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COMMONS DISCUSSION PAGES (index) Commons Help desk Village pump (general discussion) Copyright Proposals Technical Graphics and photography discussion Photography critiques Image improvement Illustration workshop Map workshop Photography workshop Video and sound workshop Categories for discussion Undeletion requests Deletion requests Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard Translators' noticeboard Work requests for bots Contact administrators Vandalism User problems (Dispute resolution) Blocks and protections Bureaucrats' noticeboard CheckUser requests Oversight requests Telegram IRC webchat Commons mailing list (archive) Commons' bugs on Phabricator Welcome to the Village pump This page is used for discussions of the operations, technical issues, and policies of Wikimedia Commons. Recent sections with no replies for 7 days and sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=--~~~~}} may be archived; for old discussions, see the archives; the latest archive is Commons:Village pump/Archive/2024/01. Please note: If you want to ask why unfree/non-commercial material is not allowed at Wikimedia Commons or if you want to suggest that allowing it would be a good thing, please do not comment here. It is probably pointless. One of Wikimedia Commons’ core principles is: "Only free content is allowed." This is a basic rule of the place, as inherent as the NPOV requirement on all Wikipedias. Have you read our FAQ? For changing the name of a file, see Commons:File renaming. Any answers you receive here are not legal advice and the responder cannot be held liable for them. If you have legal questions, we can try to help but our answers cannot replace those of a qualified professional (i.e. a lawyer). Your question will be answered here; please check back regularly. Please do not leave your email address or other contact information, as this page is widely visible across the internet and you are liable to receive spam. Purposes which do not meet the scope of this page: Please do not make deletion requests here: use the relevant process for it instead. For technical support and graphics talks (PNG, SVG, GIF, etc.), please post on the Graphics village pump. To ask for image improvement, see: Graphic Lab/Photography workshop for photographs. Graphic Lab/Map workshop for maps. Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop for other illustrations. To ask for video or audio improvement, see Commons:Graphic Lab/Video and sound workshop. For translation requests, please post at Commons:Requests for translation. For media requests, please post at Commons:File requests. Search archives:       Start a new discussion

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A village pump in Cork, Ireland [add]

Centralized discussion See also: Village pump/Proposals   ■ Archive Should PD-CQ Roll Call be used for recent images? (5 January 2024) Technical needs survey (17 December 2023) When does PDART apply to textile works? (15 November 2023) Does this image contain "love hearts"? (17 August 2023) Overhaul of categories by period (5 December 2022) Version of Saudi flag to use (11 July 2022) Concern regarding revocability of KOGL licenses (22 December 2021) Should deleting content from your own talk page be forbidden? (11 November 2021) Revise the COM:FOP Sweden section (1 February 2021) Change technical name of LRs to license-reviewer from image-reviewer(2 November 2023) User talk:湯崩正海#Image Tagging File:青島ビール放尿動画事件.jpgとUser talk:湯崩正海#File:青島ビール放尿動画事件.jpgで議論しています。皆様のご意見を募集しています。是非、ご参加ください。(2 November 2023) Template: View   ■ Discuss    ■ Edit   ■ Watch

	SpBot archives all sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=~~~~}} after 1 day and sections whose most recent comment is older than 7 days.

November 26

Special:UncategorizedCategories

We now have 2,544 uncategorized (parentless) categories, down from about 8,000 in the beginning of September. At this point, most of the "low-hanging fruit" is taken care of. User:Billinghurst and I have done the bulk of the cleanup, although a few others have also helped in various degrees. We could definintely use more help, most of which does not require an admin as such.

• Most of the remaining listings are legitimate categories, with content, but lacking parent categories. They need parent categories and they need incoming interwiki links from any relevant Wikidata item.
  • A disproportionate number of these would best be handled by someone who knows Hungarian or Estonian.
• Some categories just need to be turned into cat redirects ({{Cat redirect}} and have their content moved accordingly.
• A few categories listed here will prove to be fine as they stand; the tool messed up and put them in the list because it didn't correctly understand that a template had correctly given them parent categories. Many of these are right near the front of the (alphabetical) list, and involve dates.
• Some categories probably either call for obvious renaming or should be nominated for COM:CFD discussions.
• Some empty categories (not a lot of those left, but new ones happen all the time) need to be deleted.
• At the end of the alphabetical listing (5th and 6th page) are about 75 categories that have names in non-Latin alphabets. It would be great if people who read the relevant writing systems could help with these. Probably most of these are candidates for renaming.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give. - Jmabel ! talk 03:21, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused about something @Jmabel: I checked the page and some of the categories on there are for example Category:April 2016 in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté (through 2023), but these were created years ago in some instances and already had parent categories from the start. How do categories like that end up there? ReneeWrites (talk) 02:09, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

@ReneeWrites: Insufficient follow-through and patrolling, combined with out of control back end processes.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 02:48, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

@ReneeWrites: Actually, in this case this appears to be some sort of flaw in the software that creates the Special page. As I wrote a couple of days ago, "A few categories listed here will prove to be fine as they stand; the tool messed up and put them in the list because it didn't correctly understand that a template had correctly given them parent categories. Many of these are right near the front of the (alphabetical) list, and involve dates." It looks like today's run added a bunch of these false positives and that (unlike the previous bunch) they are more scattered through the list. I believe all of the 100+ files that use Template:Month by year in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté are on today's list; none of these were there three days earlier. That probably has something to do with User:Birdie's edits to yesterday to Template:Month by year in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté; those are complicated enough that I have no idea what in particular might have confused the software. The categories still look fine from a normal user point of view, but the software that creates Special:UncategorizedCategoriesn is somehow confused.

Other than that: we're a couple of hundred fixed or deleted categories closer to where we'd want to be, compared to a couple of days ago. - Jmabel ! talk 04:23, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Server-purges should fix this but apparently it doesn't. Some categories that didn't appear last time after purging the cache have disappeared now so I'm more confused as to what the problem could be since the iirc the refresh time was after some pages were updated (it has problems when pages get all their categories from a template). There should probably be a phrabricator issue about this, albeit it's possible things work fine once there are always just a small number of cats there which seems increasingly feasible. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:35, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

@Jeff G., could you explain what "... out of control back end processes" means, so I can understand your comment? --Ooligan (talk) 16:54, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

@Ooligan: As I understand it, there are processes that run on WMF servers that run too long or get caught up in race conditions or whatever, and that get terminated after running too long. I think updating this special page may be one such process, sometimes. Certainly, updating the read / not read status of stuff on my watchlist seems that way, especially when using this new reply tool. Turning off the big orange bar before displaying my user talk page would be helpful, too. <end rant>   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 19:26, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

@Jeff G., thank you. --Ooligan (talk) 19:44, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

@Ooligan: You're welcome.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 20:11, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Even with those 100 or so "Bourgogne-Franche-Comté" false positives, we are now down to 2079. Again, we could really use help from people who know languages with non-Latin scripts, all of which are grouped toward the end of the list. Also, Hungarian and Estonian, scattered throughout. - Jmabel ! talk 23:08, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Now down to 1905, again including 100+ false positives. Still really need help from people who read Estonian, Hungarian, or languages with non-Latin scripts. - Jmabel ! talk 21:58, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

And now to 1701, again with the same number of false positives and still with the same need for help from people who read Estonian, Hungarian, or languages with non-Latin scripts. Those are probably now the languages for about half of the remaining categories. - Jmabel ! talk 00:23, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Now 1471, with the same provisos and the same needs for help. - Jmabel ! talk 18:42, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

We are making major progress. As of today, we are down to 1031 (and seem to be rid of the false positives, so maybe the progress looks more dramatic than it is, but it's still nice). Only a few left in non-Latin alphabets. Still need a bunch of help with Estonian and Hungarian.

Thanks to whoever fixed the "false positives" thing. - Jmabel ! talk 21:36, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

As of today, we are (amazingly) under 1000, with only two remaining in non-Latin alphabets. 947 as of today. I suspect that anyone who speaks languages from Central and Eastern Europe could still help out considerably here. - Jmabel ! talk 20:22, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

BTW, we are still getting some false positives, e.g. Category:Letters with "e" as diacritic above and other similar categories. This makes me guess we are also getting some false negatives (parentless categories that don't show up in the report). - Jmabel ! talk 20:46, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing this out. While many uncategorized categories are useless ones that should be deleted, there is indeed some low-hanging fruit in there, including ones that can be linked to an article on a Wikipedia. – b_jonas 18:49, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

At this point, the remaining categories are probably about 80% or more either simply needing parents, or needing some sort of clarification or merge. Very few are outright deletions. - Jmabel ! talk 19:40, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Progress continues. We are at 777. - Jmabel ! talk 20:43, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

i think we could deploy a bot to monitor this page, send reminders to users who create uncategorised cat pages and add the uncat cats to a maintenance cat.--RZuo (talk) 11:16, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

@RZuo: We have {{subst:Please link images}} for the reminder.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 15:37, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

@Jeff G.: That's really about categories on images, though, not categories on categories. FWIW, a lot of these happen in one of two ways:

1. a small number of users create a fair number of categories and, as far as I can tell, can't be bothered to learn to do it right, or don't care that they leave a ton of work for others. They are not unaware of the situation: they've been told, but they keep doing it. I could name some names, but I'd rather not.
2. a lot of people seem to think the correct way to get rid of an unused empty category is just to blank it, which of course leaves a parentless category. This group is generally "educable", and for that purpose we have {{How to delete empty categories}}. - Jmabel ! talk 21:05, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

As of the start of the year we are down to 680; probably 100 of these have been dealt with in the last couple of days but others have doubtless come into this state. The vast majority of these are appropriate categories (mostly for individual people) that just need appropriate parent categories and, in some cases, should be attached to a Wikidata item or have one created. You don't need to be an admin to help out, just good at categorization. - Jmabel ! talk 21:09, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Wow! Down to 456, again leaning heavily toward Central East Europe, especially Hungarian. - Jmabel ! talk 21:38, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

And down to 190, some of which are doubtless false positives or current CfDs. - Jmabel ! talk 01:33, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

We are now below 100 (89 this morning). It would be great if it can stay down to numbers like this. Eyeballing, I'd say about half of these are recent, and of course things like this are going to keep coming up, but we've caught almost all of the long-time backlog. - Jmabel ! talk 21:13, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

 Comment Thanks to everyone who helped cut down this thicket! Josh (talk) 16:40, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

A further update: there are, at most, a handful of remaining long-term uncategorized categories. However, we still get about 30 new ones per day, mostly because people don't understand (or don't choose) to use {{SD}} and instead they blank the category. For what it's worth:

• This is explained at {{How to delete empty categories}}.
• It would be great if someone wants to internationalize that template.
• It should usually be subst'd on the user talk page of the person who has blanked a page; details are on the Template page. - 21:00, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

 Comment Also thanks to everyone who helped tackle this blacklog. As of 29 Jan it's still/again at 91 so that really seems to be the number that new empty cats currently flow in. Would be nice to have charts for backlogs (here). Now that this is more or less done, what about these two similar types of categories in need of work:

• Categories with only redcategories (categories that don't yet exist)
• Categories with only Wikidata Infobox categories like "Category:Uses of Wikidata Infobox" (cats set by {{Wikidata Infobox}} – example 2)

Could reports be created for these? I could not find them in Category:Commons category maintenance and they aren't part of the ~completed backlog. The same could be done for these two types of categories. --Prototyperspective (talk) 23:15, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Categories with members, but no parents

more interesting cats for maintenance: Special:WantedCategories.--RZuo (talk) 16:53, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

January 15

Problematic file names and irrelevant categorization by sockpuppet group

Hello. I have noticed that the sockpuppet group Category:Sockpuppets of Anonymous Hong Kong Photographer 1 has uploaded a large amount of files with incorrect file names (with irrelevant abbreviations and wrong place/station names), and they have also added irrelevant categories in various files that they uploaded. As moving requires a lot of work here on Commons, I would like to raise attention and request for assistance on this matter. Thank you! (Please {{Ping}} me on reply) --LuciferianThomas 16:09, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

@LuciferianThomas I enjoy renaming files. Is there any way I can see a list of them on aggregate? Like a search function for all of them? That would be very useful since we are operating with multiple users. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 22:28, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

There are hundreds of accounts it's kinda insane Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 22:32, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Sadly it does seem to be extremely hard to track down every single one of them, but I would think that it is possible to start from Hong Kong MTR station categories (e.g. Category:Hang Hau Station) and their subcategories to do them one by one. The worst thing about it is the mix of authentic and bad file names, so it just can't be simply done on batch. LuciferianThomas 01:45, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

@LuciferianThomas I'm not sure if I'm knowledgeable enough to do this. I've never been to Hong Kong and don't know much about the country. Do you think we could add some kind of maintenance category to all of them? Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 16:52, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I honestly am not sure whether they're actually sockpuppets. It's difficult to believe that one person could be doing all this, it's difficult to believe that multiple people could be doing something this specific independently, and it's difficult to believe that an organized endeavor to do this could be kept quiet.DS (talk) 21:14, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

re @DragonflySixtyseven: The general point being the very consistent naming conventions (whilst containing incorrect information), most of the sockpuppets having a very consistent user page style and image description format. Looks too consistent to be multiple people, yet very true. Anyhow, sock or meatpuppet, they are still clearly disruptive.

re @Immanuelle: if rules allow, I can definitely start scanning through files and add maintenance cats since that's how much I can do right now. That is, if someone endorses my actions so I can link to here whenever questioned. I would really request for filemover myself to fix the issues but I don't know if I am actually good to go for the right (As a rough guideline, administrators usually require editors to have made at least 1,000 useful, non-botlike edits or a large amount of justified renaming requests at Commons before they will consider granting the filemover right, maybe I have the latter part?) LuciferianThomas 00:08, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

@LuciferianThomas I feel they would be blocked on Wikipedia, but images are hard enough to go wrong with that we want the uploads even if the bad itkes case a lot of issues Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 06:42, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

@LuciferianThomas I made a category Category:Photos by Anonymous Hong Kong Photographer 1 but I'm being rate limited so hard to populate it Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 18:27, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes I did accidentally misclassiify a lot of files and will fix it soon Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 18:52, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

@LuciferianThomas for future reference I got the category wrong and Category:Photographs by Anonymous Hong Kong Photographer 1 Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 05:48, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Opinions welcome at Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/01/Category:Photos by Anonymous Hong Kong Photographer 1.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 19:39, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Alright, I will add files that require renaming to the subcat then. I probably will just put everything that's related to metro into the category first, coz the abbreviations hidden in the file names don't make sense some times anyway. LuciferianThomas 01:44, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

@Immanuelle I have started moving some files, but there is literally a heck load of files that need renaming, so I would really need your (and other filemover's) help. LuciferianThomas 03:20, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

@LuciferianThomas unfortunately I am not a filemover. I am just someone who proposes a lot of files be renamed. So I cannot help with this Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 01:06, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

January 17

Letter of consent for portraits

Dear contributors, following a discussion regarding the consent to take a child portrait on an FP nomination, I would like to encourage discussion on the substance and form of the letter of consent that photographers should provide in order to upload portraits. The author of the portrait raised concerns that Commons:Photographs of identifiable people and Commons:Personality rights are very vague, and they do not give any guidance on what should the letter of consent look like, what should be its substance, what should be the language, should there be a signature and who performs the check of its veracity. In fact, the problem is that the author was able to provide proof of consent, but there was no clear guideline on how to do it. Your thoughts are welcome. Thank you.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 11:24, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

While I have no opinion about child portraits in particular there should at least be a letter of consent from the model with images containing nudity if not in other instances. Although it would probably be good policy to require them with portraits of children to. At least modern ones where the person has a high chance of still being alive and/or a child. --Adamant1 (talk) 15:32, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

We should not require consent for notable people, or people appearing at public events, at least. I have often approached speakers at a conference or similar event and said "May I take your picture for Wikipedia", and they have kindly agreed. Had I then asked them to complete an email exchange or sign paperwork, they would not have had the time. Furthermore, we should not decimate Wikipedia's BLP article illustrations by applying any such requirement retrospectively. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:27, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Agree with the above comment. Concerning nudity, I think clear consent in some shape or form from the depicted person should be required. This may be a difficult issue and there would need to be clarification whether people obviously deliberately nude in public would also need to submit individual consent for CCBY. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:40, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I can’t believe this has to be said, but nude images of children are extremely risky. There must be extremely limited valid uses for such images, indeed I’m fairly certain most of these images might be breaking the law and should probably be reported to authorities. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 03:50, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I was mainly speaking of adults. Although there's probably some images along the lines of what your talking about on here. But I think they would probably be OK due to their eductional nature in most, if not, all cases. I really don't know though. But at least in the United States even drawings of nude children are considered illegal. So hopefully it's very limited on here. We should require consent forms in both cases regardless though. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:59, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Your source for "drawings of nude children are considered illegal"? w:Child pornography laws in the United States says otherwise.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:42, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

It highly depends on the context of course, but per the article you linked to "Child pornography under federal law is defined as any visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct involving a minor (someone under 18 years of age). Visual depictions include photographs, videos, digital or computer generated images indistinguishable from an actual minor." Although sexually explict drawings of minors can also count even if they aren't listed in that. Again, depending on the situation. But courts to be extermely liberal in their defitions. For instance so called "lolicon" (computer generated or hand drawn) is a grey area, but people can still prosecuted for possing it depending on the images and jurisdiction. Tangentially related, but people can and have been proscuted simply for taking photographs of their children in the bath tub. So I wouldn't put to much weight into the whole "sexually explicit" part of it. Since at the end of the day it mostly doesn't matter. Really, Commons shouldn't be hosting anything involving a child or a likeness of one that's even slightly questionable. There's really no reason to side from clearly non-sexual depictions of children in obviously eductional context anyway. Although I still think there could risk there if say someone were to categorize the images on explicit sounding criteria or somthing like that. --Adamant1 (talk) 23:26, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

If you want to argue, give a citation. Don't just bullshit off the top of your head. See Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:44, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

@Prosfilaes: just bullshit off the top of your head Just because I didn't provide a citation doesn't mean it's "just bullshit of the top of my head." I litterly cited the Wikipedia article saying that "digital or computer generated images indistinguishable from an actual minor" are considered child pornography. Outside of that you can do basic Google Search for "are drawings of minors considered child pornography" that say they are. I'm not going to waste my time citing a bunch of legal cases and news stories, of which are many, just because you can't be bothered to use Google or treat me like I just baselessly pulled it out of my ass for no reason. --Adamant1 (talk) 21:43, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, if you don't provide a citation, it is just bullshitting. If you want to argue a point, you do a Google search and show your sources. Instead you blather.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:56, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

99% of the comments on here don't come with citations. Yet I don't see you trollishy whining about how the people who wrote them are just bullshitting like your doing to me for whatever reason. That said, I'd totally agree with you that it would be important to cite sources if this was s more formal discussion, where I or anyone else was suggesting changing the policies to not allow for images of children. Know one is doing that though. I'm certainly not. So there's really no need for sources outside of your apparent need to argue. Just to cite the Wikipedia article again though since you seem to be ignoring it "U.S. law distinguishes between pornographic images of an actual minor, realistic images that are not of an actual minor, and non-realistic images such as drawings. The latter two categories are legally protected unless found to be obscene." I'm sure you'll just dismiss that like everything else I've said as more "bullshit off the top of your head" or whatever though lmao. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:16, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Adamant1 - I think this is getting a bit hostile on both sides. I strongly disagree (and disapprove) with the assertion you are bullshitting, but it’s similarly not helpful to say that Prosfilaes is being trollish.

What might have been helpful, however, is to refer directly to the PROTECT Act of 2003 (18 U.S.C. § 1466A) which criminalizes material of “a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture or painting" that "depicts a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct and is obscene" or "depicts an image that is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in ... sexual intercourse ... and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value”, and which was upheld by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

That said, it would have been quite easy for Prosfilaes to read the article you cited (and yes, it was cited) rather than accusing you of bullshitting. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 08:34, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Oh darn. You did state that. I apologise. Prosfilaes, how about engaging with the material cited rather than accusing him of citing nothing. You were provided with actual citable material, but you seem to have chosen to ignore it. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 08:38, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, obscene works are often illegal in the US. Which is a far cry from "drawings of nude children are considered illegal"; in fact, it specifically says that drawings of nude children are not considered illegal unless they are considered obscene or are "digital or computer generated images indistinguishable from an actual minor".--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:45, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Prosfilaes, there is absolutely no need for the tenor of your response. It’s almost like you are trying to generate conflict. Please stop. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 22:25, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm tired of him posting source-free posts that make claims (especially legal ones) that are wrong; he's drowning out correct sources. When I asked him for a source, he quoted the page I gave him and said "Although sexually explict drawings of minors can also count even if they aren't listed in that."; i.e. another sourceless claim. We could talk about w:Legal_status_of_fictional_pornography_depicting_minors#United_States which does not back up the blanket assertion but does provide context for the complex situation.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:45, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

@Prosfilaes: I cited and directly quoted from the Wikipedia article that you linked to original, and the part I cited from the article is referenced to this page from the Department of Justice. There's also 27 other sources in the Wikipedia. Yet continued going off about how my comments where bullshit even after that. Now admittedly I haven't read what the exact wording is on the department of justices website, but if it's different then how the Wikipedia article portrays things that's not my issue and it certainly wouldn't mean I didn't provide sources. More to the topic, PROTECT Act of 2003 (18 U.S.C. § 1466A) also gave you one in the meantime, which just confirms what I said. So your clearly the one who's wrong here. Get over it and stop badgering me for no reason in random discussion. It wasn't a big deal to begin with anyway. Thanks. --Adamant1 (talk) 23:11, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

January 22

CropTool

Is CropTool down again? Rosiestep (talk) 01:01, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

I get the error message "Wikimedia Toolforge Error. This Grid Engine web service cannot be reached. Please contact a maintainer of this tool.

Tool maintainers can find more details from the documentation on Wikitech. tools-proxy-06.tools.eqiad.wmflabs; Wouter (talk) 11:07, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

@Rosiestep and Wouterhagens: The latest is at Commons talk:CropTool#Not working!   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 12:37, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Jeff G.. ----Rosiestep (talk) 13:18, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

@Rosiestep: You're welcome.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 13:21, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

The tool appears to be working again! Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 08:33, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Just for info. Based on phab:T319653, gridengine deprecation date is 14 February 2024. Before that date if it is dead it most likely requires restarting. --Zache (talk) 17:24, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Is someone willing to step up and salvage CropTool?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T319653

As things stand, Grid engine will go down once and for all in mid-February. Danmichaelo, who maintained CropTool, appears to be incommunicado, possibly due to some drama on en-wiki last year (somewhat more on this at Commons talk:CropTool#Not working! if you want it).

If no one takes over developing CropTool, the tool will simply go dead.

Sources are at https://github.com/danmichaelo/croptool. At a quick skim, they look reasonably well-written, if a bit under-commented. I'm entirely unfamiliar with the Grid Engine (not even what functionality it delivers) and wouldn't offhand know where to begin in determining where are the dependencies on that, which will need replacements; I would presume they must be entirely (or almost entirely) in the PHP. If someone familiar with the Grid Engine could take a look and assess how much of this tool will need to be rewritten, that would be very helpful, even if they are not interested in taking on the work themselves. - Jmabel ! talk 03:42, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

I've linked this discussion on a couple of Telegram channels, to spread awareness. Meanwhile, I'm in contact with who is doing the GridEngine deprecation, they've been made aware of the problem at least. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 14:28, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not aware of the technical issues here, but this is again another example of how relying on external tools, instead of adding them to our system ends up giving problems. The tool should be a simple button for Commons users, and do the thing on-site. Theklan (talk) 10:32, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Are there COM:INUSE exceptions, besides copyvios? What are they?

I have noticed strange behaviors in deletion requests, especially those related to AI-generated content. Some users attempt to circumvent the COM:INUSE policy, claiming that the nominated files are not being used in good-faith. Ultimately, can COM:INUSE be disregarded based on a personal interpretation of the use of files in Wikimedia projects? RodRabelo7 (talk) 04:55, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

@RodRabelo7: I think the "good faith" qualifier comes from COM:NPOV, which says "A file that is in good faith use on another Wikimedia project is, by that very fact, considered useful for an educational purpose". I've not been paying much attention to the recent "AI" fracas, but I've got the impression that this is usually applied in cases where a file is being used on another project for the sole purpose of preventing its deletion on Commons. --bjh21 (talk) 11:07, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

I'd say that if something is in use on any major Wikipedia, we have to defer to that 100% (other than possibly arguing the case on that wiki), but on a sparsely edited Wikipedia like, say, Piedmontese or Neapolitan, we can't presume there even is such a thing as a meaningful consensus. Where to draw the line is harder to say. Similarly for other sister proects. For some sister projects -- e.g. Wikiversity -- most pages are one-person undertakings, and if the person involved "has a dog in the fight" it gets harder to assume good faith, especially if the image was added after the DR began. - Jmabel ! talk 22:13, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

I would add that an image that is only used in a declined draft article which is very unlikely to be accepted but might linger for six months before being deleted could be disregarded as being in use. Particularly if the image uploader and draft creator are the same person. MKFI (talk) 07:56, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Fairly certain Drafts doesn't count towards INUSE in the first place Trade (talk) 00:53, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

@Trade: Drafts => judgement call. I'd probably look and see if I thought it had a fair chance of being accepted. Might ask someone else to look if it was in a language I don't read. - Jmabel ! talk 02:16, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Also pretty sure Drafts are judgement calls if at all with the default being it representing legitimate use. Otherwise, this may just encourage people to move / publish articles directly to mainspace when they aren't yet ready. There should be very good reasons provided if a draft use is deemed illegitimate and these reasons should be specified in the DR and be addressable/scrutinizable. What's more unclear are uses only on user-pages, since the policy only specifies that uses on Commons user-pages don't count. I think if the a) only use of an image is on the userpage of b) the uploader of the image, then that use either is or should be illegitimate, especially when more than e.g. 5 images are used on that userpage. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:11, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

I think INUSE on non-Commons user pages is meant to be constrained by "The uploading of small numbers of images (e.g. of yourself) for use on a personal user page of Commons or another project is allowed as long as that user is or was an active participant on that project." The restriction isn't on how many images are on the user page, but on how many the user has uploaded for use on user pages. So for instance you can have 100 userboxes all with images and still have a single photo of yourself be deemed within scope. bjh21 (talk) 13:54, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Not too long ago, I also learnt that COM:SCOPE itself includes the line In the sections below, any use that is not made in good faith does not count, thereby indeed exempting certain files from COM:INUSE. --HyperGaruda (talk) 20:59, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

• Ascertaining "good faith" and "bad faith" involves reading the mind of the editor, but we cannot read minds. Unless someone acknowledges they made an edit in "bad faith", how would determine someone's mindset during an edit? It seems that the deleter can just claim they ascertained the editor's mindset when they posted an image. This is different than determining vandalism where someone might change the name of an image to nonsense, or to another person's name. --RAN (talk) 18:09, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

I am running into some disagreements here as well. COM:INUSE seems to state, very clearly and unambiguously, that talk pages and userpages do not count as "use" for project scope purposes. In fact, it seems to say so in multiple places. This makes sense; most users who are spamming will also add their spam to their userpage or subpages thereof. The above discussion also seems to state that drafts don't count either (which makes sense, although is a little more dicey because of recent plans on enwiki to move pages to draftspace en masse). Most prior discussion in past village pump discussions also seem to have a consensus that userpages/talkpages indeed are excluded.

Yet I am repeatedly being told the opposite. Is the wording on this page wrong? Gnomingstuff (talk) 21:43, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

January 24

Retouching categories

Right now Category:Retouched pictures is a subcat of Category:Digitally manipulated photographs (and of nothing else). This seems wrong to me. Not all retouching is digital (until a few decades ago, none was). Also, the whole interweaving of categories here gets weird. Going down the hierarchy, Category:Retouched pictures -> Category:Retouched images by type of retouching‎ -> Category:Images with blurred out license plates‎, but Category:Images with Gaussian blurs‎ and Category:Intentionally blurred images‎ (a parent of Category:Images with blurred out license plates‎) are directly under Category:Digitally manipulated photographs, not under Category:Retouched pictures at all. Etc., I don't want to overwhelm with examples, but the whole area is a bit of a mess.

Is anyone interested in taking this on and seeing if you can come up with a better arrangement of these categories? - Jmabel ! talk 01:42, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Adding to that, {{Retouched picture}} defines it as "digitally altered", so the template itself probably also needs a second look. --HyperGaruda (talk) 20:50, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps it'd make more sense to tag pictures based on the extent of retouching that's been performed on them, rather than what tools were used to do it? Knowing the difference between an image that's been retouched for color correction and one that's been edited to remove a person from the photo (for instance) is much more important than knowing whether it was edited on a computer or in a darkroom. Omphalographer (talk) 18:01, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

January 25

Making text bigger

Do we have access to any other text modifiers other than < big > to make text big? RAN (talk) 05:00, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Have a look at Category:Text formatting templates; notably {{Big}}, {{Resize}}, and {{Font-size}} may do what you want. enwiki offers a selection of them as well: w:en:category:resizing templates Elizium23 (talk) 05:32, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! We probably need Commons:Formatting text, to match Wikipedia and Wikisource. We use different names for text templates than Wikisource and English Wikipedia. --RAN (talk) 13:30, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Do you know what fonts are available at Commons? --RAN (talk) 16:11, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

None, fonts are installed in the OS and browser. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:33, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

See also category:MediaWiki SVG font lists for vector files. Arlo James Barnes 21:15, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

That category involves meta:SVG fonts which is quite a specialized application: within an SVG image file, you can use directives to have the MediaWiki server render that image with the named fonts.

Since RAN's concern seems to involve HTML/CSS rendering of plain text, we'd be dealing with OS/browser fonts. Elizium23 (talk) 22:37, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

It looks like

Courier text is supported

--RAN (talk) 17:58, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

This is an example of hinting for CSS font families. Since en:Courier (typeface) is public domain, it's a safe bet that many browsers have it installed and will render it that way. Despite these safe bets, we cannot assume any given bundle of fonts on every single user agent that might encounter Commons. Elizium23 (talk) 18:50, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): Please note that Courier is not a size.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 18:51, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Read my follow up question above: "Do you know what fonts are available at Commons?" I bolded it just now so it is emphasized. --RAN (talk) 19:01, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

The answer was already given. Commons does not provide fonts. Commons asks the device of the webvisitor to TRY a specified font. If the device does not have said font installed/available, the device will use another font. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:10, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

• I was responding to Jeff G., who could not understand why I was talking about fonts when my initial question was about text size. I bolded the statement so he could see why I mentioned Courier. But if we are going to reopen the subject, why does Wikipedia, see: en:Wikipedia:Typography support rendering text in various fonts, but those templates do not work at Commons? It seems like we have just not implemented something at Commons available in the rest of the WikiUniverse. --RAN (talk) 19:18, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

  What would the use-case be? Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 19:35, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

  I think it's cool that several of the people replying have ~~~~ customized signatures which include "font-face" and "font-size". @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) can view the source of this discussion for examples of how that works! Elizium23 (talk) 19:43, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

  Right, I use a span with 'style="font-size:115%"' to help my signature stand out, at least on my browser.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 19:55, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

  Wikipedia doesn't render. A web page can hint, it can suggest, it can request a font family to be used. The browser and OS will render those fonts as appropriate. Commons uses many non-Latin scripts, for example, and some of those may not properly display on a computer that hasn't installed the proper locale.

  • This PDF is about a Tibetan language, and it's written in Japanese, and it contains IPA symbols as well. So there's a variety of fonts and a variety of rendering engines involved.

  Elizium23 (talk) 19:36, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

User-made drawings of people

Hi everyone! Do we have a policy or something about user-made drawings of real (historical or living) people? By chance I have found a series of drawings made by @JVC3ETA: of various people of which we have otherwise no images (or very few). Some of the drawings are quite old (10 years or more), and over time they have been used in several Wikipedia voices, i.e. this one (10+ pages), this one (20+ pages) or this one (30+ pages). Personally I feel that, as a general rule, drawings made by users shouldn't be included in encyclopedia pages (they are affected by the author's perspective and competence, they are not real life pictures and they don't have historical or artistic value); I'm not sure if they should be hosted on Commons at all, but I'd like to hear from the community. -- Syrio posso aiutare? 21:29, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

@Syrio: There is certainly no policy banning these as such. Anything that is in use in a Wikipedia will necessarily stay on Commons, the only exceptions being if the inclusion in a Wikipedia as a bad-faith action precisely to avoid deletion or, of course, if the image is a copyright violation.

So:

• If the image appears to be a copyright violation, please nominate it for deletion.
• If the image is not a copyright violation and is in use on one of our sister projects, please leave it alone.
• If neither of those applies, and you believe the images is either too low-quality or unlikely to be an accurate representation, then feel free to nominate it for deletion, but please do not be surprised if others judge the matter differently and it is kept.

Jmabel ! talk 21:51, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Some non-policies which may be relevant for living persons:

• Commons:Personality rights#Identifiability (essay)
• Commons:Photographs of identifiable people (doesn't mention drawings)
  • Commons talk:Photographs of identifiable people/Archive 2#proposing extending beyond photos to likenesses, nonphoto images, video, and inaccuracies

Elizium23 (talk) 20:52, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

• We have images of every pope, and about 200 of them are illustrations made at some point in history, long after they were dead. --RAN (talk) 03:55, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
  • @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): sure, but those images have some art-historical significance. - Jmabel ! talk 04:56, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

So will these images if they stick around long enough. Art-historical_significance = art + time. --RAN (talk) 05:52, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel: noted, thanks for the answer. -- Syrio posso aiutare? 09:10, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): and the same might prove true for every selfie, dick pick, etc. that we currently reject as out of scope. We don't know what people 50 years from now will find interesting, but that is not an excuse to be completely indiscriminate. - Jmabel ! talk 20:30, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

January 26

Why does the auto-resize on a photo page stop me from zooming in on my browser?

I have been donating every year I have been asked, this year I do not.

The manner in which this site is constructed is starting to annoy me more than it's worth.

As a 'vulnerable' adult, with multiple disabilities I find the 'media' part of pages to be the problem now.

As succinctly described in the question I asked your soulless 'help machine'. As is becoming habit with candy-coated social media sites to control media using their own ideas. Not leave the 'viewing' choices to the actual viewer.

When Wiki started it was great idea, literally 'wiki wiki' information, meaning quickly quickly. It's not information delivered 'quickly quickly' is someone with eye problems can zoom in on images without having to fully download them, this is a backward step for media representation in a browser.

Whatever were you thinking of by having every image scale to page for ever?

I can't read text in the pictures because 'canvas' is defeating zoom and 'desktop' zoom just gives me the same blurred pixels only bigger.

NB I use a 42 inch screen in 1080p and have to sit >6 feet from it due to my sight problems. — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 2A00:23C6:5A03:E601:729E:5D18:40EB:2213 (talk) 08:36, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm not quite sure I understand your problem correctly, though - whether you're on a file description page (click here for an example) or viewing a file in the "Media Viewer" (click here for an example), the full resolution version of an image (click here for an example) should never be more than one or two clicks away. Where exactly are you experiencing those problems, could you provide a link? El Grafo (talk) 11:27, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Just guessing: Maybe they're complaining that one cannot zoom into pictures like in a Zoomify viewer or similar? Or that zooming inside the browser window with Ctrl +/- just interpolates the pixels and doesn't show the real bigger size version that's stored on Commons? Herbert Ortner (talk) 18:49, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Technical needs survey: Voting open

The voting for our technical needs priority list is open until the 15th of February.

Please vote on the proposals

The proposals with the most support will be the top ones in our priority list used for discussions with the WMF or the official technical wishes. GPSLeo (talk) 09:34, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Why is the list under Commons:Requests_for_comment/Technical_needs_survey#Proposals presented as it is (sausages?) instead of as an unordered list? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 18:57, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Using a creator template for unrelated unknown photographers

i'm sceptical of the use of Template:19photographer Template:20photographer created by User:Ecummenic for photos mostly unrelated to one another (see Category:19th-century unidentified photographers Category:20th-century unidentified photographers).

is this a good practice? why not simply use {{unknown|photographer}}? RZuo (talk) 12:45, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

I would say that has no advantage over {{Unknown photographer}}, which is long established. - Jmabel ! talk 20:38, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. I don't see the point of these templates. You can remove them from the files, and nominate them for deletion. Yann (talk) 10:03, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Displaying part of a larger image

If there's a large image, say File:Nakht and Family Fishing and Fowling, Tomb of Nakht MET DT12059.jpg, and I want to display just part of it somewhere (say, I want to display just the owl hieroglyph, in wikt:𓅓), I know I can take the full image, actually crop it, and upload a whole new file that's just a duplicate of a small (cropped) part of the bigger image... but it seems like someone would've thought of a mechanism by now to simply specify a portion of the image (similar to how we can specify a portion of an image that an annotation or link applies to) and then selectively display only that portion of the big image file without requiring that the portion be uploaded as a separate file. I.e., something like {{Display portion of image|full_image=File:Nakht and Family Fishing and Fowling, Tomb of Nakht MET DT12059.jpg|top_left_corner_of_desired_portion=704x,685y|bottom_right_corner=798x,777y}}. Is there such a mechanism? (If not, has anyone requested development of one / is there a project or phabricator page for discussing it? If not, does it sound useful / do we want to request such a thing?) -sche (talk) 19:49, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

En-wiki has en:w:Template:Annotated image. --HyperGaruda (talk) 20:01, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Fantastic, thank you. -sche (talk) 20:31, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

@-sche: Yes, see some examples below, which may need some tweaking:

Full size

Half size in each direction

  — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 20:39, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

@Jeff G.: , am I correct in understanding that this will still cause a user agent to fetch the entire image file, and process the crop locally? Elizium23 (talk) 21:02, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

@Elizium23: Yes, but it saves storage on the servers.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 21:15, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Aha, that's just the kind of thing I was hoping for, for displaying individual hieroglyphs in their respective entries; I will evaluate copying that template/infrastructure over to Wiktionary. Thanks, Jeff! I now realize I may still end up needing to upload crops if I make a list/table with lots of images, to avoid the user agent having to fetch huge numbers of huge images... -sche (talk) 17:08, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

January 27

What is the object in this photo. It is in a Japanese Buddhist temple

I found this object File:Fukagawa Fudoson 2 - Feb 12, 2012.jpg and I want to know what the name of it is in the photo Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 18:50, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

It is called "寄付札" or "寄進銘板" in Japanese, and is the list of contributors to the temple. "昭和四十六年五月吉日" (May of the 46th year of Showa) written in the center of this plate indicates that it is the list contributors in May 1971. Most of being displayed are family names, but there are also first names, shop names possibly, and nighborhood names in case of group contribution. --トトト (talk) 08:32, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 13:55, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

A nude photo from the 1880s might be of a minor

This photo File:Gabriele D’Annunzio nude on the beach, 1880s.jpg of Gabriele D’Annunzio is only dated as being in the "1880s". He was born on 12 March 1863. On January 1st 1880 he would have been 16. Are there any issues we have with hosting the image?Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 23:19, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

No. It's a very old photo. Why on Earth would there be any issues? --A.Savin 23:54, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

@A.Savin I don't feel like there should be an issue. Especially since he is a notable historical figure. But I am not sure about the legality of the image. If the image comes from March 12, 1881 or later it is legal, but it would be good to get the year. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 00:33, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

So what exactly might make it illegal in your opinion? Merely the fact that there is a nude minor person on the picture? --A.Savin 09:20, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

@A.Savin yeah just that. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 17:04, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Wrong assumption. --A.Savin 18:15, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

@Immanuelle Getty dates it to "January 01, 1880", but that may just be ridiculous overspecificity.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 13:00, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

The cited source has a German caption in which the subject writes about it in 1885. Not quite clear from Google Translate whether that is when the photo is taken or sometime afterwards writing a recollection about it. DMacks (talk) 18:36, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Can someone who is claiming that there is a potential legal issue here please say what legal issue in what country? - Jmabel ! talk 20:54, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

It says the pic is from the 1880s with no exact date. The cited quote was written in 1885, but seems unconnected to the pic.

Are the rights of someone from the 1880s now a serious concern on this platform? Cush (talk) 21:12, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Nope. But the question by Immanuelle, if I understand correctly, was not regarding personality rights, but whether an image of a nude minor person is per se illegal for hosting on Commons. Apparently some people consider any nude image of a child or adolescent automatically child pornography. --A.Savin 21:38, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

@A.Savin yes that is correct the only concern I have with this image is that it may legally constitute child pornography.

He was quite rich and prominent at the time, and well established as an erotic poet. I doubt he would object on personality rights grounds if he was around today. Considering the fact he was really notable in the future, becoming a major literary figure and a dictator tied to the origins of fascism, I believe the image is really historically siginficant. But idk how the age will be treated in different jurisdictions. The image is widely replicated across the internet with seemingly no bans on places like getty and reddit. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 06:53, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Presumably the question is not what "some people consider". Again: can someone who is claiming that there is a potential legal issue here please say what legal issue in what country? - Jmabel ! talk 22:44, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Given that User:Immanuelle's latest post was placed above my repetition of my question, and that she still hasn't answered my question, I assume she has no intention of answering, so I will make the assumption that we are concerned with U.S. law, since for legal purposes that is where Commons is "located." I'm not a lawyer, but besides the fact that just on internal evidence this is very unlikely to be a picture of someone younger than 18, U.S. concerns with CSAM generally don't extend to images of obvious historical importance. Some over-aggressive prosecutor might try to make a case, and we can never know exactly what some judge would say, but if someone wanted to do that I would say that some photographs by Lewis Carroll (which we host, as far as I know without problems) would make an easier target. And they'd still probably lose in court. - Jmabel ! talk 08:12, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

January 28

Should File:President Roosevelt - Pach Bros.jpg redirect to File:Theodore Roosevelt by the Pach Bros.jpg (cropped 3x4).jpg?

The original upload was a misleadingly-modified desaturated and cropped copy of the original file; I've added some documentation of the changes, moving it to explicitly note the changes made, but the question is whether the redirects should update to the better file? Adam Cuerden (talk) 17:23, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

No: Please do a quick Commons search using the LOC item number or digital ID before uploading, as File:Theodore Roosevelt by the Pach Bros - Original.tif has already been uploaded (as have tons of Library of Congress images). And note that this upload is a pretty clear violation of Commons:Overwriting existing files (substantial changes in color and composition), even if you think it's a better image. --Animalparty (talk) 19:00, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Surely that doesn't apply to every random crop of a file that has three? I get that rule for originals (and why it exists) but crops? That's kind of well outside the logic. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:09, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Tram PCC doors

There seems to be a special type of door that as far as I know is only found on PCC type trams. The doorpanels have a complex movement.

• 
  Closed
• 
  Open
• 
  Brussels example
• 
  The Hague
• 
  Marseille
• 
  Saint-Etienne

I asked for dynamic illustration of the movement Illustration_workshop

I have looked at American PCC trams (Canada & US), but they have mostly folding doors. I suspect that the original PCC designs had these door types, but that the tram compagnies replaced with other doors. The only pictures with in America these kind of doors are File:Detroit1.jpg and File:Detroitwoodward&atwater1953.jpg, but they are old. (1950 and 1953) The original drawings File:Tram Los Angeles Railway Co 3.jpg, show an interspace between the two pairs of doorpanels. File:Vari pcc.GIF shows classic folding doors (no interspace), so it probably the door type is not for all original US PCC trams.

Questions:

• Is there any documentation on wat type of door the original PCC designs specified?
• Is there a name for this type of door? (I plan to add a new category to Category:Rail vehicle doors by type.

• Is there a better name for Category:Swiss Einheitswagen type door and is there documentation about these doors. (I have been looking but not found anything yet)
• Are there other types of train doors? (for passengers entry and exit)

I found slam? door opening to the inside File:Queensland Rail ICE door Sunshine Coast P1110422.jpg, but I suspect it is an exception, not worth creating a new category.

Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:30, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

It might be an "inward gliding door". See this animation. DMacks (talk) 06:52, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

I have only seen these "inward gliding door"s on low floor buses (or where the heigh difference with platform is minimal). This type of door cannot be combined with internal stairs, without the los of a lot of space. As all old trams these PCC trams had high level floors, above the wheels and bogies. The passengers often had to climb aboard from street level.

Underneath there is a simplified mechanik. It also shows why a simple door would take too much space with the turning circle. The doors are on a lower level than the passenger floor. In crowded conditions the movement area is kept free.

Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:36, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

A main point of the inward-gliding design appears to be that it does not require substantial floor clearance to interfere with steps. Instead, it mostly tucks to the sides, costing only small curved cut-outs even if steps come very close to the plane of the doorframe. DMacks (talk) 19:27, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. The PCC door is on the same principles as the "inward gliding door", wih only minor differences. The gliding rail is more inward and the doorpanel is not directly connected to the gliding rail, but an extention. The turningpoint is more distant from the doorpanel. The basic movement wil be the same.Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:45, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

January 29

Is this game logo covered by PD-textlogo?

A nice clean png of the Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League logo can be found on the official website, would this fall under PD-textlogo? New to this site, so still figuring it all out. DetriaSkies (talk) 18:29, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

With the texture in the letters definitely not. If you create a version without the texture in the letters this would be PD. GPSLeo (talk) 18:47, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Wiel van der Randen (fotograaf 1897–1949)

L.s. I downloaded high res photo's from Wiel van der randen from https://beeldbank.spaarnestadphoto.com/ and want to upload them on commons on the already existing Category:Photographs by Wiel van der Randen The pictures are somewhat protected in high res but still downloadable. Although they are trying to sell them they are published on their own website and since copyright is expired, ss it ok to upload them on commons? Thanks, Mr.Nostalgic (talk) 20:05, 29 January 2024 (UTC) @TimmieTovenaar Hoi Timmie, daar jij veel vaar het Nationaal Archief gedaan hebt, zou jij hier wat advies kunnen geven?

• I can see no stated basis for their claim of a 2015 copyright. The only thing I could imagine is if these had been in an archive, unpublished, and 2015 was first publication. If that's the case, I believe the Netherlands may give 20 or 25 years of protection (I really don't know much anything about Dutch copyright law, though). If you are confident that copyright has expired, yes, just state the basis clearly and upload. If my remark about possible late publication raises doubts, you might want to ask at Commons:Village pump/Copyright, where there is usually more expertise. - Jmabel ! talk 01:45, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you very much Jmabel. I will follow your advise and state my question also on the Copyright part of the Village pump.

  Regards, Mr.Nostalgic (talk) 12:11, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Commons:Village_pump/Copyright#Wiel_van_der_Randen_(fotograaf_1897–1949). Multichill (talk) 21:49, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Question about DR

Do i have post a warning when the image i nominate is NSFW? I assume at least some users read DR's in public--Trade (talk) 23:17, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Not to say it should be obligatory but a warning template for things like that would be cool to have. Although if it were I'd make it cover just potentially triggering or problematic images in general, not just NSFW ones. Although that would be a good start. --Adamant1 (talk) 23:48, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Do you wanna make the template? Trade (talk) 22:55, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Generally, the key is the "law of least surprise". Try not to put NSFW images directly in categories where no one would expect them. For example, this is exactly why we have Category:Nude or partially nude people with toothbrushes, so Category:People with toothbrushes needn't directly contain such images. - Jmabel ! talk 01:48, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

What about DR? Trade (talk) 17:40, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

We don't have a hard and fast rule, but warnings like that are almost always a plus. I don't think you particularly need to warn a user when notifying them about their own upload, and sometimes filenames make the matter instantly clear, but again: law of least surprise. - Jmabel ! talk 20:31, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

January 30

Sharing a video from Flickr

Hello!
How could I share a video from Flickr? I did a test, but couldn't figure it out. On Flickr, there are a number of high quality and relevant videos with appropriate license. It would be good to figure out how to upload them on Wikimedia.

I tried sharing a video from Flickr but I get an error – "File extension ".jpg" does not match the detected MIME type of the file (video/x-m4v)" (printscreen here) However, there are videos originating from Flickr on Wikimedia, for example:

• example1
• example2

I found a couple of Wikipedia bots doing Flickr uploads, but I one is inactive (presentation page) and the other one does not work for me. It asks to login, I do, but it never logs me in. I tried different browsers too. There must be a better way. Learn new things in 2024 (talk) 02:10, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

@Learn new things in 2024: if you asked for your video to be uploaded to a filename with an extension ending in .jpg, then that should not work. But more to the point: I don't think any of these tools you mention are be able to bring an MP4 video from Flickr to Commons in any useful way; we don't support that format (please see COM:Video for what formats we do support). You might try video2commons, which can convert formats on the fly. I won't say it's the most stable tool in the world, but it usually works. - Jmabel ! talk 03:54, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

@Learn new things in 2024: I tried with COM:F2C and also got 'File extension ".mp4" does not match the detected MIME type of the file (video/x-m4v).' I was able to upload File:Vilnius Light Festival 2024 (January 25–28 from 6 PM to 11 PM) -1.webm with COM:V2C.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 22:21, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Text about transliteration options in categories

User:Бучач-Львів add to categories (example Revision #847091487) text about transliteration options. Are such clarifications needed here, on Commons? Микола Василечко (talk) 21:57, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

I think the part about the variant not corresponding to well-known transliteration methods should not be there, but if the other variants are at all widely used in English then they are probably worth mentioning. "Yulian Bachynsky" more reflects what would have been normal for transliterating Russian (and I'd also guess that his given name would often appear in English as "Julian", not mentioned here). I understand that present-day nationalist sentiment leaves a lot of Ukrainians unhappy that certain Ukrainian names entered English largely via Russian, but that is in fact exactly what happened. - Jmabel ! talk 22:32, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Jmabel. you call the national tradition nationalism - and this is wrong. Every nation has its own national traditions - English, French, Germans, etc., and Ukrainians have them too. --Бучач-Львів (talk) 08:18, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

That's why I'm writing these different versions of transliteration, because at the moment I see a certain chaos. That is precisely why the amount of this chaos was smaller, and it is necessary to write different variants of transliteration of the names and surnames of Ukrainians. Jmabel. Let's take the first and last name of the Prime Minister of Ukraine Valerii Pustovoitenko or OUN leader Category:Andriy Melnyk. This is a pretty good example of the chaos I wrote about. --Бучач-Львів (talk) 08:35, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Jmabel. another important detail is the transfer of a soft sign and apostrophe in Ukrainian names and surnames. For example, the Ukrainian surnames Горинь and Горин are often transliterated the same way - Horyn. And if you specify different variants of transliteration, then the picture becomes clearer. --Бучач-Львів (talk) 08:52, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Jmabel. Regarding Ukrainian and Russian and sources, I don't agree with you for the reason that the Wiki repository as a constituent element of Wikipedia is an encyclopedia where things must be named accurately. That is, for example, John is not Jean, not Jan, not Giovanni, not Ivan. Moreover, the "Russian" names of Kyiv and Odesa were changed to Ukrainian ones in the English Wikipedia. --Бучач-Львів (talk) 11:32, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Grid engine fails

another one, https://newbie-uploads.toolforge.org/ is linked from Special:NewFiles but now dead. haha. RZuo (talk) 23:34, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

January 31

Upload issues

Is anyone also experiencing upload errors? I get "error" or a "file in stash is missing" and so on. --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 15:07, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Inappropriate caption

Last week, IP user User:196.188.120.153 edited the English caption for File:Ethiopia Plate of portable altar.jpg to say "ITS OFFENSIVE AND WILL BE PUNISHED". This is clearly not acceptable, but I'm not sure what should be done. There are religious sensibilities involved here. For some context, see this discussion on the English Wikipedia help desk, and recent edit summaries in https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tabot&action=history .--ColinFine (talk) 15:26, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

@ColinFine: You can raise your issue here: Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 15:36, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Following a report to AN, I've semiprotected the page. Abzeronow (talk) 22:47, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Last days to vote on the Charter for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to your language

Hello all,

I am reaching out to you today to remind you that the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) charter will close on 2 February 2024. Community members may cast their vote and provide comments about the charter via SecurePoll. Those of you who voiced your opinions during the development of the UCoC Enforcement Guidelines will find this process familiar.

The current version of the U4C charter is on Meta-wiki with translations available.

Read the charter, go vote and share this note with others in your community. I can confidently say the U4C Building Committee looks forward to your participation.

On behalf of the UCoC Project team,

RamzyM (WMF) 16:59, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

February 01

{{Self}} has been updated

{{Self}} has been revised today, but there seems to be a minor disorder when using with {{Cc-zero}}. See File:栗之浦ドック 第二工場.jpg. --トトト (talk) 02:50, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Ordering of files in categories

Hi all, how do the files get ordered for display in e.g. Category:Military uniforms of Russia by Nicholas I by Vinkhuijzen collection?

On the first page, the sequence 'Russia, 1826 (NYPL b14896507-441385).tiff' to 'Russia, 1826 (NYPL b14896507-441397).tiff' is interrupted by 'Russia, 1828 (NYPL b14896507-441478).jpg' followed by 'Russia, 1826 (NYPL b14896507-441398).tiff' and then 'Russia, 1828 (NYPL b14896507-441479).jpg'

To summarise, ...385 to ...397 is followed by ...478, ...398 and ...479.

I've just realised that the .jpg files interrupt the numerical sequence of .tiffs although they all use exactly the same numbering scheme. Is there a reason for this? Can the files be displayed in strict alpha-numerical order?

Also, the category name is a poor translation of the Russian Униформа русской армии при Николае I в коллекции Винкёйзена. I suggest it should be re-named as 'Uniforms of the Russian Army under Nicholas I in the Vinkhuijzen collection'. I imagine there are many more like these. I normally edit on English WP. MinorProphet (talk) 09:04, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Regular sorting for these files has been overridden by setting a DEFAULTSORT consisting of the letters "NYPL" + the "NYPL catalog ID" plus the "Image ID" – which for this category in turn has been overridden by just the two IDs with a colon in-between:

{{DEFAULTSORT:NYPLb14896507.27197}}
[[Category:Images uploaded by Fæ|NYPLb14896507.27197]]
[[Category:Military uniforms of Russia by Nicholas I by Vinkhuijzen collection|b14896507.27197]]

Whoever did that probably had a reason for that – whether that was a good reason is another question. To just have them sorted by file name, you would have to remove the {{DEFAULTSORT:NYPLb14896507.27197}} as well as the |b14896507.27197. --El Grafo (talk) 10:09, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your helpful reply. However, if I edit Category:Military uniforms of Russia by Nicholas I by Vinkhuijzen collection all I see is

{{ru|1=Униформа русской армии при Николае I в коллекции Винкёйзена.}}
[[Category:Vinkhuijzen:Russia]]
[[Category:Military uniforms of Russia by Nicholas I]]

What am I missing? Where is the Defaultsort etc. which you kindly pointed out? Thanks, MinorProphet (talk) 15:39, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

@MinorProphet: In the descriptions of the individual files. So if you go to File:Russia, 1826 (NYPL b14896507-441385).tiff and choose "Edit", the bottom of the editable text is what El Grafo quoted above. --bjh21 (talk) 16:41, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Commons Gazette 2024-02

Volunteer staff changes

In January 2024, 1 sysop was elected. Currently, there are 187 sysops.

• User:TheAafi was elected (40/0/0) on 11 January.

Other news

The Toolforge Grid Engine platform is scheduled to be stopped on 14 February. All tools running on it, such as Commons:CropTool, will stop.

---

Edited by RZuo (talk).

---

Commons Gazette is a monthly newsletter of the latest important news about Wikimedia Commons, edited by volunteers. You can also help with editing!

--RZuo (talk) 12:47, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Voting in Technical needs survey

Hi!

I would like to remind you of participating in the voting for proposals in the Technical needs survey. Happy voting! --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 17:20, 1 February 2024 (UTC)