Commons:Village pump/Archive/2008/08

Image:SE Tower Bourscheid (1).jpg

Any idea whether this image I just uploaded is okay from the personality rights angle? In the lower part, two kids ran into the image just as I was about to shoot the picture, one of them is recognisable. I have no idea who the kids are etc.--Caranorn (talk) 14:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Same problem with Image:Stolzemburger House Bourscheid.JPG, I have another picture of that building, but the kids got into it as well. This time both are recognisable.--Caranorn (talk) 16:06, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Since the kids are not portrayed in a derogatory and since they are not the main topic of the image and since the castle is (I assume) a public place, commons should not be concerned about this image. Put a PR warning template in the image page, that's it. --Dschwen (talk) 17:54, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok, done and thanks.--Caranorn (talk) 20:59, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

If you want, I can take a shot at removing them from the picture. It doesn't look too hard -- half an hour with the "clone" tool should give a decent result. --Carnildo (talk) 22:26, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

That would be a good idea, if you could. —Giggy 23:11, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Done. Not the best work I've ever done -- someone looking for it can see where a section of stonework is duplicated -- but not bad. --Carnildo (talk) 06:25, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Yep, nicely done. Thanks.--Caranorn (talk) 10:53, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

"Next" and "previous" - navigation templates for viewing images

When images have some sort of linear order, e.g. figures in the order they appear in a book, it would be nice to be able to navigate easily using 'previous' and 'next', with these preferably being placed right above the image itself (so as to be hard to miss. But is this possible? Could it be if it is not now?). I think a template would be the best way to achieve this. I note that we do have {{Previous}} and {{Next}}, though these don't look that great (it's not immediately obvious what the arrows mean/do; something like 'next' or 'next image' would be more clear than '>>'. Perhaps these templates themselves could be modified to allow a custom appearance, but a new one might be necessary. I have used them as an example on Image:Darwin Drosera rotundifolia 4.jpg, which doesn't look that great. Maybe someone good with templates could come up with an improvement? This feature would have potential for a range of images, provided there is some natural order to them. It could even, optionally, include small thumbnails of the next and previous images. Richard001 (talk) 00:24, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I've just created this template Template:PrevNext for you, which might do the job, but its not tested at all, and does not cater for the first and last images in a series. --Inkwina (talk • contribs) 20:20, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

That's a good start. It seems not to work well with templates below though; they appear to the right of it and not below it. An exception needs to be made for images that are the first or last in the series too. Richard001 (talk) 00:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Derivative work licensing

I have a few photographs of works of art taken in the UK and Ireland. Some of the art is old and out of copyright; some is in copyright but located in a public place and covered by freedom of panorama. I want to make the photographs "as public domain as possible". I'm having a lot of trouble understanding which license tags I should use for this. The licensing tags on existing images seem confusing and inconsistent. For example, Image:Venus_de_Milo_edited.jpg, which is used as an example in COM:DW, is tagged simply {{self|cc-by-sa-2.5}}. There's no mention of the copyright status of the original work. Of course "everybody knows" that the Venus de Milo is in the public domain, but this leaves me unclear what to do in less obvious cases, like a sculpture whose artist died 70 years ago. Is there a tag combo I should use for that? {{PD-self}}{{PD-old}} sounds right from the template names, but the actual text of Template:PD-old refers to "this image or other media file", making it sound like it's talking about the photograph, while Template:PD-self refers to "this work", making it sound like it might be talking about the sculpture. COM:DW makes a big deal about the difference between copyright on the original work and copyright on the derivative work, which I understand because it is a big deal, but the license tags seem deeply confused on the same issue. There should be a completely separate set of tags for copyright on depicted artwork and every photograph of a copyrightable work should have two tags, but I get the impression that in practice people are using one set of tags for both photographs and depicted artwork indiscriminately in their uploads. It would also be helpful if COM:DW gave help in choosing tags; right now it seems to be devoted to discouraging the Web generation from uploading random images they found on 4chan.

In the case of FOP images I found Template:FOP because it was used in an image (it's not mentioned in COM:FOP). I assume I should use this tag for the original-work copyright. But I don't understand the nature of my copyright on my photograph. Do I have the power to release my FOP photos "into the public domain" even though they're derivative of copyrighted works? What does "public domain" even mean in this situation? Is there a separate tag for this? Or does FOP automatically imply that I have no copyright control over my photographs to begin with, making the {{FOP}} tag sufficient? Even after reading COM:FOP I'm confused about this.

Thanks very much. -- BenRG (talk) 03:16, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Whenever you take advantage of freedom of panorama simply select one of the licenses for your own work and add {{FOP}} to it. You can also put your image into the public domain, if you want. The FOP warning is relevant to those who reuse your photograph to create other derivative works as there are, in dependence of the local law of the country of origin, restrictions that protect the depicted copyrighted work. In German law, for example, you are not allowed to modify the depicted copyrighted work in a derivative work. --AFBorchert (talk) 05:25, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

For the case of PD source material, add tags for the depicted image and your own work. Then, put a written clarification, like "Venus de Milo is PD while my photograph is CC-BY-SA". It's a little redundant but there's no better system at the moment. Superm401 - Talk 23:33, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright question

Policy question - are someone's recent images (eg, photo or website image) "out of copyright" because the thing that was photographed was created by someone who died over 100 years ago?

Example: Image:Y Gogledd.jpg - copied from this external web page - yes, the book is over 100 years old, but this isn't a copy from the book; this is a copy of someone's photograph of the book, and that photograph belongs to the creator of the photograph, and we can't use it without permission. Right?

I've just posted a similar note at the English Wikipedia Village Pump. Thanks in advance. Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 21:51, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

See Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag. If the source work (e.g. old painting) is PD in the U.S. and source country, and the scan or photograph was done in the U.S., the image is clearly PD under U.S. law (see Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.). In other cases, it's more uncertain, and has been heavily debated here recently. For instance, if the photograph were taken in the U.K., it would likely be copyrighted. Superm401 - Talk 23:59, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I'm aware of the angst ongoing on this kind of topic; for websites, there is usually no way to know when/how/etc the image was created, or whether its a photo/scan/etc; and that varying international laws confound the situation; and that the various wiki's have differing views. I expect that I will stay with contributing to the commons and make only unambiguous contributions. Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 00:20, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

August 2

Common Public License and derivative work

Hello,

I'm looking for tilesets to put in an article concerning tile-based games (like this one). I have been unable to find any websites which could give me free tilesets. Then, I have found Blades of Exile, a 1997 video game that has been released in the Common Public License in 2007 (source code + tileset and sound files). Does this license authorize me to import a picture composed of parts of the tileset files of the game ?

Français : Bonjour, je recherche des tilesets pour illustrer un article sur les jeux basés sur des tiles (comme celui-ci). N'ayant pas trouvé de sites offrant des tilesets libres de droit (en tout cas, pas sans inscription obligatoire), je me suis tourné vers Blades of Exile. Il s'agit d'un jeu de 1997 qui est passé du statut de logiciel propriétaire au statut de logiciel Common Public License en 2007 (code source + ressources). J'aimerais savoir si cette licence m'autorise à transférer sur Commons une image de ma création, composée d'une dizaine de tiles de chacun des tilesets du jeu.

Tachymètre ✉ 14:39, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, it does. It appears the copyright holders have released all the game's data under that license. Beware of some games for which only the source code, not the graphics, has been released under a free software license; this, however, does not appear to be one of them. Be sure to read the license in question, and license your derivative work appropriately. Lewis Collard! (lol, internet) 16:08, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Thank you ! Tachymètre ✉ 17:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

August 3

Blanked pages and non-empty Category:Disambiguation categories

Could Blanked pages/categories and non-empty Category:Disambiguation categories be automatically placed in a special category? That would greatly simplify maintenance. Items in non empty Redirect and Disambiguation categories could be moved regurlarly by bots, so people would be informed about the redirects. Another solution would be when assigning such a cat to an image or gallery, that the system returns an error. --Foroa (talk) 07:39, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Blank pages, no. Non-empty disambig categories, yes. I'll start working on it. Maybe the Category redirect bot can do these too. Rocket000 (talk) 17:38, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Category:Non-empty disambiguation categories (give it a bit to fill up). Rocket000 (talk) 17:55, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Great. See how it goes. Runs every night ? --Foroa (talk) 08:18, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

When cleaning Category:Non-empty disambiguation categories on the end of the list, they disappear from the category. The cats in the beginning or middle of the list seem to stay on the list, even when they are no longer non-empty (Ajax, Acre, Boekel) and they category changes correctly to "disambiguation categories". A purge did not change the situation. --Foroa (talk) 09:27, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Nothing runs, it's all in the disambig template. Categories are very slow in updating if no edits to the page occur. (You can always null edit them—hit save without editing anything, it won't show up in the history but it will refresh.) Sometimes, before I do maintenance on these categories, I have a bot go through and null edit them all so the category is up to date. You can drop me note anytime you'd like this done. Rocket000 (talk) 15:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Works fine, the most important is to know how the systems responds (I noticed something similar with broken cat redirects). That was a great job.

Do you happen to have an idea if one could could make the generation of the lists of uncategorised galleries, images, cats, ... a bit more often. Now, it is every 3 days around 8 hours AM, so each time you get slammed with a long list of items and most contributors are gone by then. A new set of (shorter) lists every night might be easier to manage too. --Foroa (talk) 16:44, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh I wish! I used to bug the devs all the time to give us smaller wikis (i.e. not en.wp) updates once a day... no luck. Right now, my biggest complaint is that we haven't had a fresh database dump since June 15. I count on these to generate nearly all my lists. Templates and categories can only do so much. AWB's list maker can only do so much. Other than requesting SQL query I know of no other way to get up-to-date lists... unless someone can create a bot to tag uncategorized whatever as soon as it shows up on the recent changes list. I know en.wp has a couple bots that do similar. We do have a bot (I forget the name) that marks galleries without media for deletion a little after they're created, so it's not out of the question. We just need someone with the skills (not me) and the willingness to create a bot like this. Rocket000 (talk) 02:59, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Normally, those list generations happen every 3 days, but the previous was 3 and half days while the next was suddenly only 20 hours. Have the dev Gods been listening ?

The updates of those non-empty and broken redirect cats can take several days, which is very long if you work on it. I believe that an update can be forced by doing a dummy edit of the concerned templates. It would be nice if those cats would be updated at least once or twice a day. --Foroa (talk) 15:33, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, an edit to the template will not update the cats. The dummy edit has to be done to the category itself, but as I mentioned above, I have a bot that can dummy edit all the cats whenever you'd like. Just drop me a note before you do some maintenance work and I'll update them. Rocket000 (talk) 04:59, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

@Rocket000, you can always bug me for a fresh query. I do queries all the time. Multichill (talk) 17:18, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll likely be taking you up on that offer. ;) Thanks! Rocket000 (talk) 04:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Image redirects

amazing they work!

Are we using image redirects on commons? Should we? Would it make renaming Images easier? --Dschwen (talk) 19:16, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

To answer my last question: No they probably wouldn't. --Dschwen (talk) 19:17, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I found the one usage which I remembered above. The image shows two birds so the uploader created duplicates with each bird name, which then was replaced by a redirect: Image:Pycnonotus barbatus 0010.jpg. -- Cecil (talk) 20:16, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. The side effects should be checked though: what about a redirect accessed from another wikipedia, what about the double redirects, what about highjacking for example pictures of the days, FP's to a slogan or sex picture. This could simplify indeed picture of the day publishing and maintenance. --Foroa (talk) 06:31, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The vandalism potential is minimal. Remember, the image has to be deleted before it can be redirected, so effectively, only administrators can do redirects. And even if this weren't the case, if someone wanted to replace an image with a sex picture, they can do that anyway by uploading another version of the file. In short, it doesn't create any problems that don't exist already.

We've been using image redirects on commons for a few months now, mainly for dealing with duplicates, so that all uses that CommonsDelinker can't get to don't have to be changed manually and so that different language projects can use file names in their own language. They work fine when accessed through other projects, except they don't leave as clear a trail; the link in the article will point to a different file name than the one in the markup, which can be a little confusing.--ragesoss (talk) 18:41, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

There is a bug report here, which you can vote for if you'd like image redirects to behave more like article redirects.--ragesoss (talk) 18:52, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

There is another bug report here for allowing image redirects to work without having to delete the images first (which would make renaming easier, among other advantages).--ragesoss (talk) 19:58, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

There is an experimental feature that allows images to be moved like any other page leaving behind a redirect, see e.g. [1]. MER-C 12:41, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

August 1

Bot or normal account for mass upload?

I plan to upload several dozen images at one go by using a script, based on the file upload script. Do I need to have a bot account for this? Nichalp (talk) 13:14, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Just use this little tool: Commons:Tools/Commonist --Michael Sch. (talk) 13:36, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I tried, but I got some strange output on User:Nichalp/gallery. No image was uploaded as a result. Nichalp (talk) 13:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Re original question: I'd recommend it; the only possible issue is RC flooding. --O (谈 • висчвын) 14:56, 03 August 2008 (GMT)

August 4

old upload form: content of field deleted

Argh... where's the old upload form? This one's a pain... (Yes, I'm sure it makes people more aware of what they should enter, but it's much slower for those who'd enter that anyways etc.) Is the old form still available somewhere?

Thanks, Ibn Battuta (talk) 02:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Oops, I found a related earlier discussion and am all set now. --Ibn Battuta (talk) 03:36, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

... but... for some reason the description field is deleted if you navigate away from the page (and then come back). Pleeease, that was really convenient when uploading several images with very similar descriptions!... Could you pleeeeease restore that function? Thanks. --Ibn Battuta (talk) 04:44, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Should be resolved now with this morning's update of the script. You my need to force a reload to update your browser's cache: shift-reload in Firefox, ctrl-reload in IE. Lupo 08:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I need help

I uploaded this picture [2] on wikipedia and then I uploaded it on commons [3] but on wikipedia it doesn't say "This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. The description on its description page there is shown below. Commons is a freely licensed media file repository. You can help." like the other pictures. Can somebody help me? I have nominated this picture for featured picture but I am really new at this so I am affraid I am doing things wrong. Daniel Chiswick (talk) 04:39, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

The local (EnWP) copy needs to be deleted for that message to come up. The Commons image will work fine on other projects even if it doesn't come up, though. —Giggy 04:40, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Well I can't just delete it because I nominated it for featured picture, what should I do? Daniel Chiswick (talk) 04:53, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. :-) It'll work fine on every Wikimedia project regardless of its deletion status on EnWP. Good luck with the FP nom. —Giggy 05:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Even more than "don't worry about it", when an image is deleted from English wikipedia, if it has the same name here, it starts to display immediately there. Also, I am recounting experience which seemed like magic because I have no clue how that works -- but it always does. And, as I type this, hacking that occured to me (putting a different image here with the same name there) but the bot that does the deletion there is pretty good at checking here to make certain it is the same image, has the same license and the description contains the same words. If you would like the link to the instructions of how to request a deletion there, just mention it here. The template that appears on the image description upon adding the request for deletion is not ugly nor distracting (in my opinion). -- carol (talk) 08:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

English Wikipedia featured pictures are often taken from Commons; it is no impediment to have the en.wikipedia copy deleted. Powers (talk) 00:05, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Though en.wiki specific tags, such as en:template:FeaturedPicture, should be readded to the image description page after deletion. Just to nitpick... - BanyanTree 07:15, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Serious database bug/corruption

Resolvedon July 30, per Bugzilla

Symptom

After you make a regular edit to a page and save it, the page commited to database is completely empty. The page's history does show a correct byte size for your edit (thus proving you didn't do it), but the page saved to the database is actually 0 bytes.

Example

• Look at this page's history: On 12:49, 26 July 2008, user Mattes makes a small edit resulting in a page supposedly of "823 bytes" up from "821 bytes" (both per history).
• But when you look at the diff for the very same edit, you see the whole page's source disappearing.
• Similarly, inspecting the source of the "823 bytes" revision shows an empty edit box: the 823 bytes have never been committed to the database.

Note

I noticed this because of a weird "You have vandalized the content of Wikimedia Commons" message I saw on the talk page of a decent-looking user I was leaving a message to, and I looked into it to check if I was talking to some actual vandal...

62.147.38.237 18:28, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

See bugzilla:14933 for a longer discussion on this issue. --Dschwen (talk) 19:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, good to know it was only for a few days ;-) 62.147.38.237 20:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Search box suggestion list width

We had a discussion on the search box suggestion list width being to small. Most results are chopped off, especially if you are searching for categories (with the Category: prefix). I just made its width customizable. Check Special:Preferences on the Search tab (you might have to purge your browser cache. Enter a number in pixels (i.e. 400 works well for me) and click save. --Dschwen (talk) 19:26, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

That's great! I've just enabled it, although took me a while to figure out it was the "...AJAX..." property under the Search tab. 400 works fine for me to. Could it be the default value or would that annoy others? -- Slaunger (talk) 20:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Hm, no, but I could work on a reasonable default. The main point is that the list should not become to wide for certain devices. I could make it 400px, but cap it at the screen width. --Dschwen (talk) 21:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Rocket000 (talk) 09:29, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you and great. (I have a high resolution screen which forces me to use larger text fonts)

What is the default edit box width (so users have a reference, in pixelS I presume) ?

Could the search field internally be expanded so that a prefix such as c:target, i:target, g:target ... is expanded into category:target, image:target, gallery:target. That would save quite some typing effort.

If that works, I could generate many more ideas for search result presentation. --Foroa (talk) 10:56, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for great improvement! Is it possible to make it default width bigger? Was customization done in MediaWiki (for all projects) or custom JavaScript? --EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:02, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

For now it's a commons exclusive ;-). I need a clever idea for calculating the default width. The original code takes the width of the textbox. You cannot go wrong with that. The problem will be small screen devices. Something like 2.0*textbox_width migth work. After all what's the big difference whether the search suggestions get clipped by too small a box or by too small a display :-). The whole mwsuggest.js should actually be reworked. It has its own event attach function. Yay code duplication. --Dschwen (talk) 15:38, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Instead of using a pixel width, using a multiplcation factor of the text box width (in my case, two to three is fine). --Foroa (talk) 16:27, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

August 5

I messed up really bad and I need help.

I was trying to nominate this picture [4] and I did something but I don't know what, can somebody help me? Daniel Chiswick (talk) 01:25, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I cleaned up your mess. In the future, please don't blank pages. Don't try to "delist" your own FPCs, just say you withdraw and people will stop voting. We archive things here. Don't withdraw if you're planning to nominate a duplicate even if it has a better name. Don't create FPC subpages with different names than the images. Welcome to Commons. :) Rocket000 (talk) 02:27, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Image names

What do I have to do to upload an image?!!! I've tried three different times to upload an image & changed the name each time, only to get a "same image" warning, when I know damn well neither the image nor the name is the same. And I'm getting a warning of "no copyright" despite addding the tag & reloading twice. This is getting to be a real pain in the ass. Trekphiler (talk) 01:56, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

FIVE TIMES. After CHANGING THE NAME EVERY TIME. FUCK COMMONS. Trekphiler (talk)

Whats the name of the image and which names did you try? --Martin H. (talk) 02:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

You should be able to upload over an existing image anyway shouldn't you? If there really isn't one there shouldn't be a problem. It's probably just some simple thing. You shouldn't say 'fuck Commons' - it will get offended. Richard001 (talk) 10:42, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

GM Motorama coin from 1954

I have found a 1954 GM Motorama coin. I would like to find out what they were made from in order to try cleaning it up it was sitting under a tree in the front yard today.

This is the wrong place to ask -- this area is for questions about uploading and classifying images. However, if you want to see a movie about the 1956 GM Motorama, look at en:Design for Dreaming... AnonMoos (talk) 08:42, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The right place to ask would be w:Wikipedia:Reference desk. - Jmabel ! talk 04:03, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

EN WP should be brought in line with Commons in regards to "free"

It was brought up on EN here that WP's concept of "free" doesn't always match up to Commons. Ideally, no free images should be on WP as opposed to Commons, but if there are different concepts of this term that causes a problem. I will address this issue on EN, but I'm asking here to find out exactly what issue I'm addressing. Specifically, what sorts of images (besides "fair use", and PD-art for now) are acceptable on EN that are not here? Would this be something that can be fixed on EN to avoid these problems? Once this is clarified I would like to add a note to all licensing-tags that says whether-or-not it is acceptable on Commons. Is this reasonable? ~ JohnnyMrNinja 09:41, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The main difference is that Wikipedia follows US law (the images have to be "free" in US) and Commons follows the law of US and country of origin. This way Wikipedia can host images based on uniquely US law concepts (like "fair use") and Commons can host images based on local copyright laws of 100's of individual countries.--Jarekt (talk) 13:31, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm a participant in the conversation over at en.wiki and there is a significant sense by some users that they simply won't upload to Commons because they feel jerked around by the different policies. I suppose there are two questions: (1) is there a list of the specific differences , e.g. "Commons considers photographs of sculptures derivative works, while en.wiki unofficially tolerates them" and "en.wiki allows PD-Italy, but this will get speedy deleted on Commons" anywhere so users can make informed decisions about if they want to upload to Commons, and (2) would an effort to discuss the policy disconnect be better located here or Meta? - BanyanTree 01:16, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

What about reversing the upload instead of simply deleting it here? If the image is being used on English wikipedia and is qualified to be there (or tolerated) but not here, how about an upload bot for images to English wikipedia? -- carol (talk) 02:15, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Image details

Hallo, I included my name on my first image upload Image:Irish Sport Horse foal and mare.jpg‎. I now want my name removed from the details. What do I do? Do I use badname|Image:new name.jpeg ? and I want my name taken out of the history. Does my User name (account) need to be deleted? Also the image name needs re-wording. - Culnacreann (talk) 22:22, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Upload a new version of the image at the same title, without your name in the description, and I'll delete the previous versions. If the title is wrong, use the {{Rename media}} template. It will be automatically renamed and replaced wherever it's used. Nice pic btw - Badseed ^talk 22:25, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I did my best to hide your real name. If this image needs to be renamed too, please upload it again with different name and add {{Duplicate}} to previous one. A.J. (talk) 18:58, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Even with admin buttons, I cannot remove your name from log though... I suppose you may want an office action here. A.J. (talk) 19:07, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

August 6

Incidental use of newspaper clippings

I have been uploading copyright expired and copyright not renewed magazine pages. For the copyright not renewed pages, I only upload articles written by the magazine staff. It is unlikely that the Managing Editor would claim his writing was not a "work for hire".

I few years ago I spoke with the person who owns the copyrights for Gernsback Publications and Ziff-Davis Publishing's old electronics magazines. He said these publishers never renewed the copyright on magazines. I have checked about 50 issues and he was right. I have no doubt the magazines from the 1920s and 1930s were not renewed and are in the public domain. On two pages I have uploaded have newspaper clippings. On Image:Radio News Nov 1928 pg412.png there is a montage of newspaper clippings. I have blurred the text on the clippings. I still want to show the 1928 television broadcast was covered in the press but I don't need to show all of the text. The headlines are clear so readers could go to a library and look up the articles.

A second item on this page is the radio schedule. It was prepared for the newspaper by the staff of Experimenter Publishing's WRNY radio station. The list of facts is not creative enough to merit a copyright and if it did, it would belong to Experimenter Publishing not the various newspapers it was printed in. (The magazine and radio station were both owned by Experimenter Publishing.)

The next page Image:Radio News Nov 1928 pg413.png has a large clipping which I covered with a copyright notice. The article is in the New York Times archive which is available in most libraries.

Have the newspaper clippings been reduced to incidental portions that do not infringe on possible copyrights? These pages will be used in an article on WRNY's first television broadcast. -- Swtpc6800 (talk) 05:07, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Category descriptions are too mess

I think category descriptions are too mess. All languages are visible directly so Category descriptions seem too long. and there're some difficulties to access the categories. I propose to show only chosen language (like Meta-Wiki).--Kwj2772 ^{Disc. kowiki.} 14:18, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Can you give an example of what you mean? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 16:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Probably means pages like Category:Félix_Houphouët-Boigny... AnonMoos (talk) 02:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I have made some "messy ones" recently, but taxonomy was messy long before commons existed. That being clearly stated (my messing of categories) it would be really really nice if the translations could be managed in a way that the language which is the option in the preferences is the language that displays. -- carol (talk) 03:34, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) We need some "show/hide" templates like the ones on English Wikipedia. See w:Template:Hidden and w:Template:Navbox. Click the show/hide links to see how they work.

I don't think the show/hide template on the commons is the same as the one on Wikipedia. See {{Hidden}}. I do not see "show/hide" text on the commons template. I only see arrowheads. --Timeshifter (talk) 06:48, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the coolest thing would be that the presentation defaulted to the description in the preferred language with a fall-back to a default language, like en, if the localized language is not available.

All this should be wrapped in an expandable container, where all localized versions can be seen. For instance, I have set the preferred language to en (because it is the language where most information is available), but it is not my native language. I would like the possibility to see all langanges in case I feel like translating a descriptionfrom en to my native language.

The user asking this question mentioned that localized templates are used at meta. Could an example of from meta be given, to get a better understanding of the possibilities? -- Slaunger (talk) 08:37, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

MetaWiki is now using <div class="multilingual"> on Metapub and Babel(not user language templates) header.--Kwj2772 ^{Disc. kowiki.} 13:49, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Please see also:m:Meta:Language select.--Kwj2772 ^{Disc. kowiki.} 02:43, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I tried looking at Meta:Babel as an example, and I must say the functionality is fine there with filtering out all languages bu the selected or showing all languages. Could the same thing be made available on Commons? -- Slaunger (talk) 10:03, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Looks good, but this is only for relatively small texts, otherwise load time will becomme too much. In the example case, I would always display the English text as a reference and in the user language if non-English. (I fundamentally distrust translations). Moreover, it would be interesting if the same text can be reused at several subcat pages (for example, churches, churches in country, churches in city. --Foroa (talk) 10:32, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Ugly (xC, yF)

Is it just me, but does anyone else find the recent changes to the way categories are listed with the number of sub categories and files a category possesess rather un-neccessary ,cluttered and just down right ugly. The simple cross after the category, was sufficient to show that the category was populated. Is there anyway to switch of this newly added and to me un-welcome feature. KTo288 (talk) 10:07, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Interesting & got me thinking. I think it depends who you are and what you want.

As an Admin I know how depressed to be when looking at Speedy deletion categories for example :)

As someone who has done some work on trying to make cats "better" it is quite handy to get an idea of overpopulation/depth of sub cats from a higher level I think. At least I know where to take a look for problems/issues.

As the "person" in the street looking for some media I think it may not be all that helpful. Just my 0.02. Cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 10:40, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Even as a normal user, although it is ugly indeed, it is interesting to see upfront if there are deeper categories. I think the display can be improved using a smaller font and omitting the real ugly (empty) display. Maybe suppression of unneeded spaces (6C instead of 6 C) can make it even more dicrete. --Foroa ( ) 10:59, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

The duch wikipedia has found a very nice gadged: look f.i. at nl:Categorie:Kasteel and just point to a category, you will see a window opening with the category tree and recent changes given. This permits a quick textual run, very plaisant to use. Is it possible to extend this to commons? Havang ( ) 11:48, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I had some problems recently with a user who did not understand a development situation and in a not so much of a problem situation, I pointed out to a developer that the wiki software knows when a category is empty so it should be at least doable to write something that puts the empty categories into one place. The idea of "Empty categories" also seems to violate a tradition here which may or may not have been acquired from other wiki -- I don't know. There are two situations that I can think of right now in which empty categories are useful. 1) In using the software as a database more than just an image container and 2) a means to know of images that commons still needs. Functionality perhaps is first and then beauty second and then a third review which makes beautiful also easy to use.... -- carol (talk) 23:32, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, the categorisation tradition from other wikipedias is not necessarily good. We see on many Wikipedias significant categorisation growth. Strangely enough, empty categories are extremely useful. In addition to what Carol stated, I have to add that when having prepared (complex) categories, such as in species but equally in towns, names of famous people, birth years, ... people that bring in pictures find much more easily what they needed, so less mistakes and less re-(-re(-re))categorisation and renaming work. Moreover, a novice in categorisation makes many mistakes and incomplete or new redundant/parallel categorisation schemes. --Foroa (talk) 07:36, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

hotcat and kin suggest existing categories? -- carol (talk) 08:48, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I tend to think that the more info the better but the C and F are darn UGLY. I think that especially here on commons aesthetics is pretty important. Can the letters be replaced by Icons? Probably Icons that keep in style with these would fit in nicely. --Inkwina (talk • contribs) 06:30, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

If you can make the icons and think about what would look better and perhaps style page enhancements there should be a time for this. Giving the people who write software a little time to get acquainted with these new values so that they can get ideas for things to do with them should be time not wasted, I think -- especially seeing what some have done recently. Three million images is an appealing collection to work with software-wise; allow the appeal to "ripen" before the beautification begins? When the time is right, to be able to drop a style sheet into place (or have a collection that makes a choice for preferences) would be very cool, in my opinion. Number crunchers tend to think the opposite than you, btw. That the numbers displayed are beautiful and the icons that cover them are ugly. I don't think that either view is particularly correct or incorrect; I do think that a little time with the numbers now should be good in the long run. -- carol (talk) 08:48, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree on functionality comes before beauty, we just discussed the need for more categories here, the empty cats are handy for the bots uploading to common, if you want to control the structure or do a human check just mark "don't show empty categories", part of the maintenance can be autofollowed from the EN cat maintenance. It's different from the image search approach (where location doesn't matter) but it gives better acces to images related to experts on the subject. Mion (talk) 14:36, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Some icons that could work: P ⇒ , F ⇒ , C ⇒ OR empty: and not empty: . Just got to tweak em a bit to make them like MediaWiki's (desaturate and fix the proportions). Similar ones on Mini icons and Silk icons. Rocket000 (talk) 23:17, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Are user-created drawings of team-specific sportswear fair use?

E.g. Special:Contributions/Buonaparte69. --BrokenSphere 17:46, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I can imagine trademark issues, but it's hard to imagine a copyright issue. - Jmabel ! talk 23:02, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

August 7

Can you identify The Artist

who created Image:Firenze.Duomo.painting03.JPG...thank you.

Photo by user:JoJan --Jarekt (talk) 17:32, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Very funny, I think he meant the artist of the painting in the picture. –Anzee^TM 12:15, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Downloading SVG files

Whenever I download an SVG file, it gets saved as .svg.png. Removing the .png makes it unusable. It seems that everything I download loses its nodes/ vector aspect. Can anyone offer any information as to why? Thanks. Seegoon (talk) 17:27, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

What works for me is: click on the image and go to file/save page as menu than you can easily save original svg code. --Jarekt (talk) 17:38, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Svg images are always rendered as png by the software. What you see in the image description page or in an article is not the svg, but a png version of it. So, (in Firefox) if you "save image as" you save the rendered png file (thus removing the png makes it unusable, since it's a png and if you take its extension away it dies :) ). You should right-click on the image and "Save link as...". The same can be done with the name of the image just under the image itself in the descr. page (right click and "Save link as") - Badseed ^talk 17:55, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

You boys are geniuses. Seegoon (talk) 21:05, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Voting Suffrage discussion

Spin off from SB Johnny's Checkuser election, for Commons regulars to decide if a policy change is needed, seen here. rootology (T) 02:05, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Broken image?

Image:Eastside Townhouse exterior.jpg. Can't get it to show; don't know whether the problem might be on my end. Stumbled across it because I was trying to refine the over-general Category:Architecture. - Jmabel ! talk 22:18, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

It seems to be showing fine on my end, try clearing your cache? rootology (T) 22:39, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

no, can't see it. Maybe it is some problem with IE im using. --Martin H. (talk) 22:59, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I've the same problem, even after clearing the cache of IE 7. After downloading the file, IrfanView info said for Compression: jpg, CMYK. The latter is rather strange, may be that's the reason for the problem. --Túrelio (talk) 07:00, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I saved it locally out of IrfanView without any special options and uploaded it over the original one. The strange CMYK tag was gone and the image is shown normally. --Túrelio (talk) 07:04, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Works for me now. Thanks. - Jmabel ! talk 14:26, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like the image was stored using CMYK colors rather than the standard RGB. Those are rare, so it's not surprising that Internet Explorer doesn't handle it properly. --Carnildo (talk) 21:22, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

August 8

Picasa images

Hi! I am new here and I have a question: is it possible to upload pictures from Picasa Web Albums to Commons? Are there any guidelines for it? Many thanks! --Istvánka (talk) 10:57, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I think only in cases where album folder claims authorship and license images under licenses compatible with Commons:Licensing. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:39, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Removing my files from commons

Hi. A friend asked me how he can remove files he uploaded to commons. No copyvio or anything - he just wants them removed (sorry, didn't find it in the FAQ or related pages). How (if at all) can he do that? A standard RfD? Eranb (talk) 10:27, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Do you have any idea how you can withdraw something that has been donated to the public domain ? Would you find it acceptable that the public domain decreases in stead of increasing. --Foroa (talk) 11:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I understand your point. It might be beneficial to write something about this in one of the FAQs (or is there already an entry about this somewhere?). Eranb (talk) 11:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

All reasons for deletion are described in the Commons:Deletion guidelines, for the deletions of own uploads see the last sentence of Commons:Ownership of pages and files. --Martin H. (talk) 13:53, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

It is not illegal to withdraw your contribution and there are rules about changing its mind and undo transactions. So I propose to add on Commons:Ownership of pages and files a sentence like: If an uploader changes its mind about an uploaded image he has the right to withdraw it within a term of "n" days after uploading. Havang (talk) 07:07, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Or how about we just use our judgment and not pile on more rules. :/ Lewis Collard! (lol, internet) 13:39, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

What Lewis said. rootology (T) 13:44, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I also am not aware that it's "legal" to withdraw copyleft. If you release something as GFDL or CC, and I re-use it, then you can't withdraw once it's in-use without affecting me. Since Commons/WMF itself is technically in-use itself, that's a reason against carte blanche removal. Typically once something is in-use anywhere on WMF we do not do removal at all, but you can always do a deletion request and we can review case-by-case. But, again, once a file is "used" on one of our projects and not just Commons I'd personally be opposed to a removal since that would wreak havoc with the mission here, if anyone could take away what was once gifted/given away. rootology (T) 13:44, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

It's actually meaningless to ask whether it is legal to withdraw a valid CC/PD/etc release. The point is that you can't. It isn't illegal to try, as such. It's like if I bought Rootology a cake, and he ate it, and then after he ate it, I revoked my gift of the cake and demanded it back. Nothing's going to bring that cake back. But if I donned the surgical gloves in an attempt to re-claim the cake from his internals, well, that would be another matter. Similarly, having someone going around saying "I REVOKE THE LICENSE", is legally laughable; if they upgraded that to active legal harassment of people, then that would be actionable (at least in the UK, AFAIK, IANAL, YMMV, TLA, etc).

To the issue: We do occasionally delete things if the user requests it. Factors like quality, usefulness, privacy issues, precedent, etc etc are all considered, and weighed against each other. And so will the time after upload that deletion was requested. There can be no hard and fast rules here. Lewis Collard! (lol, internet) 14:54, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Cat question

Hello, how to deal with Category:Saint Leonhard churches (1 item) and Category:Saint Leonard churches (items and categories) and with Category:Saint Linhart (12 items and 1 category) and Category:Saint Leonard (3 items and 2 categories with several subcats)? Havang (talk) 16:57, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

If they are duplicates you can just merge them. If it's not a big job you can move each item manually, if it is you can get a bot to do it. Whichever category you don't want to keep can become a redirect (see {{Catredirect}}. Richard001 (talk) 23:29, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I shall redirect ...Linhart and ...Leonhard to ...Leonard. Havang (talk) 07:05, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

You might first check whether all categories refer to the same person. Currently, only Commons cat Category:Saint Linhart has any interwiki links, and those go to en:Leonard of Noblac, though there is also en:Leonard of Port Maurice with a portrait Image:S Leonardo.JPG hosted also on Commons. Remember, cat names on Commons shall be in english. I don't know to which language Category:Saint Linhart refers as this name isn't included in any of the interwikis.

As you can see from this en:Saint-Léonard disambiguation page, there are also a lot of places called Saint Leonard. Eventually, it might be wise to reproduce that disamb page on Commons, and for the cat of the saint use either something like "Saint Leonard (Saint)" or "Leonard of Noblac" though in the German language area the latter is also known as "Leonhard von Limoges". --Túrelio (talk) 07:15, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I would strongly advise to use a proper disambiguation page such as Category:Saint Paul (disambiguation) and repeat the same page under a gallery, such as Saint Paul. Especially with the hotcats and other Java things, when people see a name that fulfils their needs (not red), they take it without knowing nor checking that it is a dismbiguation page. --Foroa (talk) 07:42, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

It is my understanding that there will be a bot that knows about the soft redirected categories and moves the images to the correct category. -- carol (talk) 08:29, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Whereas I was classifiing churches and making a few redirects, there was a discussion going on here. May-be some-one of you can check my doings at the tree Category:Saint Leonard and add the disambiguation. By the way: in places and derivatives, normally one puts a trait-d'union Saint-Leonard. Havang (talk) 08:34, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Havang, it looks that you are doing a good job. Sorry, but I am against category disambiguation pages with the current state of the tools that don't take this type of categories into account, nor provide any means of maintaining such pages. There are about 40 categories that contain the word Leonard, and I guess we have a new one each week on average. This problem will exponentially increase and my guess is that it will be taken seriously in 6 to 12 months time. In the mean time, categorisation, which used to be minimalistic on various wikipedias, is encountering a rapid growth, so there might be several "clients" for improved wikimedia software at that level. --Foroa (talk) 09:02, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Re trait-d'union: in English placenames are customarily unhyphenated eg Category:Saint John, New Brunswick, Category:Saint Paul, Minnesota. Man vyi (talk) 09:33, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

And in commons, I would suggest to use St John as this would work for many languages and avoid the Sint(e), saint(e), sankt(a), San... variations. --Foroa (talk) 09:54, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Foroa, that is not generally accepted: recently they changed Cat:Way of St.James in Cat:Way of Saint James. Havang ( ) 11:38, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I know; English fundamentalism generally wins over international compromises. That being said, it is easier to implement a simple existing rule than to find new compromises. --Foroa (talk) 11:58, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it has to do with English fundamentalism. Havang (talk) 13:26, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Another Cat question

Category:Glass roofs is a soft redirect to Category:Transparent roofs. But what about Image:Pasajul Macca 2.jpg? Glass, but not transparent (merely translucent). - Jmabel ! talk 22:58, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's "sort of transparent" ;-). --Túrelio (talk) 06:54, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, but there's no way to place something "sort of in a category". - Jmabel ! talk 22:16, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you. I'd assume the person that created the soft redirect figured all glass roofs would be transparent and saw the two categories as redundant (and for the most part they are). IMO, transparent roofs should have been redirected to glass roofs, given the parent category is Category:Roofs by material. Rocket000(talk) 17:30, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Image:New River Gorge - beetle - front.jpg

Could someone help me identify this beetle? I am not sure how that step is usually done. --Jarekt (talk) 19:08, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

You might ask at WikiProject Arthropods. Richard001 (talk) 04:08, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks --Jarekt (talk) 02:58, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

How do you add a picture to a article in Wikipedia

Hi, I registered so that I could add a couple of pictures to the article on The Pink Lady (aircraft) on this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pink_Lady_%28aircraft%29

I have tried everything I could to link the following images so they appear on the page of the above article but without success. The images are http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:The_Pink_Lady_01.JPG http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:The_Pink_Lady_02.JPG

Is this something that can be done? If so how do you do it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barconian98 (talk • contribs) 21:44, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Like this. Multichill (talk) 19:52, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the picture. The code you have added here obviously directed the picture to the right page, did it also specify the size of the image on that page? (info only, I don't want to change the image or anything. I am just trying to understand what you did)

300px means 300 pixels wide. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 20:22, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

More info on how to add images can be found here. Axelv (talk) 10:03, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

August 9

Request for technical change

When I am logged onto Wikipedia, and I open another tab/window and go to Commons from there, I am not yet logged onto Commons, and must do so separately. This is prudent, even with common user id's - the user must log onto each wiki separately.

However, when I am logged onto both Wikipedia and Commons, and I log out of Commons, I am automatically logged out of Wikipedia - that is not prudent, and not only does it have a certain aggravation factor, but now I am inclined to never log out of Commons so that I can continue working elsewhere without interruption - I assume that the tech people at Commons (and elsewhere) prefer that users log out when they are through, even though that may not be a serious preference.

I also assume that the problem is in the way Commons (and others) alters the cookies on the user's machine during a log out ... perhaps things could be changed so as to make this issue go away? If not, it's not a big deal, and I'll survive just fine. Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 05:22, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Why would you need to log out of Commons when you're done? If you are concerned about security, then the risk is equal for every project which you are logged in for, and you should be logging out of them all. I have however requested bugzilla:15100 for users who want to use old-school login (for some reason which as of yet escapes me)  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 19:09, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't need to log out of Commons when I'm done, I was simply trying to go along with a clean user-style. And I'm not concerned about security, but I thought that wiki-techs might be, or might be interested in an oddity (? maybe its a "feature") where cookies on the user's machine are handled in a seemingly inconsistent manner.

The bugzilla report is incorrect: there is no issue with the logon; the issue is with the logout, and with the logout only. The logon procedure is fine as it now works: users must log on to each wiki separately (ie, logging onto one does not automatically log the user onto any other). However, logging out of one logs the user out of all — this is presumably done using cookies. It's somewhat of a mundane, not-too-deep technical area.

Thanks for the response and good efforts. As I said above, I can live with things either way. Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 20:57, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

With a global account you are supposed to only login (or logout) once and be logged in (or out) on all projects. When you log in you should see the text "Logging you in to Wikimedia's other projects" followed by the logos of all projects. But global login does not work as intended, that is bugzilla:14736. For me global logout works with the default cookie settings in my browser, but global login only works if I lower the settings so that all cookies are accepted. /Ö 21:48, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

That explains it, and bug report bugzilla:14736 is on-target. Don't think that I want to lower the settings to accept all cookies unless I'm sure that it only applies to Wikipedia; I can live with it like this indefinitely. Someone more knowledgeable than myself might cancel bugzilla:15100, for the sake of good housekeeping. Thanks again to both of you for your quick responses and efforts. Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 22:19, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Already WONTFIXed by Brion, as is proper.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 04:58, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Rename of images

Many times, when I find an image with a bad name (usually, an image uploaded with the automatic name generated by the digital camera) I place a "rename" tag to it, to a more descriptive name. But all such times, a message like this one, generated by the bot User:BetacommandBot, appears

This media object could not be renamed automatically because:

• the rename request was made by a non-trusted user.

The requested target is (new name). A user trusted for this purpose should correct this by:

• replacing this template with {{rename media|(new name)|Automatic name from a digital camera}} or
• removing this template if a rename is not appropriate

Some time later, such trusted user appears, place again the mentioned tag, and some time later an administrator performs the rename. It has never happen that a rename suggested by me was rejected at this stage.

Surely, I can nominate myself as a "trusted user" at Commons:MediaMoveBot/CheckPage, I don't expect any problem with that. But don't you think it's just an unneeded bureaucracy? Wouldn't it be much more simple if a human administrator simply see the request, decide if it meets the requirements and should be done or not, and take the right action? A vandal can't rename the article, no matter how weird it may be a vandal rename request it can not be more than just a template added to te image, easily removed by any user that founds it like any other vandalism. Thialfi (talk) 05:52, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

there is a need for a check page, otherwise vandals will abuse the tool. that is really the only reason for the checkpage, as a way to avoid and prevent vandals from making a mess, If you are interested in using the bot please have yourself added to the check page. Betacommand 12:35, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

It is even more interesting than that, in my experience -- each new layer of bureaucracy is a new layer of vulnerability which is not as easy to define as simple vandalism. Perhaps the bot can check edits, blocks and the amount of time the user has been active. I know, I did not consider "helping" with the renaming until I was pointed at the directory containing images which were tagged for that -- a person who knows to do this should already have a certain amount of "trust" just by the knowing. Actual vandalism seems to come from new users, IP edits and similar instances in which whoever is running the user instance has no care of the edit history. Perhaps the bot can not make those image name changes instead.

I cannot help but think that the people who can author this stuff get a little disgusted with the bureaucracy also. There are those who can accomplish things and those who can only piss and whine.... -- carol (talk) 06:43, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I dont't like putting tags, it's as much work as making the correction and it just puts work on other shoulders. But if someone wants to look here: Category:Way of St. James in France, he finds about 17 items to rename. Go ahead, do it, or learn me, simple user, how to do it. Havang (talk) 06:54, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Renaming those in the cat you've mentioned is currently of no use because the images are lacking a description. I've notified the uploader. --Túrelio (talk) 13:13, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Are you saying "renaming the images doesn't help to describe them"? -- carol (talk) 18:50, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

If you want to rename them, you first have to know to what you want to rename them. --Túrelio (talk) 20:13, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Duh, sorry. I saw the list of names, suspected that the rename suggestions were accurate and then read this entry. One of the most problematic types of images I encountered while trying to find a location for them (much less trying to find a more descriptive name) was images of building interiors with no descriptions. Horrible experience trying to find a place for them!! I should relurk, now.... -- carol (talk) 20:16, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I spent some time here downloading the poorly named images and uploading them with a different name; this was not a terrible experience, I am glad not to do it now though. Doing it that way still involves some tag applying, however. After the upload into the new namespace, {{duplicate|IMG_NNNN.jpg}} is the way to get the original one deleted (the NNNN being the number of the IMG in those images you pointed at). At least with that tag, the software doing the deleting checks to see if the images are the same and nothing about the user who suggested it.

I find it nice that there are "simple users" who seem to care some about real things. -- carol (talk) 07:21, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea to have such a bot, and, given how such semi-automatic features have been abused on other wikis (enwiki, sure, but others too) I also think it's sensible to have a check when a non-sysop wants to do something that can quite easily damage dozens of other wikis very quickly. It's a part of our duty to the other projects.

James F. (talk) 12:49, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I made a list of bad named items and proposals of new titles

Havang (talk) 17:28, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

List removed Havang (talk) 14:57, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Please see MediaWiki_talk:Titleblacklist#Images_with_bad_titles, User_talk:Luxo#Rotatebot and User:Luxo/Query: Titles match MediaWiki:Titleblacklist for more on badly-named images. We do need help from people who will {{rename}} images.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 19:13, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

FYI, Templated the above images.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 19:31, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

So and since it seems that now a lot of people start renaming, one thing for all of them: renaming is for images with cryptic or missleading names. It is NOT for your fun or to feel productive. File extensions in capital letters are not a renaming reason, the name 'x flag' is not a reason to rename it to 'flag of x' and it is also no renaming reason if you see a filename with several words where all the first letters are in capitals. That are just the first few ridiculous renaming actions I had to see in the last few minutes. FYI: the bot can't do everything. There are a few admins who have then to do the cleaning up by replacing the already used images with their new duplicates and then delete the old ones. And it is no fun to replace them manually, because in many Wikipedia projects they tend to include images in a way no bot can handle. -- Cecil (talk) 20:02, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

User has uploaded his image without using empty spaces? You don't like it? That is no reason to rename a image that is used over 500 times in the other projects. Oh, or the user has uploaded his image with a name like 'xxx01a.jpg' without using 'xxx01.jpg' first? No reason to rename. You people are putting a strain on the toolserver, waste the time of others and ridcule the uploaders. Oh uploader, you were too stupid to give the image a name that everybody likes. And you really think that is productive work. By the way I've still not checked more than 50 of the 700 duplicates the BetacommandBot produced in the last hours at your command. -- Cecil (talk) 20:15, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Has making this list been usefull? These files have a long awsome history: unsuccesfull attempts to rename - collected by a bot as uncategorised - categorised by me - Turélio worked on it for introducing information/description - then I came up with new titles - Mike spent time for introducing rename tags - and still there remains more to be done? Havang (talk) 20:41, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Next time I encounter such (a group of) files, I'll try to do all in once. Havang (talk) 20:41, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you just made suggestions for cryptic names, so this is a help that is appreciated. -- Cecil (talk) 20:46, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

"Wouldn't it be much more simple if a human administrator simply see the request, decide if it meets the requirements and should be done or not, and take the right action?" No, it wouldn't. Requiring admins to do moves manually would be less efficient, not more. Superm401 - Talk 08:56, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Orphan?

Hello, Just wondering what an Orphan is? It has appeared next to a photo I uploaded. I guess I have to give some additional info to stop it being an orphan! I am quite new on here. If someone has the time to look at the 5 images I have uploaded and can tell me what's missing. That would be very nice. Thanks. Harris578 (talk) 10:09, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Orphans are images that are not placed in any categories.--ragesoss (talk) 19:05, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks 78.145.163.93 09:33, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Category:Flickr images not found

What is to be done about the 452 images in this category? Cirt (talk) 20:10, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll take a look over these later, but the answer will probably be deleting them all. If they weren't {{Flickrreview}}'d by someone (or a bot) before deletion, we have no proof they are properly licensed... and deletion is the answer. I've done this before on another Flickr cat, didn't realize there was another... --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 07:12, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Additional note: seems alot of these were uploaded with Flickrlickr, so I'll just mark them reviewed from that (Since that bot is trusted). --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 07:14, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so in that case what happens in the long run? Will someone have to go through all the images in the category on a regular basis? Or can some of the images in the category that have been reviewed as you did be moved into some other category? Cirt (talk) 08:48, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

For a lot of these old categories there is no "long run", really. Most of this problem Flickr stuff was left over from a time before there were bots. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 18:16, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay, sounds good. Cirt (talk) 18:17, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

August 10

Renaming images, a list

Hello, for renaming images I made another list of bad names and proposals of new names. Can someone go further with these. Where can I put such a list in the future. Havang (talk) 11:17, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Please tag images with {{rename|new image name.jpg}} . --Denniss (talk) 13:22, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Please don't leave lists like this on VP. Users who are not on the checkpage may leave me a note, or you may tag them yourself regardless. The bot won't do the rename, but they will then be "in the system" and will get processed eventually.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 13:45, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

 Done and list removed Havang (talk) 14:17, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Please just use the {{Rename}} even if you're not trusted. Remember to make sure the page has a description, and you say the new name you want. I, (and other trusted users), been going through Category:Media renaming requests needing confirmation to confirm image renames. Superm401 - Talk 15:49, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Starting with categorising, I can now, thanks to you all, do all in one: make descriptions, add/remove cats, controle items of same cat by catscan in related wikipedia categories, and make new cats and incidentally new cat trees, and sometimes if needed tag items for deleting of renaming. But the learning process is long... and disencouraging for "simple users". And now, I unwatch Village pump for quietness. Goodby. Havang (talk) 17:16, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

User categories

I would like hear some opinions about the naming of user categories. For the most part they are in the form of "Files by User:Example" or "Files by User:Example from en.wikipedia". See Category:User categories. However some do not. See the categories left in Category:User galleries. This causes a few problems. 1.) They are not instantly obvious as to what they are. 2.) They can cause naming conflicts (there are some examples but I don't want to single anyone out). 3.) Categorizing bots (and unknowing users) may add images that don't belong there. I really support letting users make personal categories and, like user space pages, I think we should be more lenient on them, but in this area, I think there needs to be enforced naming conventions. I say "enforced" because COM:USER already states how they should be named, it's just we don't always correct those that don't follow it.

I felt like renaming some of them with a bot but I didn't feel comfortable doing so. This is another problem they cause. There's a sense of ownership there. It's the same feeling I get when I fix a link on a user page. Yes, it's a perfectly acceptable thing to do, but... well maybe they want a broken link there. Poor example, but you get the idea. Anyway, I like to get some viewpoints before I rename anything. Thanks. Rocket000(talk) 18:48, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

IMHO. They should follow a standard. Something like "Media by <Username>" (ex), that way there is nothing that can be confusing and we know exactly who they belong to. I know some people have "Media By <Real Name>" (ex) and I suppose that is OK also. As for exmplaining what they are - maybe we should just add more to {{User category}}. Instead of just adding the cat, it could add some information that the category contains media made by <Username> and to find more information at location X about user categories. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 20:10, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I've got 2 categories for easy use which are Category:Photographs by Bidgee and Category:Files by Bidgee (I see no point in having the 2 cats in Category:Media by Bidgee nor would I like the Files by Bidgee renamed to Media). Bidgee (talk) 20:17, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

(EC) I created my one (in Dec. 2006) using the name Category:Images uploaded by Túrelio in order to include my own images and those (few) I only uploaded. But if that cat name is no longer acceptable, I'm open for a change. --Túrelio (talk) 20:21, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

To clarify, I'm not implying they must be "Files by User:Example". Photos or Media or Uploads by <name> works too. I find the ones Bidgee and Túrelio listed as acceptable, although a "User:" in there would nice but not something worth renaming for. However, there are some usernames that would cause confusion or are ambiguous. For example, I would rename "Files by John" to "Files by User:Johnny13" or whatever. What I was really talking about were ones like Astur, BiDi Workgroup or Twisp-Silicon-Nanopowder and things like that. Rocket000(talk) 20:53, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

How will you distinguish between de photos of a user, the ones from a famous photographer (and not a user) and the ones from a famous photographer that have been uploaded by a particular user ? --Foroa (talk) 21:12, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Not photos of users, photos by/uploaded by users. Or did you mean what if the user is famous? There's a distinction that's there regardless of the user's notability. It's like en:Jimbo Wales vs en:User:Jimbo Wales. We have some of these too (e.g. Wayne Ray (although that barnstar doesn't belong there ;). Rocket000(talk) 21:33, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree that all user categories should have something in the name that suggest that they are grouped by author or uploader and Astur, BiDi Workgroup or Category:Twisp are a good examples of categories that should be renamed, hopfuly with users blessing. --Jarekt (talk) 12:37, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Olympics postcard

Can someone check to see if this postcard image is fair-use or public-domain? It is produced in 1924. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 19:27, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

It's one year after the cut-off in the US, so it depends on whether or not it was published without a copyright notice. In France, it's 70 years after the author's death. Rocket000(talk) 21:54, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I found another postcard image that shows the same Olympic Event (1924 in Paris). Is it safe to say that it's in PD then? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:21, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

No. Lupo 08:53, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, but the first one I showed doesn't have photographer credit. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 16:05, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Question about category within category

There is a category Category:Frank Zappa with 11 images. Within that category is another Category:Frank Zappa with two images. If I do a search for Frank Zappa the category with the two images comes up first. (The other on probably comes later.) The point is that if I did not know about the second category, I would never find the 11 images. Should there be a category within a category with the same name? Mattisse (talk) 19:48, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I assume you mean the page Frank Zappa? --Erwin(85) 19:52, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I have a few questions:

1. In which instance did you find the image you were looking for?
2. While using search engines elsewhere, do you always only go to the first link in the list?
3. Have you ever seen an old fashioned library card file where the books and other library stuffs each have three cards, subject, author and title?

-- carol (talk) 21:05, 10 August 2008 (UTC)