This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Remove error-files

On the last upload there where some errors, because I uploaded incorrect files. Please remove the files below, as they are not pictures, and cannot be used. The correct pictures have been uploaded. SOrry that junk files where in the same directory of uploads.

verification-error - because it was not a proper picture.

   File:Acer.aspire-522.amd-fusion.debian_1c555_screen02.png_original 
   File:Acer.aspire-522.amd-fusion.fedora_1c555_screen02.png_original
   File:Fix-copyright.bash 

--Janwikifoto (talk) 12:32, 30 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Tag them for speedy deletion with {{Bad name}} or {{Speedy}}. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:09, 30 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

That is a lot of operations on each file, then it would be better if I had the power to delete myself. I would be grateful if somebody could do it for me. --Janwikifoto (talk) 14:27, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Upload wizard renders old form unusable

The people who think that the new upload wizard is increasing usability may turn out to be wrong. I was on the French Wiktionary's village pump, where I found a talk between a newbie and an older user. The newbie asked for simple instructions on how to resize a picture. The older user gave detailed instructions, saying you must first prepare the resized version on your own computer, then upload the new resized version on Commons. When detailing the upload form, the older user said "forget with the upload form, most likely you won't find the necessary options", so you upload with whatever upload form looks close enough, and then you should edit the description page after the upload in order to add or change whatever is necessary. I tried to provide instructions on how to find Luxo's "derivative work of one or several files from Commons" tool, but it is nearly impossible to explain where that tool is located in simple words. You have to instruct the newbie to leave wiktionary, go to Commons, click on "Upload files", then "back to the old form", and, at long last, on "derivative work of one or several files from Commons". This labyrinth is not an increase of usability. Teofilo (talk) 14:09, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Resizing makes no sense and cropping could be done with User:Cropbot. But yes, the UWiz does not offer the ideal solution for many cases. -- RE rillke questions? 15:38, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

derivativeFX is a great tool for advanced users

We've deliberately not included a link to derivativeFX. It's a great tool and it's good that it exists, but it's not really suitable for new users. Yes, it's hard to find, but it's even harder to use if you don't have prior exposure to Commons -- it requires an understanding of templates and markup and is generally designed in a way that's only self-explanatory if you have a fair amount of in-depth experience with how Commons works.

So, in general, when we see things like this that are hard, we shouldn't think about how to integrate current solutions, but how to make them easy and intuitive. In the case of derivative works, this is non-trivial to do, but ideally it should probably be a function of the file page itself ("Upload a derivative version of this file"), which calls up an uploader that's correctly parametrized to make that process as efficient as possible.

Your help in coming up with a derivative works process that's intuitive and understandable is much appreciated.--Eloquence (talk) 22:01, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Logic, anyone? Correct manual rewrite of a half-baked {{Information}} produced by UW needs templates and markup, too. Far better understanding than just pressing buttons at Luxo's. It's nice to have a competent, "correctly parametrized" person sitting next to each newbie, but it won't happen. The fallout? Loads of legitimate files with wrong licenses that make them FFD firewood. NVO (talk) 00:02, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

What's logical is to build friendly tools and to incrementally improve their capabilities to match our needs while taking user experience into account, instead of incremental complexity creep that turns Commons into new user hell.--Eloquence (talk) 01:25, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It's already there. Flickr. For a handful of dollars a year - no wiki markup, no templates, far better bandwidth (YMMV). Pay there or learn the rules here. It's not sarcasm, I mean it. If the contributor is unable or unwilling to use the upload form, don't expect them to learn the real tricks of the trade - getting around inconsistent copyright rules, ever-changing policies, handling raging sysops and stalwart nationalists etc. It may save everyone's time and nerves. Yes, commons may miss something really valuable - but if it is valuable and necessary, someone will reupload their stuff here, some day. NVO (talk) 07:09, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

new HTTPS support

Some news for the secure/tech freaks (or victims of spies) of us – no change for the average user(!):

"21:08 laner synchronized wmf-config/InitialiseSettings.php 'Enable HTTPSExperiment on commonswiki and set protocol-relative settings" http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Server_admin_log

Starting two hours ago protocol relative URLs (some info also here in German) were enabled experimentally on Commons (the first Wikimedia wiki). Commons is accessible via https://commons.wikimedia.org now. This is different to the old HTTPS access via https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/wiki/ which uses another server and is a "hack". Our other wikis will follow "hopefully soon". Until this will happen e.g. interwikis from Commons to other wikis will not work correctly if you use the new HTTPS service.

Please mind: as of now there is a security flaw! The log-in option “Log me in globally” is currently insecure since it loads the images from each wiki using HTTP, which is what sets your cookies (which are also, then sent over HTTP). Therefore, if you use this option, people can still steal your cookies; they cannot, however steal your password.

Up to some time the old secure server will continue - but be switched off at some time, of course.

Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 23:43, 31 August 2011 (UTC) (using info from Ryan Lane @ Commons IRC channel. Thanks!)Reply[reply]

Thanks for noting this! -- RE rillke questions? 05:23, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Graphic genital photos

The following discussion is closed, and will be archived soon.

---

ResolvedA member of en:WP:FEMINISM contacted legal and found out they actually do have a policy on possible child pornography: [[1]].--Henriettapussycat (talk) 19:08, 29 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Does WP do any sort of ID-ing or age check for these sort of photos? Because I can forsee serious issues. One of the pictures in question is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_vulva_with_visible_vaginal_opening.jpg. (warning:graphic).

I may not view porn quite often, but I've seen it enough to know what is blatantly made for a porn pic and made for educational purposes. I'm not saying that censoring has to happen on WP, but this pic as the leading pic for vagina just seems inappropriate (I intend on finding a new one), and we don't even know if this female is an adult, which seriously bothers me.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 05:32, 27 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'd agree with you that the source site looks rather pornographically inclined, and we might want to look for a different image for the article; on the other hand, it doesn't look like any of their models are even close to underage, so that last concern seems misplaced. I don't think it's inappropriate to have the image on Commons; what is used in Wikipedia is Wikipedia's concern, not Commons'. - Jmabel ! talk 05:59, 27 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yeah but you don't know that about this model with this vagina. On porn sites in America they require models to be ID'ed and for websites to keep very detailed records on their models and photos. Otherwise they face jail time. That's my point. We don't know with this model. So, unless it's verified, I don't think pics like this should even be uploaded. I have no problem with people's vaginas or penises being all over WP, it's just that they should be verifiable to be of age. --Henriettapussycat (talk) 06:17, 27 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I marked it {{2257}}. We have explicit instructions from WMF that we do not require age documentation for these works, but our commercial content reusers may. You can nominate it for deletion if you want, but I believe this photo helps to exhibit some parts of the female genitalia more clearly than other photographs or diagrams (e.g. the walls of the vaginal orifice), so I would prefer to keep it. Dcoetzee (talk) 07:35, 27 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I uploaded this illustration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:American_Gynecological_Society.png, which is about as good in my opinion, and there are no issues such as the ones above. Also, where can I find those guidelines that say age verification is not required?--Henriettapussycat (talk) 14:37, 27 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion of this is buried at Commons_talk:Sexual_content/Archive_4#USC_2257. Your upload has problems - it doesn't indicate the date of first publication of the work. Also, I don't think it is a direct replacement because it does not include labels and is not a photograph (in particular, is black and white rather than colour). Some projects may prefer to use it, if it is in fact in the public domain. Dcoetzee (talk) 15:29, 27 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Dcoetzee, you said "we have explicit instructions from WMF that we do not require age documentation for these works". Please provide a link to those explicit instructions. Thanks. Rubywine (talk) 02:15, 28 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User:MGodwin, who at the time was the head lawyer officially representing the Foundation, stated: "First, I have to officially disclaim any notion that I'm acting here as a lawyer for editors -- I represent the Foundation only. That said, my view is that there is no Foundation or project obligation to keep records pursuant to the models in uploaded photographs. The obligation is generally understood to apply to the producers of such images, and we're not the producers. Obviously, those who actually produce images such as those described by Secs. 2257 and 2257A may have recording obligations, but there is no duty for us to ensure that they do keep such records." Dcoetzee (talk) 03:38, 28 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

---

The above discussion is closed, and will be archived soon. Resolved

FAO a Wikimedia lawyer

I've looked at Commons_talk:Sexual_content/Archive_4#USC_2257 and it didn't clarify anything for me. Could a Wikimedia lawyer please comment on Commons_talk:Sexual_content#Release_form_for_sexual_images_as_mitigation_against_child_pornography in language which is accessible to non-Wikimedians and non-lawyers. Thank you. Rubywine (talk) 00:23, 28 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Whether people want to believe it or not, WP does actually know our IP addresses. I'm not sure how long they hold onto that information. That's all I can say, as I am not a lawyer or work in any section of the law, but they do know IP addresses, thus that is how they enable blocking. I think it's safe to drop this issue, WP clearly has their bases covered with this. I knew about 2257, but didn't realize it was their self-monitoring process. So, yeah that's their way of policing, and they have the policy on the site. It's just hard to find and I'd like to make it easier to find for other users so an incident like this doesn't happen again.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 20:17, 29 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You are correct, IP addresses are accessible to certain trusted insiders. In the interests of openness and transparency I believe the the length of the period IP addresses are accessible should be very clearly documented. From interpolating comments in check-user discussions this information only seems to remain accessible to those with check-user permission for three months. Geo Swan (talk) 16:39, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Scope question

Virtually all my uploads are photos or maps, so I'm embarking on a new-for-me issue here. I've just obtained a scan of a journal article that's legal to upload here — first published in the USA in 1924 without copyright notice anywhere in the entire volume of the journal — but I wonder: are scans of printed periodicals considered to be within scope? It's a very obscure publication (one of the earliest volumes of the Indiana History Bulletin), and not particularly important by itself, but we seem to have enough scans of old publications that I wonder if it might be in scope anyway. Nyttend (talk) 00:51, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

They're invariably useful to Wikisource.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:26, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think periodicals are generally fine.

There is even a recent tendency to allow all sort of text documents to be upload (unless they are in txt format) .. --  Docu  at 05:43, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Periodicals are fine without any doubt. They are in scope for Wikisource, so they are automatically in scope for Commons (see COM:SCOPE#PDF and DjVu formats). Trycatch (talk) 10:51, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

"Move to Commons" drive on the English Wikipedia

Just FYI, there is a drive going on all this month on the English Wikipedia to move as many eligible images to Commons as possible. The drive is at w:en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Images and Media/Commons/Drive Sep 2011, and progress can be seen at w:en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Images and Media/Commons/Drive Sep 2011/Logs. As an admin there, I'll do my best to watch over the moves to make sure we don't get ineligible images moved here. Anyway, I just wanted to bring this to your attention. All the best, Quadell (talk) 12:35, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Thanks. Better late than never.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:36, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Is there any way to pre-indicate on the Wikipedia image description page the categories the file should have when later copied over to Commons? That would be more convenient for some of my old files which are going to be moved over... AnonMoos (talk) 14:38, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Great. It is a big job. --Jarekt (talk) 20:17, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

For deletion request sysops. It's got to be the other way round, salvaging files from commons meatgrinder. NVO (talk) 22:07, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Collages, montages and ...

Inspired by Commons:Deletion requests/File:Szczecin kolaz babrze.jpg which has a rationale: "Uploader refuses to upload the source images used for this compilation, impossible to verify the own work claim without them". The preceding "refusal" was a mixed-up Polish-English exchange, very brief and very recent [2], and there seems to be no outright refusal. The uploader has a very brief history here.

Without further digging into the uploader and the nominator - AGF - what's the current take on such cases? Is there any rule that requires collage-makers to actually upload source files? NVO (talk) 15:20, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Not that I'm aware of. There may be people who may think that because they made a collage (using other people's photos), it is "own work", and will upload on that basis -- and while there is a separate copyright on the collage itself as at least a collective work, or maybe a derivative work, they still need to have a license for every photo used, so it's best to at least explicitly declare that all the individual photos are by the same author as well. Under "assume good faith" though, I don't see a difference between uploading the collage, and the individual photos (if the collage is OK, users here are free to extract the individual parts as separate files). But, if any one of the photos can be shown to have an external source, it should be nominated for deletion (and that would also affect "good faith" on other uploads by the same user). Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:36, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I don't much like collages -- I think they are a nuisance for us because there are so many license issues, and that they can be created, if needed, using markup. With that said, though, I think that Carl is taking a position that is a good idea, but stretches beyond current policy.

If a user makes a collage and declares that all the constituents are "own work", no problem, we assume good faith. The same should apply if the some of the constituents are obviously PD.

What, though, if he makes one that has images that are not on Commons, but that have acceptable licenses? If they are all on Flickr, for example. If I read Carl's comment correctly, he would DR it unless the collage maker uploaded all the images from Flickr. While I think that's a good idea -- I prefer to see collages presented with thumbnails of all the constituents, because it makes the attributions clearer, I don't think it's required by current policy.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 16:03, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Flickr images would be fine if the source and authors are explicitly listed, of course. The user must follow the CC-BY licenses, at the very least. The only way a simple "own work" claim can be OK is if all the component photos are also by the uploader, is all I'm saying. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:28, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Problem is AGF isn't applicable to copyright and legal cases, we can't judge based on an assumption, the uploader should clear the doubts.  ■ MMXX  ^talk 16:44, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

We apply it every day to uploaded photos, and keep based on that assumption. Are you saying the user could crop out the photos in the collage at that resolution, upload them separately, and you're just fine with that, but not this? I honestly don't feel there is any difference. Provided the uploader does claim they took all the component photos, that is enough. For single uploads, AGF goes away when it is shown the uploader is taking photos from other sources and claiming them as their own, and this should be no different. If we find any of the individual photos elsewhere, then sure it's different. But right now this DR is basically "assume bad faith" and no other evidence, to me. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:27, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Where will it end? I know that the uploader's account look suspicious, but there must be some limits set. What about panorama stitchers - must they upload every piece they stitched, no matter how useless they are in isolation? This can end up in a slippery slope: "you've uploaded 2MP photo, now you must upload it in full res", "now these look like already edited files, hurry to upload out-of-camera, as-is file NOW!" (and we don't care if it's underexposed by three stops) etc... It's great that commons does not host raw files, but "hey, email this to OTRS anyway". NVO (talk) 22:04, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

OTRS doesn't assume good faith at all. You must prove provenance to get that special tag. – Adrignola talk 01:02, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

"prove"? Since when? --  Docu  at 06:36, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes. As long as some of our colleagues at OTRS are willing to accept declarations from g-mail and other anonymous domains, there is little proof there.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 23:30, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Some ? too optimistic. It's either email or real-world, hard-copy or face-to-face communication. Just how many RL OTRS checks were there, if at all? NVO (talk) 09:34, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

If uploaders who claim {{Self}} must prove anything to OTRS, then it deserves a site-wide notice. NVO (talk) 09:31, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Part of the reason some of our colleagues at OTRS would accept declarations from Gmail and other anonymous domains is because you do see files tagged with {{Self}} marked as not having permission, with the uploader told to contact OTRS. In some cases it's clear that the work was by someone else; in some cases not. Then people are forced to reconcile the requirements of OTRS with the no permission tag on the file. – Adrignola talk 15:33, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

September 2

I can't open Upload wizard

I can't open Upload wizard since this morning. Why?--Havang(nl) (talk) 15:10, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Works for me. What browser are you using exactly? Do you happen to use google chrome? Multichill (talk) 15:22, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; Trident/5.0; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; SLCC2; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; HPDTDF; Tablet PC 2.0; .NET4.0C) and waarschijnlijk laatste versie Internet explorer 64bit, no google Chrome. --Havang(nl) (talk) 17:22, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I tried the button "compatibilteitsweergave" and that solved the problem.--Havang(nl) (talk) 17:31, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I have the same problem for several days. I am using IE 8.0.6001.18702. יעקב (talk) 18:25, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

September 3

OCR of djvu files : a new tool

Hello, I have just write a new tool for doing the OCR of djvu file in Commons witch work with pywikipedia and Tesseract : djvuocr.py. You give it the name of the file and it language and he download the file, do the OCR and upload the file with the OCR. Suggestions, comments ? Tpt (talk) 09:27, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Nice for wikisource and reusers. Do you have an account on toolserver or somewhat where you can host it? -- RE rillke questions? 18:37, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

OTRS member permissions

Some changes associated with the OTRS member group are proposed: Commons:Village pump/Proposals#OTRS member permissions. – Adrignola talk 15:22, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

September 4

Consider adding some consideration to your fellow Wikimedia projects on your deletion policy

I've posted the issue at Commons talk:Deletion policy#Consider adding as a requirement.... Even if it doesn't become part of the policy it should be part of the moral obligation to consider the implications of your deletion of your sister projects. As is it is not only damaging to others but to your own project. --79.168.6.93 05:45, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

500-Million-Dollars US Bonds

Hello,

I just found this old story about 2 Japanese smuggling 500-Million-Dollars US Bonds from Italy to Switzerland, and I find it highly entertaining at the very least. True or not, one could not find such an incredible story even in the wildest imagination. Such I uploaded some of the bond images on Commons. Now, are they real or fake? If they are fake, what is their copyright status? I didn't find the right category for these documents. Best regards, Yann (talk) 12:40, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

If they're forgeries, then they're presumably very closely imitating official U.S. govt. documents, plus they're illegal (see grafitti), so I don't see any big copyright problem... AnonMoos (talk) 15:57, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Agreed, the logic of PD-Art applies here. If their goal was to create a faithful reproduction of a public domain document (as it should be if they were to get away with it!) then they're okay. Dcoetzee (talk) 07:34, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Need help creating a category

-- Aisano (talk) 12:22, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Creating a talk page for a non-existent category is really not the way to start a discussion -- few people will notice it, except people searching for "orphaned" talk pages to clean up (delete). However, I see nothing wrong with "Former Sibiu streetcar line (1905–1970)"... AnonMoos (talk) 12:28, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Probably Category:Trams in Sibiu (1905–1970), to distinguish it from the present-day tram line from Sibiu to Răşinari. No need for "former" in category name, and we generally user "tram" rather than "streetcar" in category names, from what I've seen. - Jmabel ! talk 16:50, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thank you, that sounds reasonable. There might even be a new common supercategory ("Trams in Sibiu") for this and for the Sibiu–Rășinari tram. I'll wait a couple of days, and if there is no contradiction I will create the category.

Yes, I now realise that the talk page was not a good idea but I did not know when I created it. I will propose it for deletion after collecting the pictures from it. -- Aisano (talk) 20:34, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Photos that are out of copyright (published before 1923)

Recently two photos I uploaded were deleted, even though I added templates that said they were published before 1923. I'm confused, really. If someone can tell me if there is some other policy I'd just like to know for future reference. The template was added by an admin, "This media file does not have sufficient information on its copyright status." So I added templates that made it clear this was in PD due to being published before 1923. I didn't remove the warning template because I assumed this was for admin to do. Here is the google cache.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 15:51, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sometimes even admins make mistakes. Upload the file again and make sure the right templates go with it from the begining. /Esquilo (talk) 17:13, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You should have removed the template if you thought you had provided adequate info. However, "Date: 19 August 2011" really did not help your case; providing an indication of the actual date the photograph was taken will probably help smooth things along... AnonMoos (talk) 17:17, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Well, there were life dates of "(1881-1959)" mentioned in the description, which may have contributed to the confusion. --Túrelio (talk) 18:00, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Both File:Jennie Ross Cobb.png and File:Dat So La Lee.jpg do not provide any proof that these pictures indeed were published before 1923. The subjects of the photographs died after 1923, the date of creation and the authors were not specified. Trycatch (talk) 18:07, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

That's understandable. I have no idea about the JRC photo to be honest, and next time I will be much more careful about details. I have had quite a few photos deleted on here lately, but I'm not personally trying to divert copyright, I just misunderstand the guidelines. Enough for my future reference anyway! Thanks --Henriettapussycat (talk) 18:46, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

If you search for a pre-1923 photograph of some person, check online archives of scanned old books/newspapers, e.g. (for the US) Internet Archive, Google Books (check "Full view only" in advanced search), Chronicling America (pre-1923 American newspapers), Google News Archive (eh, it seems that the service was shutdown). For example for Dat So La Lee it's easy to find an illustrated book published in 1902 in New York with a photo of her: [3]. Trycatch (talk) 20:19, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Some evidence for the publication being before 1923 is generally helpful -- what book (and page) was it from, if you found it online what is the URL, etc. Simply claiming pre-1923 without a specific source being mentioned will quite often get things deleted. Given the Google cache you mention for Jennie Ross Cobb, you just pointed to the top-level website. The only place I could find a photo of her was page 11 of this PDF. The woman does look somewhat older in the photo... if she was older than 41 years old when that was taken (quite possible but not certain), it would be from 1923 or later, meaning the PD-1923 tag is impossible. Second, the only thing we really know is that it has been published recently, not that it was actually published at the time it was taken. The current term for newly-published photos with an unknown author is 120 years from creation, which has not passed yet (or 95 years from publication, if shorter, but that does not apply for newly-published stuff). The PDF gives no information on where the photo comes from. Works where all this type of information is lost are definitely hard cases -- they are called "orphan works" -- but not knowing the information does not mean that copyright has expired. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:12, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks, I will try to be more careful and find out exactly where the pics come from. The JRC pic was the only one I could find, and that was the reason for upload, but you're right, it could have been created after 1923.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 18:46, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Dat So La Lee stands a much better chance of being OK -- she died in 1925, so most photos would have at least been taken pre-1923, and she was aggressively promoted from around 1900 and later (it sounds like the promoters invented large portions of her "life story" when doing so), so there are more likely to be works which were published. here is a photo of her from a 1901 book (which also includes some photos of her baskets). Not the same one, but that one could definitely be used. Another photo of her here (1909 book, from the Nevada Historical Society). From the Google cache of the one you posted though, there is a signature in the bottom right -- that may help determine things for that photo in particular. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:49, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

US freedom of panorama requirements forced by licensing policy?

Is the US freedom of panorama regulation mandatory for all FOP pictures on Commons? Normally, media have to be free in the US, always. It's not made clear in COM:FOP.--141.84.69.20 19:51, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

In general we have not been doing that -- as long as the photo is OK to take (in that the photographer would hold the rights in that location), we are allowing such photos (if licensed) to stay here. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:01, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Several years ago I uploaded a picture of Federico Fellini Airport (Rimini, Italy), and it was deleted because it showed a sculpture in front of the passenger terminal. In the meantime, this sculpture has been deleted (dismantled), too, so Wikimedia Commons was ahead of its time. But I suppose there were times when the policy described by Carl did not apply, or was not applied. -- Aisano (talk) 23:09, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Italy does not have freedom of panorama for sculpture (or anything, really). Normally, photos primarily of copyrighted statues would be considered derivative works, but countries with clauses like this in their law give us a leg to stand on -- without it, they have always been considered derivative works and deleted. The COM:FOP page was created to document the countries which have such clauses. If the focus of your photo was the entire airport though... not sure it should have been deleted. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:28, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Carl, many thanks for the explanation. I had not been aware that Italy's law was so strict here. As to my Rimini picture, it was sort of "aimed" at the sculpture, so it was correct to delete it. In fact, since the airport is not even 80 years old and its architects probably lived happily some time after designing it any pictures of the airport are probably liable to a fee for publishing, so much more so as the airport got a new facade in the meantime. -- Aisano (talk) 17:25, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Gallery on toolserver is broken

This tool does'nt work anymore, now for quite some time. Is there any other tool available showing uploaded pictures for a specific user? Paul Hermans (talk) 13:20, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Special:MyUploads. Files, overwritten by other users disappear from the list. I am working on a better solution. User:Rillke/JSONListUploads.js -- RE rillke questions? 14:05, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks for your response and effort Paul Hermans (talk) 15:09, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

easy way to mass change a license from PD-old to PD-old-100

Hi y'all!

Félix Nadar has died in 1910 and hence from 2011 on all his works are PD also in those countries with a life time + 100 years rule (or fewer).

Therefore, I would like to change all Nadar photos from {{PD-old}} to {{PD-old-100}}.

Is there an easy way (a bot?) to do this? --ALE! ¿…? 07:16, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I am sure it is possible with AWB but you may also use User:Rillke/AjaxMassDelete.js (documentation and easy-install). After installing this script, visit Category:Photographs by Nadar, click "Perform batch task" in your toolbar, load all pictures by scolling down multiple times, then select all (check-box), use the option custom replace, go to the top of the gallery and fill in

/\{\{PD[ _-]Old[^\}\n]*\}\}/ig as a pattern and let replace with {{PD-old-100}}. But I suggest, before doing a mass-change, test whether this works by selecting only one gallerybox at first. -- RE rillke questions? 07:43, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Could someone do this for me? I am afraid that I am probably too stupid for this ;-) . --ALE! ¿…? 15:13, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Was this right? (before I am going to change all) -- RE rillke questions? 15:45, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes, this was right. Thank you! So just go ahead. --ALE! ¿…? 07:08, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

 I hope the script found all files. Btw, there is Commons:Bots/Work requests. -- RE rillke questions? 12:38, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There are also some photos tagged with {{PD-Art}}. Also these should be {{PD-old-100}}. If you could also do those? Thanks --ALE! ¿…? 14:07, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Or to {{PD-Art|PD-old-100}}? Since there are maybe photos of photos? -- RE rillke questions? 12:11, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

As far as I know we do NOT need to tag with PD-Art photos of photos but only photos of paintings. --ALE! ¿…? 16:47, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There are some files with pd-us like File:Édouard_Manet-crop.jpg. -- RE rillke questions? 20:07, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Well they all should be PD-old-100. If you tell me which ones are not yet PD-old-100 I do them manually. --ALE! ¿…? 21:45, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

File:Boussinesq.jpg File:Claude Monet 1899 Nadar crop.jpg File:Georges Nagelmackers par Nadar.jpg File:Judith Gautier circa 1880.jpg File:Plume de Brazza 01.JPG File:Plume de Brazza 02.jpg File:Rosita Mauri 1881.jpg File:Théophile Gautier by Nadar c1856-1.jpg -- RE rillke questions? 14:50, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

 except for File:Plume de Brazza 02.jpg which is not a Nadar photograph but a signature. --ALE! ¿…? 15:30, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

File:Boussinesq.jpg : It's strange to put a PD-old-100 tag with a description that says that the work is by "Author Unknown". -- Asclepias (talk) 16:20, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Well, further down it says creator:Nadar. But thanks for pointing this out. I corrected the description. --ALE! ¿…? 11:30, 6 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

upload wizard does not work

The upload wizard does not work. When I press upload file an attempt to show the upload wizard is begun, but the button for uploading pictures never appears. Can anyone help? יעקב (talk) 20:30, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I have the same problem, which has happened before to me. For now you could just try Special:Upload or Commons:Tools/Commonist for a larger number of files. Editor5807^speak 22:03, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

We're getting a few reports of this, although it doesn't yet seem obvious that any specific browser/OS combination is affected. We'll debug ASAP.--Eloquence (talk) 21:10, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've been able to deduce my problem has been related to a firefox extension called tor button; have filed an bug to them at https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/3938 _→AzaToth 22:04, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

"Free Artistic License"

The existence of the relatively rare "Free Artistic License" option on the UploadWizard seems to be confusing a lot of novice uploaders. They have a non-free picture they want to upload (despite the warnings) and are forced to choose a license. They look under "Miscellaneous Reasons" and see "Free Artistic License" and think "well, it was free, and it's artistic, so that should be good enough." The number of legitimate FAL images that are uploaded are likely dwarfed by the number of illegitimate ones. If it's necessary to keep this option, can we rephrase the heading and option to make it clearer that it is not just a generic catchall license? Powers (talk) 18:36, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I got the same impression from the suddenly increasing share of FAL-"licensed" uploads. Rather bad situation. Not to mention the fact that our FAL template {{FAL}} doesn't give re-users any information about the license's requirements for re-use, as opposed to the CC templates. --Túrelio (talk) 18:52, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes, we see in the user tests that some users click the "Free Artistic License" option as a way to get through the process quickly. I don't know that this is really a function of the license name -- it looks to me more like folks click it's because it's the last checkbox they can click before abandoning the upload entirely.

Here are some options we have:

1) Get rid of the FAL option and reserve it for advanced users (we should add a "custom template" field anyway and it could live there for advanced users).

2) Add a trap option. We went back and forth on this and ultimately decided to go with an Abandon option to assume good faith, but it may be worth testing an explicit "I don't know the license" checkbox option that marks the file for deletion against the current setup. I don't think we've done click-tracking on the Abandon option -- it would be nice to know how many folks are just giving up, so we can compare it against the number of people who mis-label their license or who might choose a trap option.

Thoughts?--Eloquence (talk) 19:32, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

2, 2, 2, 2 :) I want my trap back. It is much easier to help or delete if you immediately see that a user had problems. That the FAL-option is often misused was discussed several times before, here. We should think about adding an option like, "I do not know" which adds a template that review is required. Furthermore the user should be told to return to his talk-page after some time. just one example (the "FAL queue") -- RE rillke questions? 20:31, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I actually think it is, at least partially, a function of the license name. See, for instance, here. Powers (talk) 00:02, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I agree with Rillke. There always been a trap, I have no idea why it was removed (I guess because of some idealistic theory, that the magical Upload Wizard will eliminate any misunderstanding among uploaders). By the way the funny thing that there is no such license as "Free Artistic License" at all, you will have no luck googling this name. There is the "Free Art License" and it has several different versions, so anyway the uploaders probably have no idea to what they agree to. I wonder why the FAL-license was selected as a single listed non-CC license. FAL is not a good license, it's copyleft and incompatible with CC-BY-SA or GFDL (so correct uploads with this license slowly creates on Commons an island of pictures incompatible with the CC-BY-SA majority), it's very confusingly written, and AFAIK it's not even approved as a free license by the Debian project, because of many problems with the legal text of this license. Trycatch (talk) 00:08, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Again, UW currently uses a big friendly "Abandon this upload" button as the final choice. We don't know how many people are clicking it, but it hopefully has some effect. Re: the license name, thanks for the pointer -- I just fixed it for English, and committed fixes for the other languages, which should be deployed with the next localization update. It sounds to me, though, that doing both 1) and 2) suggested above would be a solution most people here would prefer, anyway -- i.e., getting rid of FAL as a choice in the license tree (ideally adding a feature to add custom licenses for advanced user), and adding a trap to catch uploads that are otherwise likely to be mislabeled. Neil is back next week; I'll talk to him about the trap issue and get his take on why he chose to forego it in the implementation.--Eloquence (talk) 01:22, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

My two cents is that the FAL is problematic for many potential users of Commons media and therefore should be removed from Commons list of permitted licenses. Failing that, it should certainly not be an easy license for a novice to pick. The problem lies with:

"If the work can no longer be accessed apart from the larger work in which it is incorporated, then incorporation shall only be allowed under the condition that the larger work is subject either to the Free Art License or a compatible license. "

Which says to me that if you use an FAL image in a book, for example, (the larger work), then the book must have an FAL or compatible license. That means that FAL images will not be used in many commercial publications -- certainly all of my various off-Commons users would have balked.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 12:04, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Um, we have been over that repeatedly recently. That is not what the license says -- it is really a "normal" derivative works clause, as is made more clear by their FAQs. Their license hinders us no more than CC-BY-SA does. It is actually a more common license in French-speaking circles, I think, so there may be reason for its existence in the download options. But it does sound like there are implementation issues on the upload form. Not positive removing it would help -- would they just choose a different license, making it even harder to find the problems? Perhaps a trap option would work. Maybe add the version number (currently 1.3) to the "Free Art License" which may help indicate that it is a particular license. I agree having this as the only "Miscellaneous reason" is not a good thing -- group it with Creative Commons, label it "other free licenses", or put a trap option in there. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:47, 6 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

For a perfect illustration of confusion here, see Commons:Help_desk#GPL_Picture_upload. - Jmabel ! talk 14:53, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I believe that option 2 is the best way to avoid such kind of problems, but in second istance option 1 is not a bad idea. Please do it as soon as possibile.--Trixt (talk) 20:12, 6 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Request

Could somebody please crop the portrait of Meroni on this picture? I don't have the appropriate software. If it's not too much trouble, could you also reduce the reflection in the portrait? Thank you in advance! 178.224.26.158 21:49, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

English: I could do that but there's a speedy deletion request pending for this picture (copyright violation). So I assume it does not make much sense.

Italiano: Potrei farlo io ma per questa immagine è stata richiesta la cancellazione immediata (violazione di copyright). Cosí non ci vedo molto senso.

Esperanto: Mi povus fari, sed iu proponis tujan forigon de tiu bildo, pro lezo de aŭtoraj rajtoj. Do ne havas multe da senco.

Deutsch: Das könnte ich machen, aber gegen das Bild läuft ein Schnelllöschantrag, wegen Urheberrechtsverletzung. Also hat das nicht viel Sinn.

-- Aisano (talk) 23:01, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

All right, thank you! 178.224.26.158 07:47, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I noticed that the abovementioned picture is uploaded again. Could somebody tell me if there's a speedy deletion request pending for the picture? Thanks in advance! 95.99.88.25 10:11, 6 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Italiano: L'ho fatto, signor(a) 95.99.88.25, e l'ho caricata sotto it:File:Luigi Meroni, immagine sul suo monumento sul corso Umberto.jpeg.

Esperanto: Mi faris, sinjor(in)o 95.99.88.25, kaj alŝutis al it:File:Luigi Meroni, immagine sul suo monumento sul corso Umberto.jpeg.

-- Aisano (talk) 18:13, 6 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks Aisano! Is it also possible to transfer this image to commons? The original picture is in the public domain, so this should be no problem right? 188.88.19.42 08:10, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

COM:FOP#Italy could be a problem. --Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 15:03, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Not if the original is PD. The above is basically a copy of the original photo. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:19, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

September 5

Missing "Add notes" button

The "Add notes" button is missing. --ŠJů (talk) 12:12, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Try reloading your browser's cache. Lupo 12:17, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Please purge your browser’s cache or enable JavaScript in your Browser's settings. (You only need to do it once.)

-- RE rillke questions? 13:05, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Ecole de Goya, Nain assis (19ème siècle).jpg

Would an administrator please delete the photograph with the non-free frame in the image history of "File:Ecole de Goya, Nain assis (19ème siècle).jpg"? Thanks. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:17, 6 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

 Done (hidden), though COM:AN might have been a better place for this request. --Túrelio (talk) 20:08, 6 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There's {{Non-free frame revdel}} too :) --Marco Aurelio (disputatio) 16:38, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Ah, thanks. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:43, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

September 7

Colour-Distorted images

I've just noticed some quite severe colour distorion on File:Zacuelu3.jpg and File:Zaculeu5.jpg, both of these files were fine this morning and there is not hint in file history as to what has gone wrong. Any ideas anyone? Simon Burchell (talk) 15:33, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Dunno, but these files have a strange embedded color profile called "SFprofT (OpticFilm 7600i).icc". This color profile is also in the thumbnail shown on the image page, not just in the full-resolution original. Maybe the thumbnailer newly passes this profile on to the thumbnail it generates. The browser apparently doesn't know what to do with this profile, resulting on my browser in a garish violet tint. I would suggest re-uploading the files with a sRGB color profile and purging the affected files. Lupo 16:11, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hmmm - not my photos so I don't have them, they just happen to be on Wikipedia pages that I'm working on. Thanks anyway, Simon Burchell (talk) 16:15, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I tried basic conversion to sRGB in GIMP and it is still unacceptably tinted - I mean, it's a normal photo now but colour balance is skewed too far into greens. Is it worth uploading? Ideally, the author should do it themselves, only they have the originals. NVO (talk) 03:09, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I changed the colour profile to sRGB and uploaded new versions as File:Zacuelu3A.jpg and File:Zaculeu5A.jpg. Wouter (talk) 06:17, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Seems to be a Firefox problem as far as I can see - looks fine on IE, but thanks for the new versions - I'll swap them over in the articles. There seem to be a few more in Category:Zaculeu with the same problem - some seem to be showing up with main photo OK, thumbnail distorted or vice versa, all uploaded by the same user. Simon Burchell (talk) 09:41, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Looks like a task for a bot, see Commons:Bots/Work_requests#Odd_colour_profiles. NVO (talk) 10:19, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It is a similar problem as discussed before about pale photos. Wouter (talk) 11:04, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It seems that GIMP for some reason doesn't work correctly with this color profile and simply discards it, so File:Zacuelu3A.jpg is not correctly converted -- it's just the original with color profile discarded. Looks like Krita and Photoshop work well. Trycatch (talk) 13:03, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I went to File:Zaculeu5.jpg and it doesn't display at all in my browser -- was left looking at white and grey squares... AnonMoos (talk) 13:44, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wouter, why create new files and not load the images with the sRGB profile on top of them? Amada44  ^{talk to me} 14:29, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hmm, IMO it makes sense to upload pictures with degraded quality, but adapted for the web (and browser Firefox), under another name. We do the same thing for pictures in high resolution, if MediaWiki can't render their thumbnails properly. Trycatch (talk) 14:45, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think, that this is not the image problem but the Firefox browser problem. IE and Safari displays those images just fine, so do image viewing programs on my PC. I run into much more images like this lately. --Jarekt (talk) 14:47, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I tried the fix proposed in the https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/766707 : "simply go to "about:config" in the firefox addresss bar. Search "color". Doubleclick on the gfx.color_management.mode option and set the value to 3. Then restart firefox. ". That fixed the problem on my machine. --Jarekt (talk) 15:20, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Me too - worked in the office (XP), but not at home (win7). Restart/reboot/purge - no go. At any rate, I don't expect an average user to even consider resolving this bug. They'd simply walk away, wondering what were these wikipedia geeks smoking... ;) NVO (talk) 15:34, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hopefully Firefox will fix it in the future releases. --Jarekt (talk) 15:35, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've checked a nightly build -- in Firefox 9.0 color profiling with this picture works just fine. So anyway this problem will go away in a few months. Trycatch (talk) 15:37, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

So the last Firefox has better color management than the last GIMP. What a shame. Trycatch (talk) 16:03, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Trycatch wrote “so File:Zacuelu3A.jpg is not correctly converted -- it's just the original with color profile discarded.” I downloaded the file and looked at it with the program GraphicConverter. It shows the profile sRGB IEC61966-2.1. I converted the original profile to this one in the program iView MediaPro 3. So the colour profile is not discarded.

Amada44 asked why I did not load the images with the sRGB profile on top of them. I did that on purpose to make it easier to investigate the problem. With the problem with the “pale” photos I loaded my own photos with the sRGB profile on top of those with the "Nikon D70 generic V2" colour profile. Wouter (talk) 16:37, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Then iView MediaPro 3 doesn't work correctly with this profile. You can see the correct colors in the embedded thumbnail generated by Photoshop: http://regex.info/exif.cgi?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2F9%2F9f%2FZaculeu5.jpg But the pictures uploaded by you look exactly the same as the originals with all color information removed (using ImageMagick -- convert -strip). Trycatch (talk) 17:08, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I tried your useful link with Zaculeu5A.jpg. There I see the color profile sRGB, but it may be that I don't look at the right place. Wouter (talk) 18:52, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Two files uploaded with the same name at the same time?

E.g. see File:Vana-Põltsamaa mõisa aia piirdemüür.jpg, where two versions seem to be uploaded at the same time. There are two upload log entries, but one contributions log entry. Is upload wizard allowing such behaviour or there's another explanation for this? 193.40.10.180 19:40, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

museum photo policy

a while back I went to a museum that has a 18th century orrery which is pretty awesome. The museum doesn't allow its visitors to take photo's. Bad bad me did take some photo's. Are these photo's allowed onto Wikimedia? --Vera (talk) 22:54, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes, we consider such rules to be non-copyright-related, and so disregard them. -mattbuck (Talk) 23:18, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

We won't delete them if you want to upload them. It's up to you as regards the museum's policy. Carl Lindberg (talk) 08:34, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You may want to consider the usage of a one-time sockpuppet, though, in order to avoid any hassle if a connection could be made between your main user account and the person who visited the museum. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 09:00, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

September 8

Internal search engine

Hello. I don't know if it's happening to anybody of you but each time I type anything in the searchbox (ie.: COM:VP, Special:Block or Special:Nuke) the search engine always shows me a search result and below a message saying ie: "There's a page called Special:Block on this wiki" (Ok, I already know that, I just want to use it).

I've been having a look in my preferences to see if I've done something wrong but as far as I can see everything is OK. My question is if this happens to everybody or just me, and if it only happens to me how can I get that fixed. It's annoying.

Best regards, --Marco Aurelio (disputatio) 16:36, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Either click the go button rather than search, or add GoButton=true; to your monobook.js or equivalent. -mattbuck (Talk) 21:51, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The Commoners have disenfranchised those not using Vector, Marco. Even though many still use it. I tried to change the common.js back several months ago but I was yelled at. Killiondude (talk) 22:23, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Is this GoButton=true; all that has to be added to the monobook.js? I will not use the pissy editor-unfriendly Vector skin for long... ^^ @Killiondude: who yelled at you? May I assist you in yelling back? ;-) Grand-Duc (talk) 09:03, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Mattbuck: actually I hit the "Enter" key after writting something in the searchbox. Monobook skin of course. Vector is very editor/admin unfriendly I'm afraid. I'll try to add the that GoButton=true; to my monobook.js and I'll report back the result. Thank you, --Marco Aurelio (disputatio) 09:19, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Resolved/Fixed :) - It works now. Thank you. --Marco Aurelio (disputatio) 09:21, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikipedia account not working on Wikimedia Commons?

Hi, I don't know if this is the right place to ask (I haven't found anything in the FAQ): I have a WP account, but when I try to log into Commons, it says the username doesn't exist. I thought account information was automatically transferred between WP and Commons? 139.19.76.38 08:37, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Go to xx.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAuth where xx is your language-code to see your global account. Go to Special:MergeAccount to read about merging/ global accounts. -- RE rillke questions? 08:58, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks, it worked. Arnaudf (talk) 18:51, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Font error of file and subcategory numbers

Resolvedthanks Brion Vibber

Some error of file number displaying appear on category pages. --ŠJů (talk) 09:21, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I count 85 files like the system and 7 subcats. It was probably just not up-to-date. -- RE rillke questions? 09:28, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Staff-operated ticket machines (1 K, 4 D) is missing on the screenshot. -- RE rillke questions? 09:30, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

When i wrote "font error" and "error of displaying", i meant the font used in subcategories of "Ticket machines by country". Is it not enough conspicuous at the screenshot? --ŠJů (talk) 09:53, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It is not a font error. It exactly contains （1カテゴリ）. It seems to be an encoding-error. -- RE rillke questions? 09:59, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think, no need to hairsplitt. Everybody can see the problem at the screenshot immediately. --ŠJů (talk) 10:06, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It is not an encoding-problem it's Japanese. -- RE rillke questions? 10:09, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Fixed Is this normal behavior? I am not experienced in category-system. Or should we report a bug? -- RE rillke questions? 10:21, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

An initial space is sorted as space and an initial * is sorted as * and this functionality is ordinarily used as a way how to set aside meta categories and other special subcategories. What should be a bug? --ŠJů (talk) 10:39, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Probably what you reported? When using * as sortkey, getting Japanese? Removing it resolved the problem? -- RE rillke questions? 10:48, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Mhh, [+] Ticket machines in Hong Kong （1カテゴリ、2ファイル） is still wrong. -- RE rillke questions? 10:51, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I am going to file a bug. Please do not delete the image and do not change "Ticket machines in China". -- RE rillke questions? 11:14, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Very odd. I tried setting my prefs to Chinese, Japanese, Arabic interfaces - but the (* C, *F) format is always there. Perhaps it's an intermittent one-of-a-kind bug. Like it was one month ago when some wikipedia pages, for a very short time, were formatted for cellphone browsers. 11:29, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, first I failed to see the wrong spelling/language behind the categories. I read something about numbers and thought you are wondering why they are not up-to-date. My fault. Here is the bug: bugzilla:30834 -- RE rillke questions? 11:31, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thumbnail problem

File:Holly Valance 1800-2.jpg seems a bit weird - the thumbnails all show horizontal lines covering almost the entire image, but the image itself is fine. -mattbuck (Talk) 12:22, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

MediaWiki does not like CMYK-images. I converted to RGB. Feel free to revert if you think the loss of quality is too high or there is a lossless-converter. Furthermore think about removing this color-profile. It looks odd in Firefox. -- RE rillke questions? 13:37, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks for fixing it. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:17, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Female politicians cats removed and asked for deletion...

Hi everyone. Queeg (talk · contribs) is currently removing the categories "female politicians" on many subcats. COuld any admin ask him/her to stop and could a bot undo his/her contributions ? Thanks. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 13:47, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Can you explain what the purpose of these categories are? -- Queeg (talk) 14:09, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Even nowadays (and it's especially true in some countries in development but not only...) women have to struggle far more than men to be politicians, and then there are far more male than female politicians. So that's a sociological explanation. But we could also create "male politicians" categories instead of removing the female ones (it's far more contructive). After all, politics are not the only subject where we have male and female separate categories... — Preceding unsigned comment added by TwoWings (talk • contribs) 31. August 2011, 16:14 Uhr (UTCTúrelio (talk) 14:24, 31 August 2011 (UTC))Reply[reply]

I find the solitary "female ____" categories under many different general categories to be quite sexist, frankly. Rarely do I see a "male _____" category to go along with it, seemingly assuming that whoever would be in that parent category should otherwise be male. Subcategorize based on something else or fully diffuse the category into men/women. – Adrignola talk 14:13, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I agree (at least sometimes) but wouldn't it be better to created more male categories instead of removing the female cats ? I'm currently trying to arrange things in the nude cats, where 1) it's a complete mess, 2) there's a better female category tree than the female one. We have to make (everybody) some efforts to struggle against this unevenness by creating male cats, not by question/deleting the female ones. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 14:17, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

While I understand that the goal is to give a clear place for the female part of the population, in practise, they get sometimes (but not always) subcategorised under the men/main category, so basically they disappear from the top level man level category; a sophisticated way of discrimination. So far, I have seen no female categories that are correctly maintained, so if we cannot do it properly including all human related categories, we better stop it. Moreover, personally, I don't find it worth adding the tens of thousands intermediate level categories to get only a data reduction of a factor of two. --Foroa (talk) 14:28, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

We have subcats of politicians by parties, why wouldn't we have subcats by gender ? We just have to create the male ones ! Be constructive instead of being destructive ! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 14:35, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It has nothing to do with the role/occupation. The activists are still in categories like this. -- Queeg (talk) 14:39, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Female politicians cats?

I am lazy and easily bored and very very easily offended for friends and family. It is just easier and makes a current world if we do not have categories like:

1. Category:Male politicians of France
2. Category:Female politicians of France
3. Category:Male politicians of Germany
4. Category:Female politicians of Germany
5. Category:Male politicians of Canada
6. Category:Female politicians of Canada
7. Category:Male politicians of Denmark
8. Category:Female politicians of Denmark

Which is just a partial point of my point. -- Queeg (talk) 14:38, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

However, we also have Category:Females with cats and Category:Males with cats. --Túrelio (talk) 14:45, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

We have to think differently. When you are in the Category:Women of France, it's far better to have a sub-Category:Female politicians of France instead of transfering all female French politicians in the Category:Women of France ! (i.e. dozens of sucats or files) But again, it would be far better to have the same logic on the male side ! (Or does this discussion mean that we also have to get rid of cats like "Women of France" ?!)

All of that should be only a question of logic in terms of category trees instead of seeing sexism everywhere ! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 14:41, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

When last I looked, there were 193 sub-categories in Category:Female politicians of Germany. Assuming the "first" was 60 to 70 years ago, that is approximately 2 or 3 per year -- 193 is a lot but the number of Males would go back to before the German law of purity in 1393? How many German politicians (gender implied by the time and subject) were present to make this "law"? I have no idea how to estimate the number of images and subcats that would need to be found and put into Category:Male politicians of Germany. Even if only 2 or 3 per year since 1393 that would be (rounding up) 3250 to 5000 subcats. That gets us nicely back to "lazy" and "easily bored". This information is simply uninteresting and I dare you to make a case for it being interesting... -- Queeg (talk) 03:37, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

In an ideal world we would be able to ask the category tree to show us the images that were contained in all of these

• Category:France
• Category:Politicians
• Category:Women

This would eliminate a great deal of category work, Until we reach that ideal point, it is useful to have subcats, both to make the size of a category manageable and to divide them up for easier searching. Sex seems a logical way to do this, although I agree that there should be parallel M/F cats, not a parent Politicians of France with all the men and a subcat Female Politicians of France.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 17:22, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I agree with James, though perhaps this is a good opportunity to initiate a general discussion as to whether to begin selectively removing all the "Female" and "Women" subcategories where distinguishing between men and women does not make much sense. The categories relating to occupations seems an appropriate place to start. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:11, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Some occupations. Agreed that something like Category:Female physicians is unnecessary (just making up an obvious example) (egads! that category actually exists - I thought I was making something up to make a point!); given that in most of the world politics is dominated by men, however, Category:Female politicians strikes me as relevant and useful. And while I agree that women politicians should not be hived off into a pink ghetto of their own subcat, while media related to male politicians remains in the parent category, I don't think the situation in most cases is as dire as that (even in the absence of male politician subcats). For many jurisdictions, politicians (both male and female) are subcategorized by location, level of government, etc., so the media related to female politicians is largely as visible and accessible as that related to the male politicians. To the extent that there is a form of unintended discrimination in some places, it relates just as much to the fact that too much media is stuck in the parent cat and not properly subcategorized.Skeezix1000 (talk) 19:10, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

If we'd just add all females into Category:Women by name (and males in to Category:Men by name), users could use CatScan to select females (or males) in any given field. --  Docu  at 06:12, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I should have mentioned CatScan in my comment above -- while it is a step in the right direction, as a practical matter it is not useful because it takes far too long -- minutes, at least at the moment. Also, as I understand it, it searches only the intersection of two cats, not three or more.     Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 16:10, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yeah, we all know CatScan is not a very good tool (and, what's more, not very known by Commons users or Wikipedia readers). As long as we don't have a better tool for tagging or crossing categories, we have to continue in the subcat logic ! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 17:30, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Perhaps this idea that gender is uninteresting, useless and backwards information is an issue of maturity of thought. If that is the case, and it is the best case that I can make for its persistence here; isn't it only right to 1) get rid of all of the gender specific categories and 2) not create the "Female" categories until the "Male" categories have been created and filled with all of the politicians (or other occupations) that occurred before 1940 or 1950? Or, for example, that all of the Male politicians from France be categorized first as they occurred and as it was important then that only Males be politicians and only after those Male politicians at least until the mid-1900s are categorized as such, then the Female categories will exist and become filled.

Start over fresh and allow the importance and relativity of this information to grow in those who find it important enough to undertake the task?

I have no problem clearing the existing categories for this fresh start. For those who find the information relative and worthy of their time, I will let them know when the time is good to restart this process at this more evolutionarily appropriate starting point.

Or in more simple language. I will remove the "Female" categories and then, those who think it is important can start with the "Males" -- as it was, it shall be. -- Queeg (talk) 03:13, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Unless you add them into Category:Women by name, please don't. --  Docu  at 05:13, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There is not a category Category:Men by name -- your request is not a "compromise" which is what the goal of my suggestion was.

Do you have a suggestion like mine which is as mutual and reasonable as mine? -- Queeg (talk) 07:00, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

And what about Category:Models by country where we have the inverse situation ? --Foroa (talk) 07:28, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You're right ! Same for Strip tease for instance... --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 18:19, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Queeg: once your done, we could just add all others into Men by name. --  Docu  at 10:41, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Queeg : there's something capricious about what you ask ! You can't say "well, let's delete female cats and admit them only if the male cats are created" ! What do you want to do : deleting female cats, creating male cats and then asking female cats for undeletion ?! And what if someone, during the creation of the male cats, feels hurt and/or frustrated because male cats exist and not female so that this user ask that male cats exist only if female cats are created before ?!!!
Come on ! Let's be smart ! Let's stop these stupide frustrations ! Again : let's be constructive and create what's missing instead of creating a complete mess by undeleting cats that seem useful to some people.
But again, let's also think practical. Imagine someone is trying to find a Canadian politician but can't remember his name (we all know these cases where we know we'll recognize the name when we'll see it in a list, don't we ?). If we don't know which party this politician is a member of, this could be useful to have a way to see a list of male or female politician (because I guess the gender of this person should be known!). And surely we cannot imagine that we categorize each politician in the mother category "Politicians of Canada". Therefore, the cats of politicians by gender ARE useful ! QED ! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 18:16, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Capricious \Ca*pri"cious\ (k[.a]*pr[i^]sh"[u^]s), a. [Cf. F.
     capricieux, It. capriccioso.]
     Governed or characterized by caprice; apt to change suddenly;
     freakish; whimsical; changeable. "Capricious poet." --Shak.
     "Capricious humor." --Hugh Miller.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           A capricious partiality to the Romish practices.
                                                    --Hallam.
  
     Syn: Freakish; whimsical; fanciful; fickle; crotchety;
          fitful; wayward; changeable; unsteady; uncertain;
          inconstant; arbitrary. -- {Ca*pri"cious*ly}, adv. --
          {Ca*pri"cious*ness}, n.
          [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:

  capricious
      adj 1: changeable; "a capricious summer breeze"; "freakish
             weather" [syn: {capricious}, {freakish}]
      2: determined by chance or impulse or whim rather than by
         necessity or reason; "a capricious refusal"; "authoritarian
         rulers are frequently capricious"; "the victim of whimsical
         persecutions" [syn: {capricious}, {impulsive}, {whimsical}]

"Capricious"? I am accused also of not adhering to a "consensus".

My personal feelings are that there should be no gender related categories when the occupation (typically the reason that images of people have been uploaded here) doesn't require it. My instinct/feelings or even "sense of tidiness and choice" tell me that if a person who has an occupation which have no gender requirements wants gender to be an issue -- they will become a member of that subcat -- Twowings provided an excellent example of this with some "Womens Caucus". Those are my personal feelings and the way I would categorize things here.

My suggestion about starting fresh with all of the female categories removed probably had more to do with the fact that it is much easier to clean out the sexism here than it is to equalize it. I am fairly certain that there is not enough enthusiasm to create the Male categories. It was a thinly disguised attempt to honestly stop the sexism that exists here. The "consensus" being strong enough to only maintain it.

Shame on those who are enthusiastic only to maintain it. -- Queeg (talk) 05:25, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Oh lordy, when you start being semantic and quoting the dictionary, you know you've lost. Okay let me give you a lesson in male privilege:

Can you explain what the purpose of these categories are?

The purpose of these categories is because women are a social minority. Therefore certain efforts have to be made to make women more visible. Creating special categories for women achieves this.

isn't it only right to not create the "Female" categories until the "Male" categories have been created and filled

No. It's not right. Because men are by default privileged. Men have an advantage over women, at least in most cultures in Western society (not all), the moment they are born. Many people associate the term "politician" with the gender male. It doesn't matter what you personally think or feel, because this is the way of our current society. We do not live in a post-sexist society, unfortunately. While it is problematic because it might assume that males are the norm, a way of fixing that is changing the name to Women in politics. This doesn't label anyone in a way they haven't already chosen themselves.

I have no problem clearing the existing categories for this fresh start.

Oh ho! Of course you don't. You are not realizing the amount of privilege men have starting literally the day they are born.

The thing is, here, you are probably not personally offended that male categories do not exist. You probably do not feel like you are being held back, or telling young boys that they don't have role models to look at if you don't have these categories. You probably don't feel like your gender is not being represented correctly in these photos. What you are doing is just deleting, because you don't feel that women should receive visibility equal to men in the social construction. It does not matter if there are no male categories, because we will find more photos of men by social privilege anyway.

You are lucky! You were born a male. You have many opportunities that have made your life easy and will make it easy in the future. I am a woman. I have to work twice as hard to even be heard here. I'm not quite sure of the conditions in the UK, but I know in the US that it we are nowhere near equal. Now stop deleting these cats, it makes you look very sexist. --Henriettapussycat (talk) 05:59, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Assuming that you are female, let me ask you a few questions. Did you acquire more than high school education to gain qualifications to be something? To be a gender requires that you have been born. Gender is one of the few things in life that there are no choices of. Making it an issue is a choice. Are women the minority? They live longer -- or at least they used to. They have less tendency to go into armed combat and at least in my country, they drive more safely then men. When you are conducting your business, is gender usually an issue? In situations where you are not flirting or speaking with a person you are familiar with, is your language that different based on your perceptions of the gender of the person? Perhaps you are more inclined to share misinformation with males, since I don't think that women are a minority. -- Queeg (talk) 07:42, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Henriettapussycat is right. Queeg, you don't seem to really want to struggle against sexism. If you really did, you'd agree to struggle with the less conflictual solutions (i.e. creating male cats). Actually to answer you, I AM motivated by this creation of male cats (I have already proved you that concerning nudity cats). It's far better, smarter and objective. After all, apart from the fact that male IS still too often a privilege in our societies (which makes the female cats objective cats that nuetrally reproduce the facts without any judgement), gender IS a fact. You can't really deny anyone's gender, can you ? (I don't speak about sexual orientation or social gender here but just the biological gender). So female/male cats are just tools to create subcats (at least to struggle against overpopulated cats) as ANY other kind of objective discrimination of files (like the color categories for clothing or whatever objective examples).

So please, Queeg, if you really want both to struggle against sexism and to be constructive for Commons project, stop complaining about female cats ! We're losing far too much time with this debate instead of using this time to create male cats. It will be a better tool for Commons and will definitely be a way to struggle against sexism.

And you and I may have far better and smarter ways to struggle against sexism, both on the Internet and in real-life (I personally do many things with my classes on that subject, I know what real sexism is and I'm sick about it). --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 08:33, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Probably your last statement is the fact. I can tell you for certain that I have had good times and bad times with both genders, often for the same reasons. I have had good "bosses" and bad "bosses" of both genders -- my very very best boss having been a woman. A single woman at that, if this matters. Maybe it does; the challenge to be a single woman must be great. This woman was also a single mother, a category which does not exist here for all of the concern of "minorities" etc.

I want to remove the categories. I do not want to make equal categories. I am not wanting a vote to allow the categories that I was trying to remove to stay which is what seems to be what is going to happen. Voting is broken even without an attempt to manipulate outcomes. I read here once that "voting" gives the right to "vote" -- hackable hacks. I am enthusiastic only to remove those categories. My "compromise" suggestion was so that I can remove those categories. The fact that I can only "fight" sexism here perhaps was my failure to fight it in more important places or maybe worse, that I assumed that it did not exist -- due to the better life which can be had once it is gone and the when I was born and the crap I learned about history and government while acquiring my high school degree.

I get it, you want to remove those categories. But here's the thing, even if Commons is not a democracy, it's also not an autocracy, and if it were, you wouldn't be dictator. So telling us that you want to remove the categories and that you don't want a vote you're going to lose doesn't help.--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:38, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

PS : Category:Male politicians by country has been created a year ago.

I agree that male cats could be created. But deleting (or preventing people from creating) female cats does nothing and is simply unproductive. I just thought I'd drop in to lend you a hand here.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 15:30, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks for that? -- Queeg (talk) 07:42, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

That was directed to TwoWings.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 17:36, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I am happy to see that this matter has finally been brought up for discussion. The current situation is clearly (even though most likely unintenionally) discriminating against women. In many categories the content is by default male, while the women are neatly stacked away in some subcategory. A solution might be to apply the gender scheme more homogeneously, such as for example in Category:Politicians of New Zealand. However I don't see why this might be useful. How does a female politician differ from a male? Should this kind of strict separation also be applied to e.g. physicists, historians, physicians? Categories should serve to distinguish groups which differ from each other. Therefore it makes sense to categorize politicians by party, country, office. It makes no sense to categorize them according to gender. It has been mentioned above, that someone who is looking for a certain politician but doesn't remember the name might find a separation by gender helpful, as he most likely recalls, whether the person he is looking for is male or female. But does this mean, that we should also initiate categories for black, Asian, etc. politicians? Of course not. I think this discussion is rather out-dated. I support the deletion of the gender-related categories. -- FishInWater (talk) 14:28, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yeah, well, let's delete and destory everything !

Come one, people ! Can't you have a little sense of pragmatism and objectivity instead of being touchy by hypothetical sexism (I mean female cats created with the will to be sexist !).

Stop denying the fact that it's at least useful in terms of category tree and makes some navigation easier !

Again, I repeat it as a question : would someone agree also to delete mother cats like Category:Women of France ? I suppose (at least I hope) almost no-one would ask for that. Therefore Category:Female politicians of France is at least useful as a sub-cat of "Women of France" in order not to have all categories by name under the latter. Do you (the pro-deletion) understand that simple, logical, objective and pragmatic thing ??!!!

The only thing we have to do is making some efforts to create the male equivalent. I started to do that and I'll continue because it's the only neutral and constructive solution. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 14:50, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I feel the need to address, once again, the alleged problem that having categories for female politicians is a form of discrimination itself ("In many categories the content is by default male, while the women are neatly stacked away in some subcategory"). As I stated above, that's usually not the case, and where it is, it's primarily a problem of lack of subcategorization rather than a problem created by having gender categories. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:54, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

That's why we need to do some efforts to establish a balanced existence of male/female cats. There would be no problem whatsoever if male cats are created when female cats exist. What's more it'll be even more handful in terms of category tree (e.g. for subcats of Category:Men of France and equivalent...) --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 16:48, 10 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

PD-country templates: to split or not to split

Recently Cwbm has been removing lines from various PD-country templates. Here are diffs of the changes made: PD-Angola, PD-Andorra, PD-Sudan, PD-Yemen, and PD-Cambodia. These changes removed terms regarding non-photographic works, regarding anonymous or pseudonymous works, or regarding official government documents. The given reason was "strip reason, only one reason per template". He mentioned the change on my talk page, and there is a little discussion going on at User talk:Antemister#Creation of templates, but there doesn't seem to be agreement yet. So I thought I'd bring it up here.

We certainly need to have some way to tag drawings created in Angola, anonymous works from Andorra, or official documents from the Sudanese government. Since the removals of these lines, there are currently no valid tags for these works. (I note that Cwbm did create {{PD-CambodiaGov}} for one of these situations he removed, but not for the others.) I'd like to get more input on the best way to proceed.

One option would be to have separate templates for each situation in each country. There would be, I suppose, a PD-Angola-photograph-expired, a PD-Angola-nonphotograph-expired, and a PD-Angola-officialtext. To be consistent, this would have to be done for the 100+ PD-country license tags. Yemen would presumably have six such templates, since six different reasons were listed at {{PD-Yemen}}. Someone would have to retag all images previously tagged with the less-specific tags. I believe this would be unmanageable, but it seems to be what Cwbm and Martin H. are advocating, if I understand their positions correctly.

A better option, in my view, would be to have the templates back the way they were: with all media PD in Yemen being tagged with {{PD-Yemen}}, which would list the various possible reasons this could be. (I know that {{PD-US}} has been split into many separate tags, but I believe the difference is that there are many thousands of PD images on Commons created in the U.S., and currently very few from Yemen.) Anyway, I'd like to know what others in the community think is the best way to deal with the such templates. All the best, Quadell (talk) 15:38, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I do not like changes to licenses, since it often affects all the translations and requires need to check all the images using the license to make sure that each image meets conditions of the new license. Also documentation, Commons:Licensing and Commons:Copyright tags need to be changed. I did not check if Cwbm was able to do all that yet. I also agree with Quadell that if a license is split into multiple licenses, one for each reason, than new licenses need to be created, not just reasons removed from the current license. --Jarekt (talk) 17:04, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Its not about creating six templates for Yemen, its about separating two fundamental reasons: Copyright expiration and copyright exemption. Or better: not to mix them up as happeed with the edit short before on August 16. All five cases listet at {{PD-Yemen}} refer to copyright expiration. --Martin H. (talk) 19:08, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

True, but some of the lines Cwbm removed from PD-Andorra and PD-Angola also have to do with copyright expiration. Quadell (talk) 19:46, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No split: 1 copyright law -> 1 Template, which should contain all PD rules. The list of the templates can stay well arranged, the uploader needs not to look into several templates, and the reason why the file is PD should be evident from the description of the file (why do we have the "date"-section?) Splitting the templates will create more one thousend (!) templates, if we want to have them for every country (which should be a long time aim).--Antemister (talk) 19:53, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

First off, does anyone agree with the removal of the "It is a collective work, anonymous work or pseudonymous work and 70 years have passed since the date of its creation" clause from {{PD-Andorra}}, or of the "It is another kind of work and 50 years have passed since the year of death of the author (or last-surviving author)" clause from {{PD-Angola}}? Would I be justified in reverting these? Quadell (talk) 13:26, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Secondly, in regards to the various "laws and official documents" clauses in these templates, it seems like there are a few ways we could proceed.

1. We could have a "laws and official documents" clause in a PD-country tag, if it's applicable according to that country's copyright law. I think this is the best option because it's simple, intuitive, and accurate. Two users object, however, because (as I understand it) they don't feel a single PD-country tag should be applied to both ineligible and expired media.
2. We could have separate PD-country-expired and PD-country-ineligible tags for each applicable country. I think this would be unworkable because it would necessitate the creation of perhaps a hundred new templates, without much benefit to the community.
3. We could create a single {{PD-laws or official documents}} tag with a mandatory parameter of the country and an optional parameter for comments. So an image of a judicial decree from Angola might be tagged {{PD-laws or official documents|country=Angola|notes=Angola's Law on Author's Rights (No. 4/90 of 10 March 1990) specifies that "laws and decisions by judicial and administrative organs" are not subject to copyright}}, or simply {{PD-laws or official documents|country=Angola}}. The upside is that this still separates ineligible from expired copyrights without creating a slew of new templates. The downside is that each country's laws exclude certain documents but not others, and they are not always compatible. Another downside is that one would have to specify the law in each instance of a template like this, or leave in unspecified, and adding links to a named parameter is not easy to do. (It crashes if the link includes an equal sign, for instance.)
4. We could have a disorganized hodgepodge of country templates, with some mentioning ineligible works and some not, arbitrarily. People will probably continue to revert each other's additions or removals of ineligibility clauses from templates, since there would be no standard.

I still feel option #1 is the way to go. Option #3 has serious downsides, but I could live with it. Option #4 is awful, but it's the default situation if no decision is made. Quadell (talk) 13:26, 1 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Can someone of those who prefer splitting the templates explain what is the reason for separating at least PD-old and PD-exempt?--Antemister (talk) 20:10, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think i did already. Copyright expiration and copyright exemption are very different things. Different concepts, changes of copyright law (in most cases: duration) will have different effects, different interaction with US copyright, and so on. all files must have a clear notice for what reason they comply with Commons:Licensing, letting the reader alone with a conglomeration of different reasons without saying what reason applies is not helpful. --Martin H. (talk) 20:27, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The reason why a file is PD has to be explained in the description (for example: author did in 1914, or official document from the US government) We do not need separate templates.--Antemister (talk) 08:40, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Often the template itself is the only thing in the permission field. I'd probably leave it to common sense. We should not require a separate template for every separate little reason -- we'd have 10-20 templates per country and that would be really unwieldy. But lumping together lots of disparate concepts in a single template is not always a good idea, particularly if it's hard to tell which of the situations apply (meaning it hinders determination of usage rights in other countries). I would very much argue against a single, generic "laws" template -- the details differ tremendously per country. If a country has significantly different terms for a particular class of work which is likely to be uploaded, that probably deserves its own template (say {{PD-Japan-oldphoto}}). If a country has works they exempt from copyright which many other countries do not, I could see a separate tag listing those. For countries which have an explicit term for government works, or the exemptions are largely for them, then I could see a tag covering that country's government works, detailing different terms of expiration or exemption as appropriate (say {{PD-UKGov}}). Breaking things out probably depends on how many works are going to be uploaded using them, and that kind of thing. I don't mind stuff like {{PD-Angola}} though -- it should be very easy to determine, just by the content of the upload itself, which section applies. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:40, 6 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Actually it is not very easy to determine whether something is exempt, expired or anonymous. Therefore there should be three different templates. Because in each case the first question to ask determining whether it's PD or not is very different. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 15:51, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

If there are cases where it would be legitimately ambiguous, those are ones where it would make some sense to split up. However, if the exemption stuff is laws, decrees, and that kind of basic thing, it's usually pretty easy to determine that by looking at the author and the content, though a separate -exempt tag could still be a good idea (particularly if we are getting a good number of uploads). But if you do split it up, either go through and fix all current usages of the template to use the new ones, or leave the original template with the same cases but add pointers to the specific templates with a request to use them. Substantially changing license tags used by others in good faith is a bad idea -- it can make previous uploads look unlicensed, when in fact the users did the proper thing at the time. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:05, 10 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Is this picture fine?

I was looking for a scan of the first issue of the Philadelphischer Zeitung (by Ben. Franklin 1732). Can I upload the picture from this website? V85 (talk) 22:20, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes, that's fine. See Commons:When to use the PD-scan tag.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:39, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Yes, you may copy and upload this image. It was printed in 1732, and is clearly in the public domain. (The Corbis website has the unfortunate habit of labeling everything as if they held the copyright to it, but the original newspaper and any simple mechanical reproductions of it such the .jpg seen here are public domain by law, so the notice on this web page does not apply to this particular image.) -- Infrogmation (talk) 22:40, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thank you all! V85 (talk) 10:51, 10 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

How to handle File:Bloop.ogg and File:Bloop real.ogg?

From en:Talk:Bloop#Bloop Sound File I came across File:Bloop.ogg and File:Bloop real.ogg. After some confusion, I think I now understand what happened. It seems Bloop.ogg was uploaded by User:Sceptre with an attempt made to slow down the sound from the original NOAA file to the original speed (and cut off some of the noise at the beginning and end) which was noted in the description. Later User:Series8217 changed the sound to the original speed but cut off most of the beginning and end before the noise and changed the description to mentioned it was sped up 16 times and noted here File talk:Bloop.ogg that the slowing down was done incorrectly. The file was later reverted to the original version by User:Adam Cuerden, but the description was not leading to the unfortunate situation where the text claims the file was speed up but it is the slowed down purportedly 'realtime' version. This is the version most of our language articles use to this day. Later after complains at en, User:Kothog uploaded a more faithful conversion (no slowing down or cutting the noise) of the original NOAA file under Bloop real.ogg using the description from Bloop.ogg and replace the file used in en. (zh also uses it, probably translation from our version after the change.) So what to do here? My suggest would be a merge but my reading of Commons:History merging and splitting is it may be best to seek consensus here. It seems we need to keep Bloop.ogg for the description history. Technically since the file is in the public domain, we could just upload bloop real.ogg replacing bloop.ogg and delete bloop real.ogg but that seems a little rude to Kothog (even pointlessly reencoding to ogg seems the same). I definitely don't think we should keep bloop.ogg as is, even if we fixed the description, there's still the possibility the slowing down is done incorrectly. And I'm not sure whether a slowed down version belongs at bloop.ogg anyway, are we even sure the recommendation by Series8217 is correct? (The NOAA doesn't seem to offer any guidance for how to slow down the sound.) Nil Einne (talk) 15:19, 10 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

September 11

new terms of use for WMF projects

Today our Legal counsel announced on foundation-mailing list that WMF's terms of use are going to be reworked. A draft for comment is available on meta. --Túrelio (talk) 13:13, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• San Francisco County, California ? Good move. NVO (talk) 04:28, 10 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  San Francisco is a county and a city. See consolidated city–county. – Adrignola talk 19:01, 10 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  I meant, "we" have to forget "State of Florida" as soon as possible. No more Florida. Never seen it. NVO (talk) 05:45, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Is there anything Commons specific/Media file specific that is new? --  Docu  at 08:07, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

September 10

Orientation of File:A Tramp Abroad 0127h.jpg

How should this image be presented? The obvious answer seems to be in landscape (horizontal format), but in some projects it seems to be in use vertically. --  Docu  at 08:11, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I see no logical reason to have it vertically. It seems obvious that the original was horizontal. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 08:18, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Maybe so was on original book, because editors would to place a bigger picture on it but I too don't see a logical reason...--Pierpao.lo (listening) 09:58, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It is used only in a WikiSource-text and there the orientation should be as in the original book. Therefore it seems suitable to keep it vertical. I doubt anyone will need that image for any other purpose, but if so it is preferable to upload a rotated version under another filename. Taxelson (talk) 10:24, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

In the current form (vertical orientation), it can't really be used elsewhere. --  Docu  at 10:33, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Taxelson : and how do you know that the original book used it vertically ? It's seems strange...

NB : the file has first been uploaded the horizontal way. And I see no other strange example among the other illustrations from this book. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 11:54, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

At s:Page:1880. A Tramp Abroad.djvu/127, there is a reproduction of the original book page.

It seems a bit odd though that s:A Tramp Abroad/XIII uses the same image vertically. (That page isn't paginated as in the original book, and I suppose the reader of the book page at s:Page:1880. A Tramp Abroad.djvu/127 was meant to turn the page.)

Thus even for WikiSource, the vertical orientation doesn't seem particularly helpful. --  Docu  at 12:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The reason why is vertical is that I wanted to keep the rendering of the book as much as possible close to the original, as noted above. Even if I cannot reproduce the book faithfully at 100%, the reader can still have at least the look-and-feel of the original. In other cases, I rotated the images, for example when they were on stand-alone pages. However, it is a bit difficult for me to understand why this discussion popped up. I think it should be up to the uploader to decide how to use an image. If the fear is that this image is not usable by anyone else, well, let's upload also a rotated version of it, so we satisfy both needs. As far as the use on wikisource, if readers will not like the way is is rendered, they will leave a note on the talk page to propose the change, I guess. Bye --Mpaa (talk) 12:32, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This image is useless vertical. You've donated the image to Commons so it's also allowed for the rest of us to desire the image to be an effective part of our collection. It's one thing to preserve the book as close to the original as possible at Wikisource including typos, but this is too much. Are you telling me that the author would have never expected the reader to rotate the book to view the image properly? How else would they have gotten a landscape-orientation picture to fit into a portrait-orientation book without shrinking to miniscule proportions? Do you really expect readers to physically rotate their monitors or twist their head sideways? – Adrignola talk 15:04, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This discussion is purely about principles and with no practical purposes. I can't see why you are so bothered by a single image which will be used only on WS at 99.999%. Do you want the image horizontal? Fine, duplicate or rotate it, it's your call. --Mpaa (talk) 16:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There is now also a rotaded version available. Which one is the best choice for the WikiSource context is to be discussed there if needed -- not here. Taxelson (talk) 16:16, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Celebrities and Personalities

As I know "Celebrities" (people) and "Personalities" (people) are sinonimous. Can I merge both category?--Pierpao.lo (listening) 09:42, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Category:Personalities was deleted in 2006 already.

Category:Celebrities could be merged into Category:People. --  Docu  at 09:43, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

1. We have category:unidentified personalities and 4 others [[:category:personalities... but I merge them all into people. That's fine?--Pierpao.lo (listening) 09:54, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'd go ahead and merge category:unidentified personalities as there is no Category:Personalities. --  Docu  at 11:00, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thumbnail not generating, but only at one size

An editor over at the English wiki noticed that File:Angelo Zomegnan 2009.jpg wasn't generating a thumbnail in article use, at size 220px. For some reason, it generates fine at 221 and 219px, so it's just this one size which is bugged. I tried the thumbnail re-generation trick as noted over at the FAQ but no dice. Anyone know why it wouldn't be working? Cheers. Buttons to Push Buttons (talk) 04:24, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Weird. My experiments also failed, confirming your observations. FWIW, the original width 487px is a prime number ;-) –Be..anyone (talk) 05:50, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks for taking a look; it seems to be fixed now. Not sure if it was your, someone else's or its own doing, but hey :) And ha, always nice to know! Buttons to Push Buttons (talk) 07:06, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

PublicResourceOrg

Hi. This YouTube channel published public domain videos. I'm not sure if they are available on Commons. emijrp (talk) 13:28, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

OTRS

Suppose an image was already available on a website under a free license and one were to upload it on Commons, would an OTRS ticket be issued in this case? Joyson Noel ^{Holla at me} 13:31, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There's no email to point to in that situation. And none needs to be pointed to. And please don't send one in for it. Add {{Licensereview}} to the file's description page. – Adrignola talk 13:35, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Votings are needed

An iceberg in Jokulsarlon

I nominated a 2 pictures for 2 different awards, one at valued pictures candidates and one at featured pictures candidates and I need people to criticize them, can you please help me out by checking these links? thanks--Someone35 (talk) 15:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

image of dead body @ Ganges river - Varanasi - India

Dead body (not cremated) in Manikarnika Ghat.

I just uploaded this image of a dead human body @ Ganges river - Varanasi - India. Is any problem with ethics concerning this image? This image can be used here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghats_in_Varanasi#Human_remains_in_the_Ganges with the information: It is known that holy men, pregnant women, people with leprosy/chicken pox, people who had been bitten by snakes, people who had committed suicide, the poor, and children under 5 are not cremated at the ghats but are floated free to decompose in the waters.. Ggia (talk) 16:51, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It is a fact and a good illustration for the subject. I can't see any problem. The person/body is not identifiable. That means: Legally anything is perfect and from the point of an author it is a valuable addition to our content. Good work. -- ／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 苦情処理係 18:40, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Non existing incorrectly named categories cleanup

Can someone please remove this Category:Engineers from the United Stateso? While it doesn't exist, it appears on the uploads category selection list. Thanks. Ineuw talk page on en.ws 19:05, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Reported as bugzilla:30880. Lupo 22:51, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

September 12

What exactly does "attribute ... in the manner specified by the author or licensor" mean?

I want to use a photo from Wikimedia Commons in a brochure. The license specifies "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor". How do I find out the particular specifictions of that author? Do I have to rummage through all his websites or send him an e-mail to be on the safe side? Thanks, Maikel (talk) 09:05, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

attach the description page's link in the end of the brochure should be okay. It means you need to attribute the author and/or the copyright holder and the license it uses if the license doesn't request share-alike.-Mys 721tx (talk) 12:46, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sorry, that is not o.k. in case of CC-BY licensed images. 1) A internet link is not a author name. 2) In case the brochure contains more than 1 image, there needs to be a clear assocation between image and credit. --Túrelio (talk) 13:12, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Ooops..... I mean the MediaWiki-format external link, like this: [http://example.com User:Example] -Mys 721tx (talk) 14:34, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Which image you want to use? Example of correct image credit in recent pdf brochure: File:Editor Survey Report - April 2011.pdf. --Túrelio (talk) 13:10, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This a-one, and thanks for the link:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Editor_Survey_Report_-_April_2011.pdf

The pain in the backside is the "specified by the user" bit. Specified WHERE? Maikel (talk) 13:35, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Whatever is listed in the author field on the description page or explicitly provided as the required attribution wording in a Creative Commons template (this will appear instead the template under the Licensing section if defined). It is not allowed to specify where exactly the attribution must be placed; only what the attribution itself should be. – Adrignola talk 13:39, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

In that particular case, the author field redirects to a flickr account.

As a user of that image, I have to worry that I overlooked some stipulation and am therefore, unvoluntarily, in breech of copyright. Thanks, Maikel (talk) 13:49, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

OK, here he is: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Drumzo

No special provisions, apparently. Maikel (talk) 13:52, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Look at the Commons description page/Flickr page etc. If the author doesn't specify anything, then just mentioning the author's name/pseudonym should suffice (along with the license, of course). -- Orionist ★ talk 20:18, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Template:Multiple image

Adoxa (Adoxa moschatellina)

I tried to copy paste the Template:Multiple image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Multiple_image but something doesn't work. What is wrong? Ggia (talk) 15:46, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Looking through the wikitext, I note that the template relies on the templates "Template:Max/27" and "Template:Multiple image/numImgs". Did you copy those over too? And you have to check if the two templates rely on other templates, and so on. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:01, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I just tried to add the other two templates from the en.wikipedia.. but the problem is the same.. I don't have experience with templates.. looking to the code of these two templates I don't see any reference/use of other templates. problem is now solved Ggia (talk) 16:23, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Great! — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:56, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Do not copy and paste. Next time ask for an import from an admin, unless you believe the effort put into the complex template doesn't warrant a history listing showing who worked on it. For all our emphasis on copyright here at Commons, that should be at the forefront of our minds. – Adrignola talk 00:22, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Ok.. next time I will ask for an import. Thanks for importing the history of the templates.. Ggia (talk) 06:28, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Upload wizard

Stopped adding categories about 20 minutes ago (example). When it gets fixed, one shoud restore the categories by bot.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:59, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

At 21:26 CEST a new UploadWizard was deployed which seems to contain some errors. See Special:WhatLinksHere/Uploaded_with_UploadWizard for affected files. I asked the people who are working on this to please have a look at it. Multichill (talk) 21:30, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Ok, it seems to be doable, thanks. I was afraid there were many more uploads affected.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:36, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Here is another section on this topic: Commons:Prototype_upload_wizard_feedback#adding_categories_does_not_work_any_more --Saibo (Δ)

Looking into this now, tracked as bugzilla:30879.--Eloquence (talk) 22:00, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Should be fixed now; please report if it isn't. These files are affected per Maarten's note above; we'll write a bot to clean-up ASAP, but please comment here if you have a chance to do so before us. Thanks and sorry this one slipped through.--Eloquence (talk) 22:04, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

All the cleanup should now be done. Not saying it'll be 100% perfect, but it shouldn't be too far off at least! :) Reedy (talk) 00:14, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sorry, due to the time difference I was only able to check it now. Thanks for fixing the thing.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:55, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This file is lacking source information

Why won't Commons accept the Source, Date, and Author descriptions in my last 3 uploads (regardless of the form I use)? I have always used the same syntax and I have never had a problem before. W. C. Minor (talk) 03:02, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Because you didn't close the template fr, so it wrecks the rest of the page. -- Asclepias (talk) 03:17, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

And why using {{Fr}} when descriprion is in English, and why putting a link to a non-existing wikipedia article ? [4] --Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 08:49, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

September 13

i'm new to this. some photo sorting questions

is there a way to sort for photos by the year it was taken? for example

i'd like photos of deer before 1923

• CatScan 2 may be useful, but not in this case, I'm afraid.
• With AutoWikiBrowser you can search through a dump of Commons with complex criteria (I didn't try your example).

--Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 17:12, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Gendergap discussions relevant to Commons

I want to point out the September thread listing: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2011-September/thread.html

There are many threads relevant to Commons there such as discussion of controversial content and identifiable people and others need to be aware of them to provide wider participation on the issues. – Adrignola talk 17:44, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

VisualFileChange.js

Resolveddone by Adrignola. Purge browser's cache, please. -- RE rillke questions? 21:24, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi ! The link click here on Commons:Deletion requests/Mass deletion request (which I am about to translate into French) have no effect for me. I made the test with IE9, FF6, Cr13. And it's the same with old link which was on the page before September 2nd. Any idea why ? --Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 16:52, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sorry for this. I encountered this today because Rd232 pointed this out. Please wait for the fulfilling of my editprotected-request. This error happened while renaming the script. Again - Sorry for the inconvenience. -- RE rillke questions? 17:41, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

#FULLURL? -- πϵρήλιο ℗ 17:48, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No, not "the issue maker". Tolles English, ich weiß ;-) -- RE rillke questions? 18:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No problem Rillke, it was just a question. FYI, {{Lang-DR/MDR}} has now a French version.--Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 18:40, 13 September 2011 (UTC) Do you know that MDR is French equivalent to LOL ? So mass deletion (COM:MDR) is a joke !Reply[reply]

Ouais, tu as raison... Parfois, on est vraiment mort de rire à cuase d'une quelconque histoire drôle sur Commons. Grand-Duc (talk) 22:21, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Category:People by name

Category:People by name has 113,684 categories! It is overcrowded. See Category_talk:People_by_name#Statistics This means that other types of subcategories are necessary! We have categories for horses by name and many other things by name. I saw Category:People_by_given_name was deleted as overcategorization. Discussion here. As long as there are people willing to help in categorizing, it should not prevented by force. We should have categories for People by name, People by given name, people by surname, People by gender, etc. Each will have hundreds of sub-cats but would be better than hundreds of thousands as is for current overcrowded situation of People by name. Suggested sub-cats for People by name. Level 1: Category:People by surname or Category:People by Family name Category:People by given name. This category is the most crowded category in Category people and most crowded category I remember seeing in commons. --Nevit Dilmen (talk) 10:16, 10 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Its a category to collect all people by their name. How can this be "overcrowded"? Its in category namespace, thats where aesthetic aspects are unimportant. The scope of categories on Commons is to organize media files, for example by shown subject. Most of the subcategories of people by name are subject images. This means: media files categorized + the scope of Commons is not to describe people = there is nothing to do with that category. --Martin H. (talk) 12:19, 10 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes, it's part of the exceptions where it's useful to keep all files in the same cat. It allows everyone to have the alphabetical list of (potentially) all the people with cats on Commons. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 12:29, 10 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I didn't see this category yet, what means that many people's categories (i've seen quite some tennis players and politicians) do not have this as a category. The only use I could see for this category, is not for manual browsing, but as a start for a bot or AWB. Edoderoo (talk) 12:35, 10 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This category is deliberately hidden because it's a meta category and is not useful for most manual browsing. It's an alphabetical list of categories; it should contain only categories. This is like complaining that Category:CC-BY-SA-2.5 has 265,000 members. – Adrignola talk 13:21, 10 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Lol. Well said. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 17:12, 10 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I can not agree with logic. While putting all people with all surnames is considered good practice, categorising people with surname Bush or name Goerge should not be prevented. There are 18 people with the surname Bush. Even more Butler's or Green's Categorising is hard work and people or bots put energy on it, but it helps navigation and finding easier. As long as there are volunteers to do the categorisation(s) admins should not prevent it. That would make the database more human readable. If there are still too many categories after sorting into names and surnames, subcats such as People_with_surname_B People_with_name_B should be created to make browsing easy for all visitors. People by name can be keps as is if it is necessary or needed. I can see NO analogy with licence categories. As long as we have the Category:People good categorisation is necessasry. While Category:Given names is kept almost empty, Category:Surnames has some sub-cats. Commons is media repository for wikipedia ans should help creating and organising pages like en:Barbara_(given_name) easier. Sorry. --Nevit Dilmen (talk) 17:49, 10 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

All the people categories should be categorized in a few ways. We add:

1. Category:People by name (used mainly for maintenance)
2. categories for dates of birth and death (this helps with disambiguation, among other uses)
3. some subcategory or subcategories of Category:People (other than Category:People by name)

All subcategories of Category:People by name should be people. We intentionally do not want category trees there. Nobody stops volunteers from categorization, but those categories should go into Category:People category not Category:People by name. As for categorizing people by given name, the community decided that its usefulness does not justify the maintenance effort. You can find much more reliable list of categories with the word "Barbara" by search, and be much more productive adding more useful categories. --Jarekt (talk) 04:31, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You needn't worry about the number of category members. As long as the structure is consistent, it will still be easy to use with CatScan and the like. --  Docu  at 08:24, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

We can divide in People by name (A), People by name (B), (o something similar) and so on, to help searching. Actually if you want to find someone trough the category o read the names of all people called Barry it's a bit :) difficult--Pierpao.lo (listening) 09:41, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

They are all at Special:Search/Barry incategory:"People by name". --  Docu  at 10:16, 11 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I suppose they should be but somehow they are not for at least for me: just two results. Barry Morse, Barry Goldwater and many many others are missing --Zolo (talk) 20:39, 14 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You should get at least 76 categories.

The whole thing is mainly important for the discussion at Women named Barbara, not Category:People by name as such.

2 is the number of results in "obsolete" namespace. Maybe you excluded category namespace from results on Special:Preferences#preftab-6.

Special:Search/Category: Barry incategory:"People by name" might work too. --  Docu  at 20:47, 14 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Oh yes I see. I had no namespace selected at all, which apparently defaulted to results in the "main" namespace - though there is also a "main" main option. I don't remember ever having chosen that. Is that the default behavior ? If so I don't think it is very convenient on Commons.--Zolo (talk) 21:03, 14 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Categorising pronunciation media

I'm a bit unsure as to how best categorise pronounciation media, such as File:En-uk-London.ogg. This file clearly belongs in Category:English pronunciation of names of cities, as do similar files, this isn't a problem. However, it also clearly relates to London, and so should be contained Category:London. But.. this file relates to the word London, not the city in England specifically. Therefore it is also belongs in categories for all the other Londons.

The question is should these files be contained in the categories of all relevant homonyms?--Nilfanion (talk) 23:56, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I think the homonyms are a minor issue. All other Londons are named after the one in England. - Jmabel ! talk 01:30, 14 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• IMHO these should be in a sub cat Category:Pronunciation of London, other pronunciations can be added to the other the london location categories as appropriate. Gnangarra 01:40, 14 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• This is why I'm unsure. File:En-uk-London.ogg is a correct pronounciation of Category:London, Ontario, and therefore should be accessible from that category. (An en-ca version might be preferred there, but the en-gb file isn't completely incorrect.) That means the pronounciation file ought be in the category tree of all relevant homonyms, not just the category for the original term.
• As to whether this should be handled directly or via Category:Pronounciation of London: London, England is Londres in French, but the French for London, Ontario is London. So a French pronounciation could only belongs in the category for one of the two cities. That means Category:Pronounciation of London needs to specifically relate to London, England.
• What I'm uneasy about is having files included in a number of similar categories - all the homonyms - but ultimately I think that is what should be done (directly or indirectly via subcats).--Nilfanion (talk) 10:56, 14 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This is the difference between Wiktionary (word oriented) and Wikipedia (concept oriented). As it is probably difficult to have both on Commons, I would categorize the files in all categories for the homonyms, eg :

• pronunciation for london in english in Category:London and Category:London, Ontario
• pronunciation for london in french in Category:London, Ontario
• pronunciation for londres in french in Category:London
• ...

--Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 13:38, 14 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Above, on suggested category names: it's "pronunciation", not "pronounciation". - Jmabel ! talk 00:51, 15 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

And as categories on Commons are "concept-oriented", if you would like to have sub-categories for prononciations, they should be named sthing like Category:Pronunciation of the name of London in each language (sub-cat of Category:London), etc., imho. Or, create the word-oriented categorization by creating Category:London (word), which would be sub-cat of every things using the word London (towns, persons such as Jack London, etc.) --Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 12:07, 15 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

September 15

Images depicting nude people and sex acts on Commons

Hello people of Commons. I'm writing this message (it's going to be a long one) because I want to bitch about Commons' attitude to photos of nude people and people having sex. Not that I'm a member of some right wing conservative party that will consider a picture of a penis in an article for Penis a great offence and moral breach, it's rather I continuously fail to understand Commons policy regarding such pictures.

As a long-term wiki editor I feel my own part of responsibility for it. And what I certainly don't want is seeing the project being clogged with tons of nude photos having the one and only merit of free license and 0.00000001% of possibility of being actually used in any project with remotely educational means. I actually do not hope for things to change but feel necessary to extensively comment on the situation. Any thoughts, suggestions, corrections and explanations why Commons can't get rid of amateur porn are greatly appreciated. Ari Linn (talk) 05:23, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

+1, fully  Support this question. Commons does not need thousands of pics of human genitalia unless they provide an educational value, illustrate a notable article in a WMF project, or belong to a more specific category. Unfortunately, most people here tend to argue that a deletion of a sexual content automatically has sth. to do with censorship. That's absolute nonsense. Sexual content pics can be within or out of project scope, as well as all other motives. Perhaps admins should bring up a little more boldness for speedily deleting at least files which have obviously nothing to do with wikipedia purposes, eventually also blocking accounts which repeatedly upload such files. - A.Savin 06:01, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This is a recurring topic. We don't have tons of nude pictures, we actually don't have pictures for a lot of topics. Say we have 10.000 nude images (I doubt we even reach that). That's less than 0,1 % of all images. I wouldn't call that tons. And what's wrong with nude pictures anyway?

Being "bold" on a very sensitive topic like this will tend to stir up a lot of shit. A narrow explanation of the project scope because you don't like something is not supported here at Commons. Admins who try to enforce the narrow scope view tend to not be an admin very fast. Multichill (talk) 07:23, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You're essentially saying tens of redundant (say) penis pictures should be kept because we don't have any picture featuring (say) gay anal sex. I don't see how it's logical. As for what is wrong with nude images - photos that can't be used for education are believed by people who did the controversial stuff study to be "potentially dangerous for the Foundation and Community because they reduce the overall credibility of the projects as responsible educational endeavors, and thus call into question the legitimacy of the many images of sexual content and “controversial” sexual content that must remain on Commons for the projects to fulfill their mission. And, although not our primary motivation in making this recommendation, it must be noted that they are offensive to many people, men and women alike, and represent with their inclusion a very clear bias, and point of view – that of woman as sexual object. They are far from neutral." Ari Linn (talk) 08:24, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You are too late. The topic of sexually explicit images has already been discussed to death and the outcome was that Commons is not censored (and even if you claim it's not censorship, it's still selective removal of information. I guess your statement "[..] "Pornography". And you know what? I think the less pictures Commons has for this article the better." is quite revealing). For anybody who doesn't want to see these pictures the image filter extension was brought up. The image filter referendum is current. Partake in it. --Slomox (talk) 08:03, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I took part in it voting completely against it. A picture storage claiming any educational purposes should get rid of non-educational images itself and not rely on users to scrupulously set their image filters. If it were not for these educational claims no discussions would have ever risen. If Commons is a heap of random pictures it's okay to have no censorship and scopes broader than broad. But official guidelines claim it is not. That's why the discussion is brought up again and again: guidelines contradict practise. To ensure no discussion rises again either change guidelines or practice. Ari Linn (talk) 08:24, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Multichill: What's wrong with nude pictures anyway is an inappropriate question. Please read carefully. Did I ever mean that I am against explicit content in general? No way, and moreover, I was one of the subscribers of the petition to Jimbo after he had deleted lots of useful (sic!) pictures of genitalia, notable porn actors and similar. My claim is simply the following: What is out of scope, should be deleted. Regardless of what's depicted there. For instance, if someone confuses Commons with a private webhost service and uploads his own holiday snapshots or similar, it's indisputable that such ones have no EV and therefore are to be deleted speedily. Well, if some sexually frustrated idiots mean to get big satisfaction in uploading selftimer-pics of their penises, should we encourage more and more of such idiots by keeping that fully useless (and mostly also poor-quality) pics? - A.Savin 09:03, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Anyway, we'd probably have a lot more low-quality pictures made by drunken guys snapshotting their own penises with a cell-phone camera if not for Template:Nopenis. However, giving administrators authority to delete such images out of process was a major factor in sinking the proposed sexual content policy... But I really don't think that Commons is being overwhelmed with pornographic pictures -- we have a lot more bikini babes, mythological paintings showing frolicking nymphs etc., and quasi-pin-up pics of various types, than we do out-and-out pronography... AnonMoos (talk) 10:05, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I take my normal stance on this - if the image is of bad quality, by all means nominate it for deletion. If however it is of good quality, let's keep it. This should apply to all images. Now to give an example, I'd assume you'd put images of urination in your category of things which are bad for us to host? Well, there are around 7 billion humans alive today, who, on average, urinate 8 times per day. That's 56 billion instances per day. We have I think maybe 10 photos of the subject last time I checked. I accept that some images we host are just crap, but we really cannot know what people might want from us, and it would be foolish to delete something just because you wouldn't put it in an wikipedia article on the subject. Wikipedia has a certain tone it tries to use - authoritative, neutral, sentorian. But not everyone wants that. Maybe they want the picture of the pornstar pretending to fellate a fan, because that's a funny picture, and it fits better with the work they're doing which may well be a magazine biographic article on said pornstar. Similarly the fishnet picture, granted Wikipedia may not want it for an article on fishnets, but one could certainly make an argument for its use in a less stuck-up setting - for instance a sex guide. Wikipedia is not the definition of educational, it is merely a subsection. -mattbuck (Talk) 12:31, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

"A less stuck up setting" can thus be broadened to any possible width and as such loses any sense at all. At least to my mind. As easily as one might want to make a magazine article with a porn actress imitating fellatio on a fan (btw I looked closer — it's not a fan but a fellow porn actor), one might want to write, say, an article about East European prostitutes for a USA edition like Hustler or Penthouse. You know, merely to educate people out there about East European prostitutes, because poor fellas are completely ignorant about them. Certainly this article will require a great number of illustrations, because what's the other way for an average guy to learn how they look like and what exactly they are capable in bed of? Or one might want to create a complete guide for porn film directors on how to create great porn films. And simple text just isn't enough to express the guide creator's new ideas about shooting process and sex scenes, he is in dire need of free and diverse images. And what about anime explorers wanting to write just another book about yaoi and bara? Shall we leave them without proper pictures and their readers without graphical information? All these hypothetical publications would require clearly pornographic materials to be uploaded to Commons on a hypothesis they might be used for education by some third/fourth/fifth party. I personally do not think that Commons was created for storing porn while theoretizing that one day someone might use it in a guide. And neither I nor (as it seems) people who were doing the study I mentioned above — I think they were not some random individuals who decided to make it out of the blue and it gives off some official scent — think Commons should broaden its scope to fit not only Wikimedia Foundation projects but also porn star biographies and sex guides (if you ask me, a typical sex guide will rather have drawings like this and only quite expensive editions will afford something like Grand-Duc suggested below, i.e. hiring porn actors and making high-quality pictures of living people). Ari Linn (talk) 14:06, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm sorry, but your argument does seem to just boil down to "I don't like it". How is a sex guide not educational? It's educating by providing guidance! I grant you, some people may prefer to have drawings rather than photos, but it is not our place to editorialise. If a drawing of an act is educational, I fail to see how a photo of that act is any less educational. -mattbuck (Talk) 16:24, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I never said I don't like sex guides or pictures that can be used in them. But are you saying you would rather use this and not this or this in a sex guide to show how genitalia of a typical female look like? I don't believe it. Or if Playboy suddenly releases all its photos into public domain, people here at Commons will be overjoyed and instantly upload them all thinking "What great illustrations of female anatomy we have now thanks to Mr. Hefner?" Don't believe either. And I actually fail to see how people fail to see there's a good number of nude photos at Commons that were not created to educate. I don't see how this, this or this is educational. Yes, I'm a narrow-minded idiot. But I don't. Ari Linn (talk) 20:12, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

If you don't think those three files are educational, then nominate them for deletion, don't complain here.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:19, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Once again someone conflates penis pictures with porn. We do cull penis pictures, on a regular basis. They're common in DRs, and new ones frequently get speedily deleted. Category:Emil Eikner has 62 pictures of someone who has no article in any Wikipedia (and yes, one of them pass a DR Commons:Deletion requests/File:Eiffel Tower 4 20101026.JPG.) So ten times that many for something that half of humanity has, and most of them hide? I don't see why not.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:22, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

All of humanity urinates 2-3 times a day. But suddenly we have only about 80 photos in Category:Human urination counting both males and females. How it is so that Commons CAN have 80 pics of urination and seemingly satisfy illustrational and educational needs but when it comes to penises and nude females Commons suddenly needs hundreds and thousands of them? Ari Linn (talk) 20:12, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

What does that do with porn? You conflate nudity that we supposedly have too much of, with sexual images that we have almost no good images of, in the same argument; it hurts your case badly. And as always, it's not that we have too many useless pictures, as I tossed a category of 62 useless pictures, and you ignored it.* It's that they're nude.

* Note that this is consistent; whenever this is brought up, the number of redundant pictures of climbing, or the Statue of Liberty, or many other things is brought up. None of the editors pushing for deletion on the grounds of redundancy suddenly run out and start nominating those pictures for deletion.

And you know what? You're asking someone else to do the dirty work. You're a volunteer here like everyone else; instead of whining about us having too many penis pictures, do something about it. Penis pictures frequently fail DR; if you made up a page with a bunch of penis pictures, clearly showing what other picture obsoletes them, and then nominated them in a mass deletion, I bet we could delete at least 50 pictures in one DR.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:19, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

the number of redundant pictures of climbing, or the Statue of Liberty, or many other things is brought up

Since when loads of climbing and Statue of Liberty photos are in danger of being thought of as mere porn? And if every possible picture of a nude female or a sexual act is SOOOO educational, why don't we ask Playboy to release its photo databases to public domain?

instead of whining about us having too many penis pictures, do something about it.

What for? File:Anus before sex.JPG was nominated twice and kept. File:Lots of stares.jpg was nominated and kept. I have absolutely no desire to tilt at windmills and I value my own time too much and waste it on searching for non-educational human sexuality pictures that will be almost invariably kept under the pretence that "someone one day may want to write a guide on humans for Tau Ceti inhabitants so we need to keep every possible picture human sexuality" even if the only thing it can educate about is fetishism, vulgarity and a view typical for the start of 2000s that only skinny tanned blonde females are desired sexual partners. Ari Linn (talk) 13:53, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

"Since when loads of climbing and Statue of Liberty photos are in danger of being thought of as mere porn?" Exactly; your crusade is not about removing unusable low-quality worthless pictures, it's about getting rid of what can be thought of as porn. Commons is not censored. You have absolutely no desire to try something productive, but you'll waste time having this discussion here. That's a good policy. And once again; PENIS PICTURES ARE NOT PORNOGRAPHY. WE DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH HUMAN SEXUALITY PICTURES; WE HAVE TOO MANY PENIS PICTURES. It's exactly this conflation that makes me repeat Commons is not censored, because the two cases are quite dissimilar in their problems.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:17, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I don't know what's gotten into you but I've never once said that penis equals pornography and you're arguing not with me but rather with your image of me. What I'm trying to say is 1) 600 photos of predominantly white penises of average and slightly-more-than-average size is kinda a great number for a supposedly educational project and can easily skew the balance from "educational" to "pornographic" and "biased"; and 2) I believe meaningless nude photos should not be kept. While a nude bike rider and a girl wearing bodypaint reproduction of Van Gogh are okay, a random girl that forgot to pull her panties up and some weird Facebook fan are not. Ari Linn (talk) 22:21, 6 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I discuss how to reduce the number of penis pictures; you respond by complaining about File:Anus before sex.JPG not getting deleted, which, notably, has no penis. You say that "I've never once said that penis equals pornography" and then say "600 photos of predominantly white penises ... can easily skew the balance from 'educational' to 'pornographic'". I'm arguing with what you're writing.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:58, 6 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

So you don't see the difference between "a photo of a penis in an educational project is not porn" and "loads of redundant white middle-sized penis photos in an educational project may tip the balance and be viewed as porn"? Well, it's not like your non-understanding is my problem after all, but these two are different things. Ari Linn (talk) 17:25, 9 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I totally agree with Multichill that Commons lacks a collection of high quality sexuality related photographs, that's why I had a idea for a photography project some weeks ago. Given that I earn sufficient money in some years, I actually sought about hiring 3 or 4 porn actors, renting a studio and making some high quality and educational depictions of acts of sexual intercourse. High quality studio stills may provide good arguments for the deletion of pictures made in the state of drunkenness by cell phone. BTW, that could even be a project for a local Wikimedia association (like the German one), as there is already support for encyclopaedic work like a literature bursary, so why not for providing this kind of images? Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 12:57, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I also had that idea a while ago. I even sent my idea to the board. As Kaldari is saying below, it probably wouldn't be good for the foundation to do it though. The idea went towards finding a health institution to work with (e.g. some university hospital) but has stalled long ago. But I also think that it would be fantastic if we had high quality images of lots of different positions, etc etc where we know for sure, that we won't have any privacy issues. We could also steer the direction/mood of the images for example keeping some/all more educational so they can be placed in the wikis (but still showing all the details). So, lets do some fundraising for this. I am sure we'll have lots of supporters ;) If we don't need to hire a photographer, then it won't be all that expensive anyhow. seriously, why not? Amada44  ^{talk to me} 15:57, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I can see the headlines now: "Wikimedia Foundation Finances the Production of Pornography". I'm sure the idea above would go over well with the donors. Though I hear that a member of the board has experience in this area. – Adrignola talk 15:50, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

If you do go through with such a project, it would be appreciated if at least one of the actors was not white. Better yet, how about none of them. You would think, judging by our articles and images, that only white people are ever nude or have sex (and that women are nude about 10 times more often than men). It would also be nice if they don't have their entire bodies waxed, as most people who have sex actually do have body hair, strangely enough. Kaldari (talk) 20:55, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There's a practical issue with that: darker skin tones are very hard to light properly. Asian or other medium-brown skin tones will probably work, but sub-Saharan black is out. --Carnildo (talk) 21:35, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I don't agree with all of the "bad" examples called out in the initial post, but some of them really are pretty useless to us. File:Lots of stares.jpg, for instance, includes a very badly obscured face and a badly obscured something-else in the upper-left corner, has waterspots on the lens, and includes a timestamp... all of which might be tolerable if the image had other redeeming qualities, but it really doesn't. It doesn't illustrate anything in particular, and individual things it might be able to illustrate (like the woman's genitals) are too low-resolution to be useful. Powers (talk) 20:55, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

If what we're really interested in here is harm to the project, what we should be concentrating on is making sure that sexual images are only presented in appropriate contexts. We could have 5 million penis pictures, but if we keep them restricted to penis-related categories and off the main page, I don't see too much harm in them (other than a waste of time, space, and bandwidth). I think it would be useful to add a "Principle of least astonishment" section into our Nudity guidelines which gives some guidance on how to categorize such images and how to use them in appropriate contexts on the project. Kaldari (talk) 21:11, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Actually, any one individual penis pic by itself isn't much of a problem, but one thing that people worry about is that if there were 5 million of them, then they would tip the balance of this site into becoming a rather different kind of site... AnonMoos (talk) 23:15, 2 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

And if what we're really interested in here is harming the project, we can spend all of our time in divisive debates about removing legal if sometimes unsavory images instead of working on adding useful images and making them easy to find. - Jmabel ! talk 15:40, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Mere legality has never been the only criterion determining whether an image will be kept on Commons or not... AnonMoos (talk) 15:46, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The basic problem seems to be that a group wants to keep "anything, it could become useful". Somebody pointed to the file File:Lots of stares.jpg, and I can only agree that it is not very educational, not of good quality, and the image text suggests it was uploaded as a private photo album. Several reasons for deletion, according to the guidelines. However, it should not be removed only beacuse it is nude. And there are for sure many other photos that are not nude, but of similar low interest. If somebody has the energy to go through and suggest for deletion similar pictures, fine for me. That would conform to the guidelines. --Janwikifoto (talk) 19:48, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Lots of stares.jpg was nominated for deletion and kept a month and a half ago. Because there was "No valid reason for deletion". If THIS was kept as (possibly) educational, I don't know anymore. As for me I really don't want to contribute to a project that is something like an 4chan/b/ in its indiscriminative nature. Ari Linn (talk) 20:36, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You make that claim; I don't believe it. You haven't pushed for the deletion of indiscriminate vacation pictures. It's not the indiscriminate nature, it's the nudity.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:19, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sorry, I don't understand. What "vacation images" are you talking about and why in the world should I push for their deletion? Ari Linn (talk) 13:53, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

All the low quality pictures of the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower that were usually have family members in the picture. And you would push for their deletion because we have way too many of them and they have no educational value. So it's not about having too many pictures that are worthless; it's not about their indiscriminateness; it's about the content of the pictures.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:17, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• With regard to whether we have too many redundant images related to human sexuality -- a month or so ago, in response to yet another individual who claimed "I am not a censor -- but", I counted up how many images we had under Category:Flowers. If I counted correctly we had over 30,000 images related to the sexual reproduction of vegetables. It struck me as bizarre then, and strikes me as bizarre now, that we have more images related to the sexuality of vegetables, than we have of images related to human sexuality. I suggest that human sexuality is many orders of magnitude more important than vegetable sexuality. Geo Swan (talk) 23:46, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The amount of pictures in Category:Flowers is somewhat irrelevant here, and its not absurd that there are more of flowers than of humans. The relative importance of the two topics is subjective, but think about what is actually needed from the educational viewpoint. There are in excess of 250,000 species of flowering plants - and there is significant educational value in having one picture of every species flower. That's already 250,000 - and that 250,000 images contain no redundancy - in its specific educational context not one of those images can be replaced by any of the others. If you want greater selectivity to include the distinction between male or female, interaction with animals, stages of the flowers development, diseases, and provide redundancy to allow editorial choice...

With regards to human sexuality - there is similar value in an image of every conceivable sexual act, in images of the body parts. Allowing for a representative sample of various sizes, ages, races you aren't going to get tens of thousands of images. I suppose you could say "theres value in having a picture of every male porn stars penis / female porn stars vagina" but that is really pushing it to extremes.

In short - the "overall" importance of two topics doesn't relate to how many educationally useful pictures are needed as a minimum.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:07, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Recurrent and annoying debate. Let's think objectively, please. Nobody complains about the fact we have too many pictures about New York. And strangely some people complain when there's the same (apparent) phenomenon concerning nudity or sexuality. However nudity and New York are two (different) subjects of knowledge and deserve encyclopedical treatment. Therefore there's no reason to reduce the choice of pictures that Commons offer to its users/visitors. It's part of Commons' purposes to give a variety of choice on different subjects (and if possible a wider choice than the files used on Wikipedia). Since Commons is not censored, there's no reason to treat nudity differently in terms of numbers of files. Of course there are other topics to discuss : copyvio, models' agreements, etc, but as far as the number of files is concerned there's no reason to say "let's keep that one and delete those ones" while we don't reason like that for other subjects.So we keep the nude files if no special and valid problems or arguments are reported. QED. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 14:28, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There's no maximum quota or numerical upper limit as such to images with nudity. However, if we notice that low-quality cell-phone photos of penises which guys snap when they're drunk are redundantly accumulating, and providing very little usefulness or value, then there's also no reason why we can't prune them back... AnonMoos (talk)

I agree but in that case we should only discuss about quality, not about the fact that it's a penis or whatever ! And strangely, when we have bad quality pics of penises, some people do notice that it's also nudity etc. Which is stupid because it's not the question ! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 06:19, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Since the Commons allows bloody, dismembered corpses, why sexually explicit images should be wrong? These appear less offensive to a mentally healthy adult, but I do not recall that purging hideous images of death out of Commons was ever proposed. But I think that some images of a shaved vulva in fishnet stockings, or a male penis, are merely vanity images and should be deleted (I will not point to specific images because I am not an expert). Incnis Mrsi (talk) 15:05, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Your opinion seems contradictory to me... Why couldn't exhibitionism or stockings fetichism be illustrated on Commons ?

The second photograph is indeed very shocking... I felt nauseous and couldn't bear more than 1 second of viewing ! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 15:17, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I did not say that should not illustrate some phenomena. I said, some images are little more than vanity, if lacks quality or duplicate already illustrated scenes many times. I think that quick removal of vanity images may deter this motivation, and it does not matter is such an image someone's dick, or simply a photograph's girlfriend, totally dressed, in the front of the Red Square. It would not be a topical censorship. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 16:52, 4 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

If you say so... --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 06:19, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The photos of the My Lai massacre are not some random collection of mutilated corpses. They are identified as relating to a specific incident which has an article on various wikipedias. We do need pictures to illustrate a variety of topics related to anatomy, sexuality and even sexual fetishes. These need clear attribution and model releases. We do not need a bunch of amateur porn pictures that are badly framed or low resolution or designed to titillate rather than educate or which relate to topics which are covered better by other pictures. The same arguments (except titillation) do apply to tourist pictures of famous monuments. Delete those which don't add anything to the project because we have other better pics.--Filceolaire (talk) 22:50, 10 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've often heard the argument that "we don't need titillating or pornographic images when we have good objective images for the purpose of anatomical articles." Of course this neglects that many of the topics covered by our projects are in fact about pornography and titillation, and such images are needed to cover those specific topics. For example, an article on "hardcore pornography" would be poorly illustrated indeed by a sterile diagram of intercourse. I don't question that purely redundant low-quality images should be deleted, but keep in mind that Commons needs pornography, and currently has very little of any decent quality. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:26, 15 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Third Geneva Convention article 13

User:Docu made an interesting point on Commons talk:Photographs of identifiable people#POW regarding the Third Geneva Convention and certain photos on Commons. In particular it's Third Geneva Convention article 13 which protects prisoners of war against "public curiosity". The interpretation of this article that it is "illegal to publish some photographs of prisoners of war" is not unknown (ie. see remarks from Donald Rumsfeld on CNN or ICRC), albeit relatively new as far as I know and especially photos from historic armed conflicts seems to be showed without much hesitation (i.e. NYT photo-series: Mysteries of a nazi photo album or the BBC photo gallery: Prisoners of war).
Commons already hosts a number of POW-pictures taken after 21 October 1950 (when the Third Geneva Convention came into effect), such as (but not limited to - more can be found in Category:Prisoners of war) Chinese and North Korean POWs at camp in Pusan HD-SN-99-03155.JPEG (April 1951), ARVN POWs repatriated 1973.jpg (March 1973) and Argentine prisoners of war - Port Stanley.JPG (June 1982) which, as far as I can tell, by Donald Rumsfeld's and ICRC's accounts are illegal to distribute and publish under Third Geneva Convention article 13.
It's also worth mentioning - but not directly relevant here - that article similar article provides protection for 'protected persons' in the Fourth Geneva Convention article 27.
Finally: I'm not really sure if this belongs here or on Commons:Village pump/Copyright. If somebody thinks that the latter is a more suitable place, please chime in :) --Henrik (heb: Talk · Contributions · E-mail) 13:36, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Article 13 is about obligations of the detaining authorities about the treatment of the prisoners during the time of detention. Although some argument can be made about the above extrapolation to some use of some photos during the time of detention (that is only what the ICRC declaration was about), it seems difficult to claim that it could be applied as a way to restrict publication by third parties of images of past conflicts. -- Asclepias (talk) 14:16, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Last time I checked, the Wikimedia Foundation and private individuals were not signatories to the Geneva Convention. The UK Mission to the United Nations in Geneva states "any image of prisoners of War (POWs) as identifiable individuals should normally be regarded as subjecting such individuals to public curiosity and should not be transmitted, published or broadcast". On the other hand, the American Journalism Review states "the convention can be violated only by the nations that have signed it, not by media organizations". Who do you believe would be summoned to the International Criminal Court? BrokenSphere, who uploaded the photo File:Chinese and North Korean POWs at camp in Pusan HD-SN-99-03155.JPEG, the government employee that actually took the picture, or Larry Gahn with the US State Department that provided it? (Answer: none, since the US has "unsigned" the Rome Statue and the ICC prosecutes crimes after 2002). My personal view is that this can be seen in the same way as museums prohibiting photography and people still uploading images of works successfully to Commons.– Adrignola talk 14:18, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Adrignola, that seems IMO to be a rather legalist interpretation, which our policy expressedly rejects when it is about copyright. I think what's behind this point of the Geneva Convention is respecting human dignity. Of course, how that translates into accepting or not accepting images of POWs on Commons should be discussed within the community. --Túrelio (talk) 14:37, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I agree with Asclepias. Article 13 is about the obligations of the authorities detaining the POWs, at the time of their detention. While some wartime uses of photos of POWs might serve nothing more than "insults and public curiosity" (in the words of Article 13), there are also many valid educational uses of such photos, both during the conflict and afterwards. A strong argument can be made that in some situations (e.g. the Abu Ghraib scandal), showing the photos furthers human dignity more than censoring them would. --Avenue (talk) 15:16, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Adrignola, to be honest I don't know in other countries national regulations on this matter - and that is why I made the original posting -, but in Denmark the Geneva conventions has been incorporated into national regulations in such matter, that they not only apply to the Danish Government and those serving on their behalf, but to everybody (including media) in Denmark. However it is worth noting, that only the depicted person can formally make a legal case against media and other persons who broadcasted and publicized the photo (at least according to The Danish of Media and Journalism). So to answer your question from a Danish point of view, had it been a Danish soldier taking the photo, a Dane (in Denmark) uploading it and had Larry Gahn been from the Danish State Department: All of the above (in a Danish court for violating the Danish incorporation). But this is - as we often see - not often as simple as that because of various national regulations. --Henrik (heb: Talk · Contributions · E-mail) 07:59, 10 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• For what it is worth it was the Bush administration's original position that none of the captives it took in reaction to Al Qaeda's attacks on 2001-09-11 should be classed as prisoners of war as described by the "quaint" Geneva Conventions. This is why they argued they could waterboard those captives -- subject them to sleep deprivation, extremes of heat or cold, of plucking their eyes from the eye sockets, as they did with Abu Zubaydah. Human rights workers pointed out that even if, for the sake of argument, the captives weren't protected by the third Geneva Convention, they would be "protected persons" as defined in the fourth Geneva Convention. I hope, for the sake of the USA's reputation as a nation that respect(ed) the rule of law, and basic human rights, that the Supreme Court rules on this. Geo Swan (talk) 14:15, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • In January 2006 US District Court Jed Rakoff rule on a case where the Department of Defense had to explain why they had kept the identity of the Guantanamo captives a secret. They didn't argue the secrecy was on national security grounds. They argued that it was necessary to protect the captives' privacy. Rakoff blew away these arguments, arguing that publishing information about these formerly secret captives was in their interest. I heartily agree. I am afraid if Rakoff hadn't made this ruling Guantanamo would continue to hold many more captives as it was only the publication of the previously secret information that made the subsequent habeas appeals possible. Geo Swan (talk) 14:22, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

In general (Denmark appears to be a limited exception) this is a moral issue, not a legal one. So the question is whether, for any given image, the "public curiosity" privacy issue the Convention is concerned with is adequately balanced against the educational value of the image, which Commons is concerned with. It's something that's worth considering case-by-case, but I wouldn't expect it to make a great deal of difference in the community's assessment of whether a specific image is educational enough to keep on Commons. Rd232 (talk) 23:40, 15 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

According to some, it seems that this may not apply to the United States. The audience of Commons isn't specifically an US one though and thus we need to make sure that the uploads are not illegal elsewhere. Images of war criminals mentioned by Avenue are probably not relevant to this discussion.

I think we should clarify COM:PEOPLE in the way suggested by Heb. --  Docu  at 04:28, 16 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I don't mind adding some wording to COM:PEOPLE to mention the issue, but I'm not clear what exactly Heb is suggesting in terms of wording. PS I'm not sure why you mention the US; the Convention only applies to states, end of story. The only complication is where states specifically apply the Convention in their own national law (and make it apply to non-state actors), and so far only Denmark has been mentioned as doing that. Rd232 (talk) 09:43, 16 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Crazy JavaScript causing an endless reload loop

When I follow a link from the German Wikipedia to e.g. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Breitendorf?uselang=de a JavaScript is going crazy and something is reloaded in the background every second. This happened in Opera 11.51 while I'm not logged in. Unfortunately I happens occasionally and I can not reproduce it. I think it was caused by the language selector on the left side. It was missing when the script was stuck in the reload loop and could barely seen flickering in the main menu on the left where it should appear. --TMg 16:51, 5 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

My attempt to reproduce this issue today failed (Chrome stable, logged in; IE9-64, not logged in; FF 6.02, not logged in, "noscript" temporarily disabled). –Be..anyone (talk) 06:22, 12 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

These exact same symptoms occurred to me with Opera 11.51 (Vista Home Premium) when I opened a Category page with the ?uselang=fr selector. The browser tab endlessly reloaded, but no other wikimedia tab was affected, neither was the same URL opened manually in another tab. I tested the same Category page with other language uselang options and could not reproduce this one-off problem. However, I notice that today the Edit box choices no longer work for me so I can no longer use the four tilde sign string - this non-English keyboard does not have the tilde so I have to paste from below now. Opera's Javascript error console also shows hundreds of CSS errors. Something has evidently changed. -84user (talk) 03:49, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Confirm: Does occur if I open the Commons link http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Breitendorf?uselang=de from http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitendorf#Weblinks . Can be stopped with ESC keypress. But does not occur if I open the mentioned Commons link manually in a tab.

Opera 11, Linux, not logged-in. I highly suspect it is the MediaWiki:AnonymousI18N.js script. Did not try in Firefox (do not want to log-off). Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 04:06, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Continue discussion here: MediaWiki talk:AnonymousI18N.js#This script causes an endless reload loop. --TMg 11:42, 16 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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