Commons:Village pump/Archive/2023/05

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Commons Gazette 2023-05

Staff changes

In April 2023, 1 sysop was removed. Currently, there are 183 sysops.

We thank him for his service.


Edited by RZuo (talk).


Commons Gazette is a monthly newsletter of the latest important news about Wikimedia Commons, edited by volunteers. You can also help with editing! --RZuo (talk) 16:30, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

@RZuo: Commons administrators are not employed by Commons or the Wikimedia foundation so your usage of "staff" is incorrect. Multichill (talk) 21:01, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Can someone figure out the name of the photographer

Can someone figure out the name of the photographer, and any info on them? File:HÉCTOR R. ROJAS.jpg --RAN (talk) 04:20, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  • @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): Name is most likely "Crooks" (since that would fit the signature and is a common surname). I could imagine the first letter being a "G", and the next-to-last a "p" rather than a "k", but that doesn't produce any likely names. - Jmabel ! talk 05:13, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Oh, I see it now. Once you point it out, its hard to not see. I will keep looking for birth and death dates, thanks. --RAN (talk) 05:15, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

End of the Movement Charter ratification methodology community review

Hello,

The Movement Charter Drafting Committee has concluded its first community review of the methodology draft, which will be used to ratify the Movement Charter in 2024.

This community review included feedback collection on Meta, on the Movement Strategy forum as well as two conversation hours with communities and one conversation with the Committees of the Wikimedia projects. MCDC greatly appreciates everyone's input. The recording of the ratification methodology presentation is here and documentation can be accessed here. The timeline of the next steps of the methodology is provided here.

The WMF support team will produce a report on the community input in May. MCDC will incorporate the feedback and share an updated version of the ratification methodology in August 2023. The MCDC will continue to outreach to stakeholders regarding the updated methodology in late 2023.

Thank you for your participation!

On behalf of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee,

Zuz (WMF) (talk) 15:23, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Photo challenge March results

Laundering: EntriesVotesScores
Rank 1 2 3
image Burano Hausfassade Wäsche-20090315-RM-113043.jpg Washing clothes in a open area.jpg Washing day in Venice Italy.jpg
Title Facade of a house
at 277, Fondamenta
Cavanella in Burano (Italy)
Washing clothes in a open area Laundry lines in a
residential neighbourhood
in Venice, Italy
Author Ermell Pauloleong2002 Marc-Lautenbacher
Score 15 12 11
Hotels and Motels: EntriesVotesScores
Rank 1 2 3
image Ice-Hotel Quebec Canada.jpg CH.GR.Arosa Tschuggen-Grand-Hotel 2220 16x9-R 16K.jpg CH.ZH.Zurich Hotel The-Dolder-Grand 3x2-R 15K.jpg
Title Ice-Hotel in Quebec Canada,
the only one in North America
Spa at Tschuggen Grand Hotel The Dolder Grand, Zurich, Switzerland
Author Marc-Lautenbacher Roy Egloff Roy Egloff
Score 15 14 12

Congratulations to Ermell, Pauloleong2002, Marc-Lautenbacher and Roy Egloff. -- Jarekt (talk) 18:18, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Are Google Maps photographs creative?

This section was archived on a request by: --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 11:31, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

I was just thinking about it, but content on Google Maps, HERE Maps, Apple Maps, Microsoft Bing Maps, Etc. is made by having an automobile drive around and automatically take pictures. A human isn't clicking "Click!" Here, this is done by a robot 🤖.
We all know that robots can't claim copyright ©️ because they're not legal persons, but if you automate a photograph that you personally directed then you are the copyright-owner, likewise most of photography is automated but because a human controls the device the human owns the copyright. So the question is, does the human driving the Google Maps car take the picture or does an automated mounted camera on top of car take the picture? -- — Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 13:50, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

  • I think there is very little question that these are being taken according to a systematic corporate plan of Google/Alphabet, and that there is enough direction given here to humans who are working for hire in operating the vehicles, which are using deliberately programmed software to determine when to take the shots, that there is enough intention to merit a copyright. - Jmabel ! talk 15:32, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
    1+. Rule of thumb: If you're ever wondering whether you've just found a giant legal loop hole that nobody has noticed despite it being right in front of everyone's nose, the answer is almost always "no". El Grafo (talk) 07:16, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
  • There are a lot of automatic cameras wich are not creative such as a wildlife camera's watching birds nest and giving a constant feed. There are however data/base rigths wich protect non-creative work. You are allowed to use a telefone directory for specific items, but not to copy all the data or a large part of it. It would be usefull to sort a telefone directory on the telefomnumbers to find out who called. This is not permitted. The information/data is present but not in a searcheable vorm. There are also dynamic data (example speed of a particular train: [1] or weather radar) Can you printscreen this information and remove all text and other proprietory ballast and the publish this?

Consider a moving thunderstorm. These type websites can practicaly not be used without a printscreen. Al sources need to be verifiable and telling the reader that you observed a specific event on this website is not usefull (in the case that there are no historic logs.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:29, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Get QID from page title?

Currently running into a bit of a screw up . I know there's Template:QID, which fetches the QID of the current page, and Template:GetQID which fetches the QID of the category's main topic. However, I want a template that gets the QID of a specified page's main topic. For example, {{getQIDfrompagename|Category:Minecraft}} which would return Q49740. Does this exist, or is there a potential alternate way of going about this? Thanks in advance.— Preceding unsigned comment added by OmegaFallon (talk • contribs) 16:06, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

OmegaFallon, the QID template you're referring to seems to be a red link. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 23:13, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the 2006-present coat of arms of Cyprus

I have been unable to find any evidence that File:Coat of arms of Cyprus (2023).png is freely licensed, and that file may need to be deleted. Thankfully we have a backup file by User:Di_(they-them). Therefore, users need to replace that file with File:Coat of arms of Cyprus (2006).svg every instance it is used. Also, the coat of arms was not changed in 2023. —Preceding unsigned comment was added by 98.213.225.105 (talk) 17:02, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

98.213.225.105, you can always nominate the file for deletion if you believe that it's a copyright ©️ violation. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 23:14, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

(Plants pictures) Cotoneasters mislabeled as Frangula

Hello dear registered Wikimedians, – to those with botanical interest – there are at least five files mislabeled as Frangula alnus which clearly are something else. I created Discussion/Talk-pages for them and explained there. You can start looking at this one('s): https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frangula_alnus_15-p.bot-rhamnus.sp-1.jpg – I put in links to the others. Maybe someone has time to correct :-) —Preceding unsigned comment was added by 2A02:3037:209:D124:C9F4:53F3:ACE1:1006 (talk) 13:29, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

@2A02:3037:209:D124:C9F4:53F3:ACE1:1006: , you are always free to correct the files yourself by requesting a rename and contacting the original uploaders. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 23:15, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Image of a book

Can we make the image of book in pdf have the cover page the thumbnail for the pdf, instead of the Google page? File:Views from the Mosquito Reservation, Nicaragua C.A.pdf --RAN (talk) 16:28, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

It is possible by editing the pdf, removing the first page and reuploding the edited file. Ruslik (talk) 19:52, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
It would be good if we had a tool or script to do that. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:45, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
Except for CropTool, we don't usually have tool to edit files once they are uploaded. - Jmabel ! talk 14:50, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
But in [[file: tags you can add a paramter to use a specific page of the pdf as thumb without editing the pdf. C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm) (talk) 12:26, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Images by Accession number

Hey, is there any way to view all images with a category in the order of the Accession number-field? I'm looking at Category:Finland_framstäldt_i_teckningar and wondering if all images are present, or if there is any missing. Thanks for tips! Robertsilen (talk) 19:01, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

First you have to understand the schema that the Institution is using. Does it always begin with FFiT_? What is the number range that it will not exceed? Could it be larger than 0-999? Broichmore (talk) 11:20, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

City of Sydney collection

I have discovered a lot of really historic photos of the City of Sydney that are not in copyright. They can be found here. I’m not sure if they have been uploaded! How do I check, and if not how can we import them into Commons? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 17:31, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  • For me, that link just loops forever. - Jmabel ! talk 17:52, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
    Oh! I tried and it works fine from a seperate site... can you try again? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 21:57, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
    • Working now. - Jmabel ! talk 00:51, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
    • @Chris.sherlock2: The fact that I get only four hits searching on "Demolition Books" strongly suggest that very little of this material is on Commons. - Jmabel ! talk 00:53, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
      I’ll see what I can do. What is the best way to upload these sort of collections? Like, do I need to add categories? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 08:52, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
      • @Chris.sherlock2: Probably worth consulting with someone who's done mass uploads. It would be great if this could be semi-automated. - Jmabel ! talk 17:47, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Icon proposal for quality images

Hello, I would like to propose a new icon for Quality Images. For my taste, the current logo is not hyper readable and not modern. I was slightly inspired by the certification icons of social networks. What do you think? Quality images logo proposal.svg Regards. manȷıro💬 12:10, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Symbol oppose vote.svg Oppose @Manjiro5: the proposed icon uses the "QI" text, but this only makes sense for English. Commons is a multilanguage project and so are quality images. "QI" would not make sense for "Laatukuva" for example: {{Quality image/fi}}. MKFI (talk) 06:51, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
You might not be aware of it but the current quality image icon also "QI" text. I assume you are though since you linked to {{Quality image/fi}}, which has an image of it. Either way, that's a rather weird argument to make against the proposed icon since the current one has the exact same text. --Adamant1 (talk) 07:08, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
I am a bit at a loss how keeping a fault of the current solution makes the proposed solution better? (And I think the proposed icon is ugly, while not necessarily more ugly than the currrent one.) C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm) (talk) 07:34, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
@Adamant1: I must admit I hadn't noticed that the old icon also had "QI" text - it is not very legible in small size. MKFI (talk) 08:09, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
I can see how that would happen. It's definitely not easy to make out the letters in the old icon. All the more reason to change it if you ask me. --Adamant1 (talk) 08:12, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, but do we really want further simplifications? "Not modern" is subjective, not every website uses the Corporate Memphis art style and I don't see why Wikimedia websites should all try to simplify to follow the trends. When seeing the current QI seal from afar it looks like a clear old timey seal of approval, this looks like a flower with letters on it. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 23:22, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
The current logo has to be hard for the vision impared to make out. It's never good design to have the letters inside of a logo the same color as the rest. Personally I don't care about following trends, but basic design rules that don't make it impossible for anyone who doesn't have perfect vision to see the letters inside of the logo would be nice. --Adamant1 (talk) 13:54, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Unknown town in the Abruzzo region

Abruzzo landscape 2001 21.jpg
Abruzzo landscape 2001 22.jpg

I scanned 14 slides from a organized hiking trip in 2001 in the Abruzzo region. These are from a town/village. From File:Abruzzen town 2001 1.jpg to File:Abruzzen town 2001 14.jpg. Location? Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:18, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

The church looks like this one: Chiesa di Santa Maria della Valle, though all the cables are missing. - Andreas Stiasny (talk) 11:26, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
It is the correct location. On Google Earth, the same bar Abruzzo is seen as in File:Abruzzen town 2001 2.jpg. I renamed all te pictures to Scanno. Thanks.Smiley.toerist (talk) 13:45, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
Google Image search found the church; I suggest trying that in future. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:41, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

After Scanno we hiked along the lago di Scanno (File:Abruzzo landscape 2001 18.jpg). The next bigg village is Villalago, but I cant find a church there with a bigg clock house and a smaller one above. As it is 17:25 we where looking to the east and the geografy does not have a road at about the same level and a valley in between. PS: this is the last one on the hiking trip as we had a last dinner after these images. (File:Abruzzo village 2001.jpg)Smiley.toerist (talk) 13:42, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Image recognition

Is there any way to recognize small objects from a low resolution image? There are two towers like of music CD cases. Is there any way to recognize tiles/artist of these CD's? Here and here are a better image. Eurohunter (talk) 13:00, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

  • I would say not a chance. - Jmabel ! talk 19:19, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Searching my own files

Hi, I am looking for some files I uploaded a few years back, and I can't find them. How is it possible to select only some file types (JPEG, PNG, PDF, etc.)? Yann (talk) 16:59, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

@Yann: You want the filemime: tag in a search. So you can use Special:Search/filemime:image/png, for example. See mw:Help:CirrusSearch#File properties search for more. --bjh21 (talk) 17:34, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
I don't get any result, so something is obviously wrong: [2]. Yann (talk) 18:04, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
Try this: [3]. Cryptic-waveform (talk) 18:29, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
[4] C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm) (talk) 18:34, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
No, I tried that, it doesn't work. It doesn't show anything before 10 November 2021 (File:Tolstoï - Œuvres complètes, vol10.pdf uploaded in 2017 doesn't show in the list). And I want a list with the oldest first, to get a chance to find it. Yann (talk) 18:39, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
@Yann: Your first attempt didn't work because you missed out the quotation marks around the category name (necessary because it contains spaces). For me, Cryptic-waveform's suggestion finds File:Tolstoï - Œuvres complètes, vol10.pdf as the 659th result out of 692. I don't believe that Special:Search can list the oldest result first, though for smallish result sets like this one you can always just start from the end of the list. --bjh21 (talk) 21:22, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Easier sharing from Google Photos

When I think about things that could help Commons grow our collection, one of the best things that could happen, I think, would be for Google Photos to introduce a built-in option to donate a photo to Wikimedia Commons when a user clicks the share icon, alongside the existing built-in options for Facebook and Twitter. Most Android users already use Google Photos for photos they've taken, and because of that there are fewer licensing concerns than other places. I would envision a share option working by transferring the user to the upload wizard with the selected photo(s) sent to the wizard, and the user would then proceed through the normal steps.

The main obstacle here, of course, is getting Google to agree to the integration. I have some contacts that I might be able to pitch, but I wanted to check in here first to inquire about what considerations to have in mind embarking on that project. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 22:49, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

It's an interesting thought, and could build on the fact that YouTube currently has Creative Commons licensing available for creators who wish to upload videos under free licenses, some of which are compatible with Commons. Currently, I'm not aware of any licensing options for Google Photos. Photos isn't really a service that you use to share with the general public who can browse and follow accounts like on Flickr. Photos is generally geared as a personal repository and sharing with small circles of friends, who are typically also Google account holders. Photos is also a "vendor lock-in" site which doesn't take kindly to attempts to remove photos from the walled garden. For example, there's no "Print" options except for the ones which create physical photobooks through their paid service. So, just as wild speculation, I don't really see Google being keen on allowing CC licensing or donations to Commons from that service. They don't seem to have built it as a free-sharing service like Flickr or even YouTube. Elizium23 (talk) 01:24, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
Sdkb, I think that it might be wise to also ask the technical staff on how to implement such things. While my wife is a computer scientist I'm not as technologically versed, but if I recall correctly websites usually have API's that developers can utilise when programming an application programme or website where they can integrate their services with. For example, you can use your Wikimedia SUL (Single Unified Long-In) account to sign into a handful of Non-Wikimedia websites like the Phabricator and some non-MediaWiki application programmes that integrate with the Wikimedia Commons.
I think that such API's probably already exist, but I've never seen a "Share to the Wikimedia Commons" button like I've seen for Meta's Facebook, Meta's Instagram, X' Twitter, Reddit, Discord, Meta's WhatsApp-Messenger, Pinterest, SmugMug's Flickr Etc. I assume that the developers of the Wikimedia Commons Android (Google Play) application programme probably use a similar system, but then the question is, integrate it with the Wikimedia Commons website or application programme?
Selling this to Alphabet, Inc. might be easy as they use Wikidata a lot in their services and if Wikidata had more access to high quality images its knowledge graphs would be more useful and of higher quality. -- — Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 21:01, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Coletivo Resistência Flickr stream

This Flickr stream seems to have some problems regarding licensing, like posting photographs which are not their own work under free licenses (see Commons:Deletion requests/File:Janja com cadela Resistência no colo.jpg). I have just found this image—it is in the public domain [sic], but Exif metadata tell us it is a work from Agência Brasil, and therefore not freely licensed in fact (see {{Agência Brasil}}). Anyone knows how to deal with that? RodRabelo7 (talk) 08:00, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Not to upload any photos from this stream. Ruslik (talk) 05:17, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Can we get rid of the "own work" default?

It seems most newbie uploads are labelled as "{{Own}}", and these poor newbies are accused of lying by stating so. However, the upload wizard by default has "This file is my own work" checked, and asks questions and fills in fields based on the assumption that the uploader is the author.

This is flawed – of course. Creating a file based on somebody's work does not make you the author, while arguably even downloading a photo results in a file made by you (people cannot be assumed to understand the copyright sense of "work").

How much less copyvios claiming own work would we get if the default were to have "not my own work" checked instead, and instead of asking about "this file", asking about the work?

(x) This file depicts a work by somebody else than me.
( ) This file is my own work and does not include works of others.

The follow-up questions could then include, for source, a checkbox for "the photo was taken by me" (adding "{{photo|{{own}}}}" to the author field). There should be checkboxes for freedom of panorama and de minimis and a possibility to state the licence for the photograph separately from the underlying PD/whatever rationale.

Isn't this the most common situation for copyvios that aren't directly off the net? Shouldn't this provide a fair chance for newbie uploaders to declare the true copyright situation? We might get a lot of "FoP" photos from non-FoP countries, but wouldn't this be easier to handle than bogus "own work declarations" – and it would educate users much better than the obscure "no permission since" or "copyvio" templates, which now seem to be our first line of defence.

LPfi (talk) 08:50, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

I heartily agree. It is unconscionable for us to be prompting every new user with the tantalizing proposition that his upload was created by him by default. This should never have been the default and leads to many problems. Defaulting to "not my own work" and then compelling the user to manually declare authorship is the only logical way to go. Elizium23 (talk) 09:25, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Nearly all uploads that are not "own work" are by less than 250 power users (and not by newbies. I.e. Users with millions of uploaded files and users with hundredthousends of uploads. The three most prolific uploaders of commons have uploaded 10++ million files). These are mostly mass uploads from GLAM. A newbie has nearly no chance to find a work not by himself, that has not already been uploaded. The exception are works by deceased relatives. Files from YouTube and Flickr are mostly uploaded by tools (f2c, v2c). Tools that could be empowered to check the Flickr or Youtube license before upload!

But how about:

(x) I pressed the button on the camera.
( ) I personally know the person who pressed the button on the camera.
( ) I did not press the button of a camera to make the file I am going to upload.

--C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm) (talk) 09:56, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

@C.Suthorn I think you might me misunderstanding where @LPfi was going with this. This is, at least in part, about situations where the uploader did indeed push the button but is not the sole owner of all copyrights. That happens for example when you take photographs of sculptures, or an interesting figure or old photograph you find in a book or museum. The way UW works right now is suggesting that everything is fine as long as you are the one who pressed the button. That is true in most cases, but a considerable amount of copyright violations happen when that basic assumption fails. El Grafo (talk) 11:14, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
There comes FoP into play. The UW could consider the location of the uploader (if you look into the MW-cookies: WM does know your location) and offer advice for FoP rules at the location of the uploader (it is only a guesss that the uploader is in the same legislation as at the time them made the foto, but it could reduce wrong licenses). C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm) (talk) 11:23, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes. At the very least, require some active choice to be made by the uploader. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:16, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
    Yes. In the simple case of own photo of non-copyrighted motifs, the uploader would just need to actively check the "own work" box. They might get confused by having to make active choices about old architecture or other PD motifs, but I think that's a smaller problem than them just claiming own work in cases where the motif might be own work. Claiming own work for files from the internet would require an active choice, while at present they will get no warning if they just hit "next". –LPfi (talk) 13:28, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
At the very least, require some active choice to be made by the uploader. +2. The exact wording can be worked out, but there needs to be some kind of change to the choices uploaders currently have since the current options clearly aren't adequate. At least not on their own. --Adamant1 (talk) 13:47, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
When you upload your first file you get these message File:Licensing tutorial en.svg. There is a button to proceed and a checkbox that this page does not appear next time. There is no checkbox to say "I read the text", but I think this would also be skipped anyway. GPSLeo (talk) 14:00, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
"Tools that could be empowered to check the Flickr or Youtube license before upload!" Is this not the case with Flickr? Trade (talk) 20:16, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
Flickr2Commons reads the license on Flickr, but we still check again after upload. - Jmabel ! talk 20:48, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
It's interesting how there's a never-ending tension between the WMF wanting to make Commons/Wikipedia/Wikiwhatever easy to use and the community wanting to force users to jump through more hoops. I imagine the success of the projects actually depends on balancing this tension. I don't know what the solution is, just an observation! Nosferattus (talk) 23:42, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
I think the problem is that WMF doesn't seem to account for the actual workflows on Commons. If an "easy" upload results in the file being deleted, very little was gained. Likewise, if experienced users are using a lot of time to figure things out to allow newbies not to do that work, we are not helping our backlogs, and we might get a smaller number of less valuable files than otherwise. Of course, if we have to work a bit more to get files from under-represented areas and in fact can save those files and complete their descriptions, it might be worth the effort. –LPfi (talk) 17:00, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

The most frequent misuse of 'own work' I come across is the upload of old postcards. The date is then quite often the scan date. A scanner is a camera but on a non creative use. This could be easily filtered out and checked by searching the postcard categories and on the word 'postcard'.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:40, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

It's completely understandable for people to call photos or scans they took "own work," regardless of whether the photos or scans are of postcards, physical photos, paintings or sculptures. It's not necessarily intuitive that that work is not your own work. Of course, the default also means that people essentially passively claim that uploads of images grabbed from copyrighted web pages are "own work." I think the best solution is for the default to be blank on the name of the author. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:08, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
The upload wizard also chooses question based on the "own work" check. If you keep the default, you are never asked whether the underlying work is PD or licensed in some way. I think the default should be "not my own work", with a suitable wording. Those who upload own nature photographs can easily check the "own work" without worry, after having read the help text once, while the others really should think twice before checking that option. –LPfi (talk) 17:04, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Why is "White women" linking to Category:Caucasian women (Q101103533) instead of White women? Eurohunter (talk) 15:16, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Presumably because the two are synonyms (and equally problematic, like any phenotypic description of people). - Jmabel ! talk 17:49, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
@Jmabel: Definitely not. Eurohunter (talk) 18:40, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
I would suggest restricting "Caucasian" to people actually from the Caucasus region. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:14, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
Except that that's not how the word is usually used in English, particularly the US. Hollywood Goes Oriental: CaucAsian Performance in American Film (2010) is not talking about Asians being played by people from the Caucasus region, and Doing Engineering: The Career Attainment and Mobility of Caucasian, Black, and Asian-American Engineers (2000) is not comparing people from the Caucasus region to Black and Asian-American engineers. (See also https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/sunday-review/has-caucasian-lost-its-meaning.html which points out that w:Fisher v. University of Texas (2013) calls Fisher Caucusian, despite the fact I can find no evidence that she has ancestry from the Caucasus region.) The phrase "Caucasian women", without context, is usually going to be interpreted the same as "White women".--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:59, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
This is not a U.S. site; it's an international one. And the only exact meaning of "Caucasian" is "from the Caucasus." Any other meaning will confuse loads of people, and as for the Americans who are confused by Caucasian meaning from the Caucasus, well, they may learn something. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:12, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
If you want exact meanings, write in Lojban. If you want to communicate, don't try and force the language you're using to match your biases of reasonable. Should I go to the German Wikipedia, point out it's an international site and the only exact meaning of "Deutschland" is the land of the Germans, not one random German-speaking country out of six?
The English parts of this site are in English, of which 64% of the native speakers live in the US. And I decline to believe that the US is the only place Caucasian has a racial meaning disconnected from the Caucasus region. A quick search on Google Books indicates that British medical books often use the term, and turns up a Facial Plastic Surgery Procedures in the Non-Caucasian Population edited by Yong Ju Jang of South Korea, and Between the Lines of Genetic Code: Chapter Five. Gene–Gene and Gene–Environment Interaction in Rheumatoid Arthritis by Leonid Padyukov and Lars Alfredsson of the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden uses "European Caucasian".
We certainly can't use Caucasian to mean "from the Caucasus" in an context where it might be confused with the racial usage, and using it with the racial usage is confusing and somewhat dated, so we should probably avoid it and use "White" or "from the Caucasus" in most cases.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:59, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
Donald Trung addresses the problems with the use of "Caucasian" as a pseudo-scientific racial term better than I think anyone will, but I certainly have no argument with simply not using the term as a Commons category. I have to wonder about your statistics on English, though. Are they restricted to people for whom English is their first language? How many people in South Asia and Africa speak English? -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:18, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
The issue with these terms is also that they change over time, "White" typically refers to a skin colour (that is light-skinned individuals are usually called "White", but more narrowly it only refers to light-skinned people from Europe), historically the term "Caucasian" was meant to refer to a skeleton type and included people from North Africa and West Asia, but also "Brown people" (South Asians) and "Black people" (Ethiopians, Somalians, Eritreans, Djiboutinians, Etc., Collectively known as "Hamites"). In the United States of America the terms are very much disputed "Since the Ozawa v. United States court case had just decided that the meaning of white people for the purposes of the Court were people who were members of the Caucasian race, Thind argued that he was a white person by arguing that he was a member of the Caucasian race.[6] Thind argued using "a number of anthropological texts" that people in Punjab and other Northwestern Indian states belonged to the "Aryan race",[5]" and "Sutherland found that, while Thind may claim to have "purity of Aryan blood" due to being "born in Village Taragarh Talawa near Jandiala Guru, Amritsar, Punjab", he was not Caucasian in the "common understanding", so he could not be included in the "statutory category as white persons".[9]" (Source).
The above court case essentially says that while at the time the scientific literature regarded all Aryan people as "Caucasian" the "common understanding" of the term in the United States of America only refers to White Europeans. Racial definitions also shift over time, Mexicans were regarded as "White" until the 1970's in the United States too and in the United States of America today a blonde haired blue eyed Argentinian woman wouldn't be considered "White" because they use the "Hispanic and / or Latino" category while a dark-skinned Sicilian woman would. Because racial categories are so ambiguous I am personally against assigning them to any photographs or categories of people unless they self-identify as such and one country's "common understanding" of it isn't another county's. Here in the Netherlands for example the term "Kaukasisch" as a racial category has always had the more broad definition (as I found in some older Bos Atlassen), but in the United Kingdom, Germany, and France they use the same definition as the United States. Ironically, a number of actual Caucasian people aren't seen as "Caucasian".
This person is a Kalmyk, Kalmyks are descendants of Mongols who settled in the Caucasus region and are Caucasian people in the geographical sense, but not "Caucasian people" in the racial sense.
Personally, I'd say that "White" should probably refer to the common understanding of the definition as used today, that is "light-skinned people" and that "Caucasian" shouldn't be a sub-category of "Whites", especially since various "Black" peoples can also be described as such, in fact, I'd argue that the "Caucasian" categories should be mostly reserved to works in the literature describing it rather than actual humans as the "Caucasian" category is somewhat, and has always been somewhat, controversial to use. That or we just use ethnic groups and not racial groups for categorisation, "White British", "Non-Hispanic White-American", and "Autochtone Nederlander" are all ethnic groups with clearly defined lines, racial categories are all blurry. People who want to look for images of certain types of people can just find them by looking through categories, for example I found the above photograph of a Kalmyk by looking through pictures of ethnic Kalmyks, but racial categories are more ambiguous. For example in the 1970's Bos Atlas I have "Black people" don't exist and are sub-divided into several races (Negroïde, Bantoeïde, Khoi-San, Nilotisch, and Kaukasisch, with the latter refering to the Horn of Africa but also all White and Brown peoples, and all Non-Black Africans were only 3 racial groups together, so more than half of all racial categories exclusively referred to Black people), but in the United States of America during the same period the term Black is usually referred to as "the most homogenous group", so in the United States they are "the least genetically diverse" and in the Netherlands "the most genetically diverse". For this reason an international project which uses various definitions of various countries has a lot of trouble integrating such categories. Don't get me wrong, I am very much against deleting the categories about race as they are very handy for using works about race, I'm just not sure how useful such an ambiguous and controversial term like "Caucasian" would be to use for categorising actual people, old interviews from the 1970's also showed Ethiopians proudly calling themselves "Cucasians" but today one would be hard-pressed to find to find such a statement not being met with a lot of backlash. Plus "Caucasian" is extra ambiguous because it literally refers to a geographical region, should the man from the Caucasus region above be classified as "Caucasian" or not? --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 08:25, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
I assume the categories have their use, although I cannot parse "very handy for using works about race". They are obviously problematic: poorly defined and quite controversial. Do we need those categories for random (or less random) people photographed in the street, or on the beach? Should we restrict them to files where the source classifies them as belonging to the category, i.e. mostly historic images, and perhaps some medical ones? Cannot those who need an image of a contemporary Black American just look in any subcategory of People of the United States and identify images that fulfil their needs (and similar for Kalmyks, checking that the file description confirms their ethnicity)? –LPfi (talk) 08:54, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
LPfi, Wikimedia Commons categories first and foremost exist for discoverability, if someone wants a photograph of "A young Black woman in a white coat working in a laboratory" because they want to write an article about Non-Hispanic African-American female chemists and their contributions to science in general we should be able to make that as discoverable as possible, such categorisation actually helps with the discoverability of diversity. -- — Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 13:36, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Last year the proposal to create "Commons:Quality imports" was accepted but it wasn't implemented, I took the liberty of creating its main page to develop it further. While the proposal to adopt it was accepted how to implement it was being discussed but no clear conclusions were reached, I prefer to bring more eyeballs to the above page and discuss the implementation of "Quality imports".
Pinging @Nosferattus, Enyavar, Yann, Robert Flogaus-Faust, King of Hearts, Rhododendrites, El Grafo, Mateusz Konieczny, Jklamo, Kritzolina, Infrogmation, Strakhov, Mike Peel, and Ikan Kekek: . Pinging some folks involved in the original discussion. In particular User "Nosferattus" who had a large number of great ideas to implement it. -- — Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 23:00, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

In general: thanks for doing some progress on it Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 11:19, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Content included

I forgot to add that while the original proposal was only for images, I honestly think that making it broader to include "media files" rather than images might be better as it could then also include non-image files as a lot of valuable films, sounds, books, Etc. are also imported to the Wikimedia Commons every day. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 23:03, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for restarting the discussion! I'm not married to any particular implementation as long as it's not too complicated. Nosferattus (talk) 23:22, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
I still think this is a good idea, and what you already have there looks good, though of course more will need to be fleshed out if the concept is accepted. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:10, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
No opposition that this also includes other types of media. We need to define some basic standards: minimum resolution, etc. Yann (talk) 18:50, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

A new icon - and it is suffering from the same flaw as the QI icon discussed above? C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm) (talk) 09:38, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
@C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm), that flaw being the fact that it includes the English-language abbreviation "QI" or the fact that it doesn't incorporate oversimplified flat design? --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 14:27, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
first glance at this logo, while unaware of the discussion topic, made me think it's a logo for something downgraded from quality images. yellow being worse than green, and red downward arrow meaning something bad (like deficit, stocks falling...).--RZuo (talk) 14:35, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Copied from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Graphic_Lab/Illustration_workshop&oldid=759631905#Quality_imports_logo

"This is what you described:

But your proposed program is called quality import. The word "import" is typically associated with an up arrow, similar to an upload arrow, so I made this:

Reading your comments at Village Pump, it sounds to me that the Quality Import program is more for people who find valuable and high quality scans, so I am spitballing these ideas around a "scan" theme

All of these have been grouped under cat:Proposals for Quality Imports logo--Designism (talk) 19:25, 29 April 2023 (UTC)"

I wanted to put the logo up for discussion but use this one because I personally like it the most. Gold being the colour used for "#1 (number one) prizes" and a red arrow to symbolise the act of downloading (from an external source).

Though I thought of holding a design contest or a general vote for the logo after the project itself would be realised. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 14:44, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Might I suggest a green arrow pointing left, rather than up or down? My only concern is that up and down may get conflated with "positive and negative" or "voting yes or no" or somesuch. A green arrow pointing left may more easily be understood to be "coming in". Huntster (t @ c) 23:11, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
I see no reason to restrict it to scans, for example I think that finding and uploading (or spotting already uploaded) NASA image would also fit Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 11:17, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
Mateusz Konieczny, this isn't restricted to scans at all, rather it's a sub-category. "Quality images" only refers to photographs by Wikimedia Commons users, but "Quality imports" basically refers to any file not made by a Wikimedia Commons user (and even if the person is a Wikimedian, it could first be published elsewhere), some of these are scans, some videos, some are satellite images, some are 3D scans, Etc. I think that these different sub-categories could have separate logos, but I'll explain that in more details after starting the contest and deliberating with the community which sub-categories "Quality imports" should have, seeing as the logo I like the most is quite controversial I am sure that it won't be the final version, but like in the original suggestion this logo is merely a suggestion and it's my vision for it, but I'm sure that there's another logo waiting to be created that conveys the concept much better, the community can then approve their preferred version. — Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 13:32, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

copyright on document from family archive

Hi,

I uploaded an old document (1955) from my personal archive. I got an error about the copyright being wrong (and to be deleted automatically within 7 days). I now added {{PD-user|username}}.

Would this fix it?

Thank you,

Alex — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atudor (talk • contribs) 04:22, 6 May 2023‎ (UTC)

  • {{PD-user|Atudor}} implies that you are the author of the document, which I take it is not the case. Who actually wrote it? Is that person still alive and, if not, are you the heir to their intellectual property (or do you know who is)? - Jmabel ! talk 05:49, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
    Thanks @Jmabel! My father, who wrote the document, died in 1959, in Romania.
    And yes, I am the heir to his intellectual property.
    Alex Atudor (talk) 18:47, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
    • @Atudor: That makes this relatively straightforward. Credit him, not yourself, as author. "PD" is a little tricky here, in that it is not ipso facto public domain. If your intent is to place it in the public domain, probably the best choice is {{Cc-zero-heirs}}. That effectively says, "If it can be placed in the public domain, do so; if not, give it a license that lets anyone do anything with it that they could if it were in the public domain."
    • In the unlikely event that anyone questions whether you are the legitimate heir to his intellectual property (as against just someone who came along and made this claim), you might be asked to go through the process described at COM:VRT to carry on confidential correspondence to verify that. I don't think it will come up on this, though.
    • You may already know this, but the most appropriate place for a translation into English would be Wikisource.
    Jmabel ! talk 18:57, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Maintaining anonymity in an "heirs" situation

  • PD has specific conditions. Usually old (in Europe 70 years) and author unknown and other legal rules. My father died recently and I am the only descendant, so there should be no problem in uploading his work. However to my knowledge there is no specific license for this. heirs. The rules in Commons:Volunteer Response Team are unclear in how to handle heirs uploading work from their ancestors. (even in the clearcut cases: no multiple heirs). Another problem is that I want to maintain my anonimity: If I have to mention my fathers full name, I lose almost al my anonimity. I am thinking of using an alias: father-of-smiley.toerist, but is it permitted to add dead persons aliasses?Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:05, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
    • @Smiley.toerist: I think this is more of a VRT question than a Village pump question (that is, better to ask at Commons:Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard). But, as I see it, if you go through VRT once to establish your situation as someone's heir, you can still remain anonymous to everyone except the members of the VRT (who are the only ones who see confidential correspondence), and once it is established by VRT that you own the intellectual property in question, it is pretty much your prerogative how it is credited. - Jmabel ! talk 16:45, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
    • @Smiley.toerist: My condolences for your loss. There are several licensing templates for works released by the heir(s) as PD or under a free license, for example {{Cc-by-4.0-heirs}} or {{Cc-zero-heirs}}, see Category:License tags for transferred copyright for more - {{PD-heirs}} seems to be the most popular, but personally, I would prefer one of the CC variants, though these haven't been used often yet. I think whether you need to go through the VRT process depends on whether your father's work was ever published previously. If not, I think stating here on Commons that it's your father's work and that you release it under a free license (or PD) as the sole heir is enough, as this is ultimately the same kind of assertion we just trust when people declare images as their own work. Of course, to back it up and as a precaution, you could still file a VRT ticket with your father's real name without revealing it here. Gestumblindi (talk) 18:18, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
    • @Smiley.toerist: My condolences too. I think the heirs templates are not the best approach if you want to keep your anonymity. On the other hand, if you approach the VRT, you don't need to state publicly why you own the rights. Just upload his works attributing them to him (which is fair towards him, and might prevent some problems – and e.g. in the EU he is entitled the attribution) and let the VRT ticket handle the licence claim. I'd recommend a -BY licence if he might have liked the publicity, the -SA I leave to your judgement. Creating a separate account for these uploads (still using VRT, and perhaps -heirs) is of course also an option. –LPfi (talk) 09:22, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Hi @Smiley.toerist, Thank you for the clarification on the "heirs" situation. I upload an unpublished document authored by my father. He passed in 1959, in Europe and I am the legal heir. Anonymity does not matter to me. I used
Public domain This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Atudor. This applies worldwide.

In some countries this may not be legally possible; if so:
Atudor grants anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.

on the document.

  • Is that the right action?
    Alex Atudor (talk) 18:57, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
    • @Atudor: I believe I've fully answered you above. I sectioned out Smiley.toerist's remark precisely because the anonymity is a separate issue and does not arise in your case. - Jmabel ! talk 18:59, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
      Indeed you did; looked at it again. There is simply too much information for a first timer to process.
      But thanks for taking the time nonetheless.
      I changed it to
The heirs of the creator of this work hereby publish it under the following license:
w:en:Creative Commons
attribution
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
You are free:
  • to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
  • to remix – to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
  • attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

. Atudor (talk) 19:21, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Making backup of Commons uploads

Is there tool/script (I am fine with Linux command line tools) that can be used to create local backup of files I uploaded to Wikimedia Commons? Preferably with their file pages Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 11:22, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Here is a list of all file download tools Commons:Download tools. Saving file pages is not supported by these tools. If you have a list of the pages you could simply use curl for saving the pages. GPSLeo (talk) 11:49, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
Actually you can export any number of pages including their version history with "Special:Export" without any tools. (and if you have a local MW wiki, you should also be able to import the pages into the local wiki) --C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm) (talk) 13:08, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
Though I still need to iterate over my uploads and so on... So I hoped for something like that existing already Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 22:41, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
A list of your 288 uploads: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AContributions&target=Mateusz+Konieczny&namespace=6&tagfilter=&newOnly=1&start=&end=&limit=288 Extract the filenames (find-replade in any text editor) and put the list into special:export. Download the files with wget or curl. C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm) (talk) 08:57, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg has not reached consensus as to whether it should redirect to the 2:1 or the 3:5 version of the Union Jack. The redirect has been protected, but that is now threatening to lead to an edit war among admins. We need a stronger consensus on this redirect. If you have an opinion, please voice it in the discussion there. - Jmabel ! talk 14:50, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Who’d think that an edit war would emmerge? Oh wait: I did. -- Tuválkin 00:38, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Jrascb Vol 13sandasaya.sinamavaRavanakavandaya

Ravanakavandaya 148.78.1.79 03:04, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

  • Offhand, I don't see a question here. - Jmabel ! talk 15:22, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
According to Google it's in the Kannada language and is a romanisation of "ಜೆರಸ್ಕಬ್ ವೋಲ್ - ೧೩ಸಂದಸಯ.ಸಿನಾಮವಾರವಾನಖಾವಂದಯ", but the IP address points to Mountain View, California, United States of America. I don't know Kannada so I don't know what it means. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 19:16, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Volume 13? RZuo (talk) 21:37, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Pixabay photo dates

I was hoping someone could tell me how one can determine the date that a photo posted to Pixabay was taken. I can't find any metadata/exif data confirming the dates and I don't see anything on the photo pages showing anything other than the date the photos were published on the site.

I just uploaded this image and am bothered that I had to write that the date was unknown. Unfortunately, the date taken isn't on its Pixabay page or in its metadata.

Contrast that with this image from the same author I uploaded in 2020. Somehow, the metadata there did show the date and time the photo was taken, even though its page on Pixabay doesn't.

Am I missing something? Did Pixabay remove certain exif data since 2020? Is there no longer a way to determine when these photographs were actually taken? Any help would be greatly appreciated. --Denniscabrams (talk) 04:06, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Promotional photos of people

I regularly come across photos like this one in “Category:Media needing categories”. It is the user's only contribution and the description is promotional. In Wikidata the person cannot be found nor the use of the photo in a Wikipedia article. Does a nomination for deletion make sense or is it better to leave it in case it could be used in the future? Wouter (talk) 08:26, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Most of them become deleted as they are not in scope and also because in many cases the copyright situation is not clear and would need VRT confirmation. Many of these files where used is Wikipedia articles they became deleted. GPSLeo (talk) 08:34, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
this particular one is fine. no apparent copyvio. subject is/was on the board of GAVI. https://www.gavi.org/governance/gavi-board/members/mahima-datla .
board of directors of an org that has a wikidata item can certainly be included on commons. RZuo (talk) 11:34, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
This is also why such images shouldn't be speedily deleted, many such images are tagged as "Speedy" and then lost forever, often with no logs of their existence beyond the upload log. Just because the English-language Wikipedia thinks that a person isn't notable enough for their encyclopedia doesn't mean that we should use their standards. Especially since it's quite common for people with Wikipedia articles on other language Wikipedia's to be considered "not notable enough" by the English-language Wikipedia. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 19:19, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
I agree with that. What I sometimes see is that the user also creates a Wikidata page. If done properly, all basic data will be available and it will be easier to add a Commons category that is more meaningful than, for example, “Women with black hair”. Wouter (talk) 20:00, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Location in formatted data

See: File:Delahaye LCCN2014718369.jpg where the formatted data gives an error message for location, I can only find GPS examples, how do I add a location, or am I expected to have depicts=Manhattan, which would be incorrect. --RAN (talk) 14:20, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) You're looking for location of the point of view (P7108) (fixed) - no idea why that doesn't show up right away when you start typing "location" in the search box ... El Grafo (talk) 15:06, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Perfect, Thank you! Or maybe when you try and use "location" the warning text can direct you to location of the point of view (P7108), can we change that? Most common mistakes have directions to the correct one. --RAN (talk) 15:15, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Nikhar Garg

As I'm unable to revert my own edit, can anyone of you please revert my edit at File:Nikhar Garg Scottish Open.jpg? I just withdrew my nomination. Thankyou. Zoglophie (talk) 13:39, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Jmabel ! talk 15:06, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Photographer's mark

JERITZA, Maria, 1926 (cropped).jpg

See: File:JERITZA, Maria, 1926.jpg, anyone recognize it and find the photographer in Wikidata? RAN (talk) 04:38, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

"Flair"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:28, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

New blocked in Mobile interface changes

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2001:44C8:4085:558:2406:A57A:DB4E:43CA 00:53, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

  • I'm totally confused. Is this a statement of how things are? How you think they should be? What exactly is the recent or proposed change? - Jmabel ! talk 02:38, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

Controversial edits to time zone map

File:World Time Zones Map.png started out as a time zone map from the Central Intelligence agency. It's likely from the PDF or JPG at the World and Regional Maps page at the CIA website. The CIA map has been modified by User:UnaitxuGV as indicated in the file's edit history. Edits to the border between Ukrainian and Russian time zones might not be what the CIA would make if they were to update the file, hence the controversy. This has resulted in a flurry of edits to the English Wikipedia articles w:Time zone and w:Coordinated Universal Time. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:25, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

We need to define whether the map shows the de jure or the de facto time zones. In occupied areas the occupier will decide which time zone to use. The term "official" in the description indicates that the de jure time zones are displayed and therefore not the time zone used by the occupier. GPSLeo (talk) 15:34, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Edits like that should be done in a separate, derivative file that cites distinct sources for its newer information. & then it's not Commons' affair which one en-wiki prefers to use. - Jmabel ! talk 15:35, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
@Jc3s5h: In 2014, Crimea and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk started observing UTC+3. At that time, World Time Zones Map.png was changed to show these areas in UTC+3. In 2015 the map had an edit war reverting these areas to UTC+2 but in the end kept them on UTC+3, and they were not changed anymore since then. In 2022, after the invasion of Ukraine, a larger part of southeast Ukraine started observing UTC+3, so I recently changed the map to reflect it.
The map shows the time zone actually used in each area, regardless of law or political recognition. For example, the map also shows Abkhazia and South Ossetia in UTC+3, and some parts of Australia and Canada in their time zone that is actually used there different from what is defined by law. So for consistency, I think that the part of Ukraine actually using UTC+3 should remain shown in UTC+3 on the map. This doesn't imply recognition of the annexation, because the border between Ukraine and Russia (white line) is still shown as internationally recognized. The red line, although thicker, is only the separation between time zones, just like in other countries that have more than one time zone.
The CIA map was only used as an initial template, and we are not obligated to replicate it exactly or to update only what the CIA is expected to do. The CIA map was last updated in February 2021, and it still shows all of Ukraine in UTC+2, including Crimea. That map also has some mistakes or outdated information such as Chile, South Sudan, and parts of Canada and Greenland.
@GPSLeo: The map is de facto. I agree that the word "official" should be removed from the description, and maybe replaced with "de facto" to clarify. Heitordp (talk) 15:49, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
Convenience link: File:World Time Zones Map.png. - Jmabel ! talk 17:25, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
Again: this map gives the CIA as its source. If there is other info that comes from a different sources, then that should be a separate derivative work, and the changes should be overtly credited/sourced. - Jmabel ! talk 17:26, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
@Jmabel: This map has always been was a derivative work. It started from the CIA map as a template, but it has been updated numerous times for many years, mostly based on the tz database. I clarified this in the file description. Heitordp (talk) 02:58, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
@Heitordp: Thanks for the clarification. As I'm sure you'll agree, maps like this should be clear as to what they represent, not just at a loose level but whose data they attempt to follow. - Jmabel ! talk 06:40, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
@Heitordp: Does the map currently differ at all from the data in the Time Zone Database? Nosferattus (talk) 17:53, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
@Nosferattus: The map matches the tz database for almost all locations, but there are a few differences:
  • The database lists the Mongolian regions of Govi-Altai and Zavkhan in UTC+7, but noting uncertainty due to conflicting sources. I changed the map to show these regions in UTC+8, based on the comments in the database and other sources.
  • The database doesn't mention Abkhazia or South Ossetia. The map shows them in UTC+3.
  • The database lists Ukraine in UTC+2, except Crimea in UTC+3. I changed the map show the more recently occupied areas of Ukraine also in UTC+3, based on other sources. Heitordp (talk) 20:09, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
@Heitordp: Could you note these differences in the file description (or alternatively create a separate map that has the deviations)? Also, it seems like it would be a good idea to discuss these changes on tz@iana.org (the discussion list for the Time Zone Database) so that maybe they will be incorporated into future versions of the database. Nosferattus (talk) 17:50, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
@Nosferattus: I listed the differences in the file description, with references. I'll try to report them to the database. Heitordp (talk) 04:50, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Reducing line height in smaller text

Dear experts, At Template talk:PD-Australia, in the draft template at the very bottom of the page titled "Australian copyright-expired works (PD-Australia)", in column 2 there is a Note comprising three lines of text coded as "small". I would like to close up the lines a little (reduce the line height). Commons doesn't seem to have the same capability as Wikipedia in this regard. Can someone suggest a way of doing this? Cheers, Simon – SCHolar44 🇦🇺 💬 at 11:14, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

I see only a note in column 1. Ruslik (talk) 20:10, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
Column 1 has the numbers in. I'm referring to the reduced-size note un column 2 that starts: "Note: Copyright does not impose ..."  :-) SCHolar44 (talk) 01:35, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
Will this do? Feel free to revert if not. - Jmabel ! talk 02:36, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
Thank you, Jmabel. It worked, but the line height was applied to other text as well. I have tried to limit its extent, using the coding idea you gave me, but I haven't had success -- my coding skills are not very good. Any chance you could look at it again? I do appreciate your advice. SCHolar44 (talk) 08:12, 14 May 2023 (UTC)
@SCHolar44: I don't think the wiki approach to tables is flexible enough to confine it just to the one column.
For what it's worth, at an HTML level, it has to be applied to a "block" element (vs. "inline"). I suspect you might have to drop the wiki table and code it in raw HTML. Ideally, it could be applied to a single TD element. - Jmabel ! talk`
@Jmabel: Thank you -- much appreciated. Looks like I'll have to leave it and perhaps ask for help from a specialized coder when the draft process is complete. SCHolar44 (talk) 00:13, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Crops of licence-reviewed files

i suggest we come up with a standard operating procedure for such files. currently, it seems croptool doesnt copy the reviewed template, giving rise to for example File:26th Tokyo International Film Festival Nagasawa Masami (cropped).jpg. theoretically, only sysops and reviewers can add or copy the reviewed template.

here're some solutions:

  1. let croptool copy the template while uploading the new file.
  2. it's ok for non-reviewers to copy the template.
  3. make a bot that copies the template.

RZuo (talk) 16:26, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

a) has Croptool a new maintainer who could implement a solution, or has the current maintainer been appeased and convinced to return to Wikipedia?
b) While an image may be legal, a crop of it may be not, for example if an element of the picture is no longer de minimis in the crop. C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm) (talk) 18:28, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
if necessary, an open source repo can always be forked.
2nd concern makes sense, but whether something copyrightable is de minimis has no relation to the validity of the licence? RZuo (talk) 09:30, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
It can be forked. But it doesn't need to. Wmflabs can assign a new maintainer. But: Nobody seems to be interested to become this maintainer. C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm) (talk) 22:34, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Croptool down

Speaking of which, the croptool is giving me err. 502. Fix soon, please, or is just me? -- Tuválkin 16:29, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

I've got the same problem. --Denniscabrams (talk) 17:40, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Roma Termini or Roma Tiburtina?

Is the category correct or is a rename necessary?

NTV ETR 575 Roma Tiburtina train station 08 2018-12-27.jpg

It looks like a duplicate of File:NTV ETR 575 Roma Tiburtina train station 08 2018-1227.jpg Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:21, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

I think that it is Tiburtina. Ruslik (talk) 20:15, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
I wil ask for a rename. The other file is cropped version (a small cut-out above).Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:10, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Dear active Commons users,
I write to you today to humbly ask for your support in my candidacy for adminship on Commons. As an active user on this platform for some time now, I have dedicated much of my time and effort to contributing quality content and ensuring that the community maintains its positive reputation as a thriving platform for sharing knowledge.

As a potential admin, I bring with me the experience and skills necessary to help manage Commons and make critical decisions that will ensure its continued growth and success. I am confident in my abilities to navigate the complex challenges of this role, and I am committed to providing a transparent and effective leadership style that prioritizes the needs and voices of the community.

That being said, I also understand that not everyone may share my vision for Commons. Therefore, I respectfully ask that those of you who do not support my candidacy for adminship also make your voices heard. Whether you vote for me or against me, I am always open to constructive feedback and welcome the opportunity to engage in meaningful dialogue with all users.

So, I implore you to participate in this crucial decision-making process and make your voice heard. Let us work together to ensure that Commons remains a welcoming, collaborative, and dynamic platform for years to come.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely, Reda Kerbouche (talk) 08:52, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Commons:Administrators/Requests/Reda Kerbouche was closed as "Unsuccessful".   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 12:38, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Vector 2022

Has there ever been a discussion regarding switching Commons to Vector 2022? If so, could you point me to it? If not, I would like to discuss the possibility of switching to Vector 2022 like Wikipedia. Interstellarity (talk) 14:00, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

I think Vector 2022 is currently no option for Commons as it is focused on articles and text where a narrower text filed is better to read. On gallery pages you want to see as many pictures as possible on your screen. GPSLeo (talk) 14:51, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
If you want the layout to change for your account: go to Preferences, tab Appearence, click on Vector 2022. JopkeB (talk) 04:23, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
Pinging @Interstellarity.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 12:39, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

We should have a directory of free resources

Sometime ago I looked into the Libertarian Party of the Netherlands and on their website they claim that all images on their website are freely licensed images, they then list a number of sources for these images and to my surprise the Wikimedia Commons wasn't mentioned at all. But their list did contain the following online resources:


I'm not aware which of these have mostly been imported and which ones haven't, but for years I've actually wanted to make a central directory of free websites from which we can direct users to websites to look for useful educational images which have licenses compatible with the Wikimedia Commons and direct them to relevant categories, but as this is thousands of websites I wouldn't know how to categorise these websites. I would suggest copying Wikipedia's list of reliable sources (and perhaps also create a related list of reliable but seemingly free websites).
The page I envision would have a WikiTable design and a link to the website, a description of the website, instructions on how to import from it, perhaps a field for tools, and also a category for where to put images from said source. I'll make an example below. Perhaps it could be called something like "Commons:Resources".
While writing this I find that something similar existe, but it's hardly advertised anywhere at the Wikimedia Commons, this makes me wonder why it isn't placed somewhere visible?
Plus as I've brought the topic up anyhow, perhaps it could be organised better, I'll create an example table below. -- — Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 19:32, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

These websites offer beautiful photos. But I wonder whether they are useful on Commons. They all, except for those on https://loc.gov/pictures/, lack information about the where and when. I think we have enough photos taken on unidentified locations and with unknow date. So I am not in favor of putting them on a list like Commons:Free media resources (the U.S. Library of Congress digital image archive is already in it). JopkeB (talk) 05:11, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
@Donald Trung: Then put it on your liberTarian website. Stanislov Patrick 473 (talk) 11:57, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
Stanislov Patrick 473, that is not my website, I'm not a Libertarian and I have never been a member of the Libertarian Party, I just used it as a point of reference... — Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 12:20, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
@Donald Trung: Maybe you should consider joining so you can edit their websIte?! 12:25, 17 May 2023 (UTC)~~ Stanislov Patrick 473 (talk) 12:25, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Currently:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?photo_license=CC-BY-SA Crowdsourced plants and animals photos. CC-BY-SA, CC0 and less permissive licenses. Photos are compressed to ~3MP size. Use {{INaturalistreview}}.

Becomes:

URL Description Warnings Template(s) Relevant categories Tools
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?photo_license=CC-BY-SA Crowdsourced plants and animals photos. CC-BY-SA, CC0 and less permissive licenses. Photos are compressed to ~3MP size. {{INaturalistreview}}. Media from iNaturalist

Something like this. Or is that less handy? The more I look at this the more I realise that most of the ideas I have surrounding it exists, yet I don't see it advertised anywhere, perhaps we should try to make these pages more visible. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 19:37, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

I think there would have to be divisions by type or such, but it could work. You might look at Don-vip's list they use for their bot at Commons:Spacemedia for inspiration. Huntster (t @ c) 20:30, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
@Huntster: donal or donner Stanislov Patrick 473 (talk) 12:25, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
@Stanislov Patrick 473: I don't understand. Huntster (t @ c) 13:26, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Annotated copyright information from the archives of Latvian pictures

I recently moved image File:Akmens tēli, Torņakalns.JPG from lvwiki to common, but I don't know how to label the copyright information, thank you! The copyright information of the original text is w:lv:Veidne:Edgars2007 attēls of lvwiki, but only lvwiki has the logo of this free copyright. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fumikas Sagisavas (talk • contribs)

@Fumikas Sagisavas: the equivalent template on commons is {{Cc-by-sa-3.0}} You can use it to attribute to the user by using it like {{Cc-by-sa-3.0|[[:lv:User:Edgars2007|Edgars Košovojs]]}}. --William Graham (talk) 15:10, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
@William Graham: CC BY-SA 3.0 is the same as CC BY-ND 1.0 Stanislov Patrick 473 (talk) 11:57, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
@Stanislov Patrick 473: No, it is not. I'm sorry, but licenses with restrictions -nc- (noncommercial) and -nd- (no derivatives) are not usable by themselves for Wikimedia Commons. For the reasons, please see Commons:Licensing/Justifications.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 12:33, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: WMF is non-profit so it is noncomerial Stanislov Patrick 473 (talk) 12:34, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
@Stanislov Patrick 473: Have you read Foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy? Commons doesn't accept files with only a CC BY-ND license (or CC BY-NC for that matter) per Commons:Licensing policy.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 12:43, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Category:Men of the People's Republic of China by name vs. Category:Men of China by name

Is there any actual difference between these two categories? Trade (talk) 17:04, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Convenience links (would this have been so hard?): Category:Men of the People's Republic of China by name, Category:Men of China by name. - Jmabel ! talk 18:03, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
Prior to 1948 there is no PRC. It would be odd to call one of the Emperors (for example) a "man of the PRC". Similarly for Chin Gee Hee (died 1930), etc. But I don't know whether in practice that is how it is being used. - Jmabel ! talk 18:07, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
Probably because of POC/ROC/ROK/HK/MC disputes. Stanislov Patrick 473 (talk) 11:55, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
For anyone who hasn't worked it out, Stanislov Patrick 473 is a disruptive vandal. - Jmabel ! talk 15:20, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Moving from Category:Tram line 76 (Düsseldorf) to Category:Stadtbahn line U76 (Düsseldorf)

I have problems with: [5] and [6]. These are pictures of the Straßenbahn linie 76 and not the Stadtbahn linie U76. There is the distiction of Category:Lines of the Düsseldorf Stadtbahn and Category:Tram lines in Düsseldorf.

This should be structured as by: Category:Tram line 79 (Düsseldorf)Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:24, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Setting the Wikimedia Commons category by importing from the Russian Wikipedia

I have a request for automatic insertion of personalities from w:ru:Категория:Телеведущие Первого канала to Category:Channel One Russia presenters. Is it possible to do this with the help of a bot, since there are 406 articles in the specified category of the Russian Wikipedia? —MasterRus21thCentury (talk) 16:12, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Making Uploads More Reliable on the Commons App

Hi everyone!


I am Ritika Pahwa, a third-year undergraduate at Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women, India, and I have been accepted as a Google Summer of Code(GSoC) contributor at Wikimedia Foundation for this summer. I wanted to take this opportunity to share about the upcoming enhancements in upload reliability of the Commons app that I will be focusing on in the next few months as a GSoC contributor.

My project aims at addressing upload-related issues and dealing with metadata loss. I have often experienced upload-related issues myself and would like to fix them so that all the Commons lovers get a seamless experience with the app! I would be working towards upload reliability over slow internet connections, uploads stuck in the Queued state, and loss of location data despite being present in the EXIF metadata of the pictures (GitHub Issue).

I look forward to collaborating with my mentors, Nicolas Raoul and Kaartic Sivaraam, and working together towards a hassle-free upload process!


Best,

Ritika Pahwa — Preceding unsigned comment added by RitikaPahwa4444 (talk • contribs) 08:44, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

@RitikaPahwa4444: Try using the "isUploadSuccess" function. It is faster than using the one using the main DB. Stanislov Patrick 473 (talk) 11:54, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
For anyone who hasn't worked it out, Stanislov Patrick 473 is a disruptive vandal. - Jmabel ! talk 15:22, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
@RitikaPahwa4444: could you explain what you mean here by "metadata loss"? People use the term "metadata" in several different ways, ranging from meaning only the metadata encoded within an image file (e.g. EXIF) to all data of any sort about the photo other than the image itself, regardless of where it is stored. - Jmabel ! talk 15:24, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
Hi @Jmabel, some versions of Android scrub the EXIF location from JPGs before an app can read it. So, the usage of "metadata loss" here stands for the EXIF metadata of the image. RitikaPahwa4444 (talk) 06:14, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
Do you have an example of an Android device? Most Messenger Apps and Social Media Services do that, but if the OS did, third party gallery apps would be severly crippled. C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm) (talk) 07:17, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
Many app developers complained about this, some even stopped maintaining their apps because of this. See https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons/issues/5015#issuecomment-1295710362 and around for context. Cheers! Syced (talk) 07:45, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
@RitikaPahwa4444
  • A way to make sure, that an upload was successful and complete is to have the app compare the MessageDigest of the local file and the Uplaoded file.
  • MW completely ignores MetaData of Video files, but that is an issue of MW, not the Upload process (actually you can query the MetaData from the API, it is stored in a database field of MW
  • Slow uploads is something that is dealt with by the Offroader upload app (also: Comparing of MessageDigest before upload to avoid duplicates and after upload to check, if the uploaded file is intact, paused and continued upload, spliting videos in 4GB parts and transcoding, and optionally writing a protocol of the upload stages)
  • You have "contact me" links to linkedin and medium, two sevrvices that I do not use, but you can contact me at Mastodon or Threema with question about my own upload tool and Offroader.
C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm) (talk) 20:17, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Finding Geolocation Leads with Bellingcat's OpenStreetMap Search Tool

This new tool from Bellingcat looks as though it might have great potential for identifying some of our "unknown location" pictures.

It will work best in areas that are well mapped on OSM; and where the picture is relatively modern (or historic features remain) and the approximate location is known.

Caveats are that it requires a Google account for login and I have not yet tried it in depth.

If the code is open, maybe we could have an instance on Toolforge? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:31, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Seems a good idea to me. Untill that time, can we mention this tool on Category:Unidentified locations? JopkeB (talk) 04:39, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

In Category:Uses of Wikidata Infobox with no image are a lot of Wikidata items, for which no image is availably and probably will not be in the future. For instance artists who died centuries ago (before the 19th century), who made a lot of works that are in the category and/or gallery page, but of whom is no portrait available. However those WD-items stay there for everlasting days, people might invest time to search for proper images (over and over again), time which may be better spend. Does a solution exists for this problem? Otherwise I would propose to label those WD-items (for instance with a specific template) and take care they will be removed from and not enter again this maintenance category. JopkeB (talk) 05:45, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

  • I suppose you can set image=no_value in instances where there will never be an image, then have the search that creates the category exclude where we have image=no_value. --RAN (talk) 12:22, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
    Thanks, RAN. But what exactly should be done? What do I put where? In the Wikidata item or in the Commons category and then where exactly? Is it a template? Do you have an example? Should the syntax behind Category:Uses of Wikidata Infobox with no image be adjusted? JopkeB (talk) 03:12, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
    • @JopkeB: In the Wikidata item, you set image (P18) explicitly to "no value". I've done it at Hieronymus (Q18180930), mostly to show you how it's done. - Jmabel ! talk 03:38, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
      Thanks Jmabel! This is clear, now I can work with this solution. JopkeB (talk) 15:43, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
      Dear Jmabel!, I just tried to apply it, but I get an error message: Could not save it due to an error. File extension is missing. What I did: In Hendrick van Anthonissen (Q920814), Statements part, I added P18 and then in the input field I added no value (I also tried no image because that was mentioned in Property talk:P18). What went wrong? Or do you have to have special rights to be able to add messages instead of real images? JopkeB (talk) 05:04, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
      • @JopkeB: sorry, I didn't realize you didn't know how to set "no value" in Wikidata. Assuming you are using the default UI for items, when you are editing image (P18) for an item, to the left of the text entry field you'll see two sets of symbols. The first, with arrows pointing up and down, is for setting rank (preferred/normal/deprecated). The second is for setting the type of value. The default is "custom value" (what you get by filling in the text entry field) but you can also choose "unknown value" and "no value". Let me know if that's still unclear. - Jmabel ! talk 17:04, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
        @Jmabel: Yes, now it is easy. Thanks a lot for your explanation. And so I still learn something new every day. JopkeB (talk) 02:54, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --JopkeB (talk) 03:00, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Is this image (Lord Durham's report in French) in public domain in US?

Here's the image in question: File:Lambton - Rapport de Lord Durham (page 4 crop).jpg . It was published in 1839 in Montreal. The file description says that it is public domain in country of origin (Canada), but says there must also be a description of copyright status for the US. I would have thought it would be public domain in the US, given its age, but I (a) don't know if that is correct, and (b) don't know how to edit the image page to remove the "US info needed" tag? (The reason I'm asking is that I planned to use it for an article that was under GA review, and the reviewer suggested that it would be an impediment to GA review if there was a question about the copyright status.) Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 20:10, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the file is public domain in the United States because it was published before 1928. Abzeronow (talk) 20:14, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
How do I add that info to the page for the image?Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 00:32, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
Add {{PD-US-expired}}. –LPfi (talk) 12:30, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
Thanks! Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 00:48, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Some foreign templates already include the reasons that the document/image is public domain in the USA, making it unnecessary to add a second template. I think that is a better strategy, to move in that direction. --RAN (talk) 12:16, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Test-Upload

Wasn't there a facility where I could upload files to yest them where they automatically get deleted after a while? Cheers, Oalexander (talk) 14:41, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

File:JPG Test.jpg and other Category:Test images exist, but they do not become deleted, they become reverted to the "original" test file. GPSLeo (talk) 15:03, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
Thank you! Oalexander (talk) 01:21, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
For tests there is also a beta server which may or may not fit your purpose: https://commons.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Main_Page Syced (talk) 03:12, 19 May 2023 (UTC)