearest Commons community members,

In a few hours, you'll be cordially invited to vote on your favourite sound logo finalists. With 3,234 submissions from 2,094 people, we were positively encouraged by the participation and hope that the voting will be equally engaged. This is the fun part now and we are grateful to all participants that got us to this point. We are particularly grateful for the screening team of volunteers and the selection committee that helped frame and guide this phase of the project. We are so close to the identifying the Sound of All Human Knowledge. Voting begins on 6 December and ends on 19 December, 2022. MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 19:33, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Arabic headwear

Seen in Saudi Arabia

How do we classify this style of headwear? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:51, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Probably Category:Keffiyeh. --A.Savin 20:25, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

More specifically, it appears to be an agal. De728631 (talk) 19:43, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

How to warn about previous hoaxes

A few years back, we had a series of photoshopped images uploaded by different accounts/socks, in which different people were shown as standing next to a now-deceased poet. (See Commons:Deletion requests/File:Ferlinghetti at Caffe Trieste.jpg and links therein.) Category:Lawrence Ferlinghetti exists, and although I haven't seen any similar images recently, I'm wondering if there is a good way to leave a note that lets other editors know about previous problems. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:46, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

I can't really think of any useful way to do that. - Jmabel ! talk 04:18, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

As someone who has found hoaxes/manipulations/forgeries myself; I find the approach of "Commons will refuse to learn lessons" not okay. I think we should NOT begin to clamp down on new submissions (most uploads aren't hoaxes), but a training/guide that is linked somewhere in the Help-Section for those who find problematic files, would be great. Such a dedicated page would explain how to detect hoaxes and image manipulations, and discuss previous cases. Just from the top of my head: 1 and 2 hoaxes involving map forgery. (On the other hand, let's not get over-excited and exp­ect deception and hoaxes everywhere.) --Enyavar (talk) 12:09, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree that it's a bad idea to expect deception everywhere, except in the part that says "own work". ;-)

I had thought about leaving a note at Category talk:Lawrence Ferlinghetti with links to the deletion requests. It might make it find-able for someone who's searching for it, but not bother anyone who is just browsing categories. I'm not sure if it's worth it, though. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:30, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

There is a {{Hoax}} template with which you could tag relevant images. --HyperGaruda (talk) 18:46, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

operation of space bar in POTY voting

I visited the POTY voting page using Chrome on Linux. After casting one of my votes, I then pressed the space bar in order to scroll down, as is normal in Chrome. However, it had the unexpected effect of removing the vote just cast. Fortunately there was then a message stating that the vote was being removed, which alerted me to it, so I cast the vote again. This time I clicked away afterwards (i.e. clicked a blank part of the page), and then when I used the space bar to scroll down, it worked properly without the problem recurring. Maybe the design of Chrome is such that there is nothing that can be done about the unintentional removal of votes (for example, if all that the server sees is that the form has been resubmitted, and there is no way for the server or any Javascript function to tell whether a space bar press or a mouse click caused this). However, if possible, it would be good to change this behaviour so that to remove a vote you have to use a mouse click, especially because the length of the page is such that most people will need to scroll down to see them all. Thanks. Dani di Neudo (talk) 05:26, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

@Dani di Neudo: Hi, and welcome. Any time you just used a checkbox in a browser, pressing the spacebar will change the status of that checkbox because the focus is still on that checkbox. Instead, please try: tapping the pagedown button (you may have to repeat, tab, or click whitespace for this to be effective); clicking whitespace or unclickable text outside the checkbox to change the focus, then tapping the spacebar; or scrolling down your mousewheel (if you have one). Similarly, using arrow keys when you just clicked a radio button may change which radio button is selected (depending on the layout of the radio button array).   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 12:11, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, as mentioned, on my second attempt I clicked on whitespace before using the spacebar. I was just wondering if there was a way to make the default behaviour more intuitive. Maybe not? Dani di Neudo (talk) 13:39, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

@Dani di Neudo: You could ask the Google Chrome and Mediawiki developers for settings to do that, but your chances are slim. JavaScript to capture the use of the space bar and not let it click might work, if you run JavaScript and can program that.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 14:30, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Okay, not to worry, thanks. I just reported it in case there was anything simple. Dani di Neudo (talk) 22:21, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Wich paddlesteamer?

On the 14th july 1999 I sailed from Évian to Lausanne (D 19:00 A Lausanne 19:35) I took the pictures from File:Paddle steamer Lake Geneva 1999 1.jpg to File:Paddle steamer Lake Geneva 1999 5.jpg If I compare with other pictures it is most likely Category:Helvétie (ship, 1926) or Category:Simplon (ship, 1920). Both boats hve split lower windows and a pilot cabine with slichtly sloping windows. However in the picture File:Paddle steamer Lake Geneva 1999 3.jpg there is the engine date of 1915, before either 1920 or 1926. Maybe it is a reused engine. Smiley.toerist (talk) 19:16, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't think it is Helvétie. As one can see in File:L'Helvetie.jpg, that ship has triple windows as opposed to the one in your image. Moreover, Helvétie doesn't seem to have a bell installed in the bow section. Simplon, however, does have a bell whose rim matches exactly the pattern that can be seen on the left edge of your photo. De728631 (talk) 19:40, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Flickr2commons

I just loaded File:Portrush railway station - An Elizabethan railway station.jpg, a Robert French image from the NLI [1] with no copyright restrictions which usually is sufficient everything to be sorted out okay under the hood. This time I've just noticed its been flagged for deletion due to invalid licence (which undefined is). I can probably fix this manually in a little while. It could be this is a one-off blip or it is possible something has begun not to work with the process, which is the reason I'm posting here. Thankyou. -- Deirge Ó Dhaoinebeaga_(a)^talk 11:54, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Same for me: early this morning I uploaded one photo from Flickr, no problem. Two hours later I uploaded another three, all with licence cc-by-2.0: at this moment (5 hours later) there still is no (automatical) review. So, there might be something wrong, or a very long list with uploads? JopkeB (talk) 14:50, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

@Deirge Ó Dhaoinebeaga: Hi, and welcome. We now have 1,096 files in Category:Flickr review needed. The bot FlickreviewR 2 usually reviews them, and is currently working on the backlog, but had a nearly 5-hour outage earlier (from 07:38 to 12:31 (UTC)). I reviewed the file for you anyway.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 16:14, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

See also User talk:Zhuyifei1999#Backlog.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 16:27, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

UploadWizard writing "undefined" instead of "Flickr-no known copyright restrictions"

i just tested Special:UploadWizard using for example File:NMRC-Asia.jpg. instead of writing {{Flickr-no known copyright restrictions}}{{flickrreview}}, it wrote "undefined".--RZuo (talk) 17:35, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Obviously, it should not be doing that.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 18:01, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Thats what had happened to me with Portrush railway station this morning but I fixed the license myself by comparing with another example. See Special:Diff/713144043. Also probably not relevant for the Flickr2Commons import is that a similar image pre-exists here, namely File:Portrush Rly Station, 1890s.jpg, which appears as if its a cropped lower res. image wich on close examination was probably but not certainly a different copy of the same original. I mention this in the outside chance it was relevant to the barf. -- Deirge Ó Dhaoinebeaga_(a)^talk 19:52, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Vote for your favourite Wikimedia sound logo

Voting in the Wikimedia sound logo contest has started. From December 6 to 19, 2022, please play a part and help chose the sound that will identify Wikimedia content on audio devices. Learn more on Diff.

The sound logo team is grateful to everyone who participated in this global contest. We received 3,235 submissions from 2,094 participants in 135 countries. We are incredibly grateful to the team of volunteer screeners and the selection committee who, among others, helped bring us to where we are today. It is now up to Wikimedia to choose the Sound Of All Human Knowledge.

Best wishes. MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 20:53, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Featured photo in 2023

This file named File:Makkasan Interchange at night by Mark Fischer.jpg it took place 11 February 2023. 2001:44C8:422B:98D0:BC73:F86C:7B24:6DE0 00:59, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

No, 2023 is in the future.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 03:12, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Reminder to provide feedback on the Movement Charter content

Hi all,

We are in the middle of the community consultation period on the three draft sections of the Movement Charter: Preamble, Values & Principles, and Roles & Responsibilities (statement of intent). The community consultation period will last until December 18, 2022. The Movement Charter Drafting Committee (MCDC) encourages everyone who is interested in the governance of the Wikimedia movement to share their thoughts and opinions on the draft content of the Charter.

How do you share your feedback?

Interested people can share their feedback via different channels provided below:

• Fill out a survey (optional and anonymous, accessible in different languages)
• Share your thoughts and feedback on the Meta Talk pages:
  • Preamble
  • Values & Principles
  • Roles & Responsibilities (statement of intent)
• Share your thoughts and feedback on the MS Forum:
  • Preamble
  • Values & Principles
  • Roles & Responsibilities (statement of intent)  
• Send an email to: movementcharterwikimediaorg if you have other feedback to the MCDC.  

If you want to help include your community in the consultation period, you are encouraged to become a Movement Charter Ambassador. Please find out more about it here.

Thank you for your participation!

On behalf of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee,

Zuz (WMF) (talk) 11:09, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

4nn1l2 banned by the Foundation

The administrator 4nn1l2 was banned today by the Foundation. This was one of the users who were particularly aggressive against me here, so I can not really complain, but I though the community should know. (I am unrelated to the block). Ymblanter (talk) 21:17, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

English Wikipedia's The Signpost has a story drafted about the 16 bans at en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Next_issue/News_and_notes. If anyone has Wikimedia Commons-context for the ban then please post to en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom. Right now, the general cause for the bans is not apparent, although in the case of this one user, there are on-wiki records of conflicts. Bluerasberry (talk) 16:19, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I do not have any insider information, and whatever else I have to say would be qualified as "gravedancing", so I better won't.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:39, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Request for deletion of uploaded copyright work.

In this discussion (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Template:Resolution_restricted-by-sa#Template:Resolution_restricted-by-sa) the license I used for many of my works was deprecated. I have only just become aware of this. My understanding is there is concern the images are not "free" even though that was the intention with the license. However, if there is such substantial risk that they are't free and I am not willing to amend or change the license, why are they still here on Wikimedia. I would suggest they be deleted and I would welcome that. Saffron Blaze (talk) 03:13, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

@Saffron Blaze: Please see Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Saffron Blaze.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 03:43, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

@Saffron Blaze: Why don't you want to change the license? Just curious. Nosferattus (talk) 04:45, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Category:Rising Sun Flag of Japan

For some reason, Category:Rising Sun Flag of Japan is its own parent. Nothing overt; maybe a problem with a template that causes category inclusion and shouldn't? - Jmabel ! talk 01:43, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

{{Japanese militarism symbol}} includes {{Teikoku symbol}} which includes {{Teikoku symbol/layout}} and sets Category:Rising Sun Flag of Japan. -- William Graham (talk) 01:58, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

I would think Template:Teikoku symbol/layout should not be setting any topical category. - Jmabel ! talk 06:27, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Participation of russia in Wiki Loves Monuments 2022

I can understand (barely) that russia was included in this year's WLM ... however, I can't understand how it can still be a part of Wiki LOVES Monuments while engaging in deliberate destruction of monuments (see: Ukrainian monuments, destroyed by russia)

I'd suggest that the russian participation in this year's Wiki Loves Monuments can consist only of photos of Ukrainian (and Syrian, and Chechen, and Moldovan, and Georgian, etc. etc. etc.) monuments russians destroyed.

All other entries by them should be absolutely ineligible, rejected with utter disgust, and russian participation in the WLM should be barred until further notice.

...

A decision to leave the genocide perpetrators and monument destroyers in this year's WLM after the russian invasion would be a conscious, political statement that amounts to genocide and destruction support - and it can't be made without consulting other participating countries (especially Ukraine), and other contributors to WLM. I as a contributor myself will absolutely reconsider having my entries displayed together with those from genocidal, monument-destroying russia.

--KAP Jasa (talk) 09:09, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Please don't bring political issues to this neutral platform. --HyperGaruda (talk) 09:18, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Being "neutral" is a political statement. And Wiki Loves Monuments is a public photo competition - not some cold, impartial description of facts (that requires neutrality). So it is absolutely necessary to discuss participation of destroyers of monuments in an event that celebrates the love of monuments. KAP Jasa (talk) 09:56, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Movement in Russia is part of the opposition against the government of Russia. Some activists from the Wikimedia Movement in Russia are even in prison. Why should we exclude the Russian opposition from our project because of the Russian government? We should support them and not punish them for the country the live in. GPSLeo (talk) 10:25, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

For clarity, the organizers of WLM Russia have no connection to the Russian government and even not with the national Wikimedia chapter. Ymblanter (talk) 10:49, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

 Comment I blocked KAP Jasa for harassment for 2 weeks, i.e. [2]. Yann (talk) 10:29, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

The contributions are based simply on geography. Not nationality, ethnicity or the sense of belonging of the contributor so your proposal has a major flaw, unless you want to proclaim Ukraine and Syria as part of Russia? Not to say that in some cases the occupying forces are the only ones who can take pictures of some destroyed monuments, I don't think that is who you want to participate either. A Russian photographer could travel the world and participate in as many regional contests as they pleased, surely we are not going to ask uploaders for their passport. Looks like the Russian contest hasn't picked any finalists for the international round before the deadline anyway so this issue has been solved even without your campaign. TFerenczy (talk) 10:38, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

No, the images were actually sent to the international jury. Ymblanter (talk) 10:50, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

What about monuments destroyed in Ukraine, Poland, Baltic countries by authorities and activists? Shouldn't same principle applied in these cases? --EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:24, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

@EugeneZelenko: no, the "principle" should not be applied anywhere. What next? Coming after the U.S. for recent destruction of Confederate monuments? History happens. Sometimes we like it, sometimes we don't. Commons (and Wikipedia) are supposed to be primarily about documenting, not about taking sides. - Jmabel ! talk 18:03, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

This was exactly my point. Sorry, if I was not clear in expressing sarcasm. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 19:54, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

How to upload a video?

I have a video I recorded on my phone, but when I try to upload it I get the error message "There was an error in your submission. This wiki does not accept filenames that end in the extension ".MOV"." - and nothing more? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:45, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

That was the error message through the upload wizard, Trying Special:Upload, it just highlights "Permitted file types: tiff, tif, png, gif, jpg, jpeg, webp, xcf, mid, ogg, ogv, svg, djvu, stl, oga, flac, opus, wav, webm, mp3, midi, mpg, mpeg." in red, which is even less useful. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:47, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

@Mike Peel You may use Commons:video2commons url —MdsShakil (talk) 21:30, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

@MdsShakil: That isn't linked to from the upload pages? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:39, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

The upload pages assume you are using a supported file type. - Jmabel ! talk 02:33, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

@Mike Peel: Sorry, ".MOV" is not supported. Per COM:Video#Video formats, "Commons does not support the more commonly used patent encumbered video formats such as H.264 and H.265 that are used in MP4 and MOV files, since their use could require royalty payments."   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 03:09, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

@Jeff G., Jmabel, and MdsShakil: My point here is that we should provide some sort of guidance for people trying to upload .mov files - rather than just saying it's not accepted. I can figure it out - change the format to webm - but will others? And the file format is very common (the test file I was using was straight off an iPhone). The current error messages don't do anything to encourage people to upload videos. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 10:04, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

@Mike Peel: You could make a specific proposal at Commons:Village pump/Proposals. - Jmabel ! talk 17:18, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

You can also upload with Chunked upload. But you should firstly convert to webm format. -- Geagea (talk) 20:45, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Category keys

Not for the first time, I find images are being categorised with what are - it seem to to me - spurious sort keys.

For example, File:Amsterdam Airport Schiphol - 2019-10-24 - Andy Mabbett - 18.jpg was recenty changed from [[Category:2019 at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol]] to [[Category:2019 at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol|Transavia]]

I reverted the edit (not least on the grounds that it was marked as minor, when it is not), and have been reverted in turn by the same editor, User:Ardfern, whose edit summary claims: "It is indeed a minor edit and is standard format for aircraft at all airports"

Is this a "standard format for aircraft at all airports"? Where is it documented, and where was it discussed? If it is a "standard format", why do other images in Category:2019 at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, and other categories, not use it? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:33, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

• Hi, the 'spurious' sort key in category:2019 at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol allows photos in the 2019 Amsterdam Airport Schiphol category to be grouped by airline, rather than having a random jumble of photos in the category (as it is now). It is standard format as it has been in use for over 15 years by me and many others working in the aviation area. I don't know if it is documented anywhere, but then many formats that are standard as a result of usage over the years are in use all over Commons. As for the other images in the category they should indeed follow the same format, but just have not been processed yet. Ardfern (talk) 22:58, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
  • If you had looked further you would have seen that the years 2020, 2021 and 2022 are all handled in this way (as are hundreds of other airports). Sometimes (as in 2019) the files had not yet been processed (in this case as the category had been flooded with photos, as with 2018). Ardfern (talk) 00:54, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

    It does not really make for a strong case to claim something based on an unwritten tradition that only a handful of people know about. I would expect relevant guidelines in Commons:Categories, Commons:Category scheme aircraft (under development since 2015), Commons:WikiProject Aviation, or Category talk:Aircraft, but no.

    Besides, why sort based on airline? <sarcasm>Why not month/day or something else?</sarcasm> Not all airport-related images depict airplanes you know. --HyperGaruda (talk) 08:00, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

  • So, no prior discussion and no documentation, then? As for "a random jumble of photos", your edit means that sequentially-named flies alike File:Amsterdam Airport Schiphol - 2019-10-24 - Andy Mabbett - 01.jpg to File:Amsterdam Airport Schiphol - 2019-10-24 - Andy Mabbett - 28.jpg are not shown in order in the category, but appear instead to be randomly jumbled'. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:43, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
  • You also persist in marking this kind of non-minor edit as minor. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:54, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
    • My opinion on Category keys is they are a complete waste of time, if an editor wants to control how images are displayed they should use a gallery. It's pretty pointless in a category and not what categories are for. How ether it's mainly their time they are wasting. Oxyman (talk) 13:44, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

2015 in rail transport in Germany

In moving the files to lander categories, I come across File:Depot-Gleis 4 mit der RB-Linie 122 nach Oberammergau und stationärer Be- und Entsorgungsstation für die Züge.jpg with the German file description 'Copyright: DB AG', while having a descriptive title. Same problem with: File:Der SüWex in den Bergen.jpg, File:Die Software wird geprüft beim SüWex.jpg and File:ET 425 - einer der letzten Fahrten im Werdenfels März 2015.jpg.

I have two files without location information and identified station category: Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:08, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

 Done

Regarding the "copyrighted" images: I think the uploader was just being (too) careful and only tries to say that the depicted subject belongs to someone/something else. File:ÖBB Elektrotechnischer Messwagen Bild 1.jpg is for example ascribed to a different company, but the camera model is still the same. Seems to me that the images themselves do belong to the uploader.

The two images to the right were taken at Frankfurt am Main's main railway station.

The coordinates were derived from the EXIF metadata, but it looks like the EXIF coordinates have a poor precision. I just replaced the ones stored in Wikicode with more plausible coordinates. --HyperGaruda (talk) 19:19, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

location? must be easily recognizable

Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:26, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

The Saturn building in the back of File:National Express Tz 361 (Unfallzug von Meerbusch) (2).jpg is the Hansahochhaus. The photographer was most likely looking northwest from approximately 50.94505°N,6.95682°E (the end of a platform of Breslauer Platz station in Cologne) to get this view. --HyperGaruda (talk) 12:42, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

The Category:September 2015 in rail transport in Thuringia is all about the Category:Meininger Dampfloktage 2015. In the files I only see two dates: 2 september and 5 september.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:59, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Hotlinking policy

Hi,

The hotlinking policy states as follows:

Hotlinking is allowed from Wikimedia servers, but not generally recommended: ...

If you do hotlink, then it is still necessary to follow the licensing conditions ...

Wikimedia generally does not allow 'hot spider' services, where each time someone performs a search on their site, the query is redirected to our site.

I would like to run a site that allows users to search Wikimedia Commons images. The indexing would be performed locally (on my servers), but displaying each results page would result in one query for each image thumbnail being made to Commons' servers, since I don't want to have to mirror the totality of 301 TB of images. No search queries would be forwarded or 302'd to Commons.

Assuming that I properly attribute images, link back to Commons properly, and so on, would this be a permissible use-case, or would it be "hot spidering"?

98.128.180.111 18:50, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Wow, that sentence is old. It was in the first version of Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia in 2007. Based on David Gerard's comments on the talk page at the time, this may have come from a VRT stock message or may have been something they used to send to email enquirers. That suggests it may come from the Wikimedia Foundation, but I'm not sure where you'd go to ask about that. --bjh21 (talk) 21:35, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

I think I asked the devs what was a good and bad idea? I'm diving back into ancient memories there. But we were fine with hotlinking, though with the obvious caveat that the image might go away at any point. The search service text, I don't remember - David Gerard (talk) 14:20, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Seems pretty what they were trying to avoid was people having external submissions into our runtime search engine. Then again, they didn't consider your approach. It could be a lot of hits on the server (though at least not a lot of computation). Any idea how many images you would bring up each time you generate a page? Any guesses of the volume of queries you expect to handle? And do you have a way to do this where you will fetch appropriately small thumbnails, rather than (for example) continually have your clients dynamically fetch larger images that will be thumbnailed client-side? - Jmabel ! talk 23:55, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Ghana

I am an infrequent user of common files, and today I came here looking for a file with a map of Ghana to use on the English Wikiquote, but all I can find is this: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ghana

Can anyone help please? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 20:20, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ottawahitech: On that page there's a link to Atlas of Ghana which has a number of maps; even more can be found in the category Category:Maps of Ghana and its subcategories. -M.nelson (talk) 20:31, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

@M.nelson: Thanks so much, found what I was looking for with your help.

General comment: I tried to see if this would work for other countries if I ever needed a map, so did a search on "Norway", and it appears that finding the word Atlas there is not quite as easy. Ottawahitech (talk) 04:58, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ottawahitech Galleries are very hit and miss (though the atlas ones might be better maintained than most). I expect you would have better luck with categories, like Category:Maps of Norway. Sometimes you just need to do things manually: you can open Atlas of Norway directly. Brianjd (talk) 05:52, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Patrolling workflow

Hi, I'm trying to spend some time on T120453 which hopefully reduces the work of patrollers on deleting copyright violations. Can you tell me more how admins/patrollers patrol new files for copyvio? For example, for what users do you check them (non-autopatrolled?), how does your workflow look like? I know the workflow for Wikipedia but not much for commons. Feel free to send me an email if you don't want to talk publicly. Thanks! Amir (talk) 06:49, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

ISA Workshop

Hello. The workshop on ISA Tool to discover, test and discuss the integration of semi-automated suggestions by Google Cloud Vision… will start in 20 mn (Monday 12th at 16h UTC 1).
All details here : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:ISA_Tool/Image_to_Concept#ISA_Workshop_-_Dec_12th

Anthere (talk) 14:41, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Seizure risks

I have created the category Seizure risk-related deletion requests. One such DR, Commons:Deletion requests/File:Color Flash.gif, is currently open; there, a user has suggested rules for seizure risk material. That discussion needs more comments from other users, and we need to move towards a guideline or policy on such material. Brianjd (talk) 05:47, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

I recommend making all (in-scope) files with flashing fast enough to trigger seizures videos (so they do not automatically play) and placing “(SEIZURE RISK)” in the title; there should also be a warning template similar to the ones for things like Nazi and communist symbols. Dronebogus (talk) 01:21, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Seizures are not merely uncomfortable; they are a serious medical issue that can require hospital treatment. Given the comments at the DR, I wonder if anyone except Dronebogus understands that. Brianjd (talk) 07:21, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

NOTCENSORED is such a powerful and respected policy that it can easily become dogmatic and put WMC above any kind of social responsibility. I agree we don’t have to be the morality police but that’s because porn and Nazi symbols won’t send you to the hospital. Dronebogus (talk) 12:37, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

@Dronebogus Porn and Nazi symbols won’t harm your computer either. But PDF files and images with very high resolutions might, and we already include warnings on those, along with tools for users to view those files safely; I haven’t seen anyone claim that is censorship and I can’t see why this is any different. Brianjd (talk) 14:12, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Agree fully. Dronebogus (talk) 01:56, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Flickr Foundation launched

SmugMug, owners of Flickr, have launched the Flickr Foundation, "an independent, community-focused organization. We’re committed to stewarding this cultural treasure [Flickr Commons] for future generations, and fostering a visual commons we can all enjoy." Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:48, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

This is really encouraging and I'm surprised that I didn't get an email from them about it. Thanks! —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:26, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

@Koavf: I just got one an hour ago, they are probably rolling out the emails over some time. - Jmabel ! talk 23:17, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

File:11.02450 Brothel-girls-11.png

I feel like putting pictures of random prostitutes under the category 'Human trafficking' is somewhat defamatory Trade (talk) 19:31, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

It might be; but the source website says "The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (G/TIP) assigned a U.S. photographer, Kay Chernush, to take these photos in India", so perhaps these are not "random prostitutes". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:53, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

The description itself never makes that claim, tho--Trade (talk) 21:48, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

The file was upload as File:11.02450 Brothel-girls-11.jpg.gif. Its original description is lost. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:38, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

@Trade and Pigsonthewing: It looks like the original description has indeed been lost (by which we mean accessible only to admins). But I found another crazy thing: That file was earlier moved to File:11.02450 Brothel-girls-11.gif, whose talk page says: {{kept|2012-05-07|Commons:Deletion requests/File:The MILF barbershop Shenzhen China.jpg}}

WTF? What’s with the different filenames? And why is a DR closed as ‘delete’ being linked in {{Keep}} {{Kept}}? The talk page also has a comment about this image, but who knows which image that refers to? Pinging @Túrelio, Dharmadhyaksha. Brianjd (talk) 06:04, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Because the deletion discussion, which is about different image, mentions the reason why the image to which the {{Keep}} template refers is being kept. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:50, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing I wanted to say that was a misuse of {{Kept}} (not {{Keep}}), but then I reread the DR. There are four images mentioned in the DR (including the one actually nominated), and Russavia acted as if all four were actually nominated.

But the other three images were not nominated. 11.02450 Brothel-girls-11.jpg.gif was definitely not nominated. I will replace {{Kept}} with a more accurate message. Brianjd (talk) 11:57, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm with User:Trade here. In particular, a lot of "anti-trafficking" groups presume that all, or nearly all, prostitutes are trafficked. - Jmabel ! talk 00:00, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

@Trade, Pigsonthewing, and Jmabel: The current file description contains an original upload log, which includes this comment: … [The prostitutes] face routine violence from pimps and customers …. I don’t know whether this description is justifiable, but it does explain the category Human trafficking. Brianjd (talk) 06:10, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

 Comment I moved the talk page. Yann (talk) 19:25, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

@Yann I see that you moved File talk:11.02450 Brothel-girls-11.gif to File talk:11.02450 Brothel-girls-11.png, which at least clarifies which image it refers to. But it doesn’t explain what 11.02450 Brothel-girls-11 has to do with The MILF barbershop Shenzhen China or why a DR closed as ‘delete’ is linked in {{Keep}} {{Kept}}. Brianjd (talk) 06:25, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Answered above. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:50, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Depicts

I've been diligently adding depicts statements on uploads. But I often find that, despite a reasonably diligent search, the concept I need is not on Wikidata. I asked at some event what to do and was told to just create the Wikidata item I needed in that situation. I have now discovered many of these have been deleted on Wikidata despite being used in depicts statements on Commons. Surely being in use is a reason not to delete them? If not, it's just been a huge waste of my time to add depicts statements. Nobody contacted me about the, before deleting. Any advice on getting them reinstated? 07:01, 12 December 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kerry Raymond (talk • contribs) 07:01, 12 December 2022‎ (UTC)

@Kerry Raymond difficult to give advice without knowing what exactly was deleted. Can you give examples? El Grafo (talk) 09:07, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

@Kerry Raymond: Wikidata items must meet the notability criteria of that project, the simplest way to do that is to include one or more significant Authority control identifies such as VIAF or ISNI. Otherwise, add third-party, reliable sources. While not required, it's also advisable to add more than one statement to new items. As for getting items undeleted, ask the deleting admin in the first instance, per d:Wikidata:Guide to requests for undeletion. LMK if you need further advice or help. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:24, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

@Kerry Raymond: , Wikidata has repeatedly voted to not want better integration with the Wikimedia Commons, unless Wikidata's notability guidelines will include the Wikimedia Commons (as it already does for all other Wikimedia websites) we won't see many of those items undeleted any time soon. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 14:52, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

The Wikidata community has never voted [sic] "to not want better integration with the Wikimedia Commons", and the discussion to whcih you link does not show you it doing so. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:28, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Speaking as a Commons admin who is moderately active on Wikidata: there is not a lot we can do on this from the Commons side, and roughly nothing we can do about the issue in the abstract. If you can list some of the particular items that were deleted, then there is some chance of us being able to come up with at least a loose consensus to make a case for them. - Jmabel ! talk 16:12, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

None of the many hundred items I created and linked to commons categories got deleted. I would also be interested in what items got deleted here. --GPSLeo (talk) 18:01, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

I see six items on Wkidata which Kerry Raymond created and which were deleted. They are all of the same type: for example, d: Q114311084 (Church of Christ building, place of worship associated with the Church of Christ). All these items only has the name, no description, sitelinks, properties etc. All were deleted a few days ago by @MisterSynergy: as "empty items". One can debate whether the deletion was valid or not (after all, they were not empty, but not extremely useful from the Wikidata point of view), however, if the Commons community thinks they are useful we can restore them (either with agreement of the deleting admin, or after a discussion on Wikidata) and add properties and description, so that they are not empty anymore.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:15, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

• Thanks for the ping, all items are restored.
• We characterize items as "empty items" if there are no statements and no sitelinks, as in this case for all six involved items. These items do qualify for immediate deletion, and there are in fact way more of these cases at Wikidata than we could reasonably discuss.
• According to the "structural need" criterion of Wikidata's notability policy, these items do qualify for inclusion at Wikidata (hence I restored them without further discussion).
• However, in the current form they are not useful for Wikidata. They should have at least a basic definition (using statements in Wikidata), and ideally some sort of references to external sources. It is otherwise pretty unlikely that anyone else but the item creator knows how to improve them.
• A difficulty with item use in SDC (such as "depicts" statements) is that this sort of re-use is pretty difficult to discover. As much as I am aware, I would need to use WCQS for each deletion individually since structured data use is not tracked via Special:EntityUsage.

—MisterSynergy (talk) 19:32, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, I will try to use some statements there (and will definitely welcome help). Ymblanter (talk) 19:38, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ymblanter: Your "six items" link is only viewable by Wikidata admins. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:29, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Not anymore, because the items have been restored, but they are pretty obvious on the Kerry Raymond's Wikidata contribution (most recent page). Ymblanter (talk) 11:40, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

• I have noticed the problem before, although none of my entries were deleted because they had more complete information. What we need is the ability to show that a Wikidata item is in use at Commons with "depicts" when we click the "What links here" button at Wikidata. At Commons we know what it is in use at Wikidata, but not the reverse. At the current time the only work-around is to create a category for the single image, and add that category to Wikidata. I have brought it up before, but it didn't get enough attention to get a fix. Instead someone created a query to show usage, we need it baked into the "What links here" button. --RAN (talk) 19:32, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Just in case some people aren't aware, the Mix-n-match is a good tool to find/add external identifiers for existing Wikidata items, or create new items, which can better standardize & distinguish items and demonstrate notability. More abstract, trivial or esoteric entities like subclasses of things may not be Wikidata-notable, even if they might be hypothetically useful for "depicts" statements: an image that depicts the left foot of Barack Obama doesn't mean we need to create an item for "Barack Obama's left foot", nor "feet of United States presidents", even if some political foot scholar happened to make a Commons category for such. --Animalparty (talk) 03:30, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

@Animalparty: Not to say that no left foot could be notable: Boot Monument (Q4943827), My Left Foot (Q12811892). - Jmabel ! talk 05:32, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

procedure for derivative images

Is there a procedure to follow when deriving one image from another, to ensure that licenses and whatnot point to one another? I cropped an image, and just manually copied over all the details (original, crop), apart from the review which could not be copied. But it feels like there should be a less clunky way of doing this. U003F^? 12:15, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

@U003F: Hi, and welcome. Please use CropTool for cropping, and consider using {{Extracted from}} and {{Image extracted}} or dFX to preserve source links.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 13:11, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

And, when using the crop tool, don't forget to remove any redundant categories from the extracted image. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:42, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Images with only a Wikidata link

I have seen images where the user created and added only a Wikidata item but no category. That Wikidata item contains only the image and no further information. The description of the photo is often too brief to see exactly what it is about and where (in which country, province) the photo was taken. Example File:Sima-kő kilátás.jpg of @Emilke82: . That user created many Wikidata items. I have added a comment on the users talk page, but what to do with this problem in general? Just leave it as it is although the Wikidata item has not any additional value in my opinion? Wouter (talk) 15:05, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

The image file names appear to be descriptive (they're in Hungarian), so they are not irredeemable. some of the Wikidata items are linked to articles on the Hungarian Wikipedia; the others seem to be intended to describe the predicted geographical features (A Google search for the file name in your example, without "File:" or ".jpg", for instance, shows that it relates to [3]). If we do not have a Hungarian speaker here who can assist, ask on hu:Wikipédia:Nagykövetség. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:51, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

• Kind of useless without gps data or even an "instance of" or some link to a geographical database. --RAN (talk) 21:20, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

  Does the extended data at the bottom of the page show all EXIF data? If not, there may be geo coordinates. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:31, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

  No, it does not show all of the EXIF, but it does show the location data if it's there. Also, UploadWizard would normally find the data and add {{Location}} automatically upon upload, so digging through the EXIF probably won't reveal much more useful information. El Grafo (talk) 08:24, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

  They are not at all useless; as I demonstrated above, the file names are useful for web searching. In some of the cases, Google also finds non-free images which match that uploaded here (thereby confirming the location) and for which we apparently have no other free image Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:22, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Photo challenge October results

Skyscrapers: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Miami skyline from the ocean	Hudson Yards, Midtown Manhattan at dusk	Flatiron building, Manhattan, 1969
Author	Matthew T Rader	King of Hearts	Foeniz
Score	17	16	12

Greens: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Plitvička jezera	Bamboo forest in Arashiyama （Sagano）, Kyoto, Japan.	Белый утёнок в зелёной тине
Author	66colpi	Naokijp	Vitaliy VK
Score	21	7	7

Congratulations to Matthew T Rader, King of Hearts, Foeniz, 66colpi, Naokijp and Vitaliy VK. -- Jarekt (talk) 04:20, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your congratulations Foeniz (talk) 15:02, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you very much @Jarekt! This is really exciting! Matthew T Rader (talk) 18:23, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey 2023 opens in January

Please help translate to your language

(There is a translatable version of this message on MetaWiki)

Hello

The Community Wishlist Survey (CWS) 2023, which lets contributors propose and vote for tools and improvements, starts next month on Monday, 23 January 2023, at 18:00 UTC and will continue annually.

We are inviting you to share your ideas for technical improvements to our tools and platforms. Long experience in editing or technical skills is not required. If you have ever used our software and thought of an idea to improve it, this is the place to come share those ideas!

The dates for the phases of the Survey will be as follows:

• Phase 1: Submit, discuss, and revise proposals – Monday, Jan 23, 2023 to Monday, Feb 6, 2023
• Phase 2: WMF/Community Tech reviews and organizes proposals – Monday, Jan 30, 2023 to Friday, Feb 10, 2023
• Phase 3: Vote on proposals – Friday, Feb 10, 2023 to Friday, Feb 24, 2023
• Phase 4: Results posted – Tuesday, Feb 28, 2023

If you want to start writing out your ideas ahead of the Survey, you can start thinking about your proposals and draft them in the CWS sandbox.

We are grateful to all who participated last year. See you in January 2023!

Thank you! Community Tech, STei (WMF) 16:45, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ziko: Will you use this opportunity for proposed improvements for Commons? Per Commons:Think big - open letter about Wikimedia Commons. Ellywa (talk) 17:41, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Hello Elly, I have not planned so. :-) Repairing Commons is too big for a wish list.@Ellywa Ziko van Dijk (talk) 18:02, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi Ziko, suppose you will be right. Small steps won't solve big problems. Ellywa (talk) 06:03, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

If we make two wishes for urgent and not so complicated problems and get 300 votes on them, this would definitely help. We should definitely discuss this and find out what to propose and request to vote on. GPSLeo (talk) 06:38, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree with User:GPSLeo here: there are a lot of small, simple things that would be of value. - Jmabel ! talk 16:23, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Derivative work licensing for print

I redrew a facepalm emoji changed colors and slight variation in the hair. I would like to use the image in a card game being sold to the public. Based on the page I find this statement: attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

Because I want to use this in print how/who do I give credit?

Here is the art: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emojione_1F926.svg — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 23.29.37.233 (talk) 04:21, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

For what it's worth, EmojiOne is now JoyPixels; their later releases as JoyPixels are not open source, but these early ones are. I honestly don't know whether they'd prefer a credit to EmojiOne or JoyPixels. At the time they licensed this, they were called EmojiOne, so I guess you are probably safe giving that attribution, but I'm not a lawyer.

Also, because it is a "sharealike" license, you need to offer the same license for any work you derive from theirs. - Jmabel ! talk 05:30, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Movement Charter: End of the community consultation round 1

Hi everyone,

On behalf of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee (MCDC), we would like to thank everyone who has participated in our first community wide consultation period on the Movement Charter.

People from across the movement shared their feedback and thoughts on the content of the Movement Charter. If you have not had the chance to share your opinion yet, you are welcome to do so by giving the drafts a read and filling out the anonymous survey, which is accessible in 12 languages. The survey will close on January 2, 2023. You are invited to continue to share your thoughts with the MCDC via email too: [email protected].

What’s next?

The Movement Strategy and Governance team will publish the final report with a summary of the feedback received in January 2023. It will be shared with the MCDC and the communities via different distribution channels.

After receiving the final report, the MCDC will review the suggestions and communicate the changes by providing an explanation on how and why suggestions were or were not adopted in the next versions of the drafts. There will be additional ways to engage with the Movement Charter content in 2023, including early feedback on a proposed ratification process and new drafts of different chapters in the second quarter of 2023.

We invite you to sign up for the MCDC monthly newsletter, which will be delivered to the Talk page of your choice. Monthly updates are available on Meta to stay updated on the progress of the MCDC.

Interested people can still sign-up to become a Movement Charter Ambassador (MC Ambassador) to support their community. MC Ambassadors Program will restart accepting applications from both individuals and groups ahead of the next round of consultations in the second quarter of 2023.

We thank you for your participation, time, and effort in helping to build the charter for our movement!

On behalf of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee

Zuz (WMF) (talk) 09:57, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Listed Source for Category allpaintings.org is currently invalid and/or possibly hijacked.

Seems like most images in the following category have a inappropriate source listed, currently redirecting to an unrelated site.

Category: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_Allpaintings.org

Example image with incorrect sourcing: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Envoys_of_Agamemnon_by_Ingres.jpg

Erroneous source listed at the time of posting: http://www.allpaintings.org/v/Neoclassicism/Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres/Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres - Achilles Receiving the Envoys of Agamemnon.jpg.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Siegtyr (talk • contribs) 22:09, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Siegtyr (talk) 22:07, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

• @Siegtyr: it was presumably correct at the time of uploading, but has since changed hands. I assume by "time of posting" you mean your own post here, not claiming anything wase wrong about the original post to that page, right? - Jmabel ! talk 22:22, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah, if it isn't an issue per-policy then I imagine that's fine, just noticed and figured I'd notify. I did mean my own post there, apologies for the mix-up. Siegtyr (talk) 00:02, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

• Internet Archive clearly shows that http://www.allpaintings.org/v/Neoclassicism/Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres/Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres - Achilles Receiving the Envoys of Agamemnon.jpg.html was a valid URL in that era, but sadly the image itself was not archived. In any case, source isn't terribly important on a clearly public-domain work. - Jmabel ! talk 22:26, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Merge accounts

I have accidentally created two accounts, Chris.sherlock2 (talk) and User:Chris.sherlock3. I keep accidentally logging into Chris.sherlock3, when I mean to be in Chris.sherlock2. How would I get them merged and make Chris.sherlock2 the main account? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 13:38, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

You'll need to go onto Meta:USURP, it may or may not be possible. Bidgee (talk) 13:45, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

@Bidgee, Chris.sherlock2, and Chris.sherlock3: Sorry, it is it is technically impossible per that link.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 16:52, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Oh well, I'll try to remember to not use one of the accounts! - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 16:57, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

@Chris.sherlock2, you can just post a disclaimer that this is an "accidental account" that belongs to you and has not been created for sockpuppetry... ─ The Aafī (^talk) 18:34, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

You can rename the second account to some other name. Ruslik (talk) 20:52, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Or use one account as your main account and the other when your travelling and using say free public WiFi for example. Some contributors have done this, you’re not limited to just one account on Commons (you only need to disclose it on each of the user pages). Bidgee (talk) 21:56, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

The way I have: TheAafi and AafiOnMobile. ─ The Aafī (^talk) 03:50, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks all, you've all been very helpful :-) - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 12:47, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Final reminder: Wikimedia sound logo vote ends today!!!

Hi everyone. A reminder that the Wikimedia sound logo vote is still open. Voting ends today December 19 at 23:59 UTC. Thanks to many of you from around the world who have played a part in this project's success. MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 14:40, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Regions of NSW, Australia

I am in a real pickle here. I cannot for the life of me work out the regions of New South Wales! The Wikipedia article at Local government areas of New South Wales has literally no sources for their structure. And then I looked around, and there is so many different regions!

• NSW Office of Sport
• Regional Development Australia (Federal Government)
• NSW Local Land Services
• NSW Department of Planning and Environment
• Regional NSW
• Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (Federal)
• Australian Bureau of Statistics - you will need to search by geography, expand local government areas, then New South Wales and you'll see their regions.

As you can see, all different! I'm sure if I look more I'll find even more regions.

So I found a GIS system that shows regions on a map, it is quite interesting, but now I'm even more confused how to divide up the categories!

Any advise would be helpful... - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 13:09, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

• @Chris.sherlock2: My advice is: be very wary of trying to set up a subcategory system for something complicated, potentially controversial, and where you are not expert. - Jmabel ! talk 16:19, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
  • @Jmabel: I hear you, I got into all sorts of bother on the other site over categories. I’m actually only doing this work because I’m going through wikishootme to take photos of South-Western Sydney and I need a plan of attack. I’ve done a non-controversial category structure of suburbs into LGAs and I had thought regions would make it even better… then I found it was a mess! It’s why I took my concerns here. Do you know who I could speak into? The current category imis a mess already (it had suburbs in the category, for instance). I’d love to find a usable structure here. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 16:33, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
    • Sorry, I've got nothing. I think the closest I've ever been to Australia is Seoul. - Jmabel ! talk 18:07, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
• Is there a more specific context? Category:New South Wales is a mess and Category:Places in New South Wales is unclear while Category:History of New South Wales weirdly seems a bit more organized. You may need to do a bottom up approach from the individual subpages into the main categorization instead of a top-down approach as places like en:City of Shellharbour have decent sourcing. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:20, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
  • That sounds like a reasonable idea. The problem is that in Australia (and I only recently discovered this) the only state to formally define their regions is Western Australia! Everyone else just uses whatever seems convinient. I'm rather beginning to wonder if we might not make up our own regions... but I'd need input from Australian Commons editors! The "bottom up" idea does sound the best though. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 19:33, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Category intersection problem

If you look at Category:Images from The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis, you will see a number of categories like Category:Apache people as photographed by Edward Curtis and Category:Navajo people as photographed by Edward Curtis, plus many others for various tribes/nations. The problem is that this seems to suggest that photos by Curtis of people from these same tribes/nations but that don't come from that particular work don't belong in the category, which in my view is really kind of silly. The category names don't suggest anything of the sort, and at least some of these categories (e.g. Category:Navajo people as photographed by Edward Curtis) were around for years before the category for that particular work was added as a parent by User:Look2See1, since indef-blocked for category edits that went against consensus. (Newer categories such as the "Apache" category were probably innocently modeled on those older ones). I'd be inclined to change Category:Images from The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis as a parent of these just to Category:Photographs by Edward Sheriff Curtis, but then for the ones that are from that work we'd lose all connection to the work. Any suggestions?

By the way, this is a perfect illustration of why there is a need to be cautious when making rather arbitrary intersections of categories, or when changing the meaning of an existing category. - Jmabel ! talk 20:46, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

@Jmabel I'd suggest taking them to CFD individually. It is possible people want them renamed to something more accurate like Category:Navajo people from The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis which will cut down the nonsense additions. I don't understand why these are "people as photographed by" at all. They are Apache people photographed by Curtis aren't they? That is a silly categorization to me but is it that Curtis identified them as Apache so we are categorizing them that way? It seems silly to focus on what he thought they were. Ricky81682 (talk) 00:00, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ricky81682:

1. "as" here probably means nothing at all.
2. Do I understand that you are supporting User:Look2See1's narrowing of the category from its original meaning, and think that photos of these tribes/nations by Curtis that are not sourced from that particular work should not be in the category? - Jmabel ! talk 00:09, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't believe in the categorization at all but I suggest asking if others do. I would likely support deletion but secondarily I would agree with you on the upmove option. Maybe just do it and let's see if people want to narrow it later with a separate category. Either way, the name itself needs work in my mind so it's better to have a CFD on them and see what people decide. It may close in 2027 but that's Commons lol. Ricky81682 (talk) 00:13, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

CFD now at Commons:Categories for discussion/2022/12/Category:Images from The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis. Jmabel ! talk 00:32, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Is Baglama2 still a thing?

It has not been updated since september C.Suthorn (talk) 20:16, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Are elements like pipes, cables, sockets and taps in buildings not architectural?

In Commons it looks like the developments of architectural elements stopped in the 19th century: I cannot find a connection between Category:Architectural elements and elements in a building that are needed for modern water supply, sewerage, electricity, gas and internet, things that go into or come out a building by default, like pipes and cables. While most of these things, if not all, are present in a building when it is delivered or is transferred after purchase; in the Netherlands the first three are even mandatory by law. So builders (and I guess architects) should take them into account. My questions:

1. Is that indeed true: are these elements officially not architectural? (I am no architectural expert at all, so this might be a lack of knowledge.)
2. Is there an English umbrella term for them, so I can make a main category for containing all of them? Perhaps something with "utility"?

Not architectural elements?

• 
  Water taps
• 
  Light switches
• 
  Main connectors
• 
  Electric wires
• 
  Radiators
• 
  Boilers
• 
  Gas-powered tankless water heaters

--JopkeB (talk) 11:12, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

I would say that these are not "architectural". And while these all relate to utilties, I'm not sure we have one common term related to that which refers to elements like this. We tend to refer separately to electrical, plumbing, and HVAC systems. - Jmabel ! talk 17:22, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps Category:Building engineering would cover these? MKFI (talk) 07:31, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

There is a term en:Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing that is a subcategory of building engineering aka en:architectural engineering. However, lack of interwikis seems to suggeset that that's not a term that is commonly used outside of the US. Maybe the broader en:Building services engineering would be a term that works better internationally.

In any case, on the aesthetics side of things, there's certainly a connection to CAT:Interior design here, which is considered a sub-discipline of architecture in several countries and even called interior architecture in at least Italian, French, and German. Its subcategory Category:Interior architectural elements includes things like sinks, mirrors, and furniture. Boilers probably do not belong in there, but faucets and light switches certainly can be design elements. El Grafo (talk) 08:57, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

(HVAC = heating, ventilation and air conditioning). JopkeB (talk) 09:11, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, Jmabel, MKFI and El Grafo, for your reactions and research. So the category structure could be:

• Category:Building engineering - main/parent category
  • Category:Building services engineering (= Mechanical, electrical and plumbing)
    • Category:Climate control (HVAC; the mechanical part of MEB)
    • Category:Electrical parts and components (or should its parent Category:Electrical engineering be a direct subcategory of Category:Building services engineering?)
    • Category:Plumbing
    • Category:Sewers

And I'll shop for more inspiration on en:Building services engineering for subcategories. And of coarse everybody (preferably with more technical knowledge than me) can add more subcategories and/or present suggestions.

Would this make sense? --JopkeB (talk) 13:56, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

In respect of the faucet, and radiator, it should be noted that in parts of Europe, they could be considered a 'design' if there was a significant expression of creativity in their appearance beyond mere functional necessity. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:20, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I have implemented Category:Building services engineering. Please correct and add descriptions, subcategories, parent categories and files. For Category:Interior design I could not find an appropriate subcategory, so who knows one, please add it here. --JopkeB (talk) 07:49, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --JopkeB (talk) 07:49, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Requests for comment: 2022 overhaul of categories by period

Commons:Requests for comment/2022 overhaul of categories by period.--RZuo (talk) 07:33, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Endless category loops for films and actors

Hello,

Some users seem to add actors to categories about the films (and TV series) they performed in, and also add the films to the actors' categories through Category:Films by actor. This creates endless category loops:

• Elizabeth Banks -> Films starring Elizabeth Banks -> The Hunger Games (film) -> Elizabeth Banks
• Mel Brooks -> Mel Brooks filmography -> Films starring Mel Brooks -> Robots (2005 film) -> Robots (2005) voice actors -> Mel Brooks

In the case of a single random example (Cheech Marin):

• Cheech Marin -> Films starring Cheech Marin -> The Lion King -> The Lion King cast members -> Cheech Marin
• Cheech Marin -> Films starring Cheech Marin -> Oliver & Company -> Oliver & Company cast members -> Cheech Marin
• Cheech Marin -> Films starring Cheech Marin -> Cars (film) -> Cars cast -> Cheech Marin
• Cheech Marin -> Films starring Cheech Marin -> Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil -> Hoodwinked! cast members -> Cheech Marin
• Cheech Marin -> Films starring Cheech Marin -> The Lion King -> The Lion King characters -> Hyenas (The Lion King) -> Hyenas (The Lion King) interpreters -> Cheech Marin

Which out of the two types of categorization is most useful, if at all? For some reasons this seems to especially affect voice actors that dubbed animated films. Note that on en.wiki films are not categorized by actors, and actors by film or any other performer with their performance (there's a guideline explaining why this type of categorization is futile). Of course Commons doesn't apply en.wiki rules. However, is this any less futile, especially if it creates endless category loops? A better way to handle performer/performance may be to follow the links in the Wikidata infobox, for instance.

@Tuvalkin, Andy Dingley, Trivialist, and Howcheng: I've not found a previous central discussion about this, however I found some involvement from these users, so pinging them for input. Place Clichy 10:27, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

• I'm not sure that either of them is particularly useful. The categorizers seem to be thinking of them more as keywords than a logical organizing scheme. Trivialist (talk) 11:04, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
  • They are both «particularly useful» and «logical», as they both address a legitimate and useful need for information about some kind of relationship between any two categories.

Trying to eliminate all “loops” in our category tree is both impossible without greately reducing its usefulness and an unecessary theoretical concern: Classification of all reality in neat nested boxes is a 19th century quest we should not care about (after all even the tree of life has anastomosis, as it’s known since 1983).

The only kind of category tree loops we should always avoid are those of 1st level (A→B and B→A) as it would offer two different categorization schemes for the same relationship between two categories — wider loops (say, A→B→C vs. A→C→B) are acceptable and should be decided for each individual pair of categories, with no concerns on whether a loop will evenually emerge or not.

Trivialist and Place Clichy mention keywords and Wikidata. Well, okay: Use those if you want to, and leave categorization for those who want to categorize. Starting a discussion which would lead to the elimination of most categories just to quell a concern that is essentially esthetical seems pointless, to say the least.

-- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 15:54, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

• i suggested in Commons:Categories for discussion/2022/04/Category:Tom Hanks deleting "cast of movie xyz"/"movie xyz cast" cats. then for your examples:

• Elizabeth Banks -> Films starring Elizabeth Banks -> The Hunger Games (film)
• Mel Brooks -> Mel Brooks filmography -> Films starring Mel Brooks -> Robots (2005 film) -> Robots (2005) voice actors...
• Cheech Marin -> Films starring Cheech Marin -> The Lion King -> The Lion King cast members...
• Cheech Marin -> Films starring Cheech Marin -> Oliver & Company -> Oliver & Company cast members...

RZuo (talk) 12:35, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

• First of all, what is the problem with a loop? What breaks? Why not simply accept loops, they're non-damaging.

This is MediaWiki categorization. It's a navigational mechanism, and a relatively crude one. It's not an ontological, ordinal or defining one.

The situation here arises because there are two commutative properties being modelled: "films of <actor>" and also "cast of <film>". If we represent both of these as properties (i.e. category membership on this platform) then it is inevitable that there is duplication, and thus (given how MW models properties) there are loops.

We do not need to have both property memberships (and so the "cast of <film>" would seem the most straightforward to keep). In that case, navigation for "films of <actor>" involves looking at the list of parent categories, not children (there is a prejudice against having many parent categories). Given the relative numbers, we'd be better keeping "cast of <film>" and ditching "films of <actor>".

We could instead limit this to "films starring <actor>" instead, (ditching both "films of <actor>" and "cast of <film>") which limits the number of parents for any film to just its handful of stars, not an entire cast. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:03, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I can imagine certain tools that can search through multiple levels of subcategories, do not like loops. For example: deepcategory: in Wiki's search function and PetScan. --HyperGaruda (talk) 19:37, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Commons:Categories (a policy) explains what are categories and what is their use. It writes: There should be no cycles (i.e. a category should not contain itself, directly or indirectly). Categories are a structured hierarchy, from the most generic concept to the very specific. Although there are several types of relations reflected by category inclusion, the policy again advises to avoid cyclic structure. A category loop is merely the sign that the relationship implied makes no sense. In the case at hand, films are not "a part" of the actor playing in them, or who voiced a character. Actors are not "a part" of the film; although they play a part, their life and work is certainly not contained in any of their films. Some kind of horizontal linking, in the text description or the Wikidata infobox, is certainly more appropriate. As Tuvalkin wrote above, leave categorization for those who categorize, without breaking the category hierarchy with nonsensical inclusions (and loops). Place Clichy 22:17, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

We need a category that is all categories that don’t contain themselves. I think that would be extremely interesting. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 15:20, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

• @Chris.sherlock2: You'll need to take that up with Mr. Russell. - Jmabel ! talk 17:31, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Please refrain from personal attacks, “fellow” categorizer who yet thinks categories should be partly replaced with random see-also links and Wikidata cruff: Your fetish for a strict single-root dendrogram for all reality — now that’s nonsensical. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 22:10, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Attacks? I don't see any in my reply, although I tried to insert an answer to your own friendly invitation to some other users to leave categorization for those who want to categorize. Place Clichy 16:46, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley: "What breaks"? Specifically, OgreBot's gallery pages. Every time someone creates a category loop that involves a person who is included in my gallery, I get messages from the bot such as this: "Your gallery has a hard upper-limit of about 8000 files per day, while your gallery would have had 24136 files (including files already on the page)." So then I have to go and break these loops so the bot doesn't freak out. —howcheng {chat} 00:24, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

So fix the 'bot. Loops can happen, and it's not hard for a 'bot to detect this without getting itself stuck. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:33, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Truly, what Andy says here. Speaking as a longtime software developer, it is pretty near malpractice to right code that navigates a graph and doesn't check for loops unless some other technical mechanism has already guaranteed that the graph will be acyclic. There is no way in the world that we aren't sometimes going to end up with loops in the category "hierarchy". If our tools break when that happens, then it is super-easy for a vandal to break our tools any time they feel like it. - Jmabel ! talk 01:00, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm not concerned about the occasional loop created by accident, and imho it is not a technical problem. I am a lot more concerned by the logic behind the simultaneous placing of actors under films and films under actors. The mention of the loops merely indicate that this logic is flawed in regards to what categories are as defined in Commons policy. In other terms, while actors and films are related topics, they do not have a hierarchical relationship. The mere fact that you can't tell which one is above the other is just telling that. Not all category cruft and over-categorization is good, some moderation is also welcome. To take an example above, not all of Elizabeth Banks' life and career in included in The Hunger Games (or the dozens of films to be potentially added on her page), and not all The Hunger Games is a Elizabeth Banks performance. At the very least, I think that direct inclusion of actors in films and vice-versa should be discouraged (i.e. without an intermediate filmography or cast layer). Place Clichy 16:46, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

The phrase "over-categorization" has a specific meaning in Commons — please do not misuse it. As for the matter at hand, I notice that you say «an intermediate filmography or cast layer», and that’s encouraging: That’s also how I feel about 1st degree loops versus any others. Of course more distant loops in the graph (i.e., with more than just 2 nodes) you still seem to see them as flukes «created by accident», which I do not agree with, but I’m all for adding those intermediate layers wherever needed. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 23:52, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I’m a new Commons contributor, so I don’t stumble on any land mines, what does it mean? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 15:23, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

@Chris.sherlock2: "Over-categorization" or "overcatting" here usually means that someone has ignorantly or inadvertently added categories that are already implied, because they are ancestors of categories already present. E.g. adding Category:United Kingdom to something that is already in Category:London. That's not to say that it is never valid to use both a category and one of its ancestors for a given image. For starters, if there is a loop in the hierarchy (the topic at hand), then a category is its own ancestor! But, more subtly, it's common for a building to be in a category for the street or streets it is on, and if a picture shows the building but is basically a picture of the street, then it is reasonable to have both; similarly, a picture of multiple members of a family that has a category might show (among others) an individual notable enough to have a category of their own, in which case is would be OK to use both. So, much like loops in the hierarchy, it's a rule of thumb, but not an absolute prohibition. - Jmabel ! talk 17:40, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Honestly, I would just import English Wikipedia's PERFCAT guidelines onto Commons, removing any categories akin to "Performer/performance by/of/for/from performance/performer", due to the aforementioned horizontality problem. -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK) 00:16, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Template:Cc-by-sa-4.0,3.0,2.5,2.0,1.0

Are you allowed to use that template freely, without being granted by Creative Commons, Wikimedia, or Commons?I wish to use that for every file I upload for use for Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WPchanger2011 (talk • contribs) 02:37, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

@WPchanger2011: Hi, and welcome. You may use {{Cc-by-sa-4.0,3.0,2.5,2.0,1.0}} for your own work uploads. It is currently transcluded 416,264 times. See also COM:SIGN.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 03:21, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

thank you for the answer. WPchanger2011 (talk) 19:15, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

@WPchanger2011: the operative phrase being "own work". You can license your own work as you wish; you can't go issuing these varied licenses on someone else's behalf. Jmabel ! talk 05:10, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

and thanks to you too WPchanger2011 (talk) 19:16, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Categorisation of pages containing multiple DRs

Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Cape Town Stadium contains DRs relating to South African FOP, two of which were closed as ‘delete’ and one of which is pending. Therefore, it belongs in both Category:South African FOP cases/deleted and Category:South African FOP cases/pending. JWilz12345 disagrees, calling the former ‘redundant’. What does everyone else think? Brianjd (talk) 08:47, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

@Brianjd: in my opinion the current DR is the basis of the categorization. In that case, by having a "/deleted" subcategory categorized, it misleads other users that may think that the entire nomination page is closed. When I nominate images for deletion and the tools use an existing nomination page, I don't add "/pending"; rather I change either "/kept" or "/deleted" to "/pending". JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 11:44, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

@JWilz12345 If such confusion exists, it is not the result of categorisation. It is the result of having multiple DRs on one page to begin with.

Suppose a DR page is linked from {{Kept}}, but a later DR on the same page is pending or even closed as ‘delete’. Or suppose someone uses a DR (on page A) as a precedent in a later DR (on page B), but page A also contains a later DR with a different status. Sometimes you even find that two mass DRs are opened on the same page at the same time (with different rationales), and the later one is closed first. Is any of this misleading? No one seems to think so. Why should ‘/kept’ and ‘/deleted’ categories be any different?

On the other hand, your categorisation is misleading. The result is that two South African FOP DRs closed as ‘delete’ were deliberately excluded from Category:South African FOP cases/deleted. That is certainly not what I would expect when browsing that category. Brianjd (talk) 11:58, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

For example, [4]. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 11:53, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

@Brianjd: I think a more long-term solution is for VisualFileChange tool to have a function in which if it detects an identically-named deletion request, it will instead send the nomination to a disambiguated nomination page. Suppose the SoAfrican case page you gave, if a fourth nomination is made via VisualFileChange, the nomination won't be made at the existing page, but instead be made at "Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Cape Town Stadium 2". This will be more subcategory specific. Plus it prevents archival issues arising from overused pages, most infamous is Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Burj Khalifa. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 12:10, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

@JWilz12345 I agree with everything you said.

(another example: Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Judgefloro) Brianjd (talk) 12:30, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

@Brianjd: over in Morocco, COM:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Hassan II Mosque, now on its 33rd request. (Some sarcasm intended: is this deletion request a nominee for Guinness Book of World Records as having the most FOP-related nominations? 😅) JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 12:35, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

@JWilz12345 Three top-level boxes for previous discussions, with more boxes inside. I can remember nothing like it. Brianjd (talk) 12:42, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree; in fact, I'd gladly prefer splitting up separate deletion discussions on the same page, potentially adding boxes to point to other discussions akin to what English Wikipedia does for its deletion discussions. -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK) 21:16, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

• @Brianjd and Brainulator9: I have split FOP-related discussions of Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Judgefloro to Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Judgefloro (FOP-related). Perhaps this is just a partial fulfillment but it is also an experiment to other mass DRs. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 04:20, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

  @JWilz12345 However, to preserve some on-wiki links to this page (especially the #3 request) … I presume this is a reference to a certain other DR we have been debating at recently. I would prefer to highlight #7, which seems to set the opposite precedent. Or we could just not highlight any at all, which is probably the best option. I have changed that sentence to: However, to preserve existing references to these requests, all numeric disambiguations have been preserved. Brianjd (talk) 15:45, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Page protection request

The media file "File:রেসকোর্স ময়দানে হোসেন শহীদ সোহ্‌রাওয়ার্দীর জানাজা (১৯৬৩).jpg" has generated some controversies recently.

At the picture, a substantial crowd is seen amassing in the Racecourse Field, which is currently known as Suhrawardi Uddan. Regarding this picture, there are three claims.

1. Some claim that this is Hossain Shaheed Suhrawardi's funeral.

2. Some claim that this is the funeral procession for former president Ziaur Rahman. The third and least important argument is that this gathering intends to welcome Queen Elizabeth II during her visit to Dhaka. The first two arguments are made by two of the confronting major political parties in the region since those parties' two founding leaders are the first two historical people. These two political parties have histories of conflicts among them that cost thousands of lives.

The file now holds the title that supports the aforementioned first claim. The title reads “Hossain Shaheed Suhrawardi’s funeral at Racecourse field” in English. Before moving, the title was “ File:Ramna Race Course Queen Elizabeth II 1961” which was in favor of the third claim which was again supported by a reliable third party source.

The first assertion is correct according to a recent investigation by a fact-checking organization, and they have since sued Wikimedia Commons for spreading misinformation. The filename has been updated to reflect the current situation in light of the fact-checking investigation report, and the initial source has been replaced with the article link of the fact-checking organization. Widespread public interest in this file has been generated after the fact-checking report, including rival organization members. According to the Bangla text of the "Source" in the summary paragraph, “This image is from The Daily Star, but The Daily Star isn't the major source. The Daily Star most likely copied this image from Facebook and published it again in 2018, misrepresenting it as a crowd waiting to see Queen Elizabeth.” This clearly supports the first of the aforementioned claims, which supports the assertion of one of the political parties. As the page history is constantly visible, this raises risk for the uploader, file mover, and editors of the page.

I request to move the file to a more “neutral” name and protect it for the sake of the safety of our editors. Please check the talk page of this file for more information. -Wasiul Bahar (talk) 19:36, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

(Excuse my bad english)  Oppose. No need to protect the page. There are some false claims in the internet but https://rumorscanner.com/fact-check/shaheed-suhrawardy-janaza-picture-claim-ziaur-rahman/30396 clearly shows which one correct, with explanation and evidence. I have also added the image to person's article bn:হোসেন_শহীদ_সোহ্‌রাওয়ার্দী#মৃত্যু. If the topic creator disagree, they can discuss this on Bengali wikipedia article talk page. আফতাবুজ্জামান (talk) 19:50, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

It's true that this file has received vast public attention which can be seen in its mediaview analysis. It's also true that this image is being debated in the political sphere of a region and recently the debate has been revived. Wikimedia Commons is very straightforward, we host educational media files, we're not responsible for the facts stated in the media files, the author and the source is. It's the local wikipedia communities, which collects and presents information with citations following NPOV. আফতাবুজ্জামান, please don't bring any local wikipedia debates in commons, stay relevant. According to Commons:Project scope/Neutral point of view, subject matter of the media file not necessarily should follow NPOV but the texts in the description should. However, neutrality of description should be aimed at wherever possible, and in any event neither filenames nor text may be phrased in such a way as to constitute vandalism, attack or deliberate provocation. I think, this incident loosely falls under "deliberate provocation".

 Strong support to move the file to a neutral title which doesn't specifically mention whose funeral this was. Also support to protect this page. As the uploader downloaded the image from The Daily Star, the news agency should be mentioned solely in the "Source" without any doubt, it's not Wikimedia Commons' responsibility to verify whether the daily star portrayed it right or wrong. What Wikimedia Commons can do the best is, mention Rumor Scanner's claim neutrally avoiding any bias in the "description", not in the source. --Mrb Rafi (talk) 04:18, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

I am going to inform Bengali community for comment if they have any, As native, they can easily verify Bengali sources. Thanks. আফতাবুজ্জামান (talk) 04:25, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Not good in english, so writting in Bengali. সঠিকটি মূল পাতায় লিখে দিলে কীভাবে এটি নিরপেক্ষ দৃষ্টিভঙ্গিকে লঙ্ঘন করে? নিরপেক্ষ দৃষ্টিভঙ্গি মানে এই না যে ভুলটিও রাখতে হবে। রুমর স্কানার https://rumorscanner.com/fact-check/shaheed-suhrawardy-janaza-picture-claim-ziaur-rahman/30396 বিস্তারিত ব্যাখ্যা ও তথ্যপ্রমাণ দিয়েছে। প্রয়োজনে ডেইলি স্টারকে সরিয়ে ফেলা যায়, ডেইলি স্টার এই ছবির মূল উৎস নয়, তারা ফেসবুক থেকে নিয়ে ছবিটি প্রকাশ করেছে ২০১৮ সালে, একই ছবি উদাহরণ এখানে ২০১২ সালে, ২০১৫ সালে পাওয়া যাচ্ছে। সঠিককে ভুলে নামান্তরে বিরোধিতা। (Google translate: How does writing the correct info violate neutrality? An NPOV does not mean that error must be kept. Rumor Scanner https://rumorscanner.com/fact-check/shaheed-suhrawardy-janaza-picture-claim-ziaur-rahman/30396 provides detailed explanation and evidence what this picture is. Daily Star can be removed if necessary, Daily Star is not the original source of this picture, they took the picture from Facebook and published it in 2018. Same picture for example is available here from 2012, from 2015. Opposing the naming of correct info to wrong.) আফতাবুজ্জামান (talk) 04:27, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Also With above user logic, i should download the same photo from here (published in 2012, 6 year before Daily Star): http://web.archive.org/web/20221225192001/https://www.somewhereinblog.net/blog/RJTeady/29606318 and name it "১৯৫০ সালের ঢাকা রেসকোর্স 1950 in Dhaka racecourse"! আফতাবুজ্জামান (talk) 06:03, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

•  Oppose, No need to protect. Also opposing to renaming the file from correct to wrong name. No political party in Bangladesh hasn't officially commented about the file. So I don't see the need to consider it politically. RiazACU (talk) 05:59, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
  • @RiazACU: Possible English-language confusion. When you write "No political party in Bangladesh hasn't officially commented about the file," that means the same thing as "Every political party in Bangladesh has officially commented about the file," which seems extremely unlikely. Did you perhaps mean to say, "No political party in Bangladesh has officially commented about the file"? - 16:21, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

deletion of images from Lake Bonneville page

Explain why two images were deleted from page. We assume they were deleted by user Wouterhagens. Please help us understand! Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Staplini (talk • contribs) 18:48, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Convenience links: File:Wasatch Fault and Lake Bonneville.jpg and File:Image of Lake Bonneville shorelines.png. Wouter (talk) 22:29, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

@Staplini: apparently the two images were grabbed from the Internet, from unfree websites. "Google" is the cited reason. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 01:54, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

They were obvious Google Earth screenshots with the actual "Google Earth" name and in one case even a copyright notice ("Map data © 2019 Google") clearly visible. Please read Commons:Licensing for an explanation why that is not allowed. --Rosenzweig τ 15:41, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

International relations templates

Looking over the various Category:International relations by year subcategories, I have seen a number of templates like Template:Relations of New Zealand and Poland by year for individual relationships but they only have one continent. For example, Category:Relations of New Zealand and Poland in 2008 shows Relations of Poland in 2008 but only pulls the Countries of Oceania template so New Zealand and Australia shows up but none of the others at Category:2008 in international relations of Poland. It would seem like we need to have many continent template calls ('Poland and' and 'and Poland') if we wanted the page to show all the relations of Poland in 2008. Should we rename it to 'Relations of Poland and Oceania countries in 2008' or does a template inside the template that calls each continent and both directions be added to the NZ/Poland template or should the whole section be junked? Ricky81682 (talk) 08:07, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Alt text for Commons images as structured data

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T166094

Hi all! Following two discussions here on Commons (Commons:Village pump/Archive/2022/05#Making ALT text part of Commons, Commons:Village pump/Proposals/Archive/2022/05#Adding alt texts through structured data), discussion on Phabricator (T166094) and an extremely protracted property dicussion on Wikidata (Wikidata:Property proposal/alt text), the propery alt text (P11265) has been created recently. The first discussion linked above was closed with "The Commons community asks the SDC development team to add a structured data text field (like the caption field) for multilingual alt texts." -- while the ex-SDC team (now the Structured Data team, focused on a less Commons-specific project, Structured Data Across Wikimedia) wasn't involved (Wikidata is flexible enough that new fields can be added without any developer involvement), I think this is essentially the same thing, and so there is consensus to use the new property. Please let me know if you disagree!

I made an example of how the property would be used: File:Hungary-0057_-_Shoes_on_the_Danube_(7263603836).jpg#P11265 - again please let me know if you think there is anything wrong with it. Otherwise, I plan to write a documentation page soon.

Note that technically there is not one multilingual field but multiple monolingual fields in different languages; this is a long-standing Wikidata limitation (T86517). If Wikidata ever gets first-class multilingual field support, it should be a simple matter to migrate the data.

Note also that adding P11265 values to an image doesn't automatically do anything extra (e.g. adding the alt text to the image in a way browsers would understand), although I hope we'll get there soon. --Tgr (talk) 22:41, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Pinging the people who have been heavily involved in the previous discussions: @Jmabel, DrMel, Peaceray, Glrx, Andy Mabbett, El Grafo, and GPSLeo: . Also @CBogen (WMF): from the SD team, just as an FYI since the team was mentioned in the closing summary of a previous discussion. --Tgr (talk) 23:49, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

• Looks good to me. - Jmabel ! talk 00:09, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

  Ditto! Peaceray (talk) 06:45, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Looks fine. Now we would need to create at least a short page explaining how alt texts should be written. We have Help:Alternative text, but I think Commons namespace would be better if me make this a guideline later. And at the start we maybe should have an abuse filter marking the edits that we can see if there is a vandalism other problem with this. And of course when everything works fine we should think about adding this to the UploadWizard as well. GPSLeo (talk) 09:59, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

The suggested default alt text: "Black and white photograph of a man with a tripod camera and pine trees in the background."

• I do not like any of it. It violates some clear ideas.
  1. There is no doubt that one can use a database to store multilingual strings, but that does not seem to be the design approach of Wikidata or the advantageous part of structured data. Multilingual strings are atomic; they do not have structure. Wikidata items usually have properties that resolve to other items or quantities such as dates. Look at Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Q8007). It does not have properties whose values are multilingual strings. The translations are for items and properties: Франклин Делано Рузвельт (Q8007) and 富兰克林·德拉诺·罗斯福（Q8007）. Using them for alt text is using them outside their design intent.
  2. Alt text strings should to be tailored to the topic.

     https://accessibility.huit.harvard.edu/describe-content-images

     https://www.med.unc.edu/webguide/accessibility/alt-text/

  3. The notion of default strings being reasonable is dubious. An image may have many details, but only a subset will be important for a topic. The alt text (P11265) property proposal shows a portrait of Ansel Adams with alt text that does not mention his name. The tripod will be irrelevant in most contexts. The B&W aspect is important when considering AA's approach to his art. The Shoes on the Danube description, "Dozens of metal shoes clustered at the edge of a wharf," is a literal absurdity. It mentions nothing about the symbolism of those shoes being a memorial to murder victims. People were told to remove their shoes before they were shot and fell into the Danube.
  4. I disagree with the notion that generic alt text is better than no alt text.
  5. I fear that users uploading a picture to Commons will be pestered to supply dubious alt text.
  6. A far better approach, and an approach that fits usage, is to require alt text when an image is used in an article. That article will be monolingual, and it have a focused topic (where mentioning Ansel Adams or tripods will be obvious). If an image does not have explicit alt text, then the article should go into an automatic maintenance category. If the image should not be described, then set its alt text to "".

  Glrx (talk) 19:46, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

  • @Glrx: remember that pictures in articles nearly always have captions. The purpose of ALT text is distinct from that: to let blind or sight-limited people (or -- rare these days -- any person using a text-only browser) know what a sighted person sees when they look at the image. This feature was specifically requested by an organization working with blind people, with the specific intent of getting such texts translated into as many languages as possible. Contact User:DrMel if you want details: there are apparently a large number of people (mostly not current Wikimedians) wanting to work on this. - Jmabel ! talk 19:57, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

I would like to answer to some things you wrote. 1 and 2: I also do not think that this is a perfect solution but this is way better than using Wikitext templates. For 3 we need a guideline on how to write a good alt text description. 4: Of course good Wikipedia articles should have their own alt text but we also have many long or even auto generated lists. I think the new Wikifunctions also wants to have photos. 5: Yes we have a vandalism and spam problem, but also within the very old Wikitext descriptions. GPSLeo (talk) 20:47, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

@Glrx: contextuality was discussed several times in the linked pages. It's clear the majority thinks generic alt text is better than nothing. As to your other points:

• See d:Special:ListProperties/monolingualtext for a list of properties with a text value. It is not in any way unusual. Sometimes it makes sense for the value itself to be a Wikidata item, and sometimes it doesn't.
• The purpose of alt text is to provide the information that a reader can get directly from the image, and that readers with visual limitations would miss. So I think both examples you criticize are reasonable uses of alt text. The reader will no doubt learn from the article or the image caption who is shown on the image or what the shoes represent.
• Fair point that forcing users to provide alt text might result in low-quality alt text (or, I guess, less uploads). There is little reason to do so, though. There are some types of metadata the uploader is uniquely well situated to provide - e.g. if they don't indicate the source, it can be very hard for others to figure it out. For alt text, though, it is just as easy for anyone else to provide it.
• You (or anyone) should feel free to propose inline alt text to be required on the various Wikipedias; personally I don't think there is not much chance of such a proposal being accepted. A tracking category is doable but (with the possible exception of enwiki) there would be way too many articles in it to be of any practical use IMO. In any case, you'd probably still want alt text for various situations where an image is used outside of an article (not least the file description page itself).

--Tgr (talk) 03:38, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

I created a sketch of how alt text could be used on Commons and on other Wikimedia wikis: T325955 Feedback welcome, here or on Phabricator.

(To be clear, this would probably have to happen on a volunteer basis, which means not soon, possibly not ever. I think it helps to have a map of possibilities regardless.) --Tgr (talk) 04:40, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

• I opposed the creation of a property for holding generic alt text every time it was propose, for the reasons enumerated above. I also requested that advice be sought from accessibility professionals; this was not done.
  The example given above of "Black and white photograph of a man with a tripod camera and pine trees in the background." is indeed a good example... of why generic alt text is not a good idea. If the photograph is used on a Wikipedia article on Ansel Adams (which seems to be its most common usage), then the fact that he has a hat and beard is pertinent. If it is used on the article on bellows cameras, then the fact that the camera in the picture is "probably a Zeiss Ikon Universal Juwel" is more relevant. But in both cases, what goes in the alt attribute will depend on what the editor puts in the caption. The use of this property is destined to harm, not aid, accessibility. It was ill-conceived, forced through despite failing to achieve consensus multiple times,and does not have the support of people who are, or who work with, users of alt text. It is no more than tokenism. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:54, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
  • @Pigsonthewing: again, this is mainly an accessibility issue. ALT text is not in lieu of a caption, and text browsers and accessibility tools for the blind will both read out captions just fine. What they won't do is describe what a sighted person will see in the picture. DrMel who first kicked this off is an accessibility expert (and I'm a little surprised not to have had her weigh in again on the current thread. - Jmabel ! talk 19:03, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
    • Where do I say alt text is not an accessibility issue? Where do I say alt text is in lieu of a caption? Where do I say text browsers and accessibility tools for the blind will not read out captions correctly? Your comments bear no relation to mine. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:07, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
      • My point being that ALT text is supplementary to a caption. The things you are mentioning as relevant on a per-article basis will presumably be in the caption. Remember that generic advice about ALT text is based on the situation generally found on the web (but not on Wikipedia etc.) where there normally aren't any captions such. - Jmabel ! talk 16:33, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
        • Where do I say anything that suggests ALT text is not supplementary to a caption? My post says "If it is used on [an] article [...] what goes in the alt attribute will depend on what the editor puts in the caption.". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:48, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

  @Pigsonthewing the point you would actually need to argue (but you didn't even try, which is probably why the consensus went against your liking in each of the past discussions) is that an alt text like "Black and white photograph of a man with a tripod camera and pine trees in the background" on an image used about bellows cameras is worse than not having alt text at all, leaving the visually impaired reader with a mystery image they have no clue about. Harping on about how alt text hand-tailored to the image containing article can be better than alt text tailored to the image only misses the point; that option continues to be available.

  Also your counterexamples tend to be worse than the originals. E.g. "probably a Zeiss Ikon Universal Juwel" is something that should be in the caption if it is important, because the average sighted reader will sure as hell not know it just from looking at the image; and as pretty much every guidance about alt text warns, it should not repeat what is already in the caption. Tgr (talk) 00:44, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

  Consensus did not go against my liking in each of the past discussions; the proposal was rejected every time except the last one when it was bludgeoned trough. The point you say I should have argued was indeed argued; as I pointed out in the last round, it is unreasonable to keep bludgeoning in such fashion, requiring proponents with valid positions to repeatedly re-state them. And, once again, my post above says "If it is used on [an] article [...] what goes in the alt attribute will depend on what the editor puts in the caption.". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:40, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

  Earlier Wikidata proposals were rejected for different reasons(" It might be relevant to propose it again once structured data is available on Commons."; "discussion has stalled with no consensus for creation" after only three people commenting). For the more recent discussion, the people who opposed previous proposals specifically for context-dependence showed up and opposed again, the people who previously opposed for different reasons didn't oppose it as those reasons didn't apply anymore, and way more people showed up in support. "Bludgeoned through" is a funny thing to say about a discussion that was kept open for almost two years and had >75% support rate with detailed arguments. You said not fully contextualized alt text is worse than nothing, refused to argue for that position (you did not in fact do that in any of the earlier discussions either), most people weren't convinced. Horse, stick, etc. Or feel free to actually explain why you think a reader with visual disabilities is better served by no alt text at all than by alt text that's not contextualized to the article, instead of just repeating many times that that's what you think. Tgr (talk) 22:53, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Online meeting about Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons: rescue is close! Or, is it?

Hello, German Wikipedia invites for January, 5th, 2023! We will talk about the history and future of Wikimedia Commons. With us we will have guests from the Wikimedia Foundation, to report what is going on right now.

The first hour of the evening (starting at 19.00h CET = UTC 1) will be in German and the second hour (20.00h, with our guests) in English.

More information (in German) and the link to the Senfcall meeting you will find on this page. Everyone is invited! Ziko van Dijk (talk) 18:09, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Doubts about an old map

Appreciated community, I have a doubt:

I'm considering upload to Commons this 1972 map, called "The floor of the oceans, but I'm kinda confused in relation with the "admissibility" of that map in regards of the license.

My question is: can I upload this map to Commons in the near future? I need an answer as soon as possible.

Thanks in advance, greetings from Colombia and God bless you. Universalis (talk) 19:31, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

• Unlikely to be acceptable for Commons.

Material on Commons needs to be "freely licensed", either not under copyright, or under copyright but with a licence granted by its rights holder to allow some (fairly generous) use of it despite. See COM:LICENSING. This is an absolute requirement.

Some material can be used on Wikipedias under "fair use". The material is considered so important and so unavailable elsewhere that we 'stretch' our assumed right to use it. That is not permissible here on Commons though.

This is a 1972 work by a cartographer who lived until 2015.[5] Under most international rules, that's going to remain their copyright for decades yet.

Some altruistic library might have been gifted the rights to this, and have then chosen to license them to projects like Commons (we have many photo archives like that, see Commons:Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed for one). But that is not a common thing and not something we can ever assume, unless negotiated for and specificallly informed. Sadly the AGS map library[6] is also doing a poor job by failing to publish any copyright information for their content, so we can only assume the most restrictive case. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:30, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

2016 in rail transport in Germany

In Category:2016 in rail transport in Germany I have moved a lot of files to lander categories. However a lot of files are inside pictures of the Hamburg-Köln-Express wich crosses four Lander. (NRW, Bremen, Lower-Saxony and Hamburg) Three pictures are taken in a (may be recognisable) station:

• 
• 
• 

Can the station(s) be indentified? Smiley.toerist (talk) 18:46, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

@Smiley.toerist Have you included those in Category:Unidentified train stations in Germany? I'd say Category:Unidentified locations in Germany in the 2010s is also relevant. You may get more results with someone who is already watching the subject matter than here. Ricky81682 (talk) 01:08, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

What little we see of the station is very generic, it's hard to identify a station based on that. The photos were taken very early in the morning, there's hardly any people in them, and the train looks like it is at the beginning of its route. Which means the photos were most likely taken in the station where the train started. Per the reflections in some of the train windows, the train's destination is Hamburg-Altona, so the photos were taken at the other end of the route. In May 2016, per de:Hamburg-Köln-Express, that would have been Frankfurt am Main central station, also seen in the itinerary in File:2016-05-26 HKX Zug by Olaf Kosinsky-66.jpg. So my guess is Frankfurt (Main) Hbf. --Rosenzweig τ 16:31, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

On the other hand, I noticed that these photos were taken 40 minutes later than the first photo, and the train seems to be in motion in some of the images before. So probably not the first station. If not Frankfurt, then perhaps Bingen or Koblenz. --Rosenzweig τ 17:37, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

@Smiley.toerist and Rosenzweig: I'd place my bets on Koblenz. The reflection in the third window from the left of File:2016-05-26 HKX Zug by Olaf Kosinsky-94.jpg shows HKX 1802's departure time: 09:59. According to the 2016 schedule, this corresponds exactly with Koblenz. Considering the markings on the platform and the background in File:2016-05-26 HKX Zug by Olaf Kosinsky-100.jpg, this train was probably waiting at platform 3. --HyperGaruda (talk) 12:41, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Very convincing, everything points to Koblenz indeed :-) --Rosenzweig τ 12:48, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of in-scope files

This discussion arose out of Commons:Deletion requests/File:Anas Khan Hindi.jpg.

It seems clear to me that when a file is clearly in scope (for example, because it is legitimately in use), then it is not eligible for speedy deletion under criteria like G3, G10 and F10. In short, if a file is useful, the uploader’s intentions don’t matter.

But Uhai says that this is incorrect: scope is irrelevant unless mentioned in the speedy deletion criteria. For example, COM:CSD#F10 says:

Personal photos by non-contributors

Low-to-medium quality selfies and other personal images of or by users who have no constructive global contributions.

Since personal photos is not actually defined anywhere, it could include files that are in scope. And nothing else refers to scope.

As I wrote this, I realised that this analysis was incorrect: a user who uploaded an in-scope file has a constructive global contribution, so F10 does not apply. But the broader question remains about whether in-scope files should be excluded from these sorts of speedy deletion criteria. Brianjd (talk) 09:26, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

• How is the file in scope? It even isn't in use. It sounded like the only "use" was the user spamming the image and spamming the image isn't in scope. What is the constructive global contribution for the user? Uploading another image and asking for it to be deleted are not constructive contributions. Else, en:User talk:Bazmelahooti shows that everything else was deleted. What are you asking for? If a user uploads an image and creates spam articles for their image, the image is thus automatically in-scope, in-use, and the user has created a constructive global contribution? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 11:35, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

  @Ricky81682 This discussion isn’t about Anas Khan Hindi.jpg. That file is being discussed at the DR, where it is headed for deletion, which I do not oppose.

  This discussion is about the general question of whether in-scope files are eligible for speedy deletion. Uhai’s comments seem to imply that certain files should be speedily deleted even if they are (or could be) in scope, and that taking them to a DR discussion is a waste of time. Brianjd (talk) 11:54, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

  You are correct that these illegitimate uses do not automatically make a file be in scope. But there is nothing wrong with having a discussion about whether the uses really are illegitimate or whether the file is in scope for some other reason. The answers to those questions might be obvious to you, but they won’t be obvious to everyone, which is why we have these discussions. Brianjd (talk) 11:57, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

  @Brianjd What is your concern? Are you arguing we need to define "personal photos" because of what scenario? I can only go with the specific example at hand which follows almost every part of F10. Is it possible that someone uploads a useful, personal photo and doesn't contribute elsewhere that I guess is used in an article, be listed for F10 and could have an admin decide to delete the image anyways? It has maybe happened before but I highly doubt that. People aren't hunting around to delete good, useful images out of spite. Ricky81682 (talk) 12:09, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for creating this, Brianjd.

Really, F10 is incredibly vague and I've seen administrators enforce it very differently. To be clear, my interpretation of F10 is that personal files, meaning files that are of oneself (e.g. portraits/selfies) or otherwise pertain to oneself (e.g. scans of one's signature), are eligible for deletion if the user has no constructive global contributions, plural. What I look for when nominating is at least 2-3 non-reverted and non-trivial (not minor punctuation, whitespace, or spelling changes) mainspace edits on another wiki. I also look for the file author field to say own work, the user's own username, or an obvious alternate/sockpuppet account of the uploader. If the file is in apparently legitimate use in a wiki's mainspace, I won't nominate it. If it's in use in a user space, it's fair game if it fails the other criteria I look for. If it's in use in the draft space on the English Wikipedia, I also consider it fair game as it will generally be an autobiography. While autobiographies are explicitly not disallowed on said wiki, they are usually deleted by most admins under that wiki's CSD G11 criterion de facto for self-promotion because they usually contain other problems and have wikipedia:WP:SNOW chance of making it into the mainspace. My understanding of F10 is a common sense interpretation (to me, at least) and is derived from F10's proposal and subsequent discussion.

It's clear from my contributions on Commons that most of what I do is nominate files for F10 deletion. I typically end up on Commons after encountering problematic material on the English Wikipedia. I also do some data mining on meta:Quarry to identify files that have been re-uploaded after having been previously deleted for F10 to combat reuploads of problematic files. I don't have a vendetta against selfies themselves or against unequivocally constructive editors uploading personal files to, say, have on their user page to express themselves. I do have a problem with single-purpose users who have contributed nothing or next to nothing who try to use Wikimedia projects as social media or for self-promotion. Selfies uploaded by the latter form of users are clearly out of Commons' scope regardless of if they are used on a user or draft page somewhere. Once those users have some constructive contributions? Absolutely, feel free to reupload.

Regarding inconsistencies in enforcement, I've had admins decline my F10 nominations when the uploading users' only two global contributions are to upload the image on Commons and put the image on their user page on some wiki. This, in my opinion, is an inappropriate rationale for declining F10. On the other hand, I've also had admins seemingly share my understanding of F10 and delete files that have been in use in user spaces.

Ultimately, I think we need to clarify what F10 is for. Should a personal image by a non-contributor being in use anywhere automatically disqualify it from F10? What exactly defines a personal image? What defines a non-contributor? Can such a file still be nominated for regular deletion? If so, can't we just save time by applying common sense to speedily delete files from people clearly trying to use Wikimedia projects for social media or advancement of their own self-interest? These files have no educational value, after all, when the purpose of Commons is, of course, to host educational content. Uhai (talk) 13:37, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

File:Anas Khan Hindi.jpg is clearly not in scope. This user is blocked on the English Wikipedia, and has 3 remaining edits on Commons after cleaning. So not an active Wikimedia contributors. On another discussion, there was a consensus that around 300 useful contributions on Wikimedia is needed to be allowed for one's own pictures. Yann (talk) 12:14, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

COM:INUSE briefly mentions an exception to the if-it-is-in-use-it-is-in-scope rule: It should be stressed that Commons does not overrule other projects about what is in scope. If an image is in use on another project (aside from use on talk pages or user pages), that is enough for it to be within scope. Note the clause "aside from use on talk pages or user pages". --HyperGaruda (talk) 12:10, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

To be hypertechnical, and staying on the example that started this discussion, looking at the user's talk page, the user created the same page in draftspace there. I don't think we need to revise INUSE for drafts as drafts are a good use of Commons materials. Ricky81682 (talk) 12:23, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

NSW infobox oddness

The wikidata infobox for NSW is still saying that Gladys Berejiklian is the Premier, but I have updated Wikidata to say that Dominic Perrottet is the Premier. It doesn't seem to be updating in Category:New South Wales. Anyone know why? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 12:34, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

@Chris.sherlock2 It was only just changed? The leadership changed hands changed more than a year ago.

Anyway, the category infobox does say Perrottet for me. Brianjd (talk) 13:45, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Actually, it says Dominic Perrottet (2021–). While the name is correct, I don’t understand the (2021–) bit. It implies that an end date should (eventually) be listed, but that will never happen. Brianjd (talk) 13:48, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Why is that? He'll eventually no longer be the Premier. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 14:11, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

@Chris.sherlock2 Yes, then the new leader will be listed instead of him, just as he is now listed instead of Berejiklian. Brianjd (talk) 14:37, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

@Chris.sherlock2: Hi, and welcome. You left the rank of Gladys Berejiklian as Preferred. I demoted her to Normal and promoted Dominic Perrottet to Preferred in these edits, and then I refreshed the cat, producing the desired result.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 13:53, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Ah! Thank you so much! - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 14:11, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

@Chris.sherlock2: You're welcome!   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 14:39, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

@Jeff G. Why are humans still doing this sort of thing manually? Why is the rank required at all? Why can’t the infobox just look up the most recent entry? Brianjd (talk) 14:39, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

I assumed that the infobox did look up the most recent entry (as did the other user, apparently) until you explained otherwise. Brianjd (talk) 14:40, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

@Brianjd and Chris.sherlock2: I undid my promotion of Dominic Perrottet to Preferred, and now they all show, is that what you want? It appears the logic is not smart enough to figure out from the dates which is current.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 14:51, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

@Jeff G. I wasn’t complaining about you promoting Perrottet to Preferred; I was just saying that users shouldn’t have to do that manually, or at all, because the infobox should work without that promotion.

Do we want to show all of them or just the latest one? I think convention is to show just the latest one, although showing all of them clears up my concerns about the dates above. Either way should be OK as long as there are not too many items. Does anyone else want to offer an opinion here? Brianjd (talk) 03:10, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@Brianjd: I agree that showing all 46 Premiers of NSW (or all 46 Presidents of the US) would be too much, but we only have 5 Premiers of NSW in Wikidata. I also agree that it would be nice if the stuff behind the scenes would interpret the dates to make the showing of only the sitting head of government happen in the future. However, until then, I now understand that the many hands which adjust the names or dates for heads of government after every election for every government in Wikidata are supposed to adjust the ranks as appropriate in the same edit session. I would like input from @Chris.sherlock2 about promotion of Perrottet.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 06:05, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Is there a way of manually excluding what fields get imported from Wikidata? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 06:09, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

It has occurred to me that we need to add the Premiers to the executive body, this is the area it encompasses. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 19:00, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@Mike Peel: .--RZuo (talk) 15:20, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

It is possible to exclude fields, but that's generally discouraged - it's better to sort things out properly on Wikidata instead. Same with ranking values if needed - that's something that could probably be done by a bot on Wikidata, if there's consensus to do it that way (you could request this at d:Wikidata:Bot_requests). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 09:35, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

How would one include all the 46 or so Premiers and only include the last 5 though? The data is still relevant. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 10:50, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

The infobox cuts off after a maximum number, but the ordering is entirely arbitrary - it doesn't use the date qualifiers. That could potentially be added - the place to request that is Template talk:Wikidata Infobox. Listing only the current one makes most sense to me, though. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 11:09, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

It doesn’t use anything now… is this intended? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 19:53, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

@Chris.sherlock2: My experience today is contrary to yours yesterday, and the Wikidata item hasn't changed in the meantime.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 23:00, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

It looks good now! Thanks to whoever resolved this :-) - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 23:03, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Pinging etiquette

Do we have a etiquette guide for pinging other users? For example, notice how I keep pinging relevant users in Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Benlisquare (and wondering why they don’t ping each other), and no one is pinging me. I have that page on my watchlist, but perhaps other users would prefer to be notified via pings. Or perhaps they have that page on their watchlist too, and find the pings a nuisance. But, in general, I would expect a discussion tool to notify a user when someone replies to their comments. So I am really confused. Brianjd (talk) 13:58, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

@Brianjd: I ping as a matter of common courtesy when writing about or replying to a user in good standing. I can count on one hand the number of users I have pinged who actively resist pinging. OTOH, the vast majority of users I ping don't ping me back when replying, despite "please ping or talk to me" in my signature. Some people are incomplete in their attempts at pinging - per mw:Extension:Echo#Usage, one must link to another user's page and sign in the same edit (or mention in an Edit Summary) in order to effectively mention, notify, or ping them, and even then only if they have "Notify me when someone links to my user page" set (which is the default here).   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 15:34, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

@Brianjd: Well, not that I am aware of any netiquette, but it goes without saying pinging completely random unrelated users is discouraged. In my opinion a MediaWiki isn’t the best tool to hold (extensive) discussions anyways. The Echo extension is really just that: an extension to make MW more usable for such purposes nevertheless. ‑‑ Kays (T | C) 01:47, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@Kai Burghardt I agree that pinging completely random unrelated users is discouraged, but the user you are replying to is about as far way from a completely random unrelated user[] as you can get. Brianjd (talk) 03:16, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

You did ping me, though. That’s good. But the users in that DR were not pinging each other, and that was a similar situation. Brianjd (talk) 03:18, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@Jeff G. and Kai Burghardt: Special:Diff/721965825 contains a long complaint about pings that might be worth reading. Brianjd (talk) 00:40, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

@Brianjd: Thanks, it takes all kinds.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 15:06, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Category:AI generated images

Am i the only one worried these AI images are going to drown Wikimedia Commons at some point? There doesnt seem to be much consensus as to when AI generated art have educational value Trade (talk) 02:57, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

@Trade: any sense of how many there are now? I almost never see one, so I presume we are far from drowning at present. - Jmabel ! talk 03:11, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm worried too... Often such images are not even categorised as AI-generated. This user alone has uploaded eight hundred-odd artworks of questionable educational value. --HyperGaruda (talk) 05:29, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

I think we should have a specific policy requiring AI art to be categorized as such. Deliberately masquerading AI art as 'real' art is far more likely to cause problems in the future than merely using the wrong category on an image Trade (talk) 15:23, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Regarding David S. Soriano's uploads, see Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by David S. Soriano. I think many of these are out of scope, and could be deleted. Yann (talk) 15:44, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Soriano uploads several pictures a day. By the time your deletion request is finished there will be 50 news ones that needs to be judged and dealt with. DR's alone are not a sustainable solution Trade (talk) 21:45, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

• Soriano's work is spam to me. No one is ever, ever going to use File:19th Century Riveboat.jpg on any article about 19th-century riverboats. There is no difference between those uploads and some random unknown artist uploading their work here as a personal webhost but call it AI work and people defend it for the principle I guess. If he had painted that, would people want it kept? I doubt it. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 12:01, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

I'll estimate roughly 900 images excluding the almost 1000 images uploaded by David S. Soriano

Regardless, would you not prefer we adress the influx of AI art before it becomes a problem rather than waiting until it's too late? Trade (talk) 03:30, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@Trade, Jmabel, HyperGaruda, Yann, and Ricky81682: Alright, get cracking: Commons:AI-generated media. (Feel free to edit boldly!) Nosferattus (talk) 02:54, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Speaking about newly created AI works, considering that they can be created on demand pretty much, it might make sense to require them to be in use. There should be no rush in uploading files that can be created when needed. Also, like (non-AI) amateur art, it sometimes can be difficult for someone who is not the creator to find a use case, especially when the file page has no documentation with that in mind. This could be different with high-profile AI works (that are typically not created by Commons users) with stories to tell based on reputable sources. whym (talk) 10:18, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I tried to generate with DALL-E images of people when we don't have one available with a free license (e.g. en:Michel Audiard), but so far I didn't get any satisfying result. I suppose that these people don't have sufficient number of images available of the Internet for AI to be able to create a realistic portrait. DALL-E often got confused with people of similar names. Yann (talk) 12:28, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

How could an AI generate a free image of someone when there are no free images of that person? An AI will train with existing copyrighted images of that individual, producing a derivative work of an unknown number of unsourced, copyrighted images. Platonides (talk) 14:39, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

We don't know the training materials for any AI program at the moment. I believe that eventually that will be a problem that will overrun the AI generated images space. Ricky81682 (talk) 00:35, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Are non country related photographs by date categories allowed?

I created Category:Bird photographs by date because I thought it was useful. User:A.Savin has asked me to seek consensus on this before I create more categories. One of the reasons why I created it was because of the existing Category:Railway photographs by date which was created in 2018 (by User:Slambo) and currently has over 6,000 subcategories. Sahaib (talk) 14:51, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

@Sahaib: Railways can evolve (and devolve) rather frequently. Bird species, on the other hand, can take a much longer period of time to evolve (and devolve). OTOH, A.Savin can explain more than in User talk:Sahaib#Categories.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 14:58, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

There is also Category:Aviation photographs by date which was created in 2020 (by User:Kolforn). Sahaib (talk) 15:20, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

I was prompted by @L. Beck: on these categories. --A.Savin 15:38, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

•  Oppose as huge waste of time and potential watchlist hyperspamming. Country photographs by date are making sense due to current events that change each day. Railway photographs by date do not make sense to me, yet there seems to be some consensus for them, and railways are changing in time, being built or defunct. Birds may change their appearance seasonally, but not over years. Not everything that "costs nothing" automatically makes sense for usability on Commons. We should not encourage to create categories such as "Human penis photographs taken on...". Where is the borderline between d