Commons:Village pump

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Welcome to the Village pump

This Wikimedia Commons page is used for discussions of the operations, technical issues, and policies of Wikimedia Commons. For old discussions, see the Archive. Recent sections with no replies for 3 days may be archived.

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Cast iron pump with handle dated 1875 in the form of a fluted column with Corinthian capital on a profiled, square stone base [add]

Contents





March 21 [edit]

Temporarily disabling WikiLove on Commons [edit]

Per bug 47457 and the discussion above, I'm going to temporarily disable the WikiLove extension until the underlying issues with mw.loader are resolved. Sorry for the inconvenience. If you need to spread WikiLove in the meantime, feel free to steal some templates from en.wiki :) Kaldari (talk) 00:50, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

The issue has spread to en:wp and disabling WikiLove there may be needed as well.--Canoe1967 (talk) 01:28, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Here's a thought... why not leave it switched off? - There are much better ways of appreciating someone's work :D BarkingFish (talk) 02:01, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
I do not agree with BarkingFish, who is free to show appreciation in other ways as he wishes.--Jarekt (talk) 03:25, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
I would also like to see the extension reactivated when the technical issues are resolved. Dcoetzee (talk) 21:36, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Commons:Files to be restored when out of copyright [edit]

I have created a new page called Commons:Files to be restored when out of copyright to allow us to record the names of files that have been deleted from Commons due to copyright issues but which can be validly be hosted here within the next few years, once the copyright expires. Please add appropraite files or links to deletion requests. Not sure how best to categorize the page, but no doubt someone can help me out? --MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:40, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

This is tracked by Category:Undeletion requests –⁠moogsi (blah) 12:44, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
To be sure, you are aware of all those cats Undelete in 20xx ? --Túrelio (talk) 12:45, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Ah, no I wasn't aware of that (but I am now). In that case, we don't need the page and I'll delete it. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:56, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Needs notes and redirects, if one person can't find it there will be others, and if it's not even known then there is not near enough advertising and linking. Penyulap ☏ 13:52, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm working on an information page now. Give me a day or two and I will put up a suggestion. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 14:14, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
The page has now been restored as a new help page. Please help improve it. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:27, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, afaict this is almost completely undocumented –⁠moogsi (blah) 14:00, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Stolen cameras [edit]

http://www.stolencamerafinder.com/ seems to work with commons images now. I entered my serial number and it found an image here. The only problem is that it only returns one image on a free account. It is £125.00 per year for a business account. Does anyone wish to look into funding from WMF and see if all of our admin can share the same account? My camera hasn't been stolen but it nice to know that such a service exists.--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:17, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I doubt that shared accounts are allowed. -- Rillke(q?) 22:02, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
I just sent an email and asked. How many accounts should we get if they don't allow sharing? I should see if my insurance company has one.--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:25, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

That opens up a Pandora's box of problems,

  • bought the camera on ebay
  • bought the camera new, but it wasn't
  • same serial number assigned to different cameras at the factory, this happens with mobile phone IMEI's.
    • Blocks resulting from any finding
  • I don't like someone, so I find the ID number and report that as stolen even though it is their camera.

It's a legal minefield best left to the local police forces. Similar situations exist with mobile telephones, except that the mobile manufacturers and operators assist criminals wherever they can because that helps their profits. Analogue phones couldn't be sold, and so they didn't get stolen very often, SIM cards helped change all that and fuel phone company profits. The first arrests made for using stolen mobiles were cases where the phones were stolen from telephone company execs who then got angry, reported it to police, and made customers angry over the two tiered nature of it all. From day one the phones could be tracked, but that would effect profit.

The whole idea will only ever be left up to individuals, behind-the-scenes work, and your own bots for your own interest. Penyulap ☏ 05:26, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

With the success cases I read on the site most did a little investigating on their own and then called police. I would think that any abuse of the service would end up with egg on face of abuser. I can prove I own my camera because Future Shop keeps records of it forever, I think. No sense in trying to report mine stolen to irritate me and that could cause charges of reporting a false crime. I think the police love filing those ones.--Canoe1967 (talk) 05:40, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
Why don't I report your camera, or Tom's camera as stolen to my local police, or skip that and just report it on a website, and then blocks ensue ?
Isn't the serial number info publicly available, therefore bots can do their work looking, and nefarious people can make false accusations, all without any help from us ? Penyulap ☏ 05:50, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
I doubt commons would create a policy to block users from uploading photos from a stolen camera. I think the WMF does need to provide user information when faced with a court order though. Then the police and courts can decide whether the report is false or not. I don't know about other countries but reporting false crimes is very serious here. Having the court get WMF to out a user would be blockable and possibly criminal as well.--Canoe1967 (talk) 05:59, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
It does have to comply with court orders for florida and so on. I can't see where this is going. Penyulap ☏ 06:07, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘

If an image from a stolen camera is uploaded to commons and tagged as 'own work' then the actual owner would have to seek the court order to expose the uploader. Most thieves wouldn't bother uploading to here but I think the site checks facebook, twitter, and other sites as well. Those are easier to track to uploader.--Canoe1967 (talk) 06:33, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I´m not in the habit of stealing cameras but still feel a bit alarmed by the conversation above. I had a look at my uploads and although the website mentioned above lists my camera as one of the models that do save serial numbers, the EXIF data here at Commons shows none. Does that mean that there is some hidden data still available within the pictures I upload? Not being overly concerned about theft of my camera (it´s just a D80 anyway) I would rather be disturbed by the privacy issues of deputizing Commons. --Rudolph Buch (talk) 23:01, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

There is hidden data that doesn't show at commons. http://regex.info/exif.cgi will show all data, I think. I also got an email back answering my OP as 'not at this time'.--Canoe1967 (talk) 00:12, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
There is at least an "Exif.Photo.MakerNote" binary blob of 24930 bytes in at least the photo I happened to check. Unless you can decode it, you should suspect it can be used to identify your camera. I may have missed other fields useful for identification and there may of course also be steganographically hidden information. --LPfi (talk) 12:16, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
The site I linked above: http://regex.info/exif.cgi shows all data, I think. I found I had to link to the full resolution image from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons after clicking the full resolution button. It does show the external and internal serial numbers, lens serial numbers, geolocation, etc. I don't see any harm in serial numbers but geolocation could cause privacy/outing issues. I am not worried as my camera doesn't have a GPS module.--Canoe1967 (talk) 14:59, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
No harm in serial numbers? Anyone who uploads a picture under his user name and has published other pictures under his real name anywhere else has his identity matched - not only in Commons, but in all other projects as well. If you know about that, you can avoid it (simply buy a second camera) - but I would expect Commons to eiter warn about that possibility or strip away hidden data that could compromise the user name. --Rudolph Buch (talk) 22:58, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
This was brought up before, I think. Uploaders need to strip EXIF if they are worried as it would be to complex to strip just specific data from EXIF. We may wish to discuss it again though.--Canoe1967 (talk) 23:24, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
  • people might like the idea of a bot which strips out unnecessary data. Penyulap ☏ 00:20, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
Commons_talk:EXIF#Privacy discusses the difficulty. It is read only now and would need a stripper and writer to change.--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:39, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
Automatic stripping of EXIF may serve privacy but creates problems for auditing of content. EXIF is an invaluable clue in deletion discussions - in this case, serial numbers in EXIF that can be matched to known serial numbers of professional photographers (e.g. gathered from EXIF of their online photo galleries) are a great way to identify copyvios. Let's be careful before we discard such an advantage. Dcoetzee (talk) 21:34, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
I agree. We have far more reason to keep EXIF than strip it. As I mentioned in the link above we may decide to just put a warning template on upload pages. Is this the forum to discuss that in a new section?--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:28, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
would hiding it have advantages ? allow select users to view it ? Penyulap ☏ 03:08, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
I understand the value of EXIF data and have no objection as long as it is transparent to every user what meta data is stored and/or publicly available. The issue here is that it is invisible data stored by commons without revealing this to the user (i.e. it doesn´t show in the EXIF table on the page). Combine that with the ease of bringing together the uploading account with a real person, needing just two pictures and a suitable search engine, and I´d say that the graveness of the privacy violation can´t be outweighted by copyvio detection advatages. There are lots of perfectly honest reasons why someone (including me) doesn´t want to be his user name matched to real life and this should not only be respected by Commons, but also protected by all means. --Rudolph Buch (talk) 20:18, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
This may need to be brought up at Meta. I know of one fair use image uploaded to en:wp of a rare and valuable work in a private collection. The EXIF contained geo data giving its location. We uploaded a stripped version of the image and removed the other one. The easiest would be warning templates at all the upload portals which could link to EXIF editing sites. A bot could probably be written to remove serial numbers and geo data but it would be nice to have the bot leave the geo data intact as an option on upload. The default would be to remove it with an option to include.--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:44, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
This is a common problem. I remember seeing an image of a user's cat, an image of a user's dog and (if I remember correctly) an image of some electrical equipment which you would usually have in your home or at work, all with EXIF GPS metadata. I've seen several other similar cases too, like a photo of the cover of a passport and a photo of a paper photo in someone's private photo album. This revealed the location of these users' homes (or possibly the users' workplaces). One problem is that Iphones seem to record GPS data unless the phone owner explicitly disables this. --Stefan4 (talk) 20:33, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
I just had a user email me an iPhone image to upload: File:Buffalo Deh Cho Bridge 2012.jpg. It shows GPS data but no serial number according to: http://regex.info/exif.cgi . The special upload failed to enter the time/date as it does from my EXIF though.--Canoe1967 (talk) 04:23, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Stefan4, it is important not to outline malicious things for idle hands to do, and it's not a good idea to help people who wouldn't otherwise be able to find the information on their own. There are no secrets on the Internet, whatsoever. Let me say that again, there are NO secrets on the Internet. There are simply levels of awareness. Like with socks, I can make a complete list of someone's socks, and what point is it when nothing would come of it ? I think it is proper that everyone discuss the topic while keeping in mind that idle hands ARE reading what we write.
(Penyulap means magician in Indonesian, and I make it a POINT not to help those who shouldn't be helped, and to assist everyone who has a genuine purpose. That may mean speaking in private for some parts of some things.) Penyulap ☏ 08:29, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

May 01 [edit]

Goddess of Democracy [edit]

There is a movement to delete all photos of the Goddess of Democracy statue on Commons. This is about replicas of the statue censored and destroyed by the Chinese government at Tianimin Square. Replicas of course cannot be copyrighted, the matter has been decided at least twice before and folks keep on coming back with deletion requests, until in March they slipped through a deletion against consensus. We should not put up with this type of censorship on Commons. See Commons:Undeletion requests/Current requests and Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington Smallbones (talk) 05:38, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

"Replicas of course cannot be copyrighted," why ? Penyulap ☏ 05:46, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
Lack of originality. It was intended to be a copy. Smallbones (talk) 13:48, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
Ah, there is the problem, yes, that makes sense, but it's not how it works. A plain blue circle is not original enough to be copyrightable, and copies of it are just as plain. They can't be copyright because there is nothing to copyright. Where something IS complex enough to be copyrightable, then other copies of it are also copyrightable because there is something significant enough to be copyrightable. If however the copy is changed so much that it no longer describes the original then it becomes a new work. If the new work is complex enough to be copyrightable it has it's own copyright. I guess if it were a too-simple copy it could change category, like the McDonalds M being just M, that is not enough to be copyright anymore, but if it were the same as an original sign, but blue rather than red, it would still be copyright.
On commons the copy is often called a derivative work. Penyulap ☏ 15:00, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
Smallbones is confused, as Penyulap explains. Copies generally have no new copyright, but they inherit any copyright of the original object they are copied from. Only slavish copies of public domain works are free of copyright (and even then only in PD-Art jurisdictions). Dcoetzee (talk) 21:29, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Where to list images used in violation of our free licensing (copyvio OF Commons)? [edit]

See File_talk:Cheating.JPG (our image used on external site without attribution). Do we have a page that collects such examples? If not, we should start such hall of shame. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 03:19, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

You can used {{Published}} to note publication of images which are or are not inline with the licence. russavia (talk) 03:39, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
I've added the pub-template. What an irony that they commit such a copyright violation in an article with the tag "cheating, education, plagiarism, SAT, scandal". --Túrelio (talk) 06:22, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
In general, we need to keep in mind that it is possible that apparent copyright violators may actually have legitimately negotiated other terms directly with the copyright holder or via other channels which the copyright holder may have chosen to use for publication. The best course of action is usually to inform the copyright holder on their user talk page. —LX (talk, contribs) 19:51, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
Also, keep in mind that Commons does not hold the rights to any significant portion of what is uploaded here. For example, if I upload my photo here & provide an appropriate license, unauthorized use that does not accord with that license is a violation of my copyright. Commons has no rights at stake in the matter: it is simply another licensee. - Jmabel ! talk 00:31, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
Nevertheless it's a good practise to notify the author/uploader if one stumbles over a likely license-violating use. --Túrelio (talk) 07:27, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

It looks as if they've modified the article to attribute the photo. Kelly (talk) 12:04, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

See Commons:Enforcing license terms for a guide on how to respond to this kind of violation. Dcoetzee (talk) 21:20, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Remember that in certain cases media (and other) third parties may use Commons files under fair use, fair dealing etc. laws, depending on country. While it would be nice if they used the free license we offer, they might be using the file legally even if they don't respect our license terms. MKFI (talk) 07:57, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd note that w:fair dealing in many countries demands attribution. The Wikipedia article on w:fair use makes an off-hand comment that it may help a claim of fair use; it's uncited, but I'd tend to agree. I don't think courts would tend to be amused with claims of fair use on CC-BY items.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:55, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Sphinx categories [edit]

I just noticed all the sphinx categories are named "Category:Sphinxes", "Category:Sphinxes by country", "Category:Natural sphinxes", etc. The correct plural form of sphinx is sphinges. Sphinxes is a colloquial/deprecated form. Wilhelm meis (talk) 01:42, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Nonsense. If you look at Google Books, [1], you find many, many uses from reputable publishers. The Library of Congress uses it as a headword, and the Proceedings of the IXth International Congress of Egyptologists spells it that way. Sphinges, OTOH, brings up mainly works about butterflies. There is no Academy of English, so that's the best "correct" gets in English. (Personally, I'm a huge fan of conjugating English words as if they are English words, and not adding arbitrary complexity to English by dragging in foreign plurals.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:35, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
Why should we import a foreign word in its singular form and intentionally ignore the plural form of the same word (in the same language)? That's not how it has been done historically. Sphinxes may have seen more acceptance recently, but sphinx has traditionally been pluralized in English as sphinges. English is loaded with foreign words and often reflects foreign plural forms. One reason for this is that there is not just one way to pluralize English nouns. Take children for instance. There's no s at the end, and although it is a development of Old English cild, it wound up taking two different forms of pluralization in English, so what rightly would have been pluralized as childer also took -en to arrive at -ren. Of course that is a special case that has little to do with sphinges, but it demonstrates that English has more ways of pluralizing than simply tacking on -s or -es. English speakers, over time, have shown a tendency to level unstressed vowels and simplify grammatical forms by doing things like leveling most plural forms to -s/-es, but again, that reflects more recent developments, not long-accepted forms. Wilhelm meis (talk) 15:08, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Same with "Category:Phalanxes"; the plural of phalanx is phalanges. Wilhelm meis (talk) 01:48, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Wiktionary disagrees; it pluralizes the military unit as phalanxes and the fingerbone as phalanges, a pattern that again Google Books backs up. Phalange and phalanges seem to be the normal word for the bone, and phalanx and phalanxes seem to be the normal word for the military unit. A good division, IMO.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:43, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
Is Wiktionary a reliable source? I thought we were supposed to avoid relying on sister projects as reliable sources, except in certain circumstances. And the single form of a finger or toe bone is phalanx, not phalange, which is just a backfrom of phalanges. Consult any reputable anatomy book. Wilhelm meis (talk) 15:08, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
Wilhelm meis -- I've studied Greek and Latin myself, but ultimately the current prevailing English usage is the authority on what the plurals of words borrowed from Classical languages are, regardless of whether these are classically fully "correct" or not. You could insist on "octopodes" as the plural of "octopus", but hardly any English speaker naturally says "octopodes", so it would be pointless. And tell me what the classically-correct plural of "ignoramus" and "rebus" would be?? AnonMoos (talk) 20:23, 6 May 2013 (UTC)


The reason we intentionally ignore the plural form Sphinges is the same reason we intentionally ignore the singular form of syringes: no-one will know what a syrinx is. No-one will be searching for Sphinges. Saying it's traditional completely ignores that it doesn't jibe with contemporary usage. Category:Phalanxes is about the military formation and is named correctly. There's no anatomical category because it's not needed. Prescriptivism has no place in naming categories, where we do apply something like w:WP:UCN to make them usable. You can continue to know what is correct, and set up redirects if you like, but I'm struggling to envision whose English usage you are trying to reflect, here –⁠moogsi (blah) 15:45, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

The OED lists "sphinxes" and "sphinges" as equally valid plurals (but uses the x-form in its own annotations). Both forms are attributed from the seventeenth century onwards. I don't see any particular reason to declare that the g-form is correct and the x-form is invalid. Andrew Gray (talk) 17:42, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

May 06 [edit]

Galleries and Categories [edit]

I would to better understand what you suggest for galleries and categories.

  • Do you suggest to make a gallery for categories that already have a big amount of images? I think of the category:Douala which does not have a gallery at the moment and Douala points directly to the category.
  • I am also wondering if there are guidelines for public art. For example I would like to make a gallery for the public artwork Category:Lucas Grandin, Le jardin sonore de Bonamouti to select and organise pictures according to a chronological order. Can I make the gallery? do you suggest to improve the category page first? Is there a template for public art?

thank you. --iopensa (talk) 10:43, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

  • Generally, the time to make a gallery is when it will have an advantage over a category. Usually that means one or more of the following:
    • A subset of the pictures really stand out, and there is a reason for a page that will let those be singled out.
    • The pictures (or a subset) need captions to make sense.
    • The pictures deserve to be organized in some manner that doesn't quite merit subcategories.
    • The pictures make more sense in a particular order (e.g. pages of a book in order, or illustrations of a work, in order).
    • A category has so many subcategories that the pictures a typical user would really most expect to see for that category are scattered among a large number of categories.
  • In general, ask yourself if the gallery can bring something to the material that a category cannot. I think Seattle and the Orient and New York City are good examples. I won't single out any bad examples since I don't want to implicitly criticize people who may have built such pages with good intentions.
  • I don't know what you mean by improving the category, so I don't know how to respond to that, nor do I offhand know a specific template for public art, although {{Category definition: Object}} would be relevant. The photos in the category you mention are taken in a relatively narrow span of time. I'm not at all sure why readers would care to have them in chronological order, although there may be something I'm missing. If they had been taken over the course of many decades, then that would be an obviously worthwhile criterion. - Jmabel ! talk 15:36, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
A very thoughtful answer Jmabel, thanks. I took the liberty of copying it to Commons:When to create a gallery for future reference (just let me know if that bothers you :) Jean-Fred (talk) 10:39, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Plain upload form [edit]

Is there a way to get just the plain Wikimedia upload form at Special:Upload instead of the one that I guess uses jquery or something to give me all of these individual boxes? It's much easier for power users who know what we're doing to use the standard form rather than to make us have 20 mouse clicks to upload something. --UserB (talk) 11:24, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

You can use this one basic or UploadWizard. --Anne-Sophie Ofrim (talk) 11:31, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Thank you. Basic is what I was looking for. Bookmarked. --UserB (talk) 11:34, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
I had this question myself not long ago. Just put the following in your common.js or vector.js:
// Change "Upload file" link from [[Commons:Upload]] to [[Special:Upload&uploadformstyle=basic]]
var d = document.getElementById("n-uploadbtn");
d.innerHTML = d.innerHTML.replace("wiki/Commons:Upload", "w/index.php?title=Special:Upload&uploadformstyle=basic");
--Patrick87 (talk) 11:38, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
That didn't work for some reason (and actually, now that I look at it, I realize that the reason is that the actual upload link on the toolbox is now Special:UploadWizard, not Commons:Upload). So anyway, what I did - User:UserB/vector.js - is just add a link to "Better Upload". Thanks. --UserB (talk) 11:48, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Ah yes, you can choose in Settings whether to use Special:UploadWizard or Commons:Upload (which I chose), that's why it works for me but doesn't for you. Sadly there's no option for Special:Upload or the even handier basic version of Special:Upload you get with the additional parameter uploadformstyle=basic but since one can solve it with some simple JavaScript like above that's acceptable. --Patrick87 (talk) 12:51, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘

There is a default gadget, that you can simply disable: At Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets, deselect
"ImprovedUploadForm: d On Special:Upload, show an easier form and help. [documentation / discuss] "
or do it right away, following the dialog: Disable the ImprovedUploadForm gadget now!

Furthermore, you can build a link containing all the information you usually use using Commons:User scripts/UploadLink -- Rillke(q?) 20:01, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks four your answer Rillke, but disabling the ImprovedUploadForm is not an option since it seems to provide the preview button in the basic upload form (which i use a lot). See Commons:Village pump/Archive/2013/04#Commons:Upload vs. Special:Upload for the archived discussion on my issue. --Patrick87 (talk) 20:43, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Can decorations be considered creative work? [edit]

I ask this because a lot cafés and other public places have decorations or themes. Somethimes it is just using standard decorations (example christmas decorations) or using al kind of decoration elements. Copyrigth can exist on individual decorations or statues, but often it is a mix of decorative elements. At wat point can the whole decoration be considered a creative work? A separate issue are the rigths of interieur designers. I think moving furniture around and repainting the room is in most cases not creative work.Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:00, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Deleting a category [edit]

How do I request deletion of a category, please? I created Category:Villages of Nottinghamshire, but it should have been Category:Villages in Nottinghamshire, so I created it correctly, but cannot find how to undo my mistake. Bob1960evens (talk) 16:02, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I've tagged it for deletion; for future reference, you need {{Bad name|Villages in Nottinghamshire}}. Cheers. Rodhullandemu (talk) 16:56, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

May 07 [edit]

Beyond categories [edit]

There is some brainstorming and discussion going on, on next generation Category system, which might be of interest to Commons. The discussion started at 2013 GLAMWiki Boot Camp D.C., moved to glam-us-l and continues on m:Beyond categories. It is closely related to this VP discussion, and some of those ideas voiced by User:Multichill here and here. Please join. --Jarekt (talk) 14:42, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

IRC office hours about Flow on 9 May [edit]

In #wikimedia-office (on IRC) on 9 May, 1800-1900 UTC, Brandon Harris (senior designer at WMF) will lead a discussion of Flow, an upcoming change in the wiki discussion interface.

Flow involves replacing user talk pages.

He will be showing an interactive prototype so you can try it out, and we want to hear your feedback. Please come! If that time doesn't work, please let us know what times will work. Thanks. Sumana Harihareswara, Engineering Community Manager at WMF (talk) 21:54, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Meeting log available. Sumana Harihareswara, Engineering Community Manager at WMF (talk) 19:13, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

May 08 [edit]

Making it easier for problematic files to be brought to our attention [edit]

After recent events on Jimmy Wales' English Wikipedia talk page, one of our Commons Oversighters tweeted a blog post he has published addressing many "facts" which are in the public domain regarding what is a serious issue that affects all sites on the internet which rely on user provided content; whether that be WMF projects, Facebook, Flickr, etc. User:Odder should be commended for providing information on the issue as it affects Wikimedia Commons, and how this project handles the issue.

Long-term editors on WMF projects should be aware that sensitive information/images should be referred to oversighters on the applicable projects (or stewards if that project does not have local oversighters), or via normal deletion processes for copyright issues, etc. However, in his blog post, Odder states (and I hope he does not mind me posting it in its entirety here):

"There’s nothing secret about how we deal with potential child pornography, and in my opinion it’s quite a good and scalable solution to a very delicate problem — though I do see a lot of space for improvement; for instance, adding a simple abuse link to every Commons page might be a good first step, so that we don’t require people to actually e-mail us to report content that they find illegal."

I think that this is something that we as a community should explore. Commons:Contact us is available on the side bar of all pages on Commons, and Commons:Contact us/Problems is another click away from that; reporting copyright violations and other inappropriate content requires a person to email OTRS and/or the WMF. We should probably be providing a one-click reporting method on all images so that issues can be brought to our attention quickly, and without the submitter requiring to be familiar with our processes. Other websites have this feature, and so probably should we.

Commons:Contact us/Problems currently has copyright violations being sent to [email protected], which I believe is an English Wikipedia queue, that people with permission for permissions-commons likely do not have access to. Files hosted on Commons should likely be dealt with by OTRS agents with access to Commons-related queues. So I would like to propose that a dedicate Commons queue is created with all OTRS agents with permissions-commons to be given access to.

In relation to "Inappropriate images of children" an alert could be sent to both [email protected] and our team of oversighters, to ensure that any offending material is removed as a matter of urgency from the site. As Odder notes, the legal team is not available 24/7 but our oversighters technically are.

Thoughts/ideas/comments on how such a process for any problematic files could be introduced would be great. russavia (talk) 09:25, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Support that idea, as I found it always a bit needlessly onerous to jump from the browser to my email program, search for the recent WMF-legal address, then copy and paste all necessary information into the email program. This could really be made easier to handle.
However, what I find unfortunate is that the blog-post in its reporting section again associates the name of one of our admin-colleagues with the term CP, as was done in the original blog-post and on Jimbos talkpage. Such an association is unjustified and should be avoided due to its deleterious potential for real-life. --Túrelio (talk) 09:40, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
This is now fixed, thanks. odder (talk) 11:57, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. --Túrelio (talk) 12:32, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Túrelio's concern for how this was handled (not a comment directed at Odder, the relevant blog post was helpfully factual and just needed to avoid accidentally propagating deliberately disruptive and apparently criminal allegations against one of our volunteers). I would support future proposals for an immediate indef Commons block or ban for anyone that appears to be deliberately causing disruption by soapboxing criminal claims of this type, whether on Commons, en.wp or off-wiki, against Commons contributors, without following the well understood proper process. The process exists for good reason, and should anyone not wish to follow it, they are free to contact local police with their reports about any suspected criminal activity; as indeed I have done in the past. The police will doubtless advise them to follow the complaints procedure, or will contact WMF legal themselves.
I would hope that WMF legal are paying close attention to this case and the way that Wikimedia projects are now being actively used to make public criminal claims against our volunteers. On behalf of our volunteers, the WMF should be prepared to mount a public civil case for significant damages against anyone who persists with blatant attempts to cause real-life harm, targeted against Wikimedia project volunteers with a history of correctly following project policies for creating content on our projects for the public benefit. --Fæ (talk) 10:54, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Fæ, I also hope that the WMF legal department are paying close attention to this case and to admins whose actions would seem to violate the terms of use. Although I have been in touch with the WMF, I have heard nothing from their legal department as yet. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:17, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Commons affects all Wikis, so you cannot create such a policy. Images can and will be discussed where they are used. As for the second half, being in compliance with "Commons policy" does not mean you are in compliance with the WMF or with a law of a nation. After all, policies have no legal binding and cannot be taken as in compliance with the law. That is a legal disclosure that is made very clear. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:08, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Symbol support vote.svg Support temporary block, perhaps a month, for the first violation. This block should be appealable via the user's talk page. A person may just not notice the policy or the link. I noticed "Nominate for deletion" only after a couple of weeks of using Commons, if the "Abuse" link is placed there it is possible that a person will see something that they think is abusive before noticing the way to report it. The second violation, or in cases where it is clear that the intention of the individual is to disrupt and not to help, indef can be in order. That can also be appealed by a user who will have to in his/her own words describe the policy and state that he/she understands it and will follow it. Sinnamon Girl (talk) 02:57, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Commons:Contact us and Commons:Contact us/Problems are no good. There should be a link to AN at least, so that the image can be deleted immediately, the person who does the deletion will know how to contact oversight. Email to the wmf never gets answered by anyone prompt or sober, better to simply short out the link to the admins who are most actively checking their watchlist.

A link that chooses where to go using switches would be better though. If the image has been nominated before, then taking them to the talkpage where they can see the responses would handle a lot of it. Example FAQ #11. No this is not child pornography, it's just a belly-button, get over it, see a psychiatrist, check with your therapist first. Across the known world this image is OK, just calm yourself down, use medication as directed." and so on. Talkpages already have notes about previous deletion discussions, so adding the typical automatic responses to most frequently asked questions without workload for others would help a great deal I expect. (though you need to have the people smart enough to implement such things) (mental note, add this to the replacement project, MwaHAhHhah, etc.) Penyulap ☏ 10:28, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

  • Oppose any solution that puts more strain on our OTRS volunteers. I agree that child porn can be a problem but a faster and better solution would be to tag them with a template that activates a bot. The bot hides the image from public view and then emails the WMF. Adding more workload to OTRS would be a big mistake when a bot can have more effect and respond much faster.--Canoe1967 (talk) 10:56, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
    • @Canoe1967 IMO making it easier to tag the files and letting a bot to hide/delete them is just a potential recipe for disaster, what could stop vandals from tagging and hiding other images? files should be reviewed by authorized users and then they can delete/report any illegal content.
Besides the Commons:Contact us, we also have a link on the sidebar for unregistered users to nominate files for deletion, although the wording may not be the best, maybe something like "Report this file" would be easier to understand. I agree with Penyulap, I think we could add an option to Stockphoto gadget where registered and unregistered users could report the files for different reason by choosing different options from a dialog box, it could also point users to AN or the file talk page.  ■ MMXX talk 12:02, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
We could probably have the bot only work on newer files and the template only usable by registered users. For IPs we could just have an email button to WMF but not the OTRS who are far too busy as it is.--Canoe1967 (talk) 12:38, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

This issue that I highlighted in my blog post was not really about the difficulties in reporting child pornography on Commons, it was about child pornography on Commons not being reported. Changing the reporting mechanism does not address this problem at all. Having said that, this is an issue which affects all projects, not just Commons. I suggest that the sensible way to handle this is for the WMF to have an email address that is monitored 24/7, rather than relying on the judgment of untrained volunteers across a large number of projects. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:28, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

24/7 coverage for less than 100 images a year? We should just give admin to the FBI. They can afford 24/7 coverage far more than we can. If you force volunteers to cover email 24/7 then they may respond slow out of spite or keep images that would normally be deleted then put them in DR and create a huge Striesand Effect on them. Our uploaders are traceable unlike other sites so only the really stupid ones upload to here anyway. Our projects are part of the solution not part of the problem. I can see a faster access to existing WMF email than the existing two clicks now but not increasing workloads of volunteers or staff budgets for a very small problem.--Canoe1967 (talk) 14:51, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Canoe1967, I'm not suggesting that untrained volunteers do this. I'm suggesting that the WMF have paid and trained employees who do this. I would rather not have volunteers involved in this at all, but if they are involved, I expect them to be trained in the applicable laws. Where does this number of "less than 100" incidents come from? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:50, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
"less than 100"? - from an oversighter[2]. --Túrelio (talk) 20:35, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
That figure refers to the number of images that were "suppressed ... as potentially abusive", not the number of images that were suspected child pornography. I have no way of verifying this or knowing if "double digits" means 11 or 99 - is there a way for anyone without oversight privileges to see how many images have been suppressed? That number fails to account for images that were simply deleted (as so many uploads are). It may also fail to account for images deleted by the WMF if they use a different set of tools. In any case, how many images of child pornography on Commons is an acceptable number? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:02, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Even if it is 99, are you suggesting having a paid staff member on call 24/7 (in reality 4 for 8-hour shifts and weekends) solely for something which will happen to them, on average, once every 4 days? -mattbuck (Talk) 23:16, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
I don't think that anyone here is competent enough to judge whether all images that were suppressed could be considered child pornography or not, especially as our general policy is better be safe than sorry — which is related to the fact that, as DC correctly points out, none of Commons oversighters are trained in fighting this kind of illegal content. This policy means that there might have been some borderline cases of suppressed images that specialised lawyers could argue against (even though our usage of the tools is rather conservative).

As I wrote in my blog post — and as anyone who read the RevisionDelete help page and the general oversight policy can tell — there is currently no possibility for users without the suppressrevision user right to review the suppressions (with the possible exception of Wikimedia developers). As far as I am aware, the WMF does not use any other tools than suppression and then server-side deletion to remove illegal content (probably because things would break pretty badly), but you'll need to confirm that with them to be completely sure. odder (talk) 14:32, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Agreed Canoe1967. We should be paying attention closely to what Odder has written in his blog post, as it objectively presents cold-hard facts. For a number of CP uploads in the double digit realm over the period of an entire year, it is totally unfeasible to have a WMF legal representative available 24/7 in order to attend to (working on numbers) a single report every several days. That is why, as Odder mentions, our oversighters are spread over multiple timezones and are essentially available 24/7. At the very least we should be changing Commons:Contact us/Problems to something more inline with what Odder raises in his blog post. Other solutions are obviously a matter for community discussion, and I have alerted our OS, legal and Philippe to this post in order to get their opinions too. russavia (talk) 16:10, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
I don't think we need much consensus, if any, to add convenience links to file pages. We could even add one to http://www.missingkids.com/cybertipline . I could be wrong when converting 'double digits' to less than 100. If it were binary it would be 3 images or less and if it were hex it would be 271 images or less. We may even ask the foundation if they wish to create a rare 'shared account' for use by the FBI or the cybertipline. This account would have strict limits about users who upload regular images but full checkuser powers, etc. for any uploads of legitimate CP. They would be able to locate and identify uploaders very quickly with such powers.--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:08, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Russavia, just to be clear, I am not suggesting that the WMF employ full-time staff to deal with this issue exclusively. I am suggesting that there is an email which is monitored 24/7 so that action can be taken by someone who is trained in the law and able to respond quickly with appropriate action. The WMF is a worldwide organization and may already have people who could perform this function in their normal workday timezone. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:10, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
@Delicious carbuncle why don't you contact http://www.missingkids.com/HowYouCanHelp and see if they are willing to contact WMF and tailor a plan for the projects? They are experienced professionals and not amateur volunteers like us. As far as I know images can be uploaded to most of the 900(?) projects easily so the issue may be larger than just commons. Seeking any consensus at commons for a WMF decision would take far longer. Bring it up on meta and see if any there want to move forward with 24/7 service for all projects. We may be able to give a few of our members paid jobs to monitor emails using funding from the above project that is already in place.--Canoe1967 (talk) 00:10, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Canoe, a worldwide list or an international organisation is an appropriate proposal for you to make, rather than a USA-only site. Penyulap ☏ 03:35, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Feel free to edit Template:ReportAbuse (mainly Template:ReportAbuse/layout) and view the result e.g. here. If something useful comes out, I will spend more time with it. -- Rillke(q?) 22:26, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

  • No
Canoe1967, to be honest, I have decided that any participation in Meta is an absolute waste of time. I'm not looking to make jobs for people, I'm hoping that this can be handled with the WMF's existing staff. I do not know if that is possible, but as you note, this is an issue that affects all projects which is why I may not sound supportive for the Commons-specific suggestions made here. I have been on touch with one WMF employee and I know that Russavia has as well, but I have not heard anything back or seen any comments from them here. I may get in touch with the group you mention to see if perhaps they can help the WMF think about solutions. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:50, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Commons "problems" are Commons' problems. Email to OTRS is not legal service to the Wikimedia Foundation and does not provide security or any backing in any way, shape or form, of its projects or its volunteers as a whole. Bringing them to OTRS does not remove the issue, but instead sends it to a separate pool of volunteers to decide on project policy. This is not the remit of OTRS. Using our email system to verify permission or submit files securely, with reference, is fine, but it is not going to be a place where agents are authority on what may or may not be inappropriate images nor having any governance on Commons policy. Commons has plenty of place for that.
with a firm OTRS admin hat, Keegan (talk) 08:19, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Keegan, this is an OTRS issue. You will notice that our contact page (as noted in my opener) states that copyright violations should be sent to [email protected] and we are not only talking about the issue of CP here, but a general approach to allow anyone to report issues with files to us. I asked on IRC about "info-en-c" -- is this a Commons queue? Do people with permissions-commons have access to this queue? Can we bring files hosted on Commons back under the Commons umbrella in terms of OTRS? russavia (talk) 09:49, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
If Commons believes that there is a neccessity for contact in reporting alleged child pornography, OTRS is not the place for it. OTRS is a courtesy project that we supply to fill the information gap that email can provide in a different manner than on-wiki. OTRS is not for abuse or misuse management on a project-wide scale that does not exist other than its scalability with oversight requests. A general subqueue for reporting child pornography will not happen on OTRS, because its volunteers are in no way, shape or form equipped to handle, nor should it. This is a Commons matter. Keegan (talk) 03:49, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Keegan, please go and read everything that I have written again; I believe I've been pretty clear thus far. We are not talking about reporting of CP via OTRS in this matter. We are talking the reporting of copyright violations to info-en-c. Could you please re-read what's been written and the few questions which have been asked, and get back to us. Cheers, russavia (talk) 03:59, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
I read what you wrote, Russavia, and I'm happy to clear up my interpretation.
You are raising a discussion of "problematic images" and how to best streamline reporting and dealing with such cases. This, as you outline it, is two-fold: the matter of copyright violations, and the matter of "problematic images," which you quote Odder in direct relation to such problems relate to child pornography. In either case, OTRS is not your answer.
  1. Copyright violations: info-c does exist, but it does not get many notifications. Copyright violations on the English Wikipedia, which that is primarily used for, is largely handled by the on-wiki process. This is a best practice, because it is open for review of what are essentially deletion requests. Commons does have an OTRS email queue, and we could theoretically set it up for such requests. However, the queue is not properly staffed considering the size of requests that this could generate, and again best practice across WMF wikis is to keep this process on-wiki. Commons has the stability, administrative core, and userbase to execute this successfully.
  2. Problematic images: reporting this to OTRS is entirely outside of our remit for reasons previously mentioned. If there is an issue of reporting things like child pornography to Commons, I absolutely leave that issue to be addressed on Commons. Do not drag these problems over to another project with a different userbase, solve it locally or by stewards. OTRS is not going to be a reference repository for these sorts of takedown requests.
These Commons problems can only be solved here using this wiki. Keegan (talk) 07:36, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
A different idea is to create a specialised OTRS queue that oversighters and WMF legal staff would have access to, and create an e-mail form that people could use to send messages directly to that queue. Using OTRS would have the advantage of being able to respond to false reports with predefined messages, easily mark messages as spam (something that isn't easy with mailman, especially as the oversight mailing list isn't moderated), and archive all reports. This wouldn't be anything new, since there are already a few oversight addresses that are in fact OTRS queues, though I think this something that the WMF LCA team would want to have a say in. odder (talk) 16:05, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Oppose There is a perfectly functional solution that doesn't involve OTRS or paid staff members, and works on every project: email the stewards. Child pornography unquestionably raises to the level of 'emergency that allows Stewards to act on projects that have local oversighters', and there are 40 stewards in a variety of time zones. If too many emails come in and it becomes too much work for the stewards, they could either delegate a small number of stewards to moderate the mailing list, create a clerk system, or push for an increase in numbers during the next election. Sven Manguard Wha? 15:12, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Well, I don't think that this is a perfectly functional idea, Sven. The whole point of my suggestion was to make it easier for people to report images, and not requiring them to e-mail us (or making it easier to do so) is the crux of it. Wikimedia stewards have never been responsible for suppressing potential child pornography on Commons because of the existence of local oversighters; as a sidenote, it should be mentioned that we do not have problems with reaction time, as all reports of potentially illegal content are responded to within a few hours (sometimes even minutes), which is much better than the 12 hours than Flickr takes pride in. odder (talk) 15:53, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
If you want to create a button "Click to report" that sends an email to the stewards, that would get at what you're trying for. I don't care about the how, I care about the who, and in this case, OTRS is the wrong who because you want to minimize the people who are exposed to the content. As to the people commenting above on how copyright infringement is handled, there's a huge difference between dealing with copyright infringement and dealing with child porn, in that the latter is illegal to view and the former isn't. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:05, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
So how in your opinion does sending an e-mail to 46 people instead of 5 (five) limit the number of people exposed to the content? The current ways of dealing with potential child pornography are to either (1) e-mail the WMF or (2) contact local oversighters via e-mail, or sometimes via IRC, and you're suggesting to include even more people in the process. As for your other argument, as far as I am aware, viewing potential child pornography is legal, at least under the US federal law; if it weren't, then people who report such content to proper authorities could be prosecuted (and none of the people who are in regular touch with the NCMEC that I know are currently in jail). odder (talk) 16:13, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
I was under the impression that a solution was being looked for for all projects. On projects with local oversighters, the email can go to the local oversighter mailing list. For other projects, it can go to the Stewards. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:37, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Any solution that relies on untrained volunteers is a less than adequate solution, in my opinion. I am comfortable asking WMF employees to view and assess possible child porn if that is understood to be part of their job. I am not comfortable asking an unknown group of volunteer oversighters or stewards to do that for a number of reasons. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:24, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure OTRS has the bandwidth to deal with this. Stifle (talk) 21:53, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Reusers [edit]

Am I the only individual who notices that there is a huge pink elephant in the room? The image that is available on Commons is available for the whole world, and we say to everybody "Come and use our images, it is not only legal, but we want you to do so" (we even go to great length to disallow NC licenced, and some even take it to discourage GFDL because it makes it "impractical" for printed media). And then the files get deleted, suppressed, wiped, shredded, etc; and the only thing that is given to "the rest of the world" is "Write to legal@..." How is this helpful? Please keep in mind that we are not simply an image repository, we are a repository of freely distributable educational content.

What happens when stuff is already republished on other sites? And (even harder question) what happens if somebody has printed 10000000000 copies of a book in 500 languages that uses an image from Commons that we suppress as child pornography? Sinnamon Girl (talk) 03:19, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but that aspect is rather irrelevant for the current discussion, in addition to the fact that CP images are often deleted shortly after upload. Besides, this "problem" does not differ between images deleted for suspected of being a CP (<100/year) and images deleted for suspected of being a copyvio (approx. 2000/day). --Túrelio (talk) 14:33, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Errors in DerivativeFX [edit]

Everytime (literally) I use DerivativeFX to upload a derivative file, after I have loaded all the data and have clicked on "Upload", I get this message: "Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data. Please try again. If it still does not work, try logging out and logging back in.", and the uploading is interrupted. Does anyone know why? --GianniG46 (talk) 13:57, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the DerivativeFX does not know your edit token which is required since a while to "prevent drive-by-uploads". I am surprised it is still offered this way. -- RE rillke questions? 19:31, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
I thought it was just me having this problem! Is there a new method to show derivative files now? NikNaks talk - gallery - wikipedia 13:33, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
I recommend using the tool until the last step, submit a small dummy-file and then upload the real file after being redirected to Commons (and the error-message appeared). -- RE rillke questions? 10:14, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
This is exactly what I do, except that I submit the real file, instead of a dummy one (I'm not sure the software will not work...). The odds, of course, are that I have to wait twice for the upload time. --GianniG46 (talk) 13:03, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps you get Luxo updating his tool. It's fairly simple to transfer the editToken from Commons to derivativeFX. Then, also the first step there (check whether you are logged-in) could be skipped. -- RE rillke questions? 20:04, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

<The above discussion has been digged out from [3]>

Today I used DerivativeFX, and there was no error message – but in the end, it didn't work. It seemed that upload ended successfully, but there was no file.
To its excuse I must say that editing on commons is rather slow at the moment. -- Pemu (talk) 14:35, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I have also had problems for weeks with derivativeFX not recognizing valid licenses...two examples are {{PD-USGov-Military-Air Force}} and {{PD-USGov-Military-National Guard}}. Kelly (talk) 15:19, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Files created by DerivativeFX often have a lot of problems. They often end up without license in Category:Media without a license: needs history check, or they end up with nonsense metadata if the file is not using standard templates, but {{artwork}}, etc. Also often people misuse it, by uploading crops of a single file or files with adjusted color balance. In such cases matadata should not be different from the original. --Jarekt (talk) 17:33, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Prominent error messages in template documentation are distracting and potentially confusing [edit]

Our template documentation pages start with the template. However when the template starts with blank parameters the resulting display has red error messages, In a complex template with multiple parameters these multiple red lines make the displayed template hard to read. See for example {{Licensed-PD-Art-two}}. For a moderately experienced user who understands where these come from, they are a distraction and annoyance while trying to learn how or whether to use the template. I expect they are intimidating or confusing to less experienced editors, who might interpret them as indicating a problem with the template itself of simply leave the page in frustration. I do not know whether there is a standard approach for avoiding this issue (maybe a dummy parameter)that simply isn't being used, or whether a more fundamental fix is necessary, but the problem definitely influences the usability of the documentation. Dankarl (talk) 15:27, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I fixed {{Licensed-PD-Art-two}}, but you are right the templates that require parameters to work are hard to preview on the template page. They can often be written in a such a way as to not display any errors on the template page, but it is extra work and not everybody does it, and we just have so many templates. --Jarekt (talk) 17:24, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, Jarekt, that looks like a straightforward and adaptable fix. Anything I should keep in mind if I want to try it myself next time? Dankarl (talk) 18:31, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Only that this approach would not work for many types of templates. --Jarekt (talk) 13:02, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
And while we are discussing it; a template that generates any category in function of a parameter without any form of checking is asking for problems as you can see here; amazing how many pd-old variants we can have. I have given up trying to correct them as it cannot be done by a bot or cat-a-lot, so I drop those categories in Category:PD Art. --Foroa (talk) 16:20, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
I am a big fan of maintenance categories wot catching issues with the templates, but I do not like templates that add categories based on the input. One way to fix the problem with PD-Art categories would be to have some subtemplate that used switch statement to assign different category based on the input and dump all the others to a default category. We could implement that. --Jarekt (talk) 17:24, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Transcode error after uploading File:Republica 2013 - Tim Pritlove.ogv [edit]

Hey, I have uploaded File:Republica 2013 - Tim Pritlove.ogv, somehow the transcoding for Web streamable WebM (360P) done by wikimedia servers failed without any error message. The other transcodes were completed successfully. Is there a way to fix this? Since the file is >100 MB I'm not able to upload a "new" version to start the transcoding again. During the time I've uploaded it there were some issues with wikimedia servers which might have affacted this error. --sitic (talk) 15:54, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Some admin seems to have reset the transcode. (Transcode started 1 hour, 39 minutes, 12 seconds ago.)
Also keep in mind it is possible to directly transfer files from YouTube to Mediawiki (Help:youtube2mediawiki) --McZusatz (talk) 20:03, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Erm, how does one use youtube2mediawiki? The web page https://github.com/bit/youtube2mediawiki is incomprehensible to me. — SMUconlaw (talk) 08:40, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
I changed help:youtube2mediawiki: You need to install python first and use the command line afterwards. --McZusatz (talk) 10:31, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Cool, thanks. — SMUconlaw (talk) 10:52, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

May 09 [edit]

JP2 files of maps from Library of Congress [edit]

The Library of Congress has scans of Ivan Petroff's 1882 Alaska census maps. We have a low-resolution version of one of these which is unsatisfactory for most purposes. LOC's high-resolution files are in .JP2 format (JPEG2000), which I can download but which my software won't open. Is there a way I can get these uploaded here in readable format? Dankarl (talk) 22:00, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

There's a list of applications supporting the JPEG 2000 format on Englisch Wikipedia, see en:JPEG 2000. An easy and free image viewer I can recommend for such tasks is en:Irfan View (make sure to also download the official plugin pack which adds support for most image formats). --Patrick87 (talk) 23:34, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Dankarl (talk) 14:14, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Are there a lot of these maps? You can request a batch upload instead upload all manually. --Slick (talk) 14:36, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm only after 4 in this instance. Dankarl (talk) 23:24, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

May 11 [edit]

Editnotice for talk pages of DRs [edit]

I noticed that new users add their comments to the talk page of a DR instead of the the actual DR page (example 1, 2). Such comments are likely to be overlooked.
What about adding an editnotice to DR talk pages? --Leyo 11:50, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't see how an edit notice could harm. -- Rillke(q?) 14:50, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, good idea. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:18, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
No harm at all. Admin may wish to boldly add it without consensus. If anyone complains then we can discuss it.--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:22, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
I am not sure how this technically works since it's not a namespace of its own and not a single page only. --Leyo 17:48, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
Feel free to improve Template:Editnotices/Group/Commons talk:Deletion requests. -- Rillke(q?) 18:31, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
Looks great, thank you. --Leyo 18:43, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Hattin or Cresson [edit]

We got a message on OTRS about this picture : http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hattin.jpg I left a message about it to Adam who uploaded it.

Whilst it is called "Hattin", the legend seems to refer to the battle of Cresson. Even if they occurred the same year, these are two different battles. Perhaps because of the confusion due to the title, this image is now largely used to illustrate both Hattin and Cresson battle. Is there an historian around who would know for sure if it were Hattin or Cresson ? I think this needs to be fixed (both for the title and for the reuse in wikipedias). Thanks Anthere (talk)

No idea, but may I point out that Gallica has the whole of this work online, with this particular folio here. The text may help identify which battle this exactly shows. And may I suggest that someone upload the much better Gallica image? (Or images... it's a beautiful illustrated manuscript.) Lupo 16:34, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Je n'ai pas de réponse, mais je me suis permis de transmettre la question à l'Oracle pour augmenter les chances d'obtenir une réponse. -- Asclepias (talk) 16:45, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
A Flickr-User identifies it as the battle of Cresson.[4] Presumably the "fountain" in the center is supposed to be the springs. Lupo 16:47, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Hm. File:Français 5594, fol. 197 haut, Bataille de Kefar Kanna (1187).jpeg claims it was the battle of Kefr Kana. No idea where that is. Lupo 16:51, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Hm... the uploader of that changed the category from the Battle of Hattin to the Battle of Cresson shortly after uploading. w:Kafr Kanna is a town in the general vicinity so it may just be an alternate name... but no idea of which battle. This page shows all the illustrations from the source book; this one appears more in the middle with what appears to be another battle towards the end, which might suggest that this one is Cresson, though I really can't read the text. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:18, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
I came here at Asclepias's request ... I uploaded the better-quality File:Français 5594, fol. 197 haut, Bataille de Kefar Kanna (1187).jpeg. My title "Bataille de Kefar Kanna" is copied directly from the caption on Mandragore site of the Bibliothèque Nationale (at that time I don't believe the manuscript was on Gallica, where the quality might indeed be better). I have never heard either of those battles called by this name before, but, after checking maps as well as I could, this place seemed to be closer to Cresson than to Hattin: also, as Carl Lindberg says, the sequence in the manuscript suggests this is the earlier battle of the two. Both clues pointed to Cresson, and this is why I changed the category. I didn't want to interfere with the description of the other version because I don't really know :) I was hoping someone would show up who knows better than I do. Andrew Dalby (talk) 19:06, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
The illustration of the battle towards the end of that manuscript is labeled by File:Bataille de Nicopolis (Archives B.N.) 1.jpg and File:NikopolisSchlacht.jpg as the w:Battle of Nicopolis. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:58, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
So it's still open. The two hills shown in the Hattin/Cresson one in the background left and right may just as well point to the en:Horns of Hattin... Lupo 20:14, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Trying to read the text on this and the following pages, I don't see any mention of a battle of Cresson. The writer introduced each section with a brief summary (or a longish title) in red of what is described subsequently. If I read the red text below the image right, it says "Et la prise en bataille du Roy Guy de Jhzlm [Jérusalem] par Salladin", i.e., the capture of Guy of Lusignan, king of Jerusalem, by Saladin, which occurred in the battle of Hattin. (I guess that the word that looks like "Jhzlm" means "Jerusalem" from folio 187v, where it says "Comment Guy de Lezignen, Conte de Jaffes, fut fait gouverneur du Royaume de Jhzlm".) I also don't see any mention of Cresson on the preceding or following pages. On folio 200v we're already after the battle of Hattin, the subtitle there reads "Comment Salladin print plusieurs Cités et Châteaux en suite...".
Looking at the image itself, there's the two hills background left and right (Horns of Hattin?), and that fortress (Tiberias?) with Lake Galilee in the background. Comparing with e.g. this map, that would fit Hattin pretty well, as the springs of Cresson seem to be farther away (and Tiberias is probably not visible from there, as there appears to be a mountain range in between). Now I have no idea how well informed about the geography the 15th century authors of the Passages d'Outremer were, but I find it remarkable that it might match so well. Just that fountain on center stage bothers me. In the battle of Hattin, the crusader forces were cut off from the nearest springs... Perhaps the artist mixed elements from both battles, and our using the image in both articles is not that incorrect after all. But if I had to decide between Hattin or Cresson, my personal feeling is that this is supposed to show the battle of Hattin, which was the much larger and more decisive event. Lupo 12:12, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
The battle at the fountain of Cresson ("la fontaine de Cresson'") is (rather quickly) narrated near the beginning of the chapter, at f. 197 (recto, second column). The red title for the chapter begins at the bottom of f. 196 (verso) and refers to the events of the chapter from f. 197 to f. 200. I guess the part of that title that refers to the battle at the fountain of Cresson is "(...) Et la déconfiture des maîtres du temple et de l'hôpital. (...)". Of course, we should not expect this type of illustration to actually depict an actual landscape, the task being more to try to decipher what the elements are meant to symbolize. I agree that if Colombe wanted to represent only one of the two battles, normally one would think that he should have chosen to represent the decisive one at Hattin, but the thing in the center of the illustration suggests that the illustration is supposed to represent a battle fought at a fountain. That could likely symbolize the battle at the fountain at Cresson, unless it's supposed to symbolize the fountain at Seraphie, where the Franks gathered and from where they left to go to the battle at Hattin, at many kilometers of distance. I like the idea that Colombe may have wanted to insert symbols representing both battles in one illustration for the chapter. -- Asclepias (talk) 15:55, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, you're right, Cresson is mentioned on 197v, 2nd column, middle. Had missed that (spent too much time figuring out what Jhzlm was supposed to mean :-). I agree we can't expect the illustration to be faithful to the actual landscape; even the text itself may be more or less accurate in the big lines, but I wouldn't rely on it for details. After all, the work was created 300 years after that battle took place, and the artist in all likelihood never visited the place. That's why I do find the congruences remarkable. The Horns of Hattin (Cornes de Hattin) at least might have been known by name to him. I'd really love to know what a specialist on this period or on this manuscript might have to say on this. Lupo 18:22, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Global usage for articles [edit]

Hi all, is there a way to determine the global usage of articles in the same way it is possible for files? Special:GlobalUsage only works for files as far as I can tell and Special:WhatLinksHere only lists local usage. --Patrick87 (talk) 15:30, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean by 'global'? Ruslik (talk) 16:21, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Not sure what you mean either. Files may be transcluded in other projects − hence the need for a "global what links here". Articles/templates cannot, so a global usage does not make sense. Jean-Fred (talk) 16:41, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Well, you can put an Interwikilink to a Commons article or a Commons category on other Wikimedia projects. The question is if there's a functionality like Special:WhatLinksHere that also shows links from other WMF projects. --Patrick87 (talk) 16:51, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

May 13 [edit]

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