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Village pump in Rzeszów, Poland [add]

Centralized discussion See also: Village pump/Proposals • Archive Rfc: Should we request a configuration change to shut down cross-wiki uploads? (4 August 2016) Proposal to change organization/naming of US categories by state, territory, etc. (17 July 2016) Proposal to clarify de minimis policy with respect to "ancillary" or "incidental" reproduction of copyrighted works (11 May 2016) Template: View • Discuss  • Edit • Watch

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Overview for external organisations contributing content to Commons

Hi all

I've been working on planning a mass upload and I'm finding it impossible to understand the whole process. I would like to help create a central overview of mass uploading from external organisations that would be suitable for non technical people. This would include things like:

• The workflow from a non technical perspective (so someone from the external archive could look at it and understand what will happen)
• Different ways of achieving mass uploads
• The technical processes including the different tools available and what differences there are what istuations they should be used in.
• Documentation on all parts of the process e.g how to match categories from external databases
• Examples of mass uploads and how they were achieved

I guess a good starting point for this would be to:

• Identify what has already been documented and where
• Identify the major stakeholders who work on mass uploading
• Identify the steps external organisations go through when contributing open license content to Wikimedia Commons

Thanks very much

John Cummings (talk) 17:43, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

yes, we have been begging for this perennially. there is the Commons:Upload tools page, but it is a list not tutorial. in the meantime, check out com:pattypan - it can do mass uploads with metadata via spreadsheet.

let me know if i can help. the problem is the tools change, so it is a moving target / task flow. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 18:17, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Hmm, com:Pattypan is looking very good, very good indeed! This must be the first new thing I see around here, clearly promoted (and funded?) by the WMF, that’s actually geared to improve volonteers workflow (yay, power users!) and not something aimed to dumb down the projects’ procedures to inflate stats of drive-by casual contributors. Way to go! -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 23:56, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

For reference, we do have Commons:Guide to content partnerships and Commons:Guide to batch uploading. Jean-Fred (talk) 18:40, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

I think this resource would be very valuable and should incorporate and update information created earlier. I am willing to assist in the work process. And I support any location chosen for the "resource center". Cheers, Susannaanas (talk) 05:48, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks all, another thing that might be useful to do is consider the steps the volunteers and the organisation would go through for the the uploads to happen (user journeys), here would be an example for the partner organisation:

# Introduction to Wikimedia

# Understanding the reasons and benefits for open licensing

# Understand there are tools to track how their content is used on Wikimedia and how to use them

# Understanding the process they need to go through to upload content

# Understanding if they need to do any work to prepare the content

# Making the decision to make the content available under an open license

# Request on a page on Wikimedia it be copied to Wikimedia Commons

# Understand someone is doing it and see the progress

# See the results of the upload

# Track the usage of their content

# Give feedback on the process

# Request more content be uploaded (go back to step 7)

Thanks

--John Cummings (talk) 06:22, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

I would add some topics about reuse of the content. That could include engaging with online and offline content communities (eg. WikiProjects or local/peer group), strategies for curation, promoting the materials though activation events etc. Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 07:35, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Good points, maybe some more focus on post-processing the upload. When batch uploading, after uploading the images there is still a lot that can be done to improve the content and its reusability. This is done both by engaging the public/Wikimedians with the content and by enriching it by adding categories, fixing small issues. Using the correct tools a lot of valuable work can be done after the upload (visualfilechange, cat-a-lot, insource/incategory search terms). I'm interested in helping with trying to get some more overall organisation in the batch uploading process, currently there is Commons:Batch uploading, which seems to have a large backlog and not that much activity lately. Gr, Basvb (talk) 09:31, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Basvb, thanks for your thoughts, I think these would go into a workflow for volunteers which would look something like this:

1. Pick a request from a request page on Commons
2. Add name as doing the upload on that page
3. Process the request including matching categories, contacting the organisation if there are issues
4. Create category for files uploaded
5. Upload files
6. Request the category is added to BaGLAMa 2
7. Provide confirmation to organisation that the content has been uploaded
8. Do work to encourage reuse with Wikiprojects (which you have expanded)

Thanks again

--John Cummings (talk) 21:16, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Maybe we need to start fresh with a new page, something like Commons:Institutional upload. Then merge other efforts there--Pharos (talk) 23:30, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Thinking about the steps organisations might go through to make content available under an open license might be helpful, this is similar to the previous list but kind of goes one step back to think about what happens rather than the tools and documentation needed to do it.

1. Understanding open licensing
2. Reusing open license content themselves
3. Trial release of content under an open license
4. Getting metrics on content reuse on Commons
5. Policy change that content is made available under open access where possible
6. Implementation, making content available under an open license and copying it to Wikimedia Commons
7. Getting metrics on content reuse on Commons
8. Expansion to more content e.g as more content is digitised
9. Recognition by Wikimedia community and other communities e.g blog posts, tweets etc

--John Cummings (talk) 16:20, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi! Maybe the "project leader" tasks in what we've identified can be of use. We've started identifying and documenting all the actual steps involved in a batch upload process in the Connected Open Heritage project from a technical point-of-view (i.e. what I do) both as a way for me to learn and as a way to be able to create easy-to-use tutorials especially for newcomers like me. Currently we've identified 86 (!) steps involved in the batchuploads I do in that project with multiple cooperation-templates etc. The plan is to smooth the process when I understand it better and create learning material, which is a part of the project goals. Just to get an idea of how we currently think about understanding the steps in a batch upload you can check out the tasks on Phabricator for one of our batch uploads. Phabricator tasks makes it possible to both have a linear 1->2->3 description of involved processes and catch related non-linear stuff like long-term follow up with the GLAM. Early work, but I think you'll get the idea of why we're so tedious about naming and identifying types of skills etc. It woulöd be great to get help with simplifying it all, it IS quite daunting! :-)

/Mattias Östmar (WMSE) (talk) 07:56, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Official seals of provinces of Philippines

I have a question about the scope of {{PD-PhilippinesGov}} (see talk). I want to know if it apply to the official seals of the provinces, e.g. File:Ph seal zambales.png. The available seals currently not cite the source, making it difficult to know if they are works of government officials (ideally we should make our own SVG seals, based only in the description). In 2013, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) created the Interactive Registry of Government Seals (IRGS) administated by the Research, Publications and Heraldry Division. This website has all the province seals in downloadble PNG version, and they are better resolution than currently available, e.g seal of Zambales (is very different from the version we already have). These seals are definitely works of public officials in performance of an official duty. The IRGS have a copyright mark in the bottom which links with the webpage of the NHCP, but I didn't found a section of terms of use or similar. Can we transfer those images to Commons and tag it with PD-PhilippinesGov? If I'm wrong about something, I will appreciate your clarification. --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 06:32, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

The NHCP falls under the national government umbrella. There is a link from nhcp.gov.ph to gov.ph, where it states that "All content is in the public domain unless otherwise stated." It is indeed otherwise stated that the webpages at philgovseals.nhcp.gov.ph are copyrighted. Either the government reserves the right not to release everything as PD, or it may be the work of another level of government (i.e. provincial) which doesn't fall under PD-PhilippinesGov. This is a recurring topic at w:Wikipedia talk:Tambayan Philippines, see also w:Wikipedia talk:Tambayan Philippines/Archive31#Copyright violations. --P 1 9 9  ✉ 18:58, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Your explanation was very clear. Then, philgovseals.nhcp.gov.ph have a copyright mark ( Not OK), but nhcp.gov.ph haven't a copyright mark ( Possible "public domain unless otherwise stated"). I understand, thank you very much. --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 02:20, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

The copyright status of Philippine government works is actually unclear, I have a book borrowed from a DepEd Division Office (I am living in the Philippines), and it states there is no copyright in any government work, but commercial use is not allowed and permission for it from the government is needed (you will also need to pay a royalty for that). I already asked the Copyright Office about this issue via email, but I still got no clear response. They just said that they are forwarding my question to those that know the copyright status of Philippine government works (since they don't handle those cases). ★ Poké⁹⁵ 06:04, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Trouble with hosting 19GB of ancient Chinese documents as djvu files

I've been asked to upload some ancient Chinese texts from this Baidu share, see User_talk:Fæ#Imperial_Encyclopaedia. Unfortunately attempting to download the zip to the UK drops out before it gets to 4GB, the total being 19GB. I have tried setting up a Baidu account, which failed, but I'm not certain this would be a good solution even if I was logged in (effectively using the mobile site is already a work-around).

Any suggestions for how to solve this? If someone could pull out the data and host on an FTP server, that would be great. --Fæ (talk) 10:14, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Have you had a look to see if archive.org has already pulled them across the great firewall?Geni (talk) 15:13, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

I can download it and host it somewhere, but I can't find where to click to download the zip file. I can also set up a FTP server and the user can upload the zip file to it. --Thibaut120094 (talk) 15:20, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

I also don't see an option to download a ZIP file, I can only download individual files one-by-one or install their downloader application to download them all. I could try the app in a virtual machine, but I've been getting slow download speeds when I tried individual files (~100 KB/s), downloading 19 GB would take multiple days – are you getting better speeds? Matma Rex (talk) 15:32, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

I could start a download of the whole folder, perhaps you need to navigate up the tree? I found the maximum I managed to download was 4GB before drop-out. It may help if you emulate a phone in your browser header, though it seemed to work quite well in Chrome without modification. It could be that someone with a Baidu account may have more success at getting the whole file, which could then be shared (by Thibaut?), then uploaded to Commons (by me?). --Fæ (talk) 15:59, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

In desktop browser, I see: https://i.imgur.com/mBmlmXF.png In mobile browser, I see: https://i.imgur.com/jaWpUje.png Going by automatic translation, none of the buttons appear to download the whole folder, but just to make sure I think I clicked everything on that page and the only thing I get is a download of an application that I suppose can be used to download the files, but I'm not really going to run that. 12:56, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Do you need to download something from Baidu? Well, only paid users can download files on Baidu-share smoothly (so they are forcing you to buy their paid membership). But we have ways to get through it. If you do need to download Baidu-share, I can first drag all the contents on Baidu to a server located in Tokyo or Europe, and you can download it. --Techyan（Talk） 11:54, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

@Techyan: Yes please. The link is as above. You may want to email me a link to your own server copy. I'm on a domestic connection, so it may take a day or two for my download to complete. Once I have the folder, I'll look into uploading the collection to Commons a few days later. --Fæ (talk) 12:00, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

@Fæ:Okay, I'll start dragging it to my server in Tokyo. --Techyan（Talk） 12:03, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

@Fæ, Geni, Thibaut120094, Matma Rex:BTW, the speed of downloading files for unpaid Baidu users is exactly 128KB/s, (that's why the speed so slow). --Techyan（Talk） 12:02, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, that's if you use a single connection. I'll temporary (ab)use my v2c servers to download it fast, and let's see if it works --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 16:05, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

@Zhuyifei1999:I have been doing that already. --Techyan（Talk） 16:42, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Files on Baidu-share have been successfully downloaded. I am sending to Fæ privately. Contact me by email if you need a copy. @維基小霸王: 以后传文件别用百度盘了。这玩意在国外太慢。--Techyan（Talk） 10:52, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

The batch upload has been completed. Housekeeping issues, such as corrupt or missing files, can be discussed at Category_talk:Gujin_Tushu_Jicheng. --Fæ (talk) 07:56, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Footer removal in images from German Bundesarchiv

Hi all, is it valid to remove the footer of the images provided by the Bundesarchiv (see here for example)? My personal impression is that images should not be overwritten. New cropped images should be uploaded as new images instead. Am I right? Thanks --Discasto _talk 12:57, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

This effectively falls under our norms for removing watermarks or credit bars. So long as the information is contained in the image description page, I see no issue with it being removed and the file replaced, as it is not part of the original archive photograph. I understand that archives want to retain their name and references on an image, but we should encourage them to trust the CC licenses to be credited and so long as they provide permalinks, Commons will retain those links with the images. --Fæ (talk) 13:22, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

yeah no wonder: "co-operation has been ended unilaterally by the Bundesarchiv". Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 23:03, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

photos at Panoramio

according to [1], Panoramio no longer available after November 4, 2016. User:Panoramio upload bot just uploading files to ID ~20M, total ID is ~130M. all cc-by + cc-by-sa phptos about 1-1.5M from Panoramio.(now uploading about 200 thousand). How can I upload all the photos before November 2016?--shizhao (talk) 06:41, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

1. It may be a lot faster to run it on a WMF labs account.
2. Parallel threading in Python may speed things up, depending on how the internet connections work.
3. I'm presuming these are url whitelisted transfers, if not then swap to direct url uploads rather than handling files clientside.
4. If your plan is to upload 1m images, you may need to to a quicker wget and create a temporary archive based on a filter rather than attempting a Commons upload within the cut-off date. Raise a task on Phabricator for it if you want to do this using WMF server space.

However you do this, you are going to be very pushed for time. --Fæ (talk) 07:18, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Now is a multi-threaded. And I don't have time to re-develop and deploy, and time is too tight....--shizhao (talk) 09:31, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Have you tried reaching out to Google to see if they have anyone interested in helping. They're not exactly short of computing power and internet bandwidth. -- Colin (talk) 14:51, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Another party to consider is the volunteer project Archiveteam. They have an interest in archiving and preservation and they even have a page about Panoramio. --Gazebo (talk) 09:13, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I have begin crawl all metadata of freely licensed photos--shizhao (talk) 08:28, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Proposed change to UploadWizard: Use {{PD-1923}} instead of {{PD-US}}

Proposed change https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/314259/ would result in UploadWizard using {{PD-1923}} instead of {{PD-US}} when the user chooses "First published in the United States before 1923" on the license selection screen. It would only affect newly uploaded files (it doesn't affect existing uploads, or any tool other than UploadWizard).

{{PD-US}} is broader than just works published before 1923. This license description only mentions works before 1923 (the most common case for PD-US licensed works), so we might as well apply the specific {{PD-1923}} template. The [localisation message documentation] entry even specifically mentions {{PD-1923}}.

This looks like a good idea to me, but I'm asking for approval here in case I missed something (and also to let you know of the change; are there any documentation pages to be updated?). We plan for the change to be deployed on October 26. Matma Rex (talk) 13:50, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

I've merged the change and it will be deployed on October 26, as planned. Matma Rex (talk) 04:55, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Proposed change to UploadWizard: Warnings about mismatched licenses and dates

Proposed change https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/308177/ would result in UploadWizard displaying some new errors and warnings when the license selected by the user and the work creation date don't match. In particular:

• We'd display an error (preventing the user from uploading a file) if:
  • Selected license is "First published in the United States before 1923" ({{PD-US}} or {{PD-1923}}) and selected date is after 1923
  • Selected license is "Author died more than 70 years ago" ({{PD-old}}) and selected date is less than 70 years ago
  • Selected license is "Author died more than 100 years ago" ({{PD-old-100}}) and selected date is less than 100 years ago
• We'd display a warning (which can be bypassed) if:
  • Selected license is one of "Faithful reproduction of a painting that is in the public domain" ({{PD-Art}}), "Original work of the US Federal Government" ({{PD-USGov}}) or "Original work of NASA" ({{PD-USGov-NASA}}), and selected date is today

This looks like a good idea to me, but I'm asking for approval here in case I missed something (and also to let you know of the change; are there any documentation pages to be updated?). We plan for the change to be deployed on October 26. Matma Rex (talk) 14:23, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

• Sounds like a good idea :-). --Steinsplitter (talk) 14:33, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
• Sure I agree with the change, although I have felt like some people misunderstand the date field as an field for the date of upload, which it is not.--Snaevar (talk) 23:03, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

  @Snaevar: It is clearly labelled as "Date work was created or first published" (MediaWiki:Mwe-upwiz-date-created), so I think that's unlikely. If they really do, I don't think we can help those people :( Matma Rex (talk) 03:09, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

  Oh, right. I have not looked at UploadWizard for a while, so I do not think I have any cases after that label was added.--Snaevar (talk) 00:33, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

• are you stopping the upload, or are you guiding the uploader to a better input? Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 02:59, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

  @Slowking4: The exact error message shown is e.g. "The selected date doesn't match the license (First published in the United States before 1923).", and the user can't proceed until they correct the date; hopefully that's guidance enough. Right now it won't always be possible to correct the license, because it's selected in the previous step and you can't go back – we're actually working on this too (https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/314024/), but it's not ready yet. Matma Rex (talk) 03:19, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

  i sure hope you have a way to comply with the warning, rather than start over, i.e. for me that would be a show stopper. (and yeah the 2 step process is a minus compared to the other tools) Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 03:36, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

  There may be a problem: if the original date is unknown, the easiest way to proceed is to guess at a random year satisfying the wizard. We can get a lot of hard to distinguish incorrect dates. I think we should explicitely suggest a way to say the date is not known to the uploader. "Unknown" is probably not the best option, as it is widely used when the year is unknown also to others. Suggesting a range (such as "before 1850", "1200-1300") might be better. A "before 1923" is obviously suspect, but should be allowed for this exact reason. --LPfi (talk) 08:53, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

  @LPfi: Interesting point, but I think in this particular case this is unlikely to be a problem. In most cases it's easy to identify modern images vs ones that were taken 70 years ago, and I don't think intentional copyright violations are often exceptions to this. (As a side note, it is possible to specify any value for the "Date" field, including "unknown", and the user will be allowed to proceed with the upload if they type anything that is not an actual date.) Matma Rex (talk) 04:51, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

• Good idea. ★ Poké⁹⁵ 03:11, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Looks like we agree this is an improvement, so I've merged the change and it will be deployed on October 26, as originally planned. It can still be reverted if anyone has a good objection, or if it turns out it causes copyright problems, but I don't expect that to happen. Thanks for the comments :) Matma Rex (talk) 04:58, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Non-free_logos

Is this possible in commons? --Jos1950 (talk) 19:00, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

It is impossible to give a general answer. It depends on the circumstances of each file. Ruslik (talk) 20:28, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

But usually, no, because we don't accept copyrighted images without an explicit license from the rights-holder. - Jmabel ! talk 21:19, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

But you can search, it's posible to find free logos because they are very simple (only text and simple shapes). See Commons:Threshold of originality. --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 00:56, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

If it is simple, it is "free". Likewise if it is old enough or has an acceptable licence. So no, I cannot see when that category could be used here (else than as a path for deletion). --LPfi (talk) 09:00, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Incredibly, many simple logos are tagged in Wikipedia in English (and others) as "non free". E.g. this simple artistic interpretation of the real logo made by a local user: File:AP Films logo.png, that I recently transferred to Commons. --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 02:26, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

User nominating images with sources for deletion with no sources template

I noted that User:Jcb is nominating images for deletion due to no source/etc. but I am afraid that this being done without due attention. As at least one image of mine was deleted (I did not react in time because the template that was used on my talk page was malformed and suggested it is a problem with description - see here) I've decided to bring this here, particularly as in the random 4 images nominated by that user for deletion I was able to find source in three, and perhaps all four images:

• File:8e R.A.jpg - malformed description template, but clear source "collection personnelle"
• File:Sachsen-koenig - coat of arms.jpg - source was given in the original edit summary, accessible through the Original upload log field (H.G.Ströhl, Deutsche Wappenrolle, 1897)
• File:Sakai Cockpit A5M.jpg - source is given in the description. The image is also clearly labelled as public domain, and so secondary source is of little importance as it cannot change public domain status.
• File:Sala Mauretańska sufit.jpg - no source, but uploader chose CC with attribution, whose wording suggests it is their own picture.

While case number 4 is somewhat dubious, I am afraid that this small selection calls Jcb's judgement into question. I am afraid that user is not reviewing the files carefully, perhaps uses some automated tool that also leaves broken notification templates on uploader's talk page. I'd like to ask Jcb to stop tagging files for deletion, revert him/herself and resume only once he addresses the concerns raised. In addition, community review of all files deleted due to that user's nominations may be in order. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 05:04, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I tag files for which the source information is not sufficient to determine copyright situation, which is obviously the case for all of these four files. If the community wants to review the about 50.000 files I have dealt with for the past six months, I wish them good luck. Jcb (talk) 05:40, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

The community may then wish to stop you from creating further work for them, because as I've shown, your deletions and tagging are problematic. Why did you revert me at [2]? With no edit summary. This is clearly disruptive. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 05:48, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Here is more:

• File:8a10895r toll bridge mississippi river.jpg. No source? Descriptions clearly states Library of Congress, and 5 seconds in google gives [3].
• File:Karel Eichler.jpg - description is in Czech but it gives source - page 485 of a cited book from 1891.

Now, I am not saying all of your taggins are in error, I can't see a source for File:866corregidor map.jpg for example, and I support you there, but at least 50% of your recent tags seem dobious - source is given, or very easy to find. This IS a cause of concern, given how active you are in deleting things. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 05:55, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

• • Please be aware that in most countries you have to show that the author has died more than 70 years ago, so just the date of publication is often not enough. And no, my error rate is not 50% of course. Jcb (talk) 06:38, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
    • I am perfectly happen to extend good faith and say it is maybe just the last few taggings of yours which have a bad ratio; it is certainly clear you are a dedicated and experienced volunteer who is doing a lot of helpful edits. But while we have to be vigilant regarding spam or other illegal uploads, we also have to be careful not to delete good images (and using correct templates). If you wish, we can discuss images on a case by case basis, but I do think they are anything but clear cut no-sources. --166.104.240.102 07:11, 17 October 2016 (UTC) (that was me, Piotrus, editing from a public computer)

• • • I am posting here again since there have been reverts in file space without discussion anywhere that need to be addressed. Your attitude is not helpful, User:Jcb. At [4] instead of constructive edit summaries you are now threatening speedy deletion. This is just short of abuse of admin power - seems like you cannot produce any valid arguments, so you want to stifle discussion by deletion. (And Commons:Criteria for speedy deletion is not a toy for admins, you need to provide a valid speedy deletion rationale, which you have not done). You say on my talk that I can convert the discussion into a regular DF ([5]) but why should I do so? I identified a source. Your no source template is NOT VALID. Ditto in [6]. I explained, twice, that there is a source. You just keep reverting me without a rationale. This is a behavior not becoming of an admin; users who revert others and refuse to engage in discussion are classified on this site using a different terminology, I am afraid. If you have further concerns about this or another picture, you should not revert me without any comment, restoring the wrong template (which is what you have done several times now), but at the very least you should provide an informative edit summary (explaining why I was wrong), and ideally, if you still have concerns, since the speedy template is disputed (and by someone else then the original uploader), you should convert it to DR yourself (since you think there is a problem). I do not think there is a problem, so I see no need for a deletion discussion (or any template). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 08:09, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I have converted File:Karel Eichler.jpg and File:8e R.A.jpg to deletion requests. Jcb seems completely sure these are copyright violations, enough to repeatedly revert other contributors and threaten speedy deletions without a correct explanation. I suggest these are used as test cases for Jcb's judgement, as there seems to be a very obvious issue that these look to be fundamentally public domain images of the type that most contributors believe are in the public interest to host on Commons and which administrators should make all reasonable efforts to avoid removal on bureaucratic grounds rather than factual grounds. --Fæ (talk) 08:43, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

After a brief examination of the above two files I raised DRs for, I can see no good reason for Jcb to engage in revert-warring over the no source template and to threaten speedy deletion and to give warnings to the uploaders without a more detailed explanation of their actions. For an administrator, the actions on these files appear inappropriately aggressive and tendentious. I suggest other administrators experienced in the appropriate judgement of when to require hyperlinked sources and when to make a judgement about public domain material that does not need a hyperlinked source, chip in with their views. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 09:08, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Edit warring on speedy deletion tags is inappropriate, we have deletion requests for that. But I write here to make an admission: lately I've been using the "no source" tag also for sources which I believe to be blatantly incorrect, mostly uploads by newbies sourced as "own work". The reason is that the helpful script leaves an informative message, unlike {{Copyvionote}} which does not say anything specific. Nemo 10:12, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Refer to Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard#Block_of_User:Piotrus. --Fæ (talk) 11:36, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

@Nemo bis: it would be useful if {{Disputed}} could be set up to leave similar user notifications for "low-risk" images which are likely to be public domain, or have valid sources added with a bit of research, rather than forcing the 7-day limit before deletion on everything. Maybe this is something to request on Phabricator as a change to the listed Tools? That way certain administrators would avoid getting into un-mellow spats over files that need housekeeping, but are highly unlikely to ever be real copyright problems. --Fæ (talk) 12:02, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

yes, we need a process to improve metadata, and deletion / doubt source is not it. it is a standard of practice by some, to delete file rather than fix license or source link. this tends to undermine the credibility of commons. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 03:07, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't see any reason why these files couldn't have gone to DR. It's a clearer and more overt action that gives more people time to see them and fix them if possible.--Prosfilaes (talk) 13:10, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I think everyone except Jcb agrees. I hope that after the outcome on COM:AN, he will accept the trout-slap for his tendentious behaviour, rather than wasting everyone's time with more of the same nonsense. Based on the past record, I doubt we are going to see Jcb apologise to anybody, or even admit to doing anything wrong. --Fæ (talk) 17:00, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I've been checking the categories under Category:Media without a source (the day by day cats) by taking a look at files which (visually) look like they might be PD-old or PD-gov-US. I've found that for quite some of the files I've been able to find a source with just a few clicks and found that in a lot of other cases further discussion is necessary. Often this discussion is about the licensing of the file. For example whether it is reasonable to put a pd-old template on a 1890 file. Those kinds of discussions should be dealt with using a deletion request and not a no-source-with-7-day-deletion method. By checking these categories from the last few days I've already been able to find circa 20 files which have been saved from deletion. These files are often widely used and more than 10 years old. I find it shameful that we as a community allow for such valuable (widely used) files to be deleted with so little procedure. Given that I've been able to identify the sources for an average of circa 5 files a day in these categories, and the number of 50,000 cases Jcb mentions above, I estimate that thousands of validly hosted and often valuable files have been deleted in this manner. Often these files have initially been hosted by local Wikipedia's and were later moved here. How can local Wikipedia's trust us to host their (valid) images if we throw them away without too much of an investigation. The current methods hurt Wikimedia Commons and its free content to an enormous extent. Basvb (talk) 18:41, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

A very good point and indeed this is our main concern: we should take all due care to protect PD content from deletion. Having no source should NOT be an auto-deletion criteria, not where there is any reasonable doubt that a source may not be needed. Please see Template_talk:No_source_since#Valid_licence.2FPD_but_lacking_source. I think we need to develop best procedures for using no source and similar images, which clearly state that not all cases should end in deletion after 7 days. Many should be converted into deletion discussions. We also need to accept that images with no source have right to exist (if there are clearly PD otherwise). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 03:24, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

we see a rise in use of "doubt source", and mass "doubt sources" of uploader, rather than engage on talk, or DR. because why waste time when you can semi-automatically give adversive direction. we need training in how to curate images and collaborate with uploaders. those who do not want to professionalize their conduct may need to get a goodbye. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 03:13, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

We should open a COM:AN/U for Jcb (as I intended a few weeks before). Unfortunately Commons has not an admin-critic-system like Wikipedias and admins here are more like master of the universe. I've much more examples of this aggressive and irrational behavior, which is more like vandalism (I've evidence for this judgment). ↔ User: Perhelion 10:44, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

well, the problem is systemic more than an individual. the last time he got talked about at AN/U it degenerated into admin bickering. we need some training and professionalism among the admin class. there is a fundamental lack of standards of practice. will they be motivated by this case to elevate their conduct? i wish it were so, but i doubt it. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 17:35, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Please see also Commons:Undeletion_requests/Current_requests#Files_uploaded_by_VirginRedemption where JCB deleted images as "out of scope" after all the discussing parties reached consensus that the files should be kept. --Jarekt (talk) 19:51, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to halt all unsourced cross-wiki transfers

I suggest the following proposal in the light of the highly probable significant loss of Public Domain education material that the current processes for cross-wiki transfers have encouraged, and the absence of improvement to the way Commons administrators are deleting unsourced public domain files. Refer to the estimates by Basvb above, which I find highly believable.

Proposal

1. All cross-wiki bot transfers of media without explicit and verifiable sources are to stop, if necessary by blocking the relevant bot accounts if the operator is unavailable.
2. Cross-wiki transfers by bot can only restart once a bot operator has confirmed that sources have a tested verification process. This need not require hyperlinks, but sources must be verifiable and reliable, such as standard source book references.
3. Rejected cross-wiki transfers should be marked as such, indicating on their home wiki that there is a problem with sourcing that requires a manual fix.
4. Sources which are "own" or to a Flickr account, must be verified as by established accounts. Uploads from accounts with very few remaining uploads, or accounts that are blocked or banned, should not be considered "established".

Note that the community will need to agree some numbers for what "established" should be, just to help out the bot operators decide how to do the checks. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 19:20, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I doubt whether the new uploading of unsourced images is the real problem here. In this query (other cat) you can find an overview of the years in which the files in Category:Images without source have been uploaded, there you can see that the bulk of the images is older than a few years. That doesn't mean that I oppose your idea, I simply think that we should not forget to focus (as well) on the images that are already here and which need attention. We should be able to find a less destructive way to deal with this backlog. Basvb (talk) 19:48, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I would not be against moving all unsourced transfers back to their 'home' wiki, regardless of age, and not moving them back until they have been reviewed correctly. As has been said, these mass deletions of public domain media files uploaded in good faith, do not help the reputation of Commons one bit. --Fæ (talk) 20:00, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

the problem is that some of these are ancient, and the transfers are semi-automatic without regard to source. and the broken transfer process breaks what little sourcing is there, i.e. changing author to transfer bot. and the wiki may have a different view about sourcing, i.e. we had the case of the person who bought a copyright release with the print and uploaded to english, and then the files were transfered, and deleted on english, and then later deleted on commons when the paperwork was not otrs'ed years later. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 17:29, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Moving files back to the home wiki is impossible in the case of e.g. sv-wp, which has no local repository. And the files moved back would not be usable elsewhere. We also have truly problematic files uploaded on projects other than Commons, which should be deleted here instead of left on the original project. So, the problems have to be solved here.

Even verifying the source does not help, as some administrators place absurd burden on the source. One example linked above included the requirement that an anonymous photographer should be proved anonymous or otherwise the death year of the probably 90+ years old photographer found. In another, "Private collection" was not enough as source, as that would not allow proving the copyrigt status (which above is stated as a requirement for the "source").

In an earlier case, the link being dead and the file not available at the source anymore was reason for deletion (the administrator suggested the verification scheme should have been used – is it really used for places like governmental web sites?).

I think the problem is our having very different views on how much evidence we should have to keep an image, the function of the source information, and when the no nource since template should be used. The views should be consolidated, with adinistrators stopping with these deletions until we reach consensus.

--LPfi (talk) 10:12, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to ban Jcb from using the 'no source' template for six months

While we consider procedural and policy changes, the vast majority of problems in applying the {{no source}} template in the last few months can be sourced to the actions of one user, Jcb. In the light of this administrator's tendentious edit-warring and highly inappropriate and incompetent use of the administrator tools in relation to their aim to mark for deletion files that have been automatically flagged as unsourced, regardless of the fact of whether sources are in the description, or the image page history, or whether the image is very clearly out of copyright so need not be deleted. Many contributors no longer have any trust in Jcb to apply this template or to use the admin tools to delete files affected. Refer to the history on AN for background. Banning Jcb from using this template need not affect their valued volunteer efforts on other backlogs.

I am raising this proposal on the Village Pump, due to people recently affected by Jcb's actions not all following the discussions about Jcb that have been raised on administrator noticeboards, including several serious admonishments from fellow administrators that Jcb has ignored. For this reason it seems more representative to gain a sense of consensus here, where more non-administrators may take part.

Please add a support or oppose below; I suggest raising longer comments, discussion and discussion of specific cases in a sub-section.

Proposal

Jcb is to be banned from using the {{no source}} template on any image for six months. Should Jcb continue to use this template, or any variation of it, their account will be subject to a series of escalating blocks.

•  Support as proposer. --Fæ (talk) 17:58, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
•  Oppose. There's no reason to try to take sysop tools one at a time from a sysop. Ellin Beltz (talk) 18:06, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Since when is posting a {{no source}} template an sysop action? Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 18:12, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
•  Oppose as currently drafted. This ban would be incompatible with Jcb's duties as an administrator, so there would need to be discussion about whether or not a de-sysop request is justified in the circumstances. Nick (talk) 18:14, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
  • I don't see how this is incompatible. Refraining from using this template is not part of sysop tools and Jcb could raise DRs or use the {{disputed}} template as more collegiate alternatives to achieve precisely the same objective. Sorry to say this, but being an administrator does not give you a free pass from responsibilities that would be enforced for non-admin accounts, this is explicitly stated in COM:Administrators. The continual deferring of corrective action until things have got so bad we must have a desysop vote is a simple form of the Super Mario effect, giving Jcb special immunity because they have sysop rights, rather than treating the account in the same way as we would for any non-administrator account. --Fæ (talk) 19:49, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
    • You misunderstand, if any administrator was to be barred from performing a less complicated task, such as tagging files as having no source, it raises the obvious problem about whether they can be trusted to have continued access to the administrator toolset. The question is thus - is Jcb's conduct unbecoming of an administrator. Nick (talk) 21:50, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
      • if a user misuses a tool, then maybe a tool timeout is warranted. conduct is separate from trust. (just ask doc james) the all or nothing mindset is part of the problem. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 03:21, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

•  Support The {{no source}} means no source, not an admin thinking the source is wrong. The latter requires explanation and probably discussion, so COM:DR is the right way in this case. And, source is not required if it is not necessary to resolve the copyright status. If, as it is suggested in previous opinion, using {{no source}} is an admin tool, I would consider this situation as misuse of admin tool. Nominating for deletion because the uploader made a little mistake (and even without notifying the real uploader) does not made Commons better. Ankry (talk) 18:33, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
  • @Ankry: Imagine you find a file with an obviously wrong source... say a photograph of a modern politician, whose source states "Olmec inscription"... are you saying an admin should not remove the obviously incorrect source and cannot tag it as {{no source}}? What if the source reads "Z" or "source" ? Are you saying if it was not literally blank at the time of upload, it cannot be tagged "no source" and should go through DR? Storkk (talk) 12:39, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
    • @Storkk: Removing absolutely bogus source information is OK to me. But I do not think that adding {{no source}} is OK if a source information (even bogus) is present or if it is misplaced or when copyright status can be determined without a source. And something totaly meaningless for one person may be clear for another (eg. "Source = s.25" (or "p.25")) may be clear information if it is stated in the description that it is an image from a specified book. IMO, it is better to let somebody else to look at it in a DR if any doubts or, especially, if the uploader is not or cannot be easily notified (bot upload/cross-wiki upload).

And please note, we are not talking about desysoping (I appreciate Jcb's work in other fields). This is just suggestion to avoid a specific template (he would be still free to create DR's, delete files, prepare lists of unsourced files for other admins' review, etc.) Ankry (talk) 14:14, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

• @Ankry: I was trying to clarify your statement that "{{no source}} means no source, not an admin thinking the source is wrong". I have often done exactly that, and as long as we agree that bogus information doesn't count, then I think we're discussing a matter of perception rather than clear black and white. IMO this points further towards my suggestion below of changing policy to nobody using {{no source}} on files over a certain age. Storkk (talk) 15:31, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

• I believe it's better to discuss these issues with Jcb and on COM:AN/U, not in the main village pump. Such a discussion could (should IMO) include both the administrative tools as well as tagging files without a source. In this stage I still hope that a discussion indicating that some working methods are considered harmful (by a broad range of users) and a short cool down on the side of Jcb to consider his methods are a solution. However for that to work Jcb needs to involve himself in the discussions concerning his working methods. I understand that this is not easy to do and that the current discussion can feel like an attack on ones person. However the current working methods: tagging files with doubts about the validity of the source or license as having no source (there are sources, but Jcb doesn't agree with them, often correctly, sometimes incorrectly) as well as blocking/deleting users/files with which Jcb has an issue/nominated himself, are harming our project. Basvb (talk) 19:39, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
•  Oppose for now. I have not seen suitable evidence of widespread "incompetence" presented here. Instead users have cherry-picked a handful of images they contest. A quick glance at Fae's talk page and archives will reveal thousands of his uploaded images posted for DR. Are we to conclude Fae is "incompetent" wrt copyright or scope issues and should be banned from uploading for six months, or consider that in the light of the couple of million uploads he's done. I'll assume the same for now of Jcb, who is rather active as an admin unlike some we've discussed recently, unless we have clear evidence that he gets it wrong too frequently. Seems to me Jcb is being made a scapegoat for the huge backlog of unexamined uploads and for poorly written bots that lose information. Perhaps he needs additional help in examining these files with poor/no sources rather than a constant stream of attacks. Images that are not reliably documented with a source and evidence of their free licence or PD are worthless to our re-users. -- Colin (talk) 21:46, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
•  Oppose mostly per Colin. I'd support a change in policy, though, to confine {{nsd}} and {{npd}} to files younger than, say, 6 months. Storkk (talk) 22:29, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Oh come on. Months of tagging PD works that have been here for years and can be easely fixed only to delete them yourself 7 days later isn's widespread incompetence? Tagging complex cases for months which should go to a DR isn's widespread incompetence? We don't need a policy change merely because one user abuses the tagg. Natuur12 (talk) 11:36, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
    • Natuur12 I've seen the noticeboard posts. What's the ratio of success to failure? And how much better would the next average admin do (given that nobody's perfect). What we've got here looks like someone commenting on all the dead bodies coming out of a hospital and concluding that it should be shut down. How many images does Jcb investigate and locate/fix sources or correct licence tags? How many are correctly tagged and deleted? How much effort are people expecting an admin to spend investigating each image. For example, 10 minutes work per image for 1000 images is 16 weeks at two hours a day, five days a week. Is there a particular class of image that is a problem (e.g. PD old). Is the problem the tag or the fact that it serves a 7 day death sentence on images where the uploader is no longer active -- in that case, the community needs to revise the procedures so we know the steps/policy that applies to everyone. There was an attempt at something like this before, but it confused procedural policy with hosting policy. Natuur12, perhaps you could mediate because it seems clear Jcb won't talk to Fae. -- Colin (talk) 12:19, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
    • (Edit conflict) I see it differently... is there really any reason to use {{nsd}} or {{npd}} on old images? I don't see a major drawback to confining them to young files. I have used those templates on older files, and always felt a little uncomfortable doing so, because the whole point of the templates is to get the original uploader to fix the error while things are fresh... what percentage of uploaders from ~2 years ago are even still active? Why not just put them through a DR, where they are more easily seen by a wider variety of people, and can be referred back to by non-admins, and are also much less likely to cause contention. I see Jcb's actions apparently much less black-and-white than you or Fae. I see a difference in interpretation of "source" requirements, perhaps mistaken, and perhaps pursued overly enthusiastically. I agree that these all probably shouldn't have been tagged {{nsd}} ... but IMO neither should other old files. That's where I think the appropriate remedy lies here, I don't see a sanctionable offence. And I'm not shocked that Jcb has made some errors, nor should you be. Maybe he should slow down a bit - but that's a totally different discussion, and not one I would participate in. Storkk (talk) 12:31, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
      • @Colin: Please see the post made by Basvb at 18:41, 17 October 2016 (UTC) for some estimated numbers. He should just slow down and take more time investigating images. Having no backlog at no permission, no source and deletion request is nice but if Jcb and INC would just slow down a bit other admins would have a change to help. I used to close some series of deletion requests in the evening for example but because they are rushing through our backlogs there is nothing left. If Jcb would slow down in that area he would have more time to investigate the sources.

He is blocking people he gets in conflict with, behaving dickish when people complain about deletions, taggings etc, not responding to questions and complaints from his fellow admins. I am not sure if we can resolve this. Natuur12 (talk) 12:40, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Ok I see that post now, though it only looks at tagged files, not really easy to work out how many files Jcb examined and (a) decided were fine or (b) corrected or added sources or licence fixes to. I agree there is an issue with Jcb not participating in these discussions, though I suspect that's partly because fae keeps starting them and various people are itching to remove his admin bit. So we have a communication problem. But we also have a general problem with the procedure whereby tagged images always get deleted 7 days later, and everyone here seems to think that should only happen for newly uploaded files, whereas older files should presumably go onto some DR or backlog pile for people to work through. I do agree with you that it isn't good for any admin to be over productive. Perhaps fixing our procedural policy would be the least confrontational approach? -- Colin (talk) 14:21, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

•  Support Jcb's recent actions made me worried that all files that were uploaded years ago will be deleted blindly just because it lacks a source or the source provided is not sufficient. And their block of Piotrus is also inappropriate, so that's why I am no longer trusting this admin anymore. --★ Poké⁹⁵ 13:27, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

I clicked on a random day in the Category:Media without a source: 16 October 2016. I picked the first three files that JCB had tagged:

• File:800px-Oceanie2.png. The file is confusingly both released into Public Domain and GFDL. This was created by User:Domaleixo who was blocked permanently in 2012 for copying the illustrations out of books. Seems like someone needs to investigate why his other uploads are still not deleted. We've been illegally using this file since 2007. There's even an SVG created from it.
• File:866corregidor map.jpg. This claims PD US GOV and was uploaded by en:User:Celebrity historian. That user hasn't been active since September 2006. Their talk page is full of messages, since August 2006, about the lack of sourcing for their images. So clearly there has been a known problem with this person's images since 2006 yet it was transferred to Commons in 2009. That's indicative of a systemic problem with Commons accepting material other wikis already know isn't acceptable.
• File:86th BCT.jpg. Another PD US GOV. Uploaded by en:User:Mikeofv who is still active on Wikipedia but has not been notified that their image lacks a source. This has been discussed before -- the wikipedia transfer bot has been notified instead!

So this is a bigger problem than just Jcb, and we are failing to notice (and thank) Jcb for helping to delete content (like the first one of three above) that we've been hosting illegally for nearly a decade. There's definitely a problem here, with Jcb, with transfer bots, with tag->delete processes, with the user notification mechanism, but also a big problem with Commons hosting material and Wikipedia using material illegally and which nobody is removing in a timely manner. -- Colin (talk) 15:02, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Do you think we should stop accepting automated transfers where the original uploader is no longer active (less than 10 edits in the last 90 days, or some other metric) ?

I'd also suggest we shouldn't be allowing automated transfers where the original uploader is now blocked/banned on their home/source wiki. I mention automated uploads - manual transfer with careful analysis of the images would of course continue to be permitted/encouraged. Nick (talk) 18:44, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Please see User:Basvb/nosource for an investigation of all the files tagged no-source on the 15th of October by Jcb. Of course the conclusions are influenced by my personal opinion, but I believe it gives a good overview of an average day and relevant percentages. On the other hand Jcb has indicated on my talk page (in Dutch) that he is reading the discussions and takes into account the feedback. I think the considerations on the files from the 15th of October shows that often the cases are more complicated than should be handled using a simple no-source tag. Limiting the no-source tag (and maybe the same for similar tags meant to warn users) for files uploaded in the last 1-3 years seems like a good solution to me. Older files can often benefit from a broader discussion via a DR. Basvb (talk) 20:08, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

It's worth looking for no source + PD licenses where it becomes easy to see obvious PD files, such as reproductions of works more than 200 years old or where the source is given in the description, it's just not a hyperlink. The report is https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?psid=563304, but most problematic files have been removed in the last few hours. When the error rate is greater than 10% then the process is not working, so it's interesting to read through Basvb's analysis which shows there was only a 50/50 chance that a templated file was suitable for speedy deletion once scrutinized by other volunteers. --Fæ (talk) 20:27, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Basvb, very helpful, with the limitations you point out. And I note your comment "investing so much time for all images is not something that I expect to be reasonable". We must remember that for those tagged no source by Jcb, there are many others left untouched, or source added, or licence corrected, or sent to DR, etc, etc. The practical element of this must be considered: if people are uploading unreliable images faster than our admins can review them, say, then our repository will fill with cruft that makes it very useless for re-users. Nick, I don't know the details of the transfer bots. It seems some wikis are not doing their job wrt checking images, so perhaps we need to consider those wikis are utterly unreliable and thus every image transferred must be examined by a human. There was an earlier attempt by Fae to change the policy wrt this template leading to deletion, but it suggested changing our precautionary principle hosting policy, which was completely the wrong focus. I see no need to change our hosting policies but a desperate need to change our procedural ones wrt this template. As has been widely pointed out, for files we have hosted for years, the assumption that the uploader can rapidly fix the issue does not hold. Either that uploader has gone or the tool isn't correctly picking up the Wikipedian who uploaded it and so is templating the transfer bot. I would support a change to our procedures that prevent files older than 1 year, say, being automatically deleted for "no source", though that obviously requires some commitment from admins to do more DR.

I would also be interested if the same analysis could be done for other editors adding nosource tags (I saw Hedwig and Ellin in the category I looked at, perhaps there are others). My guess is that a second pair of eyes on these images may also demonstrate more than Fae's 10% error rate threshold (error being that the file probably shouldn't be speedied, which is Basvb's analysis, rather than being that the file shouldn't be deleted). It's simply a contentious area whether an image is "obviously" lacking necessary evidence or is "probably" lacking the necessary evidence and users will disagree. We can't design a perfect system. Other pragmatic suggestions might be that a file that is in-use must go to DR. Both changes could surely be handled by the tool detecting the upload/tranfer date and also the in-use on other projects links. There clearly aren't enough people doing this job, if we've hosted many deletionable images for nearly a decade, so we need to improve the system to target those files most likely to be faulty and to take extra care with those files most likely to harm our project if wrongly deleted. Simply demanding perfection (or eliminating a user who is generally doing a useful job) will only make the backlog grow and we'll be hosting these files illegally for another decade. I'm glad to see comments that Jcb is reading this and considering it, so I hope we see a more cautious approach to using this tag in future. -- Colin (talk) 07:53, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

•  Support i've long been concerned with the projection of black and white, when for me, there is a lot of gray area, and a lot of low risk items. this conduct is impacting the reputation of commons. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 03:17, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
•  Support With the caveat that nothing I have seen since I first encounter Jcb on Monday makes me believe he is suited to be an admin, and I'd support removing sysop privileges, since he has abused not only the template in question, but also other more important tools, such as the block button (which was used to silence me for no other reason then I disagreed with him; I have yet to receive a single word of apology from that user). Further, the fact that the editor has not even bothered to explain him/herself here suggests to me that they still believe they did nothing wrong (and perhaps can do no wrong...), and that all of our talk here is meaningless fuming. Several editors have suggested that this should be discussed at COM:AN/U and whatever the outcome of this discussion here, I think it should be continued there (and if it is, I'd appreciate a ping). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 13:43, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
•  Support Jcb does "an important work", but I say only COM:Forum #Quellenangabe bei Wappen / amtlichen Werken…. He deleted (SVG) images with source (reference) and also don't replaced the SVG with the JPG source on deletion (without deletion log), although mentioned and pinged. ↔ User: Perhelion 14:36, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
•  Support: I was skepical at first, about this sectorial, temporary taking awa of admin tools. But seems that it is feassable, judging from some of the above, so I join the chorus: This will prevent further deletions of important material. Faulty file pages should, of course, be improved, and actual copyvios should be deleted. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 20:07, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Xenosmilus

It would be possible to get some more pictures? I have got big book about this animal and large article without pictures is... OJJ (talk) 09:48, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

It would certainly be possible, and we'd love if you took some and shared! Storkk (talk) 19:49, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

@Storkk: Unfortunately, I haven't got any free picture. That's why I'm writing. I thought, that you find some free on Arkive (?). I don't much understand. OJJ (talk) 04:09, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Apparently the three images in Category:Xenosmilus are all that we have on Commons. De728631 (talk) 19:23, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Naturism or nudism ?

Some registered users (like Jiel) or IPs (like 84.7.50.185 and 84.7.24.79) are currently mixing categories about naturism and nudism. I'm wondering if there's a discussion somewhere about that because it doesn't make sense to me. I'm not a specialist bu I think "nudism" and "naturism" are not exactly the same thing... I used to think "nudism" was more a recreational activity and "naturism" more a wider lifestyle. But when I read the French articles about those termes (BTW on English WP both terms are in the same article), it seems that "nudism" is from an individual point of view and "naturism" is a collective nudism. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 18:22, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

• I think the uses of the two terms by various people overlap so heavily that there is no generally agreed upon useful distinction. - Jmabel ! talk 22:35, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Notification of DMCA takedown demand - Celtic tree (18968258040)

In compliance with the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and at the instruction of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, one or more files have been deleted from Commons. Please note that this is an official action of the WMF office which should not be undone. If you have valid grounds for a counter-claim under the DMCA, please contact me.The takedown can be read here.

Please note that the Office of General Counsel has decided that a "strike" is not appropriate in this instance because of mitigating circumstances (e.g., there is a clear lack of willfulness and a mistaken belief of compliance).

Affected file(s):

• File:Celtic tree (18968258040).jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#Celtic tree (18968258040) Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 23:05, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

October 19

Is there an English expression for that ?

How do we call in English when a musician or orchestra plays live music during the projection of a film, like here ? I wanted to create a category on Commons but I don't know how to name it. There's an article about that on French Wikipédia (we say Ciné-concert in French) but no interwiki. Any suggestion ? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 21:31, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

I think the normal phrase used for a film/piano combination is 'silent film accompanist' or 'accompanist', but an 'orchestral accompanist' seems to be a specialised role within an orchestra - see en:Accompaniment. The Royal Albert Hall [7] uses the phrase 'live orchestral accompaniment' having already set the 'with film' context. 'cinematic orchestral accompanists'? --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:09, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. Thus I created the Category:Films with live orchestral accompaniment. Not sure about how to categorize it. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 07:45, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

October 20

Gadget does not work

Hello.Please fix MediaWiki:Gadget-markAdmins.js (Details here).Thank you --ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 11:52, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Is Template:Italy-MiBAC-disclaimer de facto a blanked exception for FoP Italy on historical monuments?

I asked this at Template talk:Italy-MiBAC-disclaimer, but nobody replied there for several days. I think this question deserves clarification, as it could affect numerous images. It could also lead to the need to review Category:Italian FOP cases, as IF it can be used to justify keeping such images, we may be able to restore some content that was deleted in the past before this template was introduced. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 13:46, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

The answer to your question is no. Commons is not necessarily concerned with exceptional restrictions such as those in the cultural heritage law of one country. A reuser, outside Commons, who would contemplate republishing in Italy the image of a monument affected by the cultural heritage law should be careful. On Commons, the template "Soprintendenza" can be added to the description page as a warning to those reusers in Italy. The other template "Italy-MiBAC-disclaimer" seems to be specifically for images taken in the context of Wiki loves monuments Italy, after 12 September 2012, of monuments on the lists provided to WM Italy by the cultural heritage administrators, in application of the agreement between Wikimedia Italy and the ministry of cultural heritage. The background explanation for the agreement is not entirely clear, but that seems to be the idea. Both warning templates are about the same topic, but they would apply to different files. Note that all that has nothing to do with "FoP", as Commons uses this jargon term in the context of copyright law. Copyright law and cultural heritage law are distinct. If someone wants to publish in Italy the image of a monument that is under copyright, they should comply with the copyright law. If someone wants to publish in Italy the image of a monument that is under the cultural heritage law, they should comply with that law. I would expect that many monuments that are old enough to be under the cultural heritage law are old enough to be out of copyright, but someone who publishes in Italy should comply with all applicable laws there. The way FoP is managed on Commons may be discussed, but it is unrelated to the templates about the cultural heritage law of Italy. -- Asclepias (talk) 20:12, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, as we see monuments being put up for deletion under the current FOP guidelines which should not, then yes the section there ought to be extended to explain what was agreed with WMIT. Though WMIT were assured by their lawyer that the outcome was equivalent to CC-BY-SA, we do not have an expert view on public record which lays out the case.

My reading is that the outcome is not limited to WLM type events in Italy, but it is limited to the list of cultural monuments. We probably should have the list on Commons or available as a list from Wikidata, so the guideline can link to it in a definitive way. At the current time we probably have deleted photographs unnecessarily and there may be cases where we have incorrectly applied the template, but in those cases of ancient buildings the separate concern of the rights of architects do not apply. @CristianCantoro: --Fæ (talk) 08:44, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

• Indeed, Commons does not forbid the uploading and hosting of free media just because some types of external uses of the media may be subject to restrictions in some particular contexts or in some particular locations. That's one of the ideas expressed in Commons:Non-copyright restrictions. Applications of this general principle include uses that may be affected by trademarks, personality rights or regulations that have a local application only. The consensus is that Commons does not impose, on all its users and reusers worldwide, all sorts of non-copyright restrictions that may exist locally in the laws of some countries or in the bylaws of some municipalities, given that such local restrictions apply only to the use of the media inside the country or municipality in question, and do not affect the use of the media elsewhere. In some cases, users of Commons may add an information template to inform readers of a restriction that exists on a type of use or on the use in a particular location. Some of the examples in the page Commons:Non-copyright restrictions are the templates Trademarked, Personality rights, SpomenikSVN, Soprintendenza. They are optional templates. Any user may add them to description pages where it can provide a useful information. Files are not deleted from Commons when they don't have such an optional information template about a non-copyright restriction. For cultural heritage monuments in Italy, the information template Soprintendenza exists since 2008. It is the information template that applies to images in general of such monuments. Nothing has changed about that. Free images in general of Italian monuments that are and always were allowed on Commons did not suddenly become forbidden or subject to special restrictions on Commons when WM-It and MiBAC in 2012 concluded a particular agreement between them in the context of Wiki Loves Monuments Italy.
• I think the template Italy-MiBAC-disclaimer should be limited to files of Wiki Loves Monuments Italy and published within the frame of the WM-It-MiBAC agreement. The wording of this template is mandated by a contractual agreement between parties external to Commons. The wording of this template is unmodifiable by Commons. Well, in the technical sense, we could of course modify or delete it, but that would put WM-It in trouble. So, we shouldn't modify it. I suppose we can accept that situation, as long as it does not interfere with the rest of Commons. However, we should not allow this template on which we have no control to creep on the rest of the project on files other than strictly the files uploaded pursuant to the WM-It-MiBAC agreement.
• Lists of monuments are included in the various statements of adhesion by the local administrators of cultural heritage at the municipal level, available from there. I just looked at two of the 2016 statements. They mention specifically the context of WLM-It and they require specifically the use of the license CC-BY-SA 4.0 Italy for the photographs published in the context of those statements. (However, according to the CC FAQ, ported versions of the CC licenses 4.0 do not exist. I guess the requirement will have to be interpreted either as CC-BY-SA 4.0 international, or as CC-BY-SA 3.0 Italy, or as an interdiction to publish photographs.) The stated objective of WM-It for its agreement with the MiBAC was to make sure that contributors to WLM-It, especially contributors who reside in Italy, would not run into trouble with respect to the local non-copyright cultural heritage law. WM-It did not negotiate in my name, or (I assume) in your name, or in the name of the community of Commons, or in the name of all the communities of all the Wikimedia projects. Whatever obligations WM-It (or any other individual user or group of users, for that matter) agreed to bind itself to, must not force those obligations on all users of the Wikimedia projects who have nothing to do with it. If a resident of the U.S. travels to Italy and, after returning to the U.S., he publishes his photos of Italian monuments on the server of Commons in the U.S., he can use a free license of his choice, not a license chosen by a municipal administrator. Actually, I think that both WM-It and the MiBAC acted reasonably within the limits of their own rights only, knowing that they can bind only themselves. So, I think that WM-It didn't claim to represent all past present and future users of Wikimedia and that the MiBAC didn't expect that the cultural heritage law of Italy would rule the whole world, including outside Italy. If the MiBAC expected that, we would have a big disagreement.
• The lawyers of WM-It do not say that the information template Italy-MiBAC-disclaimer is equivalent to a CC license. They merely remind something that is already known and explained in the information pages of Commons and of Creative Commons. The fact that laws, or other reasons independent of the will of the photographer-licensor, may restrict some types of reuses by a reuser-licensee in some particular contexts or locations, is not incompatible with the fact that the photographer-licensor can offer his own photographic work under a free CC license. The photographer-licensor releases some of his own rights and allows the free use of his own work. But, with CC licenses starting with version 2.0, he does not offer a warranty that the photograph will never be encumbered with something beyond his own rights. (The notable exceptions to this principle are the CC licenses version 1.0, which include such a warranty from the licensor. Which is a reason why Commons contributors should be careful before they offer a CC license version 1.0, unless they know exactly what they are doing.)
• I'm not sure to what you refer when you refer to a section of the FoP guidelines. I don't know if we have such a thing. If you think of the COM:FOP page, it's not a guideline and it should not be seen as one. It is a hodgepodge and different users see it in different ways. In my view, the basic usefulness of the page is that it gives information and links, about local restrictions in the different countries, to help external reusers get a general idea about which files from Commons they can or can't reuse in one country or another. (That's mostly about FoP in a copyright-related sense. But should we ask users not to include information about non-copyright restrictons? I don't know. It may not be unreasonable for readers, who wonder if they can use a file in country X, to expect to find a mention about both copyright and non-copyright restrictions of country X.) On the other hand, I know that some users use the page for a different purpose, as a sort of collection of suggestions about what they should upload to Commons. Over the years, the page has turned into a collection of various things. The problem is not the objective information about the laws of the countries, information with which the readers can do what hey want, but the problems start when some users try to use the page to tell other users what should be done on Commons. The dual use of the page may cause misunderstandings. Maybe we need two pages. A page about what can be taken from Commons and reused in different countries remains unproblematic, the obvious limitation being that we can give only a superficial idea of the laws, but otherwise such a page could be relatively objective. On the other hand, a page claiming to be used as a guide about what should be uploaded to Commons would remain problematic and, actually, the difficulties about such a page are just a symptom of the disagreements, still unresolved, about what might be a sensible policy of Commons about matters related to FoP.

-- Asclepias (talk) 21:10, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Concern regarding WebM

A user on the English Wikipedia has raised a concern on my talk page there regarding the use of videos documenting chemistry experiments in articles on chemical topics, questioning how are users to know that those videos are virus-free. After checking that the WebM format of the videos is preferable over the ogv formats, I advised him to ask the community here for proper answer. Thanks.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 16:08, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Wait a sec... Virus can spread through videos? o.O en:Computer virus are software programs, and videos shouldn't be directly run as a "software". (That's why we don't allow executables such as .exe uploads). There are caveats, though:

• Try to trick the OS to think the video is a "software". On Windows, you must rename the file to an executable extension such as .exe; .webm is safe unless you're already affected by a virus that changes the registry to make the OS to think .webm is also an executable. On Mac/*nix, usually the file has to be chmodded +x, and that's not the default for downloaded files. In addition, even if the extension is .exe, it is (imo) extremely difficult for a webm as a proper container format to contain a binary payload for proper execution of this piece of "software", as Commons check each uploaded .webm to see whether it's valid webm file. (The same goes for .ogv, .jpg, .png, etc, uploaded files must be valid)
• Or feed the video to a virus already present on the computer, to activate the virus. In that case, ...
  • Thanks for Offnfopt's reminder that "It is possible to specifically craft media files to trigger flaws in libs used to display/play the media files." However, I must add that, while 0-day attacks (exploiting a no-one-else-knows bug) exist, there's no way we can prevent that, or detecting if a video is a 0-day attack, as the bug is unknown to everyone else except the attacker. As for old bugs... this is exactly why people should use latest software; it's beyond wikimedia's responsibility imo to keep a list of vulnerabilities of all media players & browsers and test the upload against the list. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 18:30, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

In short: No videos here simply cannot be viruses， unless the user himself is 作死-ing (or someone with supernatural intelligence successfully injected a working virus into the video). --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 16:42, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Btw: Video playbacks here are usually scaled down versions (re-processed) of the original video. To inject a virus into that... well, I'm sure the virus-maker has better methods to spread the virus than attempting this --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 16:48, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

The original concern seems to be about the videos downloading automatically (as opposed to streaming in the browser), which is strange, since any modern web browser should know what to do with a WebM file. Smokefoot must have something misconfigured if the video downloads instead of streams. At any rate, as others have said, if a virus were masquerading as a WebM, we'd know about it. clpo13_(talk) 17:36, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

There is an exploit that prompts users, usually of Windows Media Player, to download a codec to play a video... the codec itself is a trojan horse, that installs the virus. No video in any format that we allow should be capable of triggering this... it's (AFAIK) exclusively related to WMV files, usually 'stolen' porn videos on torrent sites. Revent^talk 22:06, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

FSA file without source

Skip tub on a blast furnace

Hi,

does anyone find this FSA file at loc.gov? It must be from there, but the uploader has concealed its source.--Kopiersperre (talk) 20:55, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

There. See also this file. -- Asclepias (talk) 21:02, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

the old uploads you should be able to find at LOC. back in the day they did not link as we would like, overwriting with a higher rez is bad form. all the HAER ones have been mass uploaded by Fae. i see user:Revent has linked those versions together. welcome to metadata cleanup. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 22:46, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, correctly attributing the many images we have by en:Jet Lowe from that source has been an on-and-off task of mine for a while now. Revent^talk 22:50, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

@Slowking4: could you clarify "overwriting with a higher rez is bad form", please? If it is related to metadata, the only metadata that appears in the low resolution version states that camera make/model was Sinar 54H, which obviously refers to the scanner digitizer and not to the original photograph. Storkk (talk) 07:37, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

well i did not want to name names but here [8] replacing a 598 KB image with a 5.87 MB one, when there is a 17.22 MB tif (elsewhere that you had to find) does not add much value. see also Commons:Overwriting existing files but i have seen worse cases of over writing. the larger problem is the backlog of LOC photographs in information template without good metadata. the upload tools are not helpful. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 12:27, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm still having trouble understanding your objection unless it is that I didn't perform this at the same time. If that's really your objection, I'm a little baffled. That's analogous to saying you shouldn't correct a typo in a Wikipedia article unless you're going to bring the whole article to GA status. Wikis, including this one, are built incrementally and collaboratively, and I'm not sure how uploading a higher quality JPEG is possibly detrimental. Storkk (talk) 12:33, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

i've uploaded a few thousand jpg + tif's from LOC. uploading a bigger jpg than the download options from LOC, but smaller than the tif is a tiny improvement. users who want the highest rez will go to the tif. i'm finding my time best spent cleaning up metadata so users can find the image, or uploading the huge backlog of LOC images not uploaded. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 12:40, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

You cannot upload a .tif over a .jpg, and the new jpg is not smaller (in pixels, obviously) than the tif. Am I just being dense? Storkk (talk) 12:44, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

the tif is 17.22 MB > 5.87 MB, you had to convert the tif to jpg and downsize it to upload it over the jpg. it seems like a lot of work for a file not much in use. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 22:41, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

So are you saying that my uploading a larger resolution jpeg is either somehow worsening it, or that it is hampering some other effort with the tiffs? "Bad form" implies there is some kind of deleterious effect of my actions, and I'm sorry but I'm just not seeing it. If you're instead complaining that I didn't either upload the tiff or link the tiff, that is again akin to telling someone not to correct a typo in an article if they're not going to fix all its issues. It seems rather a perverse way of looking at it. And of course JPEGs are smaller on disk, but I'm really struggling to see any relevance of that whatsoever. Storkk (talk) 12:40, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

October 21

Notification of DMCA takedown demand - Merrakech1

In compliance with the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and at the instruction of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, one or more files have been deleted from Commons. Please note that this is an official action of the WMF office which should not be undone. If you have valid grounds for a counter-claim under the DMCA, please contact me.The takedown can be read here.

Affected file(s):

• File:Merrakech1.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#Merrakech1 Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 01:03, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

canadian user uploading us pronunciations

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:K6ka This user is uploading en-us sound files ( https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&profile=default&fulltext=Search&search=K6ka&searchToken=ckp7ws6chq6j4bzt9mkupdlnq ) despite the fact that he's canadian and has certain canadian pronunciations.. I don't think this is right. Canadians have different pronunciations of words. Here is a map of the different NA dialect via map. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/North_American_English_dialect_regions.jpg I think something should be done about this. At the very least he should of uploaded them with en-ca-community.ogg or something like that. Some of the vowels are different. https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10151861837052908&id=124536002907 Labov made that map of the NA map who is a highly regarded lingustic. Rezfan83 (talk) 04:05, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

I clicked through a decent amount and didn't notice any major problems. Have you tried contacting K6ka and giving him pointers on the ones you found problematic, so he can correct them?Offnfopt^(talk) 04:40, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

The way many of the vowels are pronounced are different. I gave you a link to a dialect coach that even confirmed this. Then I gave a link to Labovs dialct map. I'm not for deleting them, but they should be renamed en-ca and not en-us. How is not having accuracy "not a problem?" Rezfan83 (talk) 04:45, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Which specific pronunciations did you find problems with? Offnfopt^(talk) 04:52, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

FOr example the a and I in some of his pronunciations are most certainly Canadian. Even is some words the "e" is different. The "I" really glides. I can tell he didn't try to just do US interpretations with these. Again, I don't think he should delete these, they should just be renamed en-ca-wordusedhere.ogg I'm ok with these files being used on canadian pronunciation pages, but it's inaccurate to have them on US pronunciation pages. Again, here is a map from William Labov about different dialects across NA. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/North_American_English_dialect_regions.jpg. The canadian and american accent isn't radical different, but there are some differences. And I don't think these should be named us-en. I have nothing against canadians :) I'm sure some canadians would feel the same way if someone from the US made canadian files and had different pronunciations. Rezfan83 (talk) 04:59, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

• I'd disagree with his File:En-us-xenophobia.ogg, though it might be regional in the U.S. I'd certainly use a long 'e', not the short one here. - Jmabel ! talk 05:01, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
• File:En-us-inverse.ogg: I'd never put the accent on the second syllable (just in case it isn't clear, I'm from the U.S.). - Jmabel ! talk 05:02, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Jmabel must be a regional issue, sounds fine to me. Offnfopt^(talk) 05:05, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Have you tried talking to the user? It doesn't appear that you've even pinged him in this discussion. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:03, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

What's exactly bad about bringing this discussion here? I was directed to here on mirc by and admin. What's the problem? I'm not calling for him to be banned or anything of the sort. I just think the en-us sound files should be renamed en-ca.Rezfan83 (talk) 05:11, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Nothing is bad about bringing it here. What we're doing is discussing it. The uploader should get a courtesy notification that his/her work is being discussed. If he/she wants to create files for US English pronunciation, it would help if people told him/her which files seem to be wrong so they can be fixed. If your argument is that Canadians are incapable of producing files for US pronunciation, or that they shouldn't, then I disagree with you. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:50, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

• Me? No, I'm just providing examples, since the original poster didn't. - Jmabel ! talk 05:09, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

• File:En-us-despot.ogg: for me, the second syllable would have less of a 'short O', more of a schwa.
• File:En-us-bravo.ogg I've never heard a U.S. speaker emphasize the second syllable. Then again, until now I've never heard a Canadian do so either. - Jmabel ! talk 05:09, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Jmabel and Rez. Some of these sounds are most certainly canadian sounding. Particularly his "o" sound in some words. Mikekdaniels (talk) 05:13, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

I've been around a bunch of south US dialect, northern US dialect, British dialect, English with German accent, English with Spanish accent, English with Russian accent, so maybe my ear is too skewed to tell the difference. Offnfopt^(talk) 05:22, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

As a Canadian Rez, Jmabel and Mike are right. I live in american currently and the way americans and canadians say some of the vowels are different. To give and example, the despot clip shows a different pronunciation of the o in that word. Rawmonze (talk) 03:51, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Sure is a shock to wake up one morning and see myself being dragged here rather than getting a friendly notification on my talk page first. I mean, I'd appreciate that before coming to a noticeboard like this. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 11:14, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

I was told on mirc (by a wikimedia admin) to take the talk to this page for discussion of the topic I brought up. They gave me a direct link to this page. If you wanted it to be discussed on your talk page first then I apologize. While I do use wikimedia here and there often, I don't do discussions on boards ever. So that's why I went to and admin first to get help. As I said on the discussion there, I wasn't looking for you to get banned or in trouble, just to rename the files en-us to enca. Rezfan83 (talk) 12:14, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

what's bad about it, is that you are not collaborating, you are talking behind the editor's back. asking an admin for help is like asking a cop for directions, he may just direct you to court. if we communicated more and templated less, maybe we could get more done. why don't you make a list of the ones you want corrected, record your correct US pronunciation, and then upload them? Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 16:33, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

I went to his talk page and apologized. He did not respond. Although I apologized since he was offended, I see nothing wrong with contacting admins on here asking what to do or even the cops (in the real world) The admin I talked to in regards of this was very helpful and polite. They gave me the direct link to here and were very nice when asking for help. Rezfan83 (talk) 23:25, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

asking admins for help is like asking wiley coyote for a life preserver, you know he will give you an anchor. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 01:55, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

 Comment There seems to be a general agreement that at least 'some' of these 60-odd files should be renamed, but I'm sure there are some where the us and canadian pronunciations are the same... can someone please create a list of the specific ones, somewhere, so we can come to some kind of consensus about what if anything to actually move? Revent^talk 00:13, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

• Seems to me that they should be renamed (and categorized, as appropriate) as Canadian pronunciations, since that is what they are. The fact that coincidentally some are identical in the U.S. is really not relevant. For example, when I upload a pronunciation, besides accurately naming it based on my own country (U.S.) I would typically further indicate that I'm a New Yorker who has lived most of my adult life in Seattle. On anything where pronunciations vary, things like that are typically relevant. Similarly, a Toronto pronunciation, a Maritimes pronunciation, and a Vancouver pronunciation might vary. They would all be described as "en-ca", but as a rule the description should make the specifics even clearer. - Jmabel ! talk 04:54, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
  • I'm in agreement with Jmabel. Braxer26 (talk) 14:15, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

As I stated in my initial post, I think they should all be renamed en-ca. Rezfan83 (talk) 12:20, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Offensive language

As a new admin, who has access to the extended set of tools, I am looking for an advice how to deal with edits like this one. Should I hide its contents and/or description every time I spot such an edit? --jdx ^Re: 09:53, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Imho just reverting is sufficient (and block the offender if the behaviour continues) - Jcb (talk) 09:56, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

I may be not an admin but as Jcb said above, just revert them (and if they continue, RBI). For the revdel stuff, do it only if the comment was intended as a personal attack against a user. Thanks, ★ Poké⁹⁵ 11:18, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm also not an admin, but I did a reverse DNS lookup on the IP address and it shows proxy-53-filtered.education.netspace.net.au, so may want to do a preemptive softblock (i.e. blocks anonymous users from the IP and requires them to register to upload/edit). You would then put the {{Blocked school}} or {{Anonblock}} on the talk page. Also note I did a look up of the surrounding IPs and 202.45.119.11 through 202.45.119.250 host are flagged with "education" reverse DNS. Edit: Forgot to also note plenty of inappropriate edits from that IP address on other wikis. Offnfopt^(talk) 17:00, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

i would caution you not to do school ip blocks for test edits every 6 months. we all know ip blocks do not work, so you are making work for yourself without result. some version of revscore m:Research:Revision scoring as a service would be more functional. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 16:17, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

UAS (Drones)

DJI Inspire 1 Professional

After over 7 years of contributing hundreds of aerial photos to this site, most of them I have done while flying the plane, we now have a host of new talented people with UAs/Drones that is only going to continue to grow. Perhaps a group on the subject would give other UAs pilots a place to go and we make it a regular "Project UAs" group just as we have for Aviation. Few people can ever understand just how complicated Aerial Photography can be and, I am willing to do what I can to share my insight, I fly drones in Film and Television production so it is safe to say that is some valuable insight that others could benefit from. Thoughts?? --WPPilot (talk) 16:34, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

If there is a project being created, please ping me. I am interested. I fly small airplanes like Cessna 172 and sometimes my passengers take nice pictures, e.g. File:Luchtfoto Harderwijk centrum.JPG - Jcb (talk) 15:10, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

If you don't mind me asking you, how much money do you get for doing this job WPPilot? Braxer26 (talk) 03:44, 24 October 2016

Commercial drone pilot rate differ from job to job and the rate is dependent upon the provisioning of equipment, to the production. http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Cinematographer/Salary shows that a Cinematographer in this industry starts at 40 a hour. That assumes that the production owns the equipment. A certified Drone pilot with top quality equipment can make as much as $163,218 a year: http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Drone_Pilot/Hourly_Rate... but that assumes that you have already spent a lifetime in the industry, have a reasonable investment in top quality equipment and have established reputation in the industry. Professional pilots make a bit more, and at least in the Film industry a FAA pilots license is required, http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Commercial_Pilot/Salary in addition to a "drone pilot" certificate making your question a complicated one that is really a case by case issue. -- WPPilot (talk) 07:40, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for this reply! I will check out those links. Braxer26 (talk) 14:04, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

You are welcome, good luck! - --WPPilot (talk) 09:24, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Who is Nderitu Muriithi

I am working on an article concerning the personality mentioned. Can someone please help? —Preceding unsigned comment was added by 41.89.224.2 (talk) 19:24, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

• I have no idea why you are asking this on Wikimedia Commons, which is the media (image, sound, video, etc.) repository of Wikimedia Foundation (which also umbrellas the various Wikipedias). Is there something specific you want related to an image or something similar? Otherwise, you are probably asking on the wrong site. - Jmabel ! talk 23:13, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

October 22

External uses

Hello. I vaguely recall seeing a filetalk template some time ago, which was/is used to link to websites which used the particular image from Commons. Does anyone know what that template is? Thanks! Rehman 12:02, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Template:Published ? -- Asclepias (talk) 12:20, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you! Rehman 12:31, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. ★ Poké⁹⁵ 10:02, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Seal of Chico City, California

According to this website, the design of the seal of Chico City is dated in 1890s (if I understood correctly). Is it possible to use that to upload this file to Commons claiming that it is in the public domain? --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 15:23, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

@Metrónomo: Upload it under the license "PD-CAGov" in PNG with a transparent background with all excess space cropped out. For future reference, know that 99% of California government works are public domain due to their "Sunshine Law"; same goes for Florida as well. – Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 18:30, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

@Metrónomo: I have gone ahead and uploaded it here for you. – Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 18:36, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

@Metrónomo: If you have the time, try to upload every California and Florida city/county seal you can find, since they are in the public domain. Upload them under the naming formula "Seal of CITY NAME, STATE NAME.png". Make sure they are in PNG format with a transparent background, and no excess empty space beyond the edges. – Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 18:47, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I edit from a smartphone, if I get a simple way to do what you recommend, I will upload all seals I find. This website has many. If you have time and want to work, your help will be appreciated. --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 00:09, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

October 23

Problems with Safari

Commons doesn't work. wikipedia and wikidata work--Oursana (talk) 01:19, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Hmm, weird. @Oursana: What Safari version do you use? I use Safari 6 on my iPad, and it works very well for me on all Wikimedia sites. Even if I use desktop mode. Thanks, ★ Poké⁹⁵ 01:54, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Please elaborate what does not work. You've been able to post this comment, so it's clearly not all broken. Matma Rex (talk) 08:27, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

I am using Safari 10.0. I used Firefox to make the posts here. Commons does not show up at all, wp and wikidata do.

That was my last contribution with Safari. That never happpened before. But there are often smaller problems using Safari. With my mobile device it works.--Oursana (talk) 09:31, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

At least the European mirror server must have had issues last (European) night, and not only Safari was affected. There are in the moment three threads in Dewiki’s Fragen zur Wikipedia (short FZW, English Questions about the Wikipedia); links before archiving (everything’s in German, of course): de:WP:FZW#Bildanzeige, de:WP:FZW#math-Umgebung (yes, math rendering was also affected for all, who get the math environment as image) and de:WP:FZW#George Chadwick – Bild wird nicht angezeigt. — Speravir_Talk – 22:40, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Ah, forgot this: @Matma Rex: Almost no images have been shown or sometimes they have been partly loaded, at one article here it worked after the third refresh (probably the images had meanwhile been in my local cache), but I din't try all the articles. In Commons this is “deadly” – at least I guess, this is it, what Oursana meant. — Speravir_Talk – 22:47, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

The image rendering problem is known (see phab:T148917 and potentially also phab:T148830) and has been reported in the issue tracking system). It's currently being investigated. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 10:32, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

And for the Chadwick image there is now phab:T148927. :-) It really seems to be a different issue. — Speravir_Talk – 00:31, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Thx for all your answers. I am not quite sure if we talk exactly about the same. It happened exactly last Saterday European time 9:45 am, see the link to my last contribution. After that I got Safari kann die Seite .... nicht öffnen, da Safari keine sichere Seite zum server commons.wikimedia.org aufbauen kann. This only happens with commons, wp and wikidata work with Safari as always. When I want to open the link to my watchlist, the surface is unusual and the login does not work. with https://commons.wikimedia.org the main page in an unusual surface but with images shows up, when I want to reload https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page it says again Safari kann die Seite .... nicht öffnen, da Safari keine sichere Seite zum server commons.wikimedia.org aufbauen kann. I guess 10% at least use Safari and have problems.--Oursana (talk) 19:08, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

(I removed indentation of Oursana’s post above mine) Oh, sorry, Oursana, this looks in fact like a different issue. Translation of German text: “Safari could not open page …, because Safari could not establish a secure connection (my guess, Oursana’S text has ‘page’ here) to the server commons.wikimedia.org.” @AKlapper (WMF): Could this be a certificate issue? — Speravir_Talk – 00:31, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

? in templates

I will put this infolink in file Pedro Juan Rodríguez Meléndez, but there is one ? and it is not accepted by template {{es | .....}} with error (missing text). With a short disappears information. How can I fix this? --Jos1950 (talk) 16:32, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Please read the documentation of the template Template:Es for how to use it. -- Asclepias (talk) 17:16, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Done, thanks. --Jos1950 (talk) 23:35, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

October 24

Commons blocked on Virgin Trains wifi

I regularly travel on the UK's Virgin Trains East Coast services, which provides free wifi so long as I buy tickets direct. I can access all Wikimedia projects when I'm on the train apart from Commons, which is blocked by their service provider. I raised a complaint about a month ago, hoping they would allow access on the basis of this being a valid educational resource, but apart from an original acknoledgment, this does not seem to have made a difference.

It's irritating, as my travel time is often over 3 hours, which would be an excellent moment to catch up on my backlog of projects to look at on Commons. Does anyone have any influence with Virgin Trains to get the block removed?

A few retweets may get action https://twitter.com/Faewik/status/790491984070897664. --Fæ (talk) 09:46, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

i imagine it is a throttling thing. i note a lot of free wifi is phone friendly, but not laptop, would that work? or could you try a VPN? Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 23:25, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-43

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

• The abuse filters had a problem and caught too many edits. This has now been fixed. [9]

Changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from October 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from October 26. It will be on all wikis from October 27 (calendar).
• The "Search" text in the search box will show the name of the project. For example, on Wikipedia it will say "Search Wikipedia". [10]
• About a dozen wikis now have numerical sorting in categories. If your wiki wants numerical sorting in categories you can ask for it. [11]
• Some wikis that want numerical sorting in categories can also ask to use UCA to sort categories. The biggest difference is that characters with diacritics will be sorted together. For example, for most languages Ä will be sorted with A instead of at the end of the alphabet. This is not true for languages that have Ä as a character in their alphabet. Wikis that already use UCA are listed on Meta. Languages that can use UCA are listed on MediaWiki.org. You can test it.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:39, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

@Johan (WMF): Could you please sign these posts rather than the information being hidden from view? You are the person directing and responsible for the bot posting this message, so it is our convention for your contact details to be posted as signatory. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 12:44, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

October 25

File names for images in Commons categories are truncated to single lines

For the last few days filenames for images in Commons categories are truncated to single lines. This sometimes makes it very difficult to find appropriate images. For example: if I'm looking for a particular subspecies in a species category, I can't usually tell from the thumbnail or the first line of the filename what subspecies it is. Is there a way to switch back to see the full file names under the tumbnails? -- R. A. Nonenmacher (talk) 02:58, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

+1 Ghastly change, massive blunder. Makes it impossible to navigate categories to find images by title. --Fæ (talk) 12:41, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to stop deletion requests being closed by their nominator

I have added this proposal to Commons talk:Deletion requests#Nominator closure of deletions. The current policy does not specifically disallow this happening, and it does happen, which gives a basic problem of poor governance of deletions. Comments welcome on the policy talk page. --Fæ (talk) 09:51, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Category:Head stands and Category:Headstands

Would you say it's relevant to have both categories ? I suppose we should merge them together and create a subcat such as "Headstands in yoga". --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 13:12, 25 October 2016 (UTC)