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COMMONS DISCUSSION PAGES (index) Commons Help desk Village pump (general discussion) Copyright Proposals Technical Graphics and photography discussion Photography critiques Image improvement Illustration workshop Map workshop Photography workshop Video and sound workshop Categories for discussion Undeletion requests Deletion requests Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard Translators' noticeboard Work requests for bots Contact administrators Vandalism User problems (Dispute resolution) Blocks and protections Bureaucrats' noticeboard CheckUser requests Oversight requests Telegram IRC webchat Commons mailing list (archive) Commons' bugs on Phabricator Welcome to the Village pump This page is used for discussions of the operations, technical issues, and policies of Wikimedia Commons. Recent sections with no replies for 7 days and sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=--~~~~}} may be archived; for old discussions, see the archives; the latest archive is Commons:Village pump/Archive/2023/02. Please note: If you want to ask why unfree/non-commercial material is not allowed at Wikimedia Commons or if you want to suggest that allowing it would be a good thing, please do not comment here. It is probably pointless. One of Wikimedia Commons’ core principles is: "Only free content is allowed." This is a basic rule of the place, as inherent as the NPOV requirement on all Wikipedias. Have you read our FAQ? For changing the name of a file, see Commons:File renaming. Any answers you receive here are not legal advice and the responder cannot be held liable for them. If you have legal questions, we can try to help but our answers cannot replace those of a qualified professional (i.e. a lawyer). Your question will be answered here; please check back regularly. Please do not leave your email address or other contact information, as this page is widely visible across the internet and you are liable to receive spam. Purposes which do not meet the scope of this page: Please do not make deletion requests here: use the relevant process for it instead. For technical support and graphics talks (PNG, SVG, GIF, etc.), please post on the Graphics village pump. To ask for image improvement, see: Graphic Lab/Photography workshop for photographs. Graphic Lab/Map workshop for maps. Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop for other illustrations. To ask for video or audio improvement, see Commons:Graphic Lab/Video and sound workshop. For translation requests, please post at Commons:Requests for translation. For media requests, please post at Commons:File requests. Search archives:       Start a new discussion

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Water pump next to the church in the town center of Doel. Doel, Beveren, East Flanders, Belgium. [add]

Centralized discussion See also: Village pump/Proposals   ■ Archive Merging all history from imported files (12 December 2022) Overhaul of categories by period (5 December 2022) Tolerate users to upload pre-1949 Chinese books (13 November 2022) Version of Saudi flag to use (11 July 2022) Concern regarding revocability of KOGL licenses (22 December 2021) Should deleting content from your own talk page be forbidden? (11 November 2021) Revise the COM:FOP Sweden section (1 February 2021) Indonesian laws on copyright (21 August 2020) Template: View   ■ Discuss    ■ Edit   ■ Watch

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

January 07

Slight issue with template acting up in image caption

See this discussion on the file page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noliscient (talk • contribs) 14:34, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

February 05

Category pages that look like quasi-Wikipedia articles

I'm not very familiar with how category pages work on Commons. One of the bullet points in COM:CAT#Creating a new category states A short description text that explains what should be in the category, if the title is not clear or unambiguous enough on its own. is acceptable, but I'm wondering about a category like Category:Midway Theater, Allentown, Pennsylvania which seems to be an attempt to create a quasi-Wikipedia article on Commons. The content on that category page seems, in my opinion, to go beyond what would be considered a "short-description" and basically seems to be someone's own original research. I don't know about the licensing of all of files populating the category, but most if not all of them seem to be licensed as {{PD-US-no notice}}. The files include newspaper advertisements and newspaper articles about the theater, these all appear to be cut-outs or clippings and there's no way of knowing whether they were covered under the copyright of the entire paper. None of the files seems to be used in any Wikipedia articles, which is another reason why I think the category page was created to be a de-facto article so to speak. My understanding is that print advertisements were required to have separate visible copyright notifications on a per ad basis, but newspaper articles (text and photos) were not required to do so and instead were covered by the copyright notice for the entire newspaper as whole. If my understanding is incorrect, then perhaps the files are OK as licensed; however, I'm not sure about the stub-like article content at the top of the page and hoping others can clarify whether it's OK for Commons. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:50, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Putting aside the whole copyright question and whatnot, I'll usually either shorten long descriptions to a few sentences or just delete it whole cloth depending on if it's clearly OR or not since this isn't Wikipedia. Especially if the information is only tangentially related to the category. That said, I don't think it necessarily hurts to have a basic description if it helps people understand better what the images are about. Even in cases where it's not referenced (at least if it's uncontroversial). Like if it's a category for a historic building that burned down and was rebuilt several times, cool. Have a short description about it since the information provides context for the images. Three huge paragraphs going into mostly pointless historical minutia is clearly overkill though. There's no reason that stuff can't just be added to Wikidata or the descriptions for the individual files. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:04, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

The description is a bit much; if it were sourced, I'd suggest turning it into a Wikipedia article, but without that, we can't. @Atwngirl: this is basically your work. I assume you had sources. Could you consider adding appropriate citation and moving the bulk of this to en-wiki? I assume some of this can be cited from exactly the newspaper stories that are among the uploaded clippings.

Also, Atwngirl: the uploads are at least mostly yours (I didn't go through them all). U.S. newspaper content from 1936 can very well still be copyrighted until 2031 (etc. for later dates). The ads are probably good, lacking copyright notices of their own, but of course clippings of individual articles don't have "copyright markings". There is usually a single copyright notice for an entire daily newspaper. Certainly the newspaper would have been copyrighted. We'd need a specific reason to believe that copyright was not renewed. Do you have a basis for that? You appear to know what newspaper they were from. If you need some assistance if figuring that out (I'd like to keep these if we can), you can probably get that at Commons:Village pump/Copyright, but please in the future sort out that sort of thing before uploading. You presumably don't want to go through this amount of effort just to have your work deleted as copyright violations. - Jmabel ! talk 04:39, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

• The paper is The Morning Call of Allentown, Pennsylvania, which did not renew any copyrights. I think the history is good, since we do not have an article. It provides search terms for someone looking for images. If it was on Wikipedia, we would just need the lede, the first few sentences, from a Wikipedia article. --RAN (talk) 06:04, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Personally I'd be all for it if the length was chopped down to one reasonably sized paragraph like in Jmabel's example. It's way to long as it is though. People shouldn't have to scroll through almost half a page before they get to the actual images. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:53, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

@Atwngirl has been around a long time and more or less single-mindedly has been contributing memorabilia related to Allentown, PA. She is either an enthusiastic private historian of the town, or more likely has some official connection to a historical society, library, or museum in that town with privileged access to many of these items. I have not seen any declaration to that effect, but it would be nice to know the background here, because considering the extensive history of that one building in question, there may be much more where that came from. Elizium23 (talk) 08:01, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

This is interesting to me because many of the photos of the South West Sydney that I’m taking are significant for their area, but may not be significant enough to entail an article in Wikipedia. However, I have found quite a lot of information on the subject of the photo. I would like to add detailed information, but I’m wondering if I might need to create a seperate resource off-wiki using a CC license as this sort of data won’t be allowed here?

I’d love some clarification in this. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 15:40, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

@Chris.sherlock2: I wonder if Wikispore could be useful for this sort of project? I certainly think that more small wikis would be a good thing! :-) (I've got an idea for a local wiki at https://freo.wiki ). — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 09:19, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

I wonder if a local history spore might be worthwhile? Lots of local history just cannot get onto en.wiki, but is still very important. It would still need to ensure that NOR and citations are used, but it would be pretty interesting! I know many local historians would likely love it. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 13:29, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Just as an example of what I think is entirely within reason for a category about a building: Category:1012 First Avenue, Seattle. A lot of what is here is name changes, when stories were added, what was in the building, when the facade changed, all of which are likely to be useful in categorizing photos, including whether they refer to this building. guess we could have a proper en-wiki for this building, because it has Seattle Landmark status (so we'd have the notability), but what is here would still be pretty stubby for Wikipedia, and it doesn't seem likely that a non-stub about this will be written, at least in the foreseeable future. - Jmabel ! talk 04:48, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

I appreciate all of the responses my OP has received so far. Category:Melody Circle, Allentown, Pennsylvania is a similar page to the one about the Midway Theater that was also created by the same user. Again, a few sentences or even a short paragraph would seem to be OK as an introduction to the images found on the page, but these two category pages (there might be more) do, at least in my opinion, go beyond that and seem to be more of an attempt to create an English Wikipedia article about these buildings on Commons, without necessarily having to deal with all of the policies and guidelines of English Wikipedia. If the content can be reliably sourced per en:WP:NOR or if the buildings are English Wikipedia notable in their own right per en:WP:NBUILDING, then there's probably a way to incorporate all or some of this content into a newly created or already existing English Wikipedia articles. I'm not sure, however, it's such a great idea to allow it on Commons just because no such articles about these buildings may currently exist. I don't think Commons was ever intended to be a en:WP:ALTERNATIVEOUTLET for English Wikipedia as a place for others to what might be considered their own "original research". If these category pages are the result of efforts on behalf of a local historical society or similar group, then perhaps the content would be best hosted on said group's own website or own wiki-site than Commons if it's not appropriate for English Wikipedia. — Marchjuly (talk) 15:42, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

I mean, at the very least it's not in a discoverable place. Who among us, seeking encyclopedic information on an item, visits its category page on Commons? Furthermore, the polyglot nature of Commons militates against it becoming an alternate enwiki repository of this stuff. Elizium23 (talk) 15:53, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't necessarily disagree with any of that, but at the same time this does seem to be sort of related to COM:PS#Excluded educational content, at least it seems that way to me. Would similar text content be allowed, for example, on a Commons user page per COM:PSP? I get that Commons isn't English Wikipedia and thus the latter's policies and guidelines don't apply per COM:NOTWP; however, it doesn't seem as if Commons should be the place for posting or hosting an individual's or group's original research per COM:NOT#Wikimedia Commons is not an encyclopedia, dictionary, guide, or book. — Marchjuly (talk) 17:42, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

I'd put the information in Category:Cinemas in Allentown, Pennsylvania in the same category. It's useful and interesting sure, but still better served by cited somewhere else. For instance Wikidata. I'm not sure most of those cinemas would qualify for individual Wikipedia articles, but that's the kicks sometimes. That said, I'm pretty sure the bar for inclusion is a lot lower for articles about geographical locations then other subjects. So I don't see why it couldn't be included in [1]. It looks like there's already a lot of overly detailed, unreferenced material in the article already. So really what's the difference at this point? There's no reason Atwngirl can't cut the article back and include whatever she wants to there instead of putting it on Commons where no one is going to see it. BTW, it looks like she hasn't even edited the article before and it's been edited thousands of times by a single user in the meantime, which is interesting. Either way, the article could definitely use more people editing it and a more diverse range of information about Allentown. --Adamant1 (talk) 04:48, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Category:Betzs Restaurant, Category:Allentown Trust Company and Category:Cigar Manufacturing and Marketing in Allentown, Pennsylvania are yet some other examples of this. This user has created more than a thousand new category pages since 2016. Many seem like a typical Commons category page that has mainly files and very little if any textual content. Others start out that way but then textual content is subsequently added to them through "minor" edits until they start looking like articles with image galleries. Whatever the reason for creating them, a pattern has been established and more of these category pages will probably be created in the future. — Marchjuly (talk) 19:13, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

I believe we've indicated enough of a consensus that this stuff is (1) OR and (2) out of scope for Commons, so shall we officially discourage this user from continuing? It's been 3 days since her last edit, so I assume she's on a bit of a break and hasn't had opportunity to notice, or participate in, our discussion here. Elizium23 (talk) 19:16, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

They could just be busy and haven't logged in recently. I've added a {{Please see}} to their user talk page (I should've done that sooner and my apologies for not doing so) to let them know about this discussion. — Marchjuly (talk) 19:30, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

It's been more than a week since Atwngirl was pinged/notified of this discussion, but they still haven't responded. Their last Commons edit was on February 4. It's quite possible they just are busy with other things, but Commons still marches on; so, perhaps it's time to figure out what if anything needs to be done here. Should these category pages just be blanked of text completely? Should only a short paragraph remain? Is only an infobox really needed for those pages that have them? -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:30, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

• Should these category pages just be blanked of text completely? Certainly not, though it may make sense to edit them down considerably. I think the example I gave above shows about what is appropriate. Also: where there is no equivalent en-wiki content, it would be good to save any content (beyond what is effectively covered by the remaining text or infobox) on the respective talk pages (on Common or, if there is a relevant article, on en-wiki) as potential material to flesh out for en-wiki in the future. - Jmabel ! talk 16:06, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

  I'm not so sure that we should take it upon ourselves to preserve much of this at all; if it is unsourced and original research, no Wikipedia project would accept it anyway, certainly not enwiki. If it can't be sourced and doesn't meet WP:V, then it must be removed outright. The WP:ONUS, burden of proof, is on the person adding material, so if Atwngirl is unable to do so within a short time frame here, we should absolutely, completely, remove unsourced material. Elizium23 (talk) 17:15, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

  Those are all Wikipedia policies, aren’t they? Do we have commons policies that she is violating? I’m not a fan of citing Wikipedia shortcuts on commons. Commons is not Wikipedia (thank god). - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 20:35, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

  Since the text which Atwngirl has contributed would only be appropriate for inclusion on enwiki, that's the only wiki whose policies should be considered when deciding whether to retain or delete this text, right? Commons policies would dictate that we remove it all, completely, immediately; we have no use whatsoever for it here. Elizium23 (talk) 21:21, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

  @Elizium23: I disagree, and in fact here is an edit that you recently made along these lines (unrelated to User:Atwngirl) that I think is dead wrong. The person whose material you removed, User:Publichall, has consistently shown themself to be very knowledgable on Seattle architectural history, and while I wish they had provided a citation, the material you removed could be very useful to date specific photos of the building (or simply to identify them as this building) and/or to help someone find this building in a search for any of several businesses that were based there. Removing information about architects seems particularly odd: Commons routinely indicates information about architects of buildings, and almost no one her provides a citation when (for example) adding an architect category as a parent category for a building category. - Jmabel ! talk 23:57, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  I think sourcing and verifiability here on Commons is more than a little bit bonkers, considering what people can get away with in terms of depicting things in images that they would never, never in a million years be able to write in prose on any Wikipedia project without a reliable source. But, you do you, I guess. Elizium23 (talk) 00:05, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

  I think having at least one paragraph helps cover subjects that might never meet the main wiki's notability requirements but I'll admit to getting a bit long winded for some, since the coverage of these subjects on the wiki is so severely lacking, I'm trying to link as many of these photographs together as possible for future researchers to benefit from. In most cases here it seems that linking to a Wikipedia article is the only form of citation, so it gets messy when there is nothing in the Wiki to even reference, especially when trying to justify parent categories. I'm currently putting together a full article for the building in Jmabel's linked category, and when I get around to publishing it and making a wikidata entry for it, the description can be be chopped down as needed. In the meantime It's more or less a memo for further research. Publichall (talk) 06:10, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

  I'd suggest that when removing material that is uncited but plausible, it's best to move it to the talk page. Very few people will ever find it in the history. Similarly, the talk page may often be a better place to put "a memo for further research" in the first place. (Statements about living or recently dead people are, of course, a different matter: anything the least bit controversial should be well-sourced.) - Jmabel ! talk 16:30, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

@Atwngirl She can start a Fandom wiki called Allentown, Pennsylvania and link to it from Wikidata, even if she starts an English Wikipedia article on a topic, it can be backed up at Fandom, in which she would have admin rights. We can also enclose the category text in a box and have it closed by default, so it doesn't push down the images, but it would still have the text available to provide keywords. --RAN (talk) 00:08, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

That may make sense. Having dealt with Atwngirl before, I doubt we will get much of a response and a lot of the edits will be steathily reverted a few months from now under the excuse that it wasn't perfectly done. I spent months and months breaking Category:Newspaper advertising in Allentown, Pennsylvania all from crazy decade categories into Category:The Morning Call (Allentown, PA) by year but they all got reverted back without any discussion and are stored in the decades structure which has thousands of images at a time. It is clear someone wants to create their own universe of articles and stories and categories but very few of these things are going to be used because they are organized in overly broad categories and someone will fight to keep them that way. If someone does clean up the category descriptions, have the pages kept on your watchlist. You will go nuts. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:20, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

If Atwngirl is too busy with real world stuff at the moment to respond, then I don't believe there's any need to wait any longer to try and resolve this. If at some later date, Atwngirl disagrees with whatever turns out to be the consensus here, they can ask for clarification at that time. Whatever text content is removed from the category pages will still be in the page history if Atwgirl wants to retrieve it at some later date to use somewhere else. I'm not sure that storing the content on the category talk pages is really a good thing; however, if that's the consensus, then so be it. Finally, Atwngirl has been a pretty prolific uploader over the years, but many of their uploads have ended up deleted via DR or some other reason. Going through all those that remain and assessing their licensing is probably going to take a fair amount of time as well. Perhaps in the process of doing that, the category pages can be cleaned up a bit too. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:21, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Have we come to any firm conclusions as to what to do though? The material doesn’t appear to be causing any harm. Why would we remove it? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 09:05, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

There's probably lots of things uploaded to Commons that don't appear to be causing any harm depending upon how one defines the word "harm". Will the continued hosting of this content be the straw that breaks the back of Commons? Almost certainly not. The question is whether this content fits within the purpose of a Commons category page, isn't it? COM:NOTWP states that Commons isn't a local Wikipedia in the sense that local Wikipedia policies and guidelines need not be applied; however, implied in that "Commons is not Wikipedia" thinking is that Commons is also not a free web host where one should be able to post whatever they please per COM:SCOPE#Wikimedia Commons is not an encyclopedia, dictionary, guide, or book and COM:HOST. A pattern seems to have been established by Atwngirl to create extensively detailed category pages that appear to be pseudo-articles. Perhaps, they have a reason for doing this, but they should explain how they believe these pages comply with SCOPE. If nothing is done and the categories are simply left as is, then similar category pages probably will be created at some point in the future, which means potentially more things to clean up. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:56, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

I don’t necessarily disagree with your concerns, but it doesn’t seem like similar categories are being created. I do think your concern is valid, but in this situation perhaps it might be better to actually wait to see if problems occur. One thing that might be helpful is if we drafted an actual guidance page for category descriptions - unless I’m very much mistaken we don’t have any real documentation that goes into real depth in this. I know that for heritage-listed properties of New South Wales I include a copy of the CC-BY-4.0 descriptions provided by the NSW State Heritage office and these are quite detailed.

I would love to see a guidance page and I’d be happy to discuss it, start one (or update an existing one!) as a draft and we nut this out formally. It would give a lot more certainty to everyone and reduce argument and division. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 01:06, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

I think this is already a problem. There are a number of category pages like this one which have already been created by this user. Many were created years ago and the gradually expanded over time; for example, Category:Hippodrome Theater, Allentown, Pennsylvania. There’s seems to be no need to wait see what they might do next because it's already quite clear what they've been doing; in other words, a pattern has already been established. It's not only creating category pages, but also file uploads that this user has been quite prolific at doing. Many of the files uploaded aren't being used by any projects. Some of these may potentially have educational value, but many seem as if they were uploaded for personal storage purposes more than anything else. Many have also been already deleted or are currently nominated for deletion due to questionable licensing. In addition, this user doesn't seem to be very active on English Wikipedia. If they were uploading files and immediately adding them to articles, then that would one thing. That, however, doesn't seem to be why they are uploading most of these files or creating most of these category pages. — Marchjuly (talk) 02:14, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Copyright issues are, of course, a problem and need to be dealt with, but if someone is uploading content that would be useful for a local historian, that's fine. It doesn't have to be useful to a WMF project. I've uploaded (or in some cases just curated) a ton of images about Seattle that are probably of limited interest to anyone not from here, but have already proved really useful to local historians, especially architectural historians. I was actually given an award by the local chapter of Docomomo mainly because of how many of my photos were showing up in landmark applications, especially when they were looking for images of comparable buildings. I hadn't even been aware of it until they approached me. I'm sure that very few of those images ever made it into Wikipedia. - Jmabel ! talk 06:40, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

I understand this and have no problem with this when it comes to files. I guess the point I was trying to make is that if Atwngirl was incorporating their uploads into Wikipedia articles or creating Wikipedia articles, then perhaps the very detailed content added to the category pages would also be something eventually intended for Wikipedia. That doesn't seem to be the case though, at least not to me. It probably doesn't matter for files as long as their licensing is OK, but it seems wrong and outside SCOPE (at least in my opinion) for extensive text content that's pretty much unsourced and written in Commons' voice. Since September 2016, it looks like Atwngirl has created somewhere between 1000 and 1500 category pages. Some like Category:Wert's Cafe, Allentown, Pennsylvania, Category:937 Hamilton Building, Allentown, Pennsylvania and Category:Pennsylvania Power and Light Building seem OK, but others like Category:Crocodile Rock, Allentown, Pennsylvania, Category:YMCA of Allentown, Pennsylvania, Category:Ralston's Flowers, Allentown, Pennsylvania and Category:Fountain Park Pool, Allentown, Pennsylvania seem like pseudo-Wikipedia articles based on someone's original research. If the consensus is that types are category pages are OK for Commons, then that's good enough for me and nothing further needs to be done. On the other hand, if they're not really OK, then that's a lot of category pages to go through and check; so, it would probably be a good idea to at least advise Atwngirl not to create any more such pages until those already created can be assessed. -- Marchjuly (talk) 09:02, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

That's awesome Jmabel! Well done, a reward well deserved :-) Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 10:55, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Whether the files are or are not used by Wikipedia should not have any baring at all on whether they are valid. I am personally unable to use my CC images on Wikipedia, but I don't see why I shouldn't upload them. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 10:54, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

I've already clarified my first post about files not being used by any local Wikipedias, but once again I have no problem with files being hosted by Commons as long as they satisfy COM:HOST and COM:PCP; so, if you upload your work to Commons and it meets HOST, then fine; if not, maybe it should be deleted since Commons isn't intended to be someone's personal photo album per se. The issue with the category pages is the extensively detailed text that some of them contain. Files with questionable licensing or SCOPE issues can be dealt with as such files are usually dealt with. -- Marchjuly (talk) 11:38, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, just wanted to clarify :-) - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 11:59, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

• if the pseudo-articles have a lede paragraph, keep the lede, and hide the rest using the hide html code, that way they can be search, but not displayed. --RAN (talk) 02:49, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
•  Comment I still don't see why a lot of this couldn't be transferred over to Wikidata. A lot of these categories don't have Wikidata entries associated with them anyway and it would be great if they had infoboxes. Plus, Wikidata is perfect for storing local historical facts that probably lack enough references to qualify for Wikipedia articles. Dumping it all on Commons is completely backwards though, and there's zero indication that Atwngirl even tried other options before adding the information to the categories. From what I can tell she isn't even active on Wikidata. That's not on us and it isn't our responsibility to deal with just because she doesn't want to do it.
  Although, I'm more then willing to transfer some of it over to Wikidata myself if we can all agree about how to deal with it. There should also be some kind of acknowledgment on Atwngirl's side that she just use Wikidata in the future. I'm not going to take the time to make sure the information is preserved and stored in a more appropriate way if she's just going to continue doing it though. Also, I like @Chris.sherlock2: 's idea of "nutting" this out more formally. It should really be in the guidelines somewhere not to use categories as pseudo Wikipedia articles or Wikidata entries. That said though, I think we can separate the (likely) need for a broader discussion about it from this specific incident and deal with it regardless of if there's nothing formally in the guidelines. Most things on here are informal and we still deal with them.
  As a side to that, I don't think moving the information to talk pages is the best way forward either because the information is still available in the edit history and it just passes the problem up one more level in the chain without actually resolving it. There's fundamentally zero difference between a category and a talk page when it comes to what the purpose of the project is, which isn't to be an alternative to Wikipedia. So Category talk pages shouldn't be used as pseudo Wikipedia articles anymore then the categories themselves should be. Which means there's only two options here. Transfer it to Wikidata or delete it. Period. Let's also "nut" it out in the long-term though. But again that doesn't mean we can't deal with this now on it's own merits. The information in the categories is clearly excessive and needs to be cleaned up. --Adamant1 (talk) 14:03, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

  I think the commenting out is the best of the ideas I've seen: preserves what is potentially useful (albeit unsourced and in the wrong place), keeps it out of users' collective face. Wikidata might be a good idea, but someone should first check there (wikidata:Wikidata:Project chat) about whether they'd want this given the lack of citeable sources.

  @Atwngirl: it would be very helpful if you would participate in this conversation. I'd hate to do something this large to your work without your participation, but by ignoring us you are leaving us very little choice. - Jmabel ! talk 17:34, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

  If the consensus is to "hide" content on the category pages, then that's fine as long doing so doesn't create some "new" problem that's going to be sorted out at some point down the road. It should be explained to Atwngirl as to why this was done so as to possibly avoid any wholesale reverting on their part which puts everything back where it was. Some editorial judgement might be needed in some case if the "first paragraph" is insufficient on its own to provide an acceptable description of a particular category. I tend to agree with Adamant1 about moving stuff to the talk page since that seems not too different from hosting on the category page itself. I don't know very much about Wikidata. If the consensus is that Wikidata is a more suitable place to host the content, then that's fine.

  I added a {{Please see}} template to Atwngirl's user talk page on February 6 and you (=Jmabel) have just added another one. Atwngirl posted the following in September 2022, I do not post much to commons right now, as I have a newborn to take care of here. The real world affects us all and perhaps they're just too busy to currently devote any of their time or energy to this matter. If the consensus is to wait a bit longer, then so be it; however, this should be resolved in some way at some point.

  Maybe while waiting a bit longer to hear from Atwngirl, it would be better to split off into a new discussion to discuss either enhancing what already exists or developing something new to address category pages or pages in general that seem to be pushing the boundary of COM:SCOPE#Wikimedia Commons is not an encyclopedia, dictionary, guide, or book. If the place to do that is here or at COM:VPP, then cool. If it's better to do so at Commons talk:Project scope, then cool too. Since it seems like a big change that could affect lots of existing pages, maybe a COM:RFC would be the best way to discuss such a thing like this. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:00, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

February 16

Cropping images

How much should an image be cropped by to remove a damage / border / sticker artifact, before it ought to be re-uploaded as a separate file?

This is a crop to 70% of the previous image size. See others too: Vysotsky (talk · contributions · Move log · block log · uploads · Abuse filter log) block user My concern is that for some of these, like the motor-racing ones, we're starting to change the original composition of the image. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:12, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for asking this question. (1) I upload higher resolution images of files, e.g. Images from the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (a set of 485,000 photos, of which 25,000 are used in several language versions of Wikipedia). I always look carefully for any improvements or crops that have already taken place since the original upload date and only use images from the same source. (2) I also crop pictures (from other databases, like the Anefo examples you mention here) if there are irregularities in the image. I take care to keep the original composition by cropping only damaged parts. If I think the composition would be changed by cropping, I ask specialists at the Photography workshop to remove the watermark without cropping. Vysotsky (talk) 16:35, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley and Vysotsky: There is zero question that 70% crop should have used a different filename. Any crop of an image from an organized archive should use a different filename; the only exception is to remove excessive white borders, and even that is a judgement call. - Jmabel ! talk 16:38, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, one other exception: removing a watermark that is in a margin. E.g. the overwrite here. - Jmabel ! talk 16:41, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Three examples: different filenames when removing watermarks? Vysotsky (talk) 16:54, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

• 
• 
• 

I would certainly prefer a different filename on those. It is not obvious that the white area there is better than having a watermark. - Jmabel ! talk 17:55, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Really? My proposal would be to crop away the lower part of the grass (photo 1), the right 5% of the wall (photo 2) and the lower part of the sand (photo 3) and upload these crops as new versions of the original images. The composition of these press photographs will roughly stay the same, the original can still be found and no essential part of the photos will be missing. The alternative (filling the white areas with resp. grass, sand or wall) is not very attractive and much more time-consuming. Uploading as a separate image is a waste of time, if you ask me. Vysotsky (talk) 20:32, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

@Vysotsky: I see: I thought that white area was the result of some Commoner's removal of a watermark, but I take it those were clipped at the Dutch National Archive (a weird decision on their part, if you ask me). I really don't have an opinion what best to do when the archival source has already screwed up the image by clumsily removing a watermark. I would not oppose cropping in these cases, but I'd also have no problem with using a new name and keeping these as an indication of precisely what is in the archive, rather than that being semi-hidden in the history.- Jmabel ! talk 00:05, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

@Vysotsky: Uploading a separate image does not have to be such a waste of time; have you looked into using dFX?   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 00:13, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• These negatives are large glass plates. The white rectangles are paper catalogue stickers. In most cases they're off the image area, but it some cases they're over it. That's no problem to remove if the negatives were wanted commercially, but it wasn't done before the bulk scanning.

If anyone ever wants to crop these images in the future, that's up to them (we massively crop a lot of the group portraits to extract notable individuals). But those go back as new filenames. We should preserve the original images (even at the cost of a visible sticker), there's not much push to crop these pre-emptively. I'm not going to argue over small crops, but if we're taking more than maybe 10% (this is open to discussion) I think this should be a new file. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:31, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I think we're nearing consensus. I would only like to address the time aspect once more. Anefo photographs are used heavily (total image use of this collection >170,000, distinct image use >22,000). If a photo is used in dozens of Wiki language versions (the record Anefo image is being used 352 times on Wiki) I would have to replace the watermarked image by a cropped image manually in several language versions if I would upload the last one as a separate file. This seems a bit of an overkill, if I only remove a piece of grass, wall or sand. So I think the proposal by Andy Dingley (small cropping up to 10% is OK) would be beneficial, if these crops replace the original. There should be no change of the composition. Vysotsky (talk) 09:32, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

@Vysotsky: You do not need to do this manually in all Wikipedias. That is what User:CommonsDelinker is for. - Jmabel ! talk 15:55, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

What if instead of cropping, the images get retouched/restored, with the restorations uploaded as new files and used in articles? This photo would be rather easy to restore, at least the white strip on the right (I use GIMP, and the Fix and Clone tools work wonders on removing scratches, blemishes, and text). It would be a bit trickier to retouch the sticker areas in the others two, but the more savvy volunteers at Commons:Graphic Lab/Photography workshop could probably clone and fill-in the grass and dirt. Heck, maybe I'll try restoring one tomorrow. --Animalparty (talk) 07:50, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• @Animalparty: sure, but definitely under a new file name. - Jmabel ! talk 16:31, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

why is it necessary to crop out the white part? it doesnt affect the subject of the image. it's part of history now -- the original full photo has lost a part to whatever caused the white part.

have you not seen surviving fragments of old publications? they are what they are.

it's even worse to "restore" the missing part, which is fake. RZuo (talk) 07:12, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

There are two aspects: to make the photo a good illustration of the subject on one hand, and to keep a historic photo on the other. For the first, a crop or faking some grass is probably the best route, for the second, you want to keep the composition exactly as in the original and don't want to manipulate the photo (except to correct for distortions during the scan). If the second aspect is compromised, you want a new filename. We might not want to document what is in the archive, but rather the original; unless we want, cropping away things outside the photo proper is a "minor" change. –LPfi (talk) 08:16, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Nicourt company

The Category:Nicourt contains a series of postcard photographs published by Nikolaos Kourtidis from 1936 to 1940. However, it is not clear whether it is common property because we do not know the date of Kourtidis' death, nor even who has the copyright (if anyone has them) — Preceding unsigned comment added by ΔώραΣτρουμπούκη (talk • contribs) 19:18, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

• The most appropriate license would be "PD-EU-no author disclosure". Kourtidis is the publisher and the photographer was anonymous. --RAN (talk) 05:52, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  thank you!! ΔώραΣτρουμπούκη (talk) 18:47, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  There is the additional issue of U.S. copyright. In the URAA date of 1996 (I assume these are Greece postcards), 70 years had not yet elapsed even from 1936. If the term was 70 year pma already then, I assume these are copyrighted in the U.S. until 95 years after publication, which would be 2031–2035. –LPfi (talk) 08:25, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

February 19

Garbage in remarks section of the Metadata

Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:45, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

As in other photos taken with the same camera. Wouter (talk) 18:49, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

This is a problem of that camera i think. As far as I know, they are not supposed to use that field for private camera specific purposes. But a lot of broken technology has been made over the years, so theres gonna ve sone garbage and then that will show in MediaWiki. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:15, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

February 20

Category:Categories by city vs. Category:Categories by municipality

"City" has various colloquial meanings ranging from "very large town" to "local administrative unit of any size". In consequence and looking at our categories there is no clear understanding whether the subcats in Category:Categories by city are catch-all for stettlements of any status or if there should be differentiation into "by city", "by municipality" (which in some subtrees is understood as a general term including cities, sometimes as excluding them) and in some coutries "by town" and "by village" for further differentiation. Cats with "by city" as catch-all are still dominating, but the other subtrees are growing. This leads to e.g. "Category:Churches in Foo" being in different trees depending on the administrative status or size of foo. In practice it even leads to the objects being in "by-city" trees as well as in "by-municipality" trees as some topics differentiate between the two and others don´t.

My questions: (a) Should subtrees be formed along the status of the relating local administrative unit or not? (b) If not, is there a word that is universally understood to cover all kinds of towns and villages, making it clear both fit in the category? --Rudolph Buch (talk) 14:59, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

i think for many countries "municipality" isnt a relevant concept. like usa it's all counties or cities. china is all cities or "prefecture-level administrative divisions".

but for some countries where municipality is a distinct concept from city, that distinction should be explicitly written down on the cat page.--RZuo (talk) 09:53, 23 February 2023 (UTC)--RZuo (talk) 07:00, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

@RZuo and Rudolph Buch: RZuo is wrong here about the U.S. "Municipalities" in the U.S. is broader than cities: it includes incorporated "towns" or "townships", "villages", and (in some states) "hamlets", and probably several other entities I'm not thinking of. In some states (e.g. New York) there is nothing unusual about having a "village" or "city" within a township.

"Counties" (or in Louisiana "parishes") are distinct from municipalities, but the relationship between the two is a bit weird, and varies from state to state. Typically counties are larger (though I believe some large cities are coincident with a county, and New York City has five counties—also known as boroughs—within the city), and there is nothing unusual about a city crossing county lines (Bothell, Washington is a good example of that).

So, at least for the U.S. (1) it's not neatly a tree (2) "municipalities" is clear, but doesn't deal with the municipality vs. county issue. I know that Spain has some similar issues: autonomous region -> province -> comarca (in some provinces, and I believe the Basques have a different name for this) -> municipality (plus a special case for Madrid, where the city is at the level of an autonomous region; and at least Rioja has the autonomous region be identical to province). - Jmabel ! talk 16:17, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

There should be some discussion on the issue on these category pages, and ideally a country-specific discussion on each country subcategory page. –LPfi (talk) 08:32, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Regarding question (b): I often find categories based on the term "populated places". --HyperGaruda (talk) 07:33, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

In the case of the Philippines, "municipality" is not a term for all incorporated places, the opposite of "municipality" in the United States. Municipalities here are essentially towns, having lower local administrative powers than cities. "Town" is also used here but informally; in official and administrative contexts smaller types of incorporated settlements are called municipalities. Both cities and municipalities are divided into wards called barangays. To simplify, if U.S. calls their smaller incorporated places as towns, then the Philippines calls the same places as municipalities.

We do not have a general term for all municipalities and cities (whether independent [Highly-urbanized cities] or not [Component cities]). But a loose term, "local government unit" (LGU) is typically used to refer to the universal term for all Philippine cities and municipalities. The problem is that the provinces are also LGUs, as well as barangays (or wards of Philippine cities and municipalities). This was recently discussed on English Wikipedia here. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 08:14, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

February 21

Topic in country template

The template Template:Topic by country is producing some nonsensical categorisation. For example, Category:Civil engineering in the United Kingdom turns up in the parent categories in North America, South America, Africa and Oceania; likewise France. While I realise that these countries may have territories in these regions, categorising them in those parent categories just defeats the purpose of the region categories. I don't know where it is pulling these categories from - presumably a subtemplate. Simon Burchell (talk) 10:17, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

@Joshbaumgartner: You have been working on the category (and the single template it is using) recently. Is this a problem you are aware of? From Hill To Shore (talk) 11:27, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

@From Hill To Shore: Thank you for pinging me on this. I am aware of this categorization behavior, and it is intentional (not that it can't be changed). There is a data template that lists what continents a country is present in, and uses that to categorize a "topic in country" under each of the continents it is present on. This is not an issue for most countries, which are present in only one continent, but there are several multi-continent countries. The United Kingdom is an egregious outlier in this category as it covers just about every continent, even today, and thus just about every continent has a United Kingdom presence that needs to be accounted for. While naturally the lion's share of any topic about the United Kingdom is going to center on Europe, it is not exclusively so. There are some ways this could be refined. If, say, Civil engineering in the United Kingdom were to be sub-categorized into civil engineering in the United Kingdom in Europe, civil engineering in the United Kingdom in North America, etc., the continent categories could be removed from the parent and instead moved to these single-continent sub-cats. However, that's not something I think anyone is eager to embark on. Alternatively, we could remove all multi-continent countries from single-continent "topic in continent" categories, and instead add them to something like "topic in multi-continent countries". I don't particularly care for this a whole lot, but it could work. In the end, I do not think it is as bad as it might seem on the surface. The reality is that the United Kingdom has a factual presence in Oceania, and thus if one has a category covering civil engineering in Oceania, part of that topic includes the United Kingdom, even if Oceania is only a tiny fraction of the United Kingdom. This is why the template works the way it does, but if we want to go a different way with it, I stand ready to make the needed changes to it. Josh (talk) 17:12, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

If this is a reference to the British Overseas Territories - I note from the Wikipedia article "The British Overseas Territories (BOTs), also known as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs), are fourteen territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom. They are the last remnants of the former British Empire and do not form part of the United Kingdom itself." (my italics) - as such the United Kingdom should not be categorised within those regions - it may have a role in governance, but does not actually have territory there. Simon Burchell (talk) 10:21, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Temperature indication

Sometimes the there are things not visible in the picture. A temperature of 38 degrees Celcius. The only thing visible is that alle windows are fully open. Is it usefull to mention the temperature in extreme cases? Certainly when records are broken. It can be supported by weather sources.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:06, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

In structured Data I have added the temperature, but I get warnings.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:12, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

@Smiley.toerist: Adding a temperature property to the structured data of an images implies that it's the temperature of the file, but the file itself doesn't really have a temperature. I would suggest adding the temperature as a qualifier for the entities in the "depicts" property (aka "Items portrayed in this file"). TilmannR (talk) 14:19, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

I was thinking along the same lines and tried it here, but I also got an error/warning/complaint. El Grafo (talk) 14:24, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

@El Grafo: Which warning was it? allowed-entity-types constraint? TilmannR (talk) 14:48, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

I got two:

• allowed-qualifiers-constraint for using temperature (P2076) as a qualifier for depicts (P180)
• allowed-entity-types constraint "The property temperature should not be used on this type of entity, the only valid entity type is Wikibase item."

(see current version of File:赤バック 体温計 (6048895685).jpg). El Grafo (talk) 15:31, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

@El Grafo, @Smiley.toerist: I asked the Wikidata:Project chat. They probably know more about these constraints than Commons users and are qualified to change the property definitions, if necessary. TilmannR (talk) 17:36, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

i dont think it's useful to add a statement of atmospheric temperature based on weather data. it should only be added if it's measured like 赤バック 体温計 (6048895685).jpg . RZuo (talk) 16:22, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

on top of that, atmospheric temperature <> temperature of the depicted subjects <> temperature measured. it's not so helpful if these are not distinguished. imagine a photo of a furnace in the north of sweden in winter. atmospheric temperature outside might be -10 celcius, temperature of the furnace might be 1000 celcius, temperature of a handheld thermometer in the vicinity of the furnace might be 39 celcius...--RZuo (talk) 11:26, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. "This image was taken at 36°C" is not something we should routinely add to our metadata. "This image shows its subject at 36°C" is a different thing and may be useful for some things (like hot steel, which glows in different colors at different temperatures). This is probably something that should simply be mentioned in the file description.

"This image shows a thermometer that has measured 36°C" and the related "... shows a display that displays 36°C" are yet another thing. We do have Categories for this, som we may want to model this in SDC too. So this edit in a way was nonsense: That's a medical thermometer that at some point in the past has measured a temperature of 38°C, probably while having its tip somewhere inside someones body. It is now showing that temperature, but the thermometer itself probably has room temperature. El Grafo (talk) 11:51, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Africa Environment Day / Wangari Maathai Day Office Hour

📢 (In) formation Vous souhaitez en savoir plus sur Environnement Day / Journée Wangari Maathai Souhaitez-vous avoir des idées sur la façon dont vous pouvez vous impliquer? Ou peut-être avez-vous des idées que vous aimeriez partager ? Si la réponse est "oui!" alors cette Office Hour est pour VOUS ! Date: Jeudi, 23 Février 2023 Heure: 15:00 UTC (Ici, est liée votre heure locale) Lieu: Google Meet Langue de discussion: Français Vous êtes invité.e.s à assister à la première Heure de bureau d’Africa Environment Day présentée par Manouka[Kakou]. Au cours de cette session, vous serez initié au projet et aurez l'opportunité de poser des questions et d'obtenir des réponses. Partagez ce message avec les membres de votre communauté ! Abiba Pauline (talk) 12:35, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Community feedback-cycle about updating the Wikimedia Terms of Use starts

Hi everyone,

This February 2023 the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Department is planning to host a feedback cycle about updating the Wikimedia Terms of Use (ToU) from February, 21 to April 2023. Full information has been published here.

The Terms of Use are the legal terms that govern the use of websites hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. We will be gathering your feedback on a draft proposal from February through April. The draft has been translated into several languages, with feedback accepted in any language.

This update comes in response to several things:

1. Implementing the Universal Code of Conduct
2. Updating project text to the Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license (CC 4.0)
3. A proposal for better addressing undisclosed paid editing
4. Bringing our terms in line with current and recently passed laws affecting the Foundation including the European Digital Services Act

Regarding the Universal Code of Conduct and its enforcement guidelines, we are instructed to ensure that the ToU include it in some form.

Regarding CC 4.0, the communities had determined as the result of a 2016 consultation that the projects should upgrade the main license for hosted text from the current CC BY-SA 3.0 to CC BY-SA 4.0. We’re excited to be able to put that into effect, which will open up the projects to receiving a great deal of already existing CC BY-SA 4.0 text and improve reuse and remixing of project content going forward.

Regarding the proposal for better addressing undisclosed paid editing, the Foundation intends to strengthen its tools to support existing community policies against marketing companies engaged in systematic, undisclosed paid editing campaigns.

Finally, regarding new laws, the last ToU update was in 2015, and that update was a single item regarding paid editing. The last thorough revision was in 2012. While the law affecting hosting providers has held steady for some time, with the recent passage of the EU’s Digital Services Act, we are seeing more significant changes in the legal obligations for companies like the Foundation that host large websites. So with a decade behind us and the laws affecting website hosts soon changing, we think it’s a good time to revisit the ToU and update them to bring them up to current legal precedents and standards.

See the page on Meta to get all the information.

On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Team,

Zuz (WMF) (talk) 12:41, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

@Zuz (WMF) Your second link is broken (superfluous "wiki"), should be updating the Wikimedia Terms of Use. El Grafo (talk) 13:17, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Of special relevance to Commons, these proposals remove the ability for projects to opt out of the blanket policy on disclosure of paid contributions, so Commons:Paid contribution disclosure policy, which permits paid editing without disclosure, wouldn't be allowed. --bjh21 (talk) 20:09, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Actually, the change there is quite unclear as to whether it does that or not. I have started a discussion at meta:Talk:Terms of use#Commons and paid editing. - Jmabel ! talk 20:42, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Global ban for Livioandronico2013

On Meta, there is an RfC on Global ban for Livioandronico2013 -- one of our most persistent sockpuppeteers and LTA here on Commons. Anyone who wish, please participate. --A.Savin 15:27, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

• For those poor souls unfamiliar with abreviations:
  RfC = Request for Comments (solicitud de comentarios)
  LTA = ?? ?? Account (Cuenta de ¿¿?? y ¿¿??) B25es (talk) 07:20, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

lta=long term abuse.

i also dislike using wiki-specific abbreviations. it's like they cant speak coherently.--RZuo (talk) 09:53, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

February 22

Automotive generation categories

A category discussion is underway regarding the naming of generation categories in the automotive world:

Commons:Categories for discussion/2023/02/Category:Peugeot Expert

Broader community engagement is encouraged as this discussion could affect several categories within the automotive tree. Please review and comment there if you are interested. Thanks, Josh (talk) 01:38, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Category:Flags of counties of Wales

Category:Flags of counties of Wales seems to contain various fictitious flags. someone should sort out which are real and which are not, and change descriptions and filenames accordingly.--RZuo (talk) 11:26, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Photograf family Gay-Couttet

I have scanned an old black-White postcard 'La Mer de Glace'. There is the mention '(48) Photo Mont-Blanc Gay-Couttet'. The problem for licensing is by wich generation the picture is taken? see Un siècle de photographies à Chamonix, la famille Gay-Couttet. If it is R.Gay-Couttet(1925-2002) [2] it is to recent. The date posted is unclear, but it is with a 5 french franc poststamp. Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:01, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

I can scan the backside, with date stamp information (I cant deduce a date from it, but someone may have more experience of it). But if the picture is later found to be not PD, it is a bit out of scope to keep the backside image.Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:13, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm pretty knowledgeable about postcards so I can look into it if you want. Uploading the back would probably help to. It's always preferred to have images of the back of postcards if we can anyway. BTW, if your interested there's Commons:WikiProject Postcards. We are always looking for new members. --Adamant1 (talk) 16:19, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

It could very well be R. Gay-Couttet(1925-2002) for a picture taken in 1948. Les photos de Michel Couttet et de Auguste Couttet (1868-1933), son fils, peuvent être acceptées sur Commons. Yann (talk) 16:27, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

The postcard was posted in 1949. Unfortunatly it could not be the older generation.Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:33, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Purpose of "Other versions" section in Summaries

I've noticed a couple of times that the "Other versions" sections in the summaries of some files are being used for random images that are only tangentially related to the original image, if at all. For instance File:Stamp 1943 DRBM MiNr0113 mt B002.jpg lists File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-C08786, Zeesen, Jungfliegerheim übergeben.jpg as another version of it, but there isn't really a clear connection between the two images. Let alone is the later a "version" of the former. Same goes for File:Stamp 1943 DRBM MiNr0125 mt B0012.jpg, which lists File:Benda Jaroslav (1882-1970), malíř.jpg when it's not a "version" of the original. It seems like people are trying to use the "Other versions" sections of file summaries as rudimentary categories or something. So I'd like to know what the consensus is when it comes to using the "other version" sections of files in this way and if it would be OK to delete links to files that aren't actually versions of the original. Thanks. Adamant1 (talk) 16:50, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Removing "other versions" that are only tangentially related is appropriate. Broad collections (e.g., images of doves with olive branches) are the purpose of categories. However, there may be information that belongs elsewhere. It looks like Benda Jaroslav belongs in the artist/author field. Postal administration of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia may be a corporate author or a publisher. The point is that the "other versions" field implies an important claim that should not be deleted even if the image of Benda Jaroslav is removed. Glrx (talk) 17:51, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Things like this should be in the description, not in "other versions". It's perfectly OK to have a gallery element in the description. - Jmabel ! talk 18:00, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Bad licenses on OK files

In following up on a user question on Help desk I noticed that a lot of images that are just signatures have totally bogus CC licenses. I'm guessing that all (or nearly all) of these would be OK as {{PD-signature}}. Should there be an effort to go through and fix these systematically? Or is it really not that important that these PD files are marked with bogus CC licenses? - Jmabel ! talk 21:56, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Bogus licences should not be accepted. It is understandable that new users add bogus licences in PD cases, but the licences should be corrected. So yes, there should be such an effort, but I don't know how to do it efficiently. –LPfi (talk) 08:38, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Category:Transgender women of the United States

Should detransitioners such as Kristin Beck still be in this category? --Trade (talk) 22:05, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Convenience links: Category:Transgender women of the United States, en:Chris Beck (Navy SEAL). - Jmabel ! talk 22:41, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

I think it should, as he was once a transgender woman. RodRabelo7 (talk) 09:41, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

I think not; Beck is not currently a transgender woman, and that should be all that is used for the category. I'd support creating a category for people who have detransitioned if there are enough of them. —‍Mdaniels5757 (talk • contribs) 18:37, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

"Currently is" doesn't matter as much as "was at the time the picture was taken". Donald Trump hasn't been president for quite a while now, but he's still at Category:Presidents of the United States by name. Sometimes people seem to forget that the point of our Categories is to categorize media files, not build a hierarchical model of the world. That's what Wikidata is for (where you can specify that someone was president from day X to day Z). One option in this case might be to have the main category under what seems to be the current name Chris Beck (that could go into the proposed "detransitioned" category). Then use the current Category:Kristin Beck for the pictures of them during their trans woman years and have only that be part of the trans subtree. El Grafo (talk) 09:12, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Category:Historic Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Photos

I can't work out the scope of this category, and its creator is blocked so I can't ask him about intent.

• I can't even tell what portion of the category is proper noun and what isn't, and since the only parent category is Category:Columbia River Gorge I can't get there by intersecting parent categories.
• We have a Category:Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, which seems a more likely parent than Category:Columbia River Gorge. Given that this was created as a subcat of Category:Columbia River Gorge rather than Category:Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, is there any reason to believe that these images all fall within the latter?
• Is there a work called Historic Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Photos and this is originally intended as a category specific to that work?
  • I think not: I see one image here as recent as 2007, placed there by the same banned user who created the category.
  • In any other case, "photos" should be lowercase.
• Given that it's not all one proper name, what does "historic" mean here? Before some particular date? If so, what date?
  • Again the 2007 image put in by the creator of the category makes me wonder…
• …is this category useful at all? - Jmabel ! talk 23:27, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

No, not useful at all. That sockpuppeteer created a lot of poorly named categories to dump mass uploads in (rather than putting in the effort to properly categorize the images.) Feel free to recategorize the files to the parent, then delete. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 07:48, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Man. I'm going through Category:Historic Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Photos. What a mess. I've been through 75 of these. Many of these images had no categories dealing with anything other than provenance, and half of the topical categories were just plain wrong. Some of these were in no sense in the Columbia River Gorge, either. Plus the dates were just digitization dates of photos mostly 75+ years old.

Just FYI:

• Every file I've looked at so far was also in Category:USFS files uploaded by Tyler de Noche, and I'm leaving that cat on them. They seem to have come from a USFS Flickr account.
• These were all marked as {{PD-USGov-USDA-FS}}, and probably had the PD mark in Flickr, but that federal PD designation is clearly wrong for most of them. I've mostly found postcards, certainly not by USFS or any other government agency and certainly not photographed by a government employee in the course of their duties. Some are old enough to be clearly {{PD-US-expired}}, some are old enough to be likely {{PD-US-not renewed}} (I don't imagine many black-and-white or hand-colored postcards from before 1940 or so got renewed), some are harder to date. For now, I'm not taking up the copyright question on what I'm going through, but someone may want to go through Category:USFS files uploaded by Tyler de Noche and Category:Photographs by the United States Forest Service Northwest Division and do a copyright review. Please don't just do a mass-deletion, most of these look OK, but someone needs to do the legwork, and I have a lot else on my plate, way too much to want to take that on. - Jmabel ! talk 04:44, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

February 23

Subcategory of Category:Images with borders for SVG images?

Since SVG images cannot be edited using the CropTool, it would be convenient to have them together in a subcategory of Category:Images with borders for SVG images. Any views on this proposal? Leyo 09:35, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

only 6 exist https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=incategory%3A%22Images_with_borders%22+filemime%3Asvg . why a category?

and if an svg has borders, that must be the maker's intention?--RZuo (talk) 09:53, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

This is independent of the current number of SVG images. The more relevant number is the total number of files in that category (currently > 1000).

Only SVG images with unintentional borders are usually in this category. --Leyo 15:04, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Please, revert this overwritten image to original version. I will crop a new file and replace it.

Here: [[3]]. I will crop this person into a separate file and replace it on all pages currently in use. I have not notified the User about not overwriting files. History shows another User did the same overwrite, but was reverted. This is the second overwrite. Thanks, --Ooligan (talk) 18:12, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

@Ooligan  Done. —‍Mdaniels5757 (talk • contribs) 18:35, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

@Ooligan: are you unable for some reason to revert file versions yourself? - Jmabel ! talk 18:41, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

@Jmabel, @Mdaniels5757 - I tried to "undo," but it said it was already undone. Is that because it was previously reverted? What should I have done to revert that image? -- Ooligan (talk) 19:04, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

@Ooligan: You should have clicked "revert" next to the version of the image that you wanted to restore (in the file history). If you did that and it didn't look like it worked, typically that would mean just a caching problem. - Jmabel ! talk 19:08, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Jo Pugh RIP

I'm sorry to report that my friend, and an incredible Wikimedian, Jo Pugh, User:Mr impossible, has died ([4]). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:38, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

• @Pigsonthewing: I'm sorry about your friend. I hope it's OK that I've taken the liberty of marking his user page accordingly. - Jmabel ! talk 00:31, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Reporting indiscriminate deletion

My attention was drawn by user:Didym to a series of file i uploaded as having incomplete licenses which they went on to tag for deletion. I immediately responded by adding all the missing relevant licensing information. However, i have realised the files were still deleted despite carrying the appropriate, now complete licenses. The files include 1, 2, 3, 4. I would like to request the files be restored. Thanks Wilson (talk) 23:48, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

@OtuNwachinemere I have moved your request to COM:UDEL, please keep an eye on this section in case there are any questions from the admins. El Grafo (talk) 08:50, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

February 24

Suggestions for naming convention

User @Tm has uploaded thousands of photos from the Web Summit flickrstream which is great. The problem is that the filenames are mostly meaningless. For instance there are files that start with 2022 - Crypto PO1 eg File:2022 - Crypto PO1 7505 (52475273803).jpg and this classic one File:HM1 9267 (45779386761).jpg. I renamed this to a more meaningful name viz File:Florian Simmendinger, HM1 9267 (45779386761).jpg. This tells you immediately who is in the photo and still retains the meaningless HM1 9267 sequencing. Adding the name of the person to the filename should make it easier to find in a Google search too.

TM disagrees with my renaming these files and has reverted them. So before an edit war starts I would appreciate some feedback and ideas for a better way of naming these files as there are thousands like this Gbawden (talk) 06:42, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

• @Gbawden and Tm: Perhaps the two of you can come up with some consensus on this? Certainly File:2022 - Crypto PO1 7505 (52475273803).jpg and File:HM1 9267 (45779386761).jpg are not good file names as they stand. They may be meaningful to someone, but the rest of us lack the relevant decoder ring. - Jmabel ! talk 07:14, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

  Zuindest derzeit ist es noch so, dass flickr2commons nur dann keine Duplikate hochlädt, wenn der Flickr-Dateiname auf commons nicht verändert wird (siehe techn. Wunschliste 23). Und ist es wirklich so, dass der Rang bei einer Google-Suche (oder auch einer Suche auf Commons) vom Dateinamen wesentlich beeinflusst wird? Ist es nicht viel mehr so, dass Dateiname, Description im Info-Template, SDC-depcicts und Kategorien hier gleichrangig berücksichtigt werden? C.Suthorn (talk) 07:21, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

@Tm: I notice that you have said the following on User talk:Gbawden, "Would be much to ask, that if you must move the filenames, to do it in a way that does not break the sequence of files that are of the same subevents and that are next to one anothers?"[5]

Could you please explain how the sequencing is meant to work? To someone with no knowledge of this event, I am struggling to see the pattern you are trying to preserve. If the files were renamed but kept the "HM1 9267" part of the reference at the start of the new name, would that resolve your objection? From Hill To Shore (talk) 08:30, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Categorizing them is much easier if the pictures remain listed in the order they were taken, so images of the same person or podium stay together in category view. If you feel you must change the name regardless, please add the the additions at the end of the original file name and not at its beginning, retaining the original sorting order. Generally I don´t see much advantage in "meaningful" file names and see them just as a technical identifier and would put the effort rather in meaningful categorization than in renaming. Rudolph Buch (talk) 08:49, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

As stated by Rudolph Buch. If the files, like File:2022 - Crypto PO1 7505 (52475273803).jpg must be renamed (despite metadata, filedescription, categories, file info and structured data) it would be better to be renamed to something like File:2022 - Crypto - Mike Butcher - PO1 7505 (52475273803).jpg, so this way preservees files of the same event together and the id of the photo given by the Web Summit. Tm (talk) 12:15, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Also, why did Gbawden moved a file and then locked it? Tm (talk) 12:38, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

@Rudolph Buch I am trying to do both. I am moving into categories (having to create many first) but my preference is to have an indicator of who is in the photo, to make it easier to identify at a glance. For example if we stuck 10 photos starting with 2022 - Crypto in Businessmen from the United States, you would have to open each file to see who is in the photo. Putting their name in the photo makes it a little easier IMO Gbawden (talk) 10:16, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree that it´s nice when a file name contains the information you are looking for. So if I´m looking for a certain person, file names should include people´s names. If I´m looking for a certain time, file names should include dates. If I´m looking for a pose, names should include poses. If I´m looking for chairs, chair types should be included as well. To honor everyones perspective of "meaningful" (i.e. "what it means to me") File:2022 - Crypto PO1 7505 (52475273803).jpg might be File:IMG52475273803 Mike Butcher with a tablet and glasses and gray hair sitting on a white leather chair in front of black vertical pillars looking left wearing boots while speaking at Crypto Form at Crunch conference at Web Summit in Lisbon in 2022.jpg" after a fair number of renames until everyone has added his personal "first glance" requirements. Files names will never be perfect and renames have disadvantages, so file information should be on the file pages and not in the file names. Rudolph Buch (talk) 11:14, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

@Rudolph Buch: This is a straw man argument. Few people are ever likely to be looking for a picture of black vertical pillars, etc., but if no one is ever likely to be looking for a picture of Mike Butcher, then there is little point to having this photo. Pictures of people giving talks are rarely labeled with such trivia, and presumably you know that. Please discuss this in good faith. - Jmabel ! talk 16:59, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

There are categories for all those elements, so for some people they seem to be important. Does "straw man" mean that you want me to discuss only based on my own interests? Ok: Currently I try to recategorize all files from to top level category "Category:Politicians" into subcats of "Category:Politicians by country". This means looking at 2500 files, 1500 now still to go. People´s names in the file name don´t help with this task, country name at first glance would be great. Next step will be that someone sorts the files in Category:Politicians of Brazil (another 1100 files) to state level. Again, people names in the file name do not help, only state names would. Last step is to move them into individual object categories. Even at this stage, file names do not matter, as you´ve got to check the match of the file description anyway. But what matters in the whole process is that file names which show them as being part of a set and make them stay together in the file lists are not broken. If someone uploads 70 images of Brazilian Politicians and numbers them in a unique way, it´s just a few clicks to shift them all. If the cohesion is broken by renaming them, each of the 70 has to be checked an processed on its own. So if you rename please respect that other users may have different needs or workflows and that you might not even be aware of those. (Sorry for the long text, hard to be short in a foreign language) Rudolph Buch (talk) 17:57, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

• I really feel like there is more heat than light here. Most of this seems like people arguing for getting exactly their own way rather than trying to reach a consensus. So let me jump back in.
• @Gbawden: am I correct that what you propose doing would still keep the old file name as a redirect? And am I correct that you would also still embed that within the now file name? If so, would you have any objection to putting the stuff you want to add after the existing file name? (I personally don't consider this last preferable, but it seems like some other users are rather invested in keeping these in their current order.)
• @Rudolph Buch: I'm still not sure of the relevance of some of your remarks to the matter at hand. How are these filenames specifically more useful in the categorization you want to do? And is there anything in adding more information as a suffix that would interfere with what you want? - Jmabel ! talk 20:22, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

  Mit durchgängiger Nummerierung benannte Dateisets eines Uploaders deuten auf Gemeinsamkeiten der Bilder hin. Kategorien für ein Bild treffen dann häufig auch auf die weiteren Bilder zu. Suffixe zu diesen Ziffernfolgen sind unschädlich, Prefixe oder ein Löschen sind es nicht. Rudolph Buch (talk) 00:55, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

  • Unless I'm very mistaken that last sentence amounts to "Suffixes to these digit sequences are harmless, prefixes or deletions are not." @Gbawden: is that workable for you? - Jmabel ! talk

meaningless filenames like File:HM1 9267 (45779386761).jpg should be renamed.

there's not much merit in preserving any camera formatted names like "HM1 9267". when i rename such files i'd only retain the flickr number.

the argument for retaining these arbitrary strings is built on an assumption, that the category is static, i.e. no new images would be added. as soon as someone else uploads other files from a different source and doesnt follow your "naming method", the contents would still be messed up.

for a mass event like this, it's not uncommon to have coverage from multiple sources.

moving a file back to a nonsensical filename is abuse of filemover that should be removed.--RZuo (talk) 07:00, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

• I am happy to add a name after the sequence. I think we can close this discussion Gbawden (talk) 07:56, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

  @RZuo You are the second person to point out that @Tm abused their file mover right. Me removing that right now might look vindictive Gbawden (talk) 07:59, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

  As i said above, what you call "arbitrary strings" is in fact the filename short title, i.e. the websummit photo id that has information like the photographer. And as a volunteer, as you are, i dont have 24/7 to move files to proper names and only make it when i have he time avaible Tm (talk) 11:07, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

  Or time to repair filename like File:Martins Imhangbe at Web Summit Martins Imhangbe, Web Summit 2022.jpeg or File:Martins Imhangbe at Web Summit Martins Imhangbe, Web Summit 2022 (cropped).jpeg to its previous names before their moves justified as "better name", in both files, because only better than having the name of depicted person twice in the filename os having it three names. Tm (talk) 11:18, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Curation of bulk uploads (lack of.)

Category:Scans from the Internet Archive Category:Books_uploaded_by_Fæ

Okay , Simple question, Whose reviewing these to remove copyvios?

These were uploaded by Fæ in good faith, in response to the possiblity of IA being disrupted by an ongoing row with publishers, but in the 2 years since the bulk upload, there has not been anything like the visble, active curation to remove works incompatible with Commons as would be desirable.

As there seems to be a lack of visible active curation, the simplest brutally pragmatic approach to ensure commons is not inadvertently hosting material which is not license compatiable or constitutes copyvio, is to assume anything post 1927 (for US works) and 1900 1903 (for Non-US) works, is going to still be in copyright, and start bulk deletions on that basis, if there isn't compelling evidence of other licenses (such as no-notice, US Gov works etc.)

As it would be a shame to loose over 1 million files, Commons has a choice. Start active curation, or mass delete ENTIRE categories of material.

I'd like to see an implementable strategy within a week so. Thanks. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:19, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

@ShakespeareFan00: wouldn't that be 1903 for Non-US works (120 years)? That's our usual standard. - Jmabel ! talk 20:25, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

It is thanks... I'm not entirly happy with {{PD-old-assumed}} , but it is Commons consensus.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:36, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

• 75% of all works between 1928 and 1964 never renewed copyrights according to the New York Public Library. --RAN (talk) 05:17, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

A case in point:=- https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?psid=23943907 is 430 or so mis-licensed files... Most are likely non-notice, but it's time consuming to run every single one against the PG transcriptions of renewals/registrations. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:40, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

• I have no idea why you gave those two options. There are lots and lots of media that is uploaded that no one reviews. The bigger issue is the lack of categories for most of those uploads which is probably the best way to find the copyright problems. Something like File:The way to more beautiful homes and more profitable farms through our complete catalogue for year 1932 (IA waytomorebeautif19boun 0).pdf would be better off if someone had the time and energy to break out the images from the PDFs and categorize them but this isn't going to happen on any reasonable, normal timescale. It would be easier to find a problematic set of uploads and request their deletion like Commons:Deletion requests/File:Abraham Lincoln's secretaries (IA abrahamlincolnssjnlinc).pdf this discussion did. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:49, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, but that still needs someone to do the curation needed. You Volunteering? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 06:46, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Notice of global ban

User:PlanespotterA320 has been globally banned per m:Requests for comment/Global ban for PlanespotterA320 (2). AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 21:24, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

• His anti-Russian behavior was the reason for the ban. He has nominated over 1,000 Russian images for deletion. Will his nominations be reversed? They are all based on the same premise, but all nominated as individual images, scattered over the past 6-month queue. --RAN (talk) 02:44, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

  Reversed how? Commons:Deletion requests/File:Юрий Никулин в детстве 01.jpg is still an open nomination, for example. I don't know if "request is by a globally banned user" is really that relevant but they remain open discussions. Ricky81682 (talk) 02:53, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

• That is just one, of several hundred opened by a banned editor, they were nominating under an SPA, after being blocked. --RAN (talk) 05:13, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

  His global ban has nothing to do with commons so if his DR's are justified, they should remain..i randomly checked 10 of his current DR nominations, all actually seem legit.. Stemoc 05:53, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Why ban someone from Wiki Commons if their behavior has nothing to do with Commons? That doesn't make sense. --RAN (talk) 00:27, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

• Hi, as the drafter of the ban discussion, I'd like to inform that community need to review the previous deletion requests, nowadays, some of her DR requests were found as trolling, these photos are really PD-Russia and speedily declined, if there are some evidence for PD, it need to be reversed.
  @Stemoc@Richard Arthur Norton This user has a lot of DR requests, scattered over years and years, nearly all of them are in relation to PD-RUSSIA, PD-Soviet and PD-Ukraine. Well at this time, I persuade to leave them alone or undelete them. Lemonaka (talk) 00:17, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

  That isn't the way things are done but if you want to propose a mass undeletion because you think the editor was purely trolling (and I don't know if trolling because they were biased or what), that would be a complicated undeletion request. Otherwise, I think it's best for people to tag these as Category:Russian law deletion requests and Category:Ukrainian law deletion requests and watch those categories. It would have been helpful if someone had done that tagging in the past but it is not impossible to review the oldest page creations within Commons and also for the various socks. Discussions like 1, 2 and 3 don't seem related to Russia in any manner and seem fine to me. Ricky81682 (talk) 06:54, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

  @Ricky81682No, no, no, I don't mean their behaviour is purely trolling and need a mass undeletion, batch undeletion is totally absurd. I meant that all the deletion needs to be reviewed, with the help of volunteers. Some of them are trolling, while others are not. It will take a lot of times for us. Lemonaka (talk) 17:12, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

  Most of the older ones seem benign issues. The current ones are all each an argument about the publication date which I don't think is pure trolling but there are many very, very sloppy proposals like Commons:Deletion requests/File:AI Cherepanov.jpg and Commons:Deletion requests/File:AGShirshov.jpg. Ricky81682 (talk) 19:04, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

• @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): What do you actually mean by "anti-Russian behavior"? Honestly I don't understand this expression. Anti-Putin? Pro-Ukraine? Pro-Putin? There is a lot of possible meanings... Regards --A.Savin 17:36, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

  A lot of the recent deletion requests are based on an argument about very old Russian photographs and whether the publication date is accurately described/even required to be described. A number are very sloppy in terms of nominations. Earlier ones were demands that their uploads be deleted because they were going to be banned for their antics. Before that seems more benign. Ricky81682 (talk) 19:09, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

 Comment I am closing all these DRs. It seems like revenge DRs or something like that. If there is any issue, please renominate. Yann (talk) 06:19, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

February 25

Annoying problem during FileExporter use

I have been undergoing occasional but annoying message during FileExporter use, in transfering User:Patrickroque01's local enwiki files to here. The message reads "Failed to discover API location from: <URL link of enwiki image>. HTTP status code 0. Error fetching URL: Received HTTP code 403 from proxy after CONNECT." While it can be resolved by repeating the exporting process, it gets annoying as there are too many images by Patrick Roque that I need to transfer here (of course after undergoing review of Philippine architectural artworks' licensing statuses). This issue only appeared just recently, in late December 2022. Can users engaged in programming or technical matter fix this so that the annoying error message no longer appears at any condition? JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 05:01, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

@JWilz12345: This is almost certainly a problem that can only be fixed by the Wikimedia sysadmins. I think you can follow the instructions at mw:How to report a bug to report the problem to them through Phabricator. --bjh21 (talk) 10:19, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Need help with images that might need to be removed

See the text on the page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Potential_deletes_from_Flickr_import_by_me_(Thibaultmol) Basically: I uploaded lots of Flickr images last year but hadn't checked each image for potential guideline violations (copyright and such). Please if you're someone that fully understands the guidelines, go over the images I found in my uploads that might be violating it. DON'T JUST FLAG ALL OF THEM. Actually check if the image should be nominated for deletion or not.

You might want to do some work on them yourself, such as grouping them by issue and spelling out the issue. The first of them seem to be photographs with artwork as a main subject, and probably the licence is for the photograph only. Some of these may be de minimis but hardly all. The Flickr user should perhaps be blacklisted. File:Metáfora de una despedida (3267073099).jpg should be OK if it is from a real car (the title suggests otherwise), but please provide a description and categories. Then there is the street art, some of which may be graffiti. –LPfi (talk) 09:53, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Template:AthenaNikeDecade

Can someone fix that template ?

- Io Herodotus (talk) 22:48, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

• @Io Herodotus: Well, I made it one step less broken, but with Commons lack of some of what I used to in en-wiki I'm not sure how to make it really good (e.g. degrade gracefully on missing inputs). - Jmabel ! talk 01:38, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you. It gives 20000s instead of 2000s, I don't understand why; it's a copy of the template of the Parthenon which works fine. Io Herodotus (talk) 08:10, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

  That was a problem with using the right values when transcluding on the category page itself. I've taken the liberty to fix both that and transform the template into a prettier version based on what is used for the Acropolis. --HyperGaruda (talk) 09:52, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

February 26

Eye icon in title name not visualized

Although the name of File:Eye.jpg (File:Eye.jpg) is different from that of File:️Eye.jpg (File:%EF%B8%8FEye.jpg) they show the same file title inside. Also in inline linking as far as I see. ZandDev (talk) 15:53, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Courtesy warning to other editors, the second link includes human female nudity. From Hill To Shore (talk) 16:18, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

The latter filename should begins with Eye emoji (on Emojipedia).

I've seen that the original file name begins with the following non-visible character: [https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/fe0f/index.htm U+FE0F VARIATION SELECTOR-16 (UTF-8: 0xEF 0xB8 0x8F)

I want to change the file name to File:️👁️Eye (Exey Panteleev).jpg for criterion 6 but it seems to be blacklisted. ZandDev (talk) 15:58, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Moved to File:️Eye (Exey Panteleev).jpg. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:59, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Deleted photos without notices and records

Reviving this discussion: [6]. I'm missing too File:Igreja São Bernardo em Fortaleza.JPG or File:Igreja de São Bernardo em Fortaleza.JPG. Is there any chance where files are deleted without any record? Maybe a bug. Has anyone else made similar complaints? Or am I just going crazy? lol.--Porto Neto (talk) 20:20, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

• @Porto Neto: There were never files at those names. - Jmabel ! talk 23:48, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

  @Jmabel: I won't remember the name exactly, I think it's like that because it was the standard of the titles I posted. But I'm pretty sure I posted that photo and the other one from the archived discussion. It is okay not to restore the photos, but it is important that we are aware of any possible bugs. Anyway thanks for the search. --Porto Neto (talk) 00:01, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

  P.S.:These were photos from 2015 and 2016. --Porto Neto (talk) 00:03, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

It is unlikely to be a bug. There are 5 possibilities that I can see:

1. The files were uploaded to Commons under different names and have been deleted. These should be visible to administrators. I would expect a deletion notification to be placed on your talk page.
2. The files were uploaded to Commons but included content so extreme that an oversight action was needed and the files were deleted. Oversight hides the files from administrators. Depending on the nature of the oversight action, there may not have been a notification on your talk page.
3. You uploaded the files under a different account, so they don't show up in your upload list or your list of deleted uploads. The files may be somewhere on Commons under a name you haven't considered yet or they may have been deleted. Any notification about the deletion would be on the talk page of your other account.
4. You uploaded the files on a different Wikimedia project and they were stored locally at that site. They may still be there or have subsequently been deleted. You would first have to locate which project you may have uploaded to and then ask a local administrator to check if you have any deleted uploads on that project.
5. You never uploaded the files to Commons or any other Wikimedia project.

An administrator may be willing to check your deleted uploads on Commons but it was noted in the previous discussion in January 2022 that you had no deleted uploads between 2015 and that date. From Hill To Shore (talk) 00:22, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

• @Porto Neto: You have no deleted contributions for any files with names containing "Bernardo" or even "Igreja". Your deleted files are the following (this took some work, but the list should be complete, so there should be no need to ask again):

  • File:Fortaleza, Brazil (48568832316).jpg, now a redirect.
  • File:Romário Rocha Publicitário.png
  • File:Hino de Rondônia.ogg
  • File:Hino de Roraima.ogg
  • File:Hino do Acre.ogg
  • File:Canção do Amapá.ogg
  • File:Hino do Tocantins.ogg
  • File:Hino do Amazonas.ogg
  • File:Hino do Pará.ogg
  • File:Hino do Maranhão.ogg
  • File:Hino do Piauí.ogg
  • File:Rio Grande do Norte.ogg
  • File:Hino da Paraíba.ogg
  • File:Hino das Alagoas.ogg
  • File:Hino de Sergipe.ogg
  • File:Hino ao 2 de Julho.ogg
  • File:Hino de Santa Catarina.ogg
  • File:Hino Rio-Grandense.ogg
  • File:Hino 15 de Novembro.ogg
  • File:Hino dos Bandeirantes.ogg
  • File:Hino do Distrito Federal (Brasília).ogg
  • File:Hino de Mato Grosso do Sul.ogg
  • File:Oh, Minas Gerais.ogg
  • File:Hino do Mato Grosso.ogg
  • File:Brasão de Guaiuba - CE - Brasil.png
  • File:Hino de Pernambuco.ogg
  • File:Hino do Espírito Santo (estado).oga
  • File:Hino do Paraná.oga
  • File:Antigo Hino do Estado de Goiás.ogg
  • File:Hino do Estado do Goiás.ogg
  • File:Hino do Estado do Ceará.ogg
  • File:Hino de Guaiuba - CE.ogg
  • File:Brasão de Guaiuba - CE - Brasil.png
  • File:Brasão do município de Guaiuba - CE - Brasil.jpg
  • Also Category:Palácio Jõao Brígido and Category:Anthems of States of Brazil

  All but the first two and the category are from either December 2014 or January 2015. It's possible that some of these weren't your uploads, just your edits on something someone else uploaded. It's possible I listed something twice; I've tried to eliminate duplicates where you had multiple edits, but could have missed some.

  Not hard to see the pattern there: mostly recordings that were presumably deleted for copyright reasons that I assume are now clear to you; only three actual images, by my count. I suppose it is imaginable that there is a bug somewhere in the system & something failed to get recorded, but I'd be really surprised: I've never seen that happen to a file I'd ever had my hands on. Jmabel ! talk 00:46, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

  @Jmabel Thank you very much for the search, sorry for making you work so hard on it. I promise not to ask about it anymore. @From Hill To Shore Thank you very much too. --Porto Neto (talk) 01:13, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

February 27

Can somebody help with the category structure of Checkpoints in Poland?

Can please somebody who speaks Polish help at Commons:Categories for discussion/2023/02/Category:Border Control Posts? User:Wlodek k1 made a change, see Category:Border Control Posts, but I have the impression it is not a good one because now there still is no connection with Category:Checkpoints in Poland‎, and the main parent category is only about an organization, not about checkpoints. And I do not speak Polish and Wlodek k1 only speaks Polish (and apparently Google Translate is not helping enough). --JopkeB (talk) 05:06, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Your wiki will be in read only soon

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February 28

Trying to identify a photographer signature

From 1916. There is a photographer's signature on the photo, at lower left. Below the signature I can make out "NY" and (uselessly) "R05". Given the context, it is probably a major New York theatrical photographer. Does anyone recognize the signature? - Jmabel ! talk 04:23, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Schopenhauer images don’t add up

Something fishy:

Compare the 1859 photograph of Arthur Schopenhauer by J Schäfer (File:Arthur_Schopenhauer_by_J_Schäfer,_1859b.jpg)

with the 1855 Jules Lunteschütz painting in Schopenhauer.jpg (File:Schopenhauer.jpg)

They are almost identical. It’s possible the artist painted from the photograph, but the dates are incorrect for that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Humphrey Tribble (talk • contribs) 06:03, 28 February 2023 (UTC)