Commons:Village pump
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September 23
Hosting HDR images as JPEG with gain map
The tools for creating and displaying High Dynamic Range (HDR) images are starting to mature. HDR displays can render much brighter highlights than before, which leads to a big qualitative improvement in an image. Software for HDR production, and web-browser support, are becoming wide-spread. (Note that this is distinct from the tone-mapped HDR images you may have seen for the past decade or so.)
This post is partly a response to User:Hym3242 and User:PantheraLeo1359531 in Commons:Village pump/Archive/2024/08#Can I upload bt2020nc/bt2020/smpte2084(PQ) HDR AVIF images to commons and use them in wikipedia articles?. I was wondering the same thing, so I uploaded a couple files to see how well Commons would support them. They are formatted as JPEG with a gain map. The promise of this format is that it is backward-compatible with systems that process and serve standard JPEG. The base image is a JPEG, usable on any device. HDR information is inserted in the file as metadata. In the worst case HDR metadata is lost, resulting in a standard image. In the best case HDR metadata is preserved, the end-user has an HDR-capable display and web browser, and the image looks great.
My test results are at Category:HDR gain-mapped images. Both images survived the process of uploading and rendering previews. HDR metadata was stripped from preview images, but preserved in the original uploads. If you have a newish HDR screen and a compliant web browser, the originals of this house and this church will appear brighter than usual. The effect on the house is subtle, limited to where sunlight hits white paint. The effect on the church is more dramatic: the windows should appear much brighter than the rest of the interior.
Most users of Commons images will see one of the smaller standard files, so for now the benefits of publishing this sort of content are limited. Are there any downsides to publishing it on Commons?
This post isn't marked as a proposal, because hosting these images on Commons works already. At a later date, when the standards are settled and the hardware is widely available, it would be nice to preserve HDR metadata in the generated preview images. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Semiautonomous (talk • contribs) 23:51, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
October 07
New reports: categories with only redcats & cats with only infobox cats
I just set up these two new reports as an addendum to Special:UncategorizedCategories.
- Commons:Report UncategorizedCategories with redcats (Quarry:query/86864, 10583 items)
categories that have only nonexisting categories set (redlinks) - Commons:Report UncategorizedCategories with only infobox categories (Quarry:query/86867, 4475 items)
categories that only have meta categories set by the Wikidata infobox like Category:Uses of Wikidata Infobox
The request for these reports to get updated by a bot instead of manually is here at Commons:Bots/Work requests.
I requested the Quarry query here so a big thanks to Matěj Suchánek who implemented it. (Collaboration like this makes everyone more productive and saves time as well as making each one's expertise/skills/knowledge more fruitful.)
In previous discussions about uncategorized categories I clarified multiple times that these categories are also missing categories or have issues but don't yet have a report where they show up. What I did not know at first is that this could be solved via a Quarry query and what the place to request such queries is.
Most of the categories on these reports need some work. So if you're interested in helping out please take a look, especially if you already have experience with cutting down the Special:UncategorizedCategories list. You can add /Page_1
to the two report links if you want to see only a small sample of the first 500 items.
Lots of work needed there. Probably, the list will not grow back as quickly as the entirely uncategorized cats in UncategorizedCategories.
--Prototyperspective (talk) 17:12, 7 October 2024 (UTC) edited wl--Prototyperspective (talk) 21:00, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for putting this together! Any chance it could be formatted as a table instead of a comma-separated list? That'd make it a lot easier to work with. Omphalographer (talk) 22:28, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
- I thought so at first but then found it would be easier if one was able to see just as many items as possible in one view. One can see lots of links without having to scroll around. The link color changes once you visited the pages so e.g. row-numbers don't add anything. A table would be useful if there were more columns....maybe at some point there could be additional columns that show e.g. whether a category only has 1 file (or the count of files) but I currently don't see how that would be useful (if anything that could go into a separate report page). Is there any reason you'd prefer a table? It wouldn't be difficult to convert it to a table but I don't see what advantage it would have. Maybe you mean a table with multiple columns but only these wikilinks instead of a one-column table but then I wouldn't see the difference to the current format. One thing that may be useful is a page with raw URLs so one can open many of these in new tabs at once (select and drag onto a tab or right click->open in new tabs). Prototyperspective (talk) 22:36, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
- There's one way a table format may be useful: making it possible to sort these alphabetically. However, the query could be changed to order the categories that way without losing the advantages of the comma separated list which I think only needs
ORDER BY page_title DESC
in the query (probably will be done before the next report update). Prototyperspective (talk) 22:43, 7 October 2024 (UTC)- I, for one, find the current format very off-putting (but thank you for doing this at all).
- It's OK if we have a format that doesn't end up showing everything in one view while there is so much to show. People will whittle down the list pretty quickly, in my experience, and it can be re-run periodically. It doesn't matter if not everything is in front of people at once while the content is still voluminous; it's a lot more important for this sort of task that what is in front of us is sane to skim. - Jmabel ! talk 20:51, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
- Alright the question is simply which other format would be better and why? Currently this is only one link and doesn't even other data for other columns and people often dislike things at first they are not familiar with. Prototyperspective (talk) 21:48, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
- If a list format would be better the page would be very large and I don't know if it causes other problems but one would have to scroll a lot. Without alphabetic sorting, a list format makes less sense. But I guess once the new version is sorted it could be easier to skim or skip over similarly named items if it was in a list format. Maybe there could be multiple columns so the page isn't so large. Prototyperspective (talk) 21:58, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
- A wiki table (with one row for each category) would be easiest to work with. Even if the report itself isn't sorted, presenting it as a table will allow users to sort it themselves. Omphalographer (talk) 22:16, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
- The report has been updated now. It has the same sorting as before (no ORDER BY SQL added) but now has a table format so it can be sorted alphabetically by clicking on the column header. Moreover, empty categories have been split off from the report. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:45, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
- A wiki table (with one row for each category) would be easiest to work with. Even if the report itself isn't sorted, presenting it as a table will allow users to sort it themselves. Omphalographer (talk) 22:16, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
- If a list format would be better the page would be very large and I don't know if it causes other problems but one would have to scroll a lot. Without alphabetic sorting, a list format makes less sense. But I guess once the new version is sorted it could be easier to skim or skip over similarly named items if it was in a list format. Maybe there could be multiple columns so the page isn't so large. Prototyperspective (talk) 21:58, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
- Alright the question is simply which other format would be better and why? Currently this is only one link and doesn't even other data for other columns and people often dislike things at first they are not familiar with. Prototyperspective (talk) 21:48, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
- Pretty hard to figure out any kind of pattern in that list. Maybe a simple word count helps. I used that when the "uncategorized" reports were longer. It allows to fix several similar ones at once. Sample wordcount (some "words" are years or other numbers): from 7899, Fire 7879, Sanborn 7877, Insurance 7877, Map 7876, County 7525, in 1170, North 829, Oklahoma 681, Texas 572, Rhine-Westphalia 546, California 546, New 537, Pennsylvania 513, Washington 492, Missouri 464, of 382, 1911 356, 1909 346, Carolina 332, 1912 328, 1910 324, Ohio 317, Jersey 317, Montana 296, 1914 287, 1913 282, Oregon 281, Indiana 272, Kansas 271, 1921 266, 1908 256, 1915 255, 1920 245, 1916 245, 1922 242, Georgia 241, 1905 235, Florida 232, Virginia 222, Maine 219, City 218, by 212, South 207, 1904 203, 1917 194, 1901 190, 1900 180, Massachusetts 178, West 176, 1919 175.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 23:46, 7 October 2024 (UTC)- Thanks. At the next update it will be sorted alphabetically, maybe that helps. I noticed most of the Rhine-Westphalia cats do have categories but they have been set by a template by the first and only edit by XrayBot and I don't know how to best make such categories disappear from the report – one example for that would be to have a query show all cats included there that have a template set (which usually sets cats) so all of them could get a nulledit to remove all which do have a category from the report (that's just an example, I don't think that's readily possible). Prototyperspective (talk) 09:23, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
- Updated the reports. Down to 1965 now after Sanborn maps cats (thanks Enhancing999 for that) as well as empty cats (separate report) have been taken care of. The one with only infobox categories now has 4364 items (but so far didn't have the empty cats get deleted).
- Prototyperspective (talk) 09:39, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- Second was also updated and is at 4106 but it's probably better to cut down on the report of cats with only redcats because the cats with only Infobox cats can be solved via some tool/script that syncs their categories with ENWP. Prototyperspective (talk) 21:02, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks. At the next update it will be sorted alphabetically, maybe that helps. I noticed most of the Rhine-Westphalia cats do have categories but they have been set by a template by the first and only edit by XrayBot and I don't know how to best make such categories disappear from the report – one example for that would be to have a query show all cats included there that have a template set (which usually sets cats) so all of them could get a nulledit to remove all which do have a category from the report (that's just an example, I don't think that's readily possible). Prototyperspective (talk) 09:23, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
Sanborn maps categories
- Looking at the Sanborn categories, it appears someone ran a script to dump content on the site and then walked away from it. Why is it anyone else's responsibility to clean up their messes for them? RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 13:45, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
- You can use this report to ask the respective people. e.g. @Nowakki:
Also when it comes to files like those in Category:Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Syracuse, Onondage County, New York, 1911, Volume 2 I have suggested that instead of dumping 110 niche files 1911 onto WMC that clutter search results and putting them into categories, it would be better if one instead uploads one document/PDF file. Prototyperspective (talk) 14:34, 8 October 2024 (UTC)- I uploaded the files with the intent of creating the most best collection of sanborn maps anywhere.
- Not only did i fail to find a single person with the slightest enthusiasm for it, but i encountered a number of obstacles. At first i tried to slalom around and through the stupidity, but it was going to be a long process of grinding through ever more peanut brainery, so i started a vote to give me the necessary authority to shove it aside and to flip the switch on the bureaucrats (of which i conversed with a total of at least 5, who were all not talking to each other) in one stroke of genius. I lost the vote, so i pulled the plug on the enterprise. As a bonus, i witnessed a bunch of people who most be on probation or something, manually rename 20000 files, because nobody writes scripts for them, and i learned that commons cannot reliably rename files and the ticket is 10 or so years old (i think there was more than one ticket in that general problem domain). It is not possible to work on a data-mega-center on complex issues if the number of people with a problem solving attitude hovers around 0%. Nowakki (talk) 18:05, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Nowakki: Hi, Your intend is good, but your working process isn't. 1. You shouldn't count on anyone else to fix problems you created with your uploads. 2. You should have start slowly, only uploading a few dozens or hundreds of files, and check if everything was OK before uploading gazillions of files, where the problems have overcome you. Yann (talk) 20:19, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
- Nobody cared about sanborn maps until they suddenly started caring in the middle of the upload campaign. Even after the debate was over involving more than 5 people, at no point did a person appear who was in charge of these maps. I can compensate for lack of leadership with initiative, but if you don't want my sanborn power-user setup, then you don't want it. Nowakki (talk) 20:43, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
- I run into similar issues myself sometimes where people criticize and attack me for doing things that are supposedly controversial. But it's almost impossible to know what is or isn't going to trigger any of the over sensitive snowflakes on here or otherwise cause a controversy until after the fact. There's really no way what-so-ever to know before doing something what random nonsense is going to be an issue or otherwise cause problems though. And good luck getting anyone who throws a fit about it to actually help you fix the issue. Which 100% they should if their the ones making an issue out of it to begin with. More on topic, is there a reason that a bot can't just add parent categories to the ones for Sanborn maps? --Adamant1 (talk) 23:35, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
- Creating the categories is easy. Just got to find somebody to devise a scheme and write a bot.
- I had something in the making like so: User:Nowakki/test3 for the city-level category pages, which i presume all the redcats are pointing to. Nowakki (talk) 04:30, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Adamant1: I spent like two weeks or so writing code for this. I don't really need anyone to do anything, except give me mass rename privilege for a selected number of files.
- Isn't there a way to override borderline imbecile snowflakes, who have the power to vote, with the help of specially trained overlords who act in the interest of progress being made? Nowakki (talk) 12:30, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- It is a simple and straightforward process to request filer mover permissions which enables you to use the massrename tool. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:11, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- I think people who refused the privilege back then were using about as many brain cells as you just did when you imagined you knew how to be of help. Nowakki (talk) 13:35, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- You're quite condescending, even more than Adamant1 here once again. I prefer you do not upload these files versus uploading them the way you did. Apply again with the info why you need these permissions. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:45, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- Somebody should step in and clear a way through the bureaucratic bloat. Then it will be a team effort. Nowakki (talk) 14:05, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah well, I find your attitude towards Nowakki rather patronizing myself. I don't think it really helps to go off about how they shouldn't have uploaded the files to begin with at this point. Different strokes for different folks I guess. I'm sure your the one who's in the right here though just because your acting more agitated about it then I am.
- You're quite condescending, even more than Adamant1 here once again. I prefer you do not upload these files versus uploading them the way you did. Apply again with the info why you need these permissions. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:45, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- I think people who refused the privilege back then were using about as many brain cells as you just did when you imagined you knew how to be of help. Nowakki (talk) 13:35, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- It is a simple and straightforward process to request filer mover permissions which enables you to use the massrename tool. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:11, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- I run into similar issues myself sometimes where people criticize and attack me for doing things that are supposedly controversial. But it's almost impossible to know what is or isn't going to trigger any of the over sensitive snowflakes on here or otherwise cause a controversy until after the fact. There's really no way what-so-ever to know before doing something what random nonsense is going to be an issue or otherwise cause problems though. And good luck getting anyone who throws a fit about it to actually help you fix the issue. Which 100% they should if their the ones making an issue out of it to begin with. More on topic, is there a reason that a bot can't just add parent categories to the ones for Sanborn maps? --Adamant1 (talk) 23:35, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
- Nobody cared about sanborn maps until they suddenly started caring in the middle of the upload campaign. Even after the debate was over involving more than 5 people, at no point did a person appear who was in charge of these maps. I can compensate for lack of leadership with initiative, but if you don't want my sanborn power-user setup, then you don't want it. Nowakki (talk) 20:43, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Nowakki: Hi, Your intend is good, but your working process isn't. 1. You shouldn't count on anyone else to fix problems you created with your uploads. 2. You should have start slowly, only uploading a few dozens or hundreds of files, and check if everything was OK before uploading gazillions of files, where the problems have overcome you. Yann (talk) 20:19, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
- You can use this report to ask the respective people. e.g. @Nowakki:
- Looking at the Sanborn categories, it appears someone ran a script to dump content on the site and then walked away from it. Why is it anyone else's responsibility to clean up their messes for them? RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 13:45, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
- More on topic, the files have already been uploaded. So the question is what to do about it now. I'm a little fuzzy on the original details, but assuming this mainly (or only) has to do with uncategorized categories then I don't see what renaming the files would have to do with it. Someone could use User:Nowakki/test3 as a starting point to create the categories through a bot edit. Then the file names could hopefully be fixed in the future, but that's tangential to creating the categories. Or I assume it is. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong on that though. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:09, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not agitated at all and nowhere was I acting patronizingly or condescendingly towards Nowakki. I don't really care about this case at all. A user asked about it and I looked at the history page and pinged the respective user, then Nowakki said there's problems with renaming without any further details and I helpfully mentioned this can be done by requesting file-moving rights, that's all. Yes, the question is what to do about the files & cats now. The answer to your question of what file naming has to do it is that Nowakki wrote […] except give me mass rename privilege for a selected number of files. Prototyperspective (talk) 22:24, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- I think you were. We'll have to disagree though. But that's not all you said. You seem to have a real problem with being patronizing towards other users and then trying to weasel out of it by acting like everything you said was totally innocent and on topic when it wasn't. Regardless, I think the best way to deal with this is by doing a bot edit based on User:Nowakki/test3. But I have other things to do myself. So someone else is going to have to do it, but that would be my suggestion. I see you asked Nowakki to create a bot request. So at least we're in agreement about it. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:56, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Nowakki: Creating the categories is easy. Just got to find somebody to devise a scheme and write a bot. Could you please create a Bot work request with the details? and if you don't really need anyone to do anything, except give me mass rename privilege for a selected number of files could you please request these permissions? Thanks for your efforts so far. Prototyperspective (talk) 22:45, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- The Sanborn map collection needs to be fixed properly. If you fix the categories you are hiding an indicator that it is broken, which will make the real problem worse. I would therefore advise you to not touch it and move on.
- You can copy+paste the above to where to redlink cats problem is being discussed, so they know that a fix is nontrivial and it will be fixed together with the underlying problem eventually. Nowakki (talk) 23:19, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- What about just up-merging the files to more general ones and deleting the categories their currently in outright then? Or conversely the files could just be mass nominated for deletion. That sounds like a less then optimal solution though lol. --Adamant1 (talk) 23:26, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- If you delete them now they might have to be downloaded again when somebody wants them. Therefore that should be not an option.
- You are thinking of ways to hide indicators of a problem. To me that is a character flaw. Nowakki (talk) 23:43, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- I'm a little hazy on the details, but from what I remember your proposal to rename the files was rejected. So that's clearly not an option. I don't think just leaving the categories as is really helps either. So what's your suggestion to deal with the issue aside from leaving the red links or renaming the files when that already failed? --Adamant1 (talk) 23:46, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- I only state my original proposition. You can proceed in any way you see fit. I would advise you to develop a scheme that make the sanborn map collection awesome and then implement it. Nowakki (talk) 23:50, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- I'm a little hazy on the details, but from what I remember your proposal to rename the files was rejected. So that's clearly not an option. I don't think just leaving the categories as is really helps either. So what's your suggestion to deal with the issue aside from leaving the red links or renaming the files when that already failed? --Adamant1 (talk) 23:46, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- What about just up-merging the files to more general ones and deleting the categories their currently in outright then? Or conversely the files could just be mass nominated for deletion. That sounds like a less then optimal solution though lol. --Adamant1 (talk) 23:26, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not agitated at all and nowhere was I acting patronizingly or condescendingly towards Nowakki. I don't really care about this case at all. A user asked about it and I looked at the history page and pinged the respective user, then Nowakki said there's problems with renaming without any further details and I helpfully mentioned this can be done by requesting file-moving rights, that's all. Yes, the question is what to do about the files & cats now. The answer to your question of what file naming has to do it is that Nowakki wrote […] except give me mass rename privilege for a selected number of files. Prototyperspective (talk) 22:24, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- More on topic, the files have already been uploaded. So the question is what to do about it now. I'm a little fuzzy on the original details, but assuming this mainly (or only) has to do with uncategorized categories then I don't see what renaming the files would have to do with it. Someone could use User:Nowakki/test3 as a starting point to create the categories through a bot edit. Then the file names could hopefully be fixed in the future, but that's tangential to creating the categories. Or I assume it is. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong on that though. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:09, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
The above discussion has gotten terribly convoluted. If there are things that one or more of the participants wish to see happen, could you please each state those, without a bunch of cross-talk? - Jmabel ! talk 07:45, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
- I think this short comment sums it up. I do not understand Nowakki's reply to it. It's unclear what is meant with needs to be fixed properly. And it's also unclear what is meant with I would advise you to develop a scheme that […]. If somebody understands what exactly needs to be done or is proposed please explain it briefly and if not I repeat my question for Nowakki to create a request with the explanation/details. Prototyperspective (talk) 09:37, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
- You are right, the underlying issue has never been properly explained to you.
- User:Nowakki/test3
- hover over the links in the right column.
- The filenames for map files prior to 1900 are bad. They were chosen by a not so brilliant coworker who came ahead of me.
- The map files after 1900 have a better naming scheme.
- If you think this is a cosmetic change, click on one of the files named "ind". The plate number and LOC sequential IDs don't match for the old scheme. It's broken. Suppose you were to run the index through OCR. With the old scheme, you need a separate database to map plate numbers to files. Unsustainable stupidity.
- The index page should be generated for each city when the above issue has been resolved. Nowakki (talk) 11:41, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
- Alright, thanks for explaining! That was the missing info. If you requested file-mover permissions and it was declined that doesn't mean you can't apply again. I think it the permissions will be granted if you provide them with this info. If not, you could also check what else is required to get these permissions but I don't see why the request would fail so please request the file-moving permissions, afterwards you could make use of the mass rename tool and implement the filetitle changes. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:40, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
- If I wanted file mover privileges I could have requested them at any time since January. I just came here to talk about stupidity. Nowakki (talk) 17:06, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Nowakki: Not a very productive thing to do. There is not a lot we can do with "I'd rather have my grievance than a solution." - Jmabel ! talk 06:07, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
- You need at least a few people who can do what you perceive to be an impossible feat. Nowakki (talk) 06:47, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
- Agree. Not sure what the user is up to now when writing sth like that.
What about throwing all of these Sanborn cats into a flat category (for now)? Also maybe they should be separated from the report (if they are in a flat category they wouldn't show up in it anymore anyway). Prototyperspective (talk) 12:42, 12 October 2024 (UTC)- Or remove them from the report, then they don't show up in the report. Nowakki (talk) 12:55, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Nowakki: Not a very productive thing to do. There is not a lot we can do with "I'd rather have my grievance than a solution." - Jmabel ! talk 06:07, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
- If I wanted file mover privileges I could have requested them at any time since January. I just came here to talk about stupidity. Nowakki (talk) 17:06, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
- Alright, thanks for explaining! That was the missing info. If you requested file-mover permissions and it was declined that doesn't mean you can't apply again. I think it the permissions will be granted if you provide them with this info. If not, you could also check what else is required to get these permissions but I don't see why the request would fail so please request the file-moving permissions, afterwards you could make use of the mass rename tool and implement the filetitle changes. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:40, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
- My 2 cents: When it comes to categorizing, I would prefer that Sanborn maps are sorted into cats as follows: Most importantly capsuled in their own categories, always. --> Otherwise, they clutter any categories they are placed in, and are difficult to handle. These are mass-produced cadastral building plans in such a detailed scale that people would not really even classify them as "maps" under some definitions.
- Sanborn maps by states (e.g. Category:Sanborn maps of Maine (or Category:Sanborn maps of Essex County, Massachusetts, if there are sufficient numbers per County) --> This ensures that Sanborn maps are differentiated by the states for those who want to search for them by state overview, but they still don't clutter the direct "Maps of Maine" categories.
- Old maps of Uvw County, Xyz-State (e.g. Category:Old maps of Franklin County, Maine (unless there are sufficient numbers to warrant a "Sanborn maps of Uvw County, see above) --> This ensures that they can be found as reference material for each county that got coverage.
- Whatever exists: Location (e.g. Category:Farmington, Maine for "Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Farmington, Franklin County, Maine") or more detailed: "Cat:Maps of Farmington, Maine" or ideally: "Cat:Old maps of Farmington, Maine" --> This ensures that they can be readily found for the actual community they were created for.
- What we don't need is e.g. File:Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from La Grange, Oldham County, Kentucky. LOC sanborn03193 002-1.jpg being placed as "1895 maps of Kentucky": Because it is not a "map of Kentucky" (this is a map of Kentucky! - similarly, this is not a 1827 map of Tibet (just incidentally showing a white border region with that label) and this is not a 1784 map of the world (despite showing a patch of Earth in 1784)). So, inserting Sanborn maps in the year-maps-of-Kentucky is a disservice to the users because in those categories one would expect finding actual maps that show all or at least a considerable part of Kentucky in the time. Not glorified building plans. Sure, in cases where there are no alternative categories available, users have to improvise in some way. But we do have subcategories on the County and Township levels for the United States. Make use of them. --Enyavar (talk) 10:09, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
October 09
Category:Minority schools came to my attention when User:Elkost added it as a parent of Category:Jewish schools and my immediate reaction was, "What about a cheder in Israel (where Jews are not a minority)? We had a bit of a discussion and both agree that this area of categorization needs more thought than it has had, and more than just he and I can bring to it. In particular (some of this per our discussion, some not):
- Right now, Category:Minority schools includes Category:Minority schools in Bulgaria, Category:Armenian schools, Category:Jewish schools, and Category:Sami schools. Category:Armenian schools seems a particularly odd inclusion, because it, in turn, includes Category:Schools in Armenia, most of which presumably serve the ethnic Armenian majority there.
- @NeverDoING: as creator of Category:Minority schools, can you explain your intention and, in particular, the intended criteria for inclusion in this category?
- Quoting myself, rather than try to word this again from scratch: There are also Japanese and Korean schools in the U.S., American schools in practically every major city of the world, French schools in Spain, Romania, and who knows where else, etc. I'm not sure how we should handle these all, but the emphasis on minority seems wrong to me. Also, there is some sort of distinction to be made between (for example) a Japanese school in the U.S. that focuses entirely on people of Japanese ancestry and one where non-Japanese might study aspects of language and culture as well. I don't think any of this has been well thought through. Plus "Jewish" especially raises the issue of religious vs. ethnic. For example, a cheder is a very different matter than a Jewish day school that teaches a broad curriculum. Analogously, but not a school: the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan is emphatically culturally Jewish, and equally emphatically secular.
Jmabel ! talk 21:04, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Jmabel: What do you think about something like Category:Historically black colleges and universities it relates to this? Surely if it's fine to have a category for historically black colleges and universities then the same would (or at least should) apply for schools having to do with other minority groups. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:14, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- HBCUs are very simple, because they are self-organized into an association.
- I have no problem with the existence of any of these subcats. My issue is with the term "minority schools." Since you bring up Black Americans: would an African-American academy at the high-school level in Detroit (a city that is over 75% Black) be a "minority school"? And, again, why on a global basis are Jews and Armenians deems "minorities" (even though each has a country where they make up the majority) but Hungarians (the majority in Hungary, and an important minority in Romania, Slovakia, and elsewhere) are not? (All three are within about 20% of the same size populations.) - Jmabel ! talk 12:51, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Jmabel: What do you think about something like Category:Historically black colleges and universities it relates to this? Surely if it's fine to have a category for historically black colleges and universities then the same would (or at least should) apply for schools having to do with other minority groups. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:14, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- My thoughts are that the term "Minority" is really poorly defined and that maybe "Ethnic schools" would be better and more precise, we can also use "Religious schools" where relevant Oxyman (talk) 03:59, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
- "Ethnic schools" wouldn't cover Swedish-speaking schools in Finland, as they are based on language (language choice for some of the pupils), not ethnicity. Swedish-speakings Finns, most of whom attend those schools, are still a minority (arguably an ethnic one) on the country level, although not in all towns. I think minority schools would be an adequate category for the schools, at least for schools in areas where Finnish is the majority language. Whether inclusion is based on country level or something else needs to be told, and one might have to go to individual schools for including subcategories (unless there are suitable subcategories, such as Minority schools in Sweden or Jewish minority schools – a naming scheme should be decided on). –LPfi (talk) 09:48, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm going to speak up again because this doesn't seem anywhere near resolution: I think the concept of "minority schools" is a mess. There are ethnic schools, there are religious schools, there are language-specific schools, etc. They are more or less the same thing whether the group involved is a majority or a minority in a gien place. E.g., a Chinese-language school in Richmond, British Columbia, a place with an ethnic Chinese majority is not at all deeply different than one in a different part of the Vancouver area where Chinese are a minority. - 23:24, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
October 12
Could someone verify if we are actually allowed to host all these files or do i have to start a DR?--Trade (talk) 23:37, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
- Seems plausible. The linked web site has a footer which states Музыка, тексты и изображения сайта распространяются по лицензии Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0. Next question is whether it's in scope; I can't help but notice that the artist doesn't have an article on any Wikipedia. Omphalographer (talk) 01:53, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
- Would you mind doing license review of the files in the category? Trade (talk) 03:32, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
- I tried to write the article - but they removed - because for them not enough of weight. Still have a draft https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Участник:Vitaly_Zdanevich/Meanna Vitaly Zdanevich (talk) 17:56, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- The threshold is much lower at Commons than at Wikipedia for some categories of media. Do we have an abundance of contemporary music? If not, then musicians do not have to be that famous to be in scope. We should even have samples of amateur music of different genres from different countries, if possible. Only when we have redundancy for some categories, we should heighten the threshold for them (usable quality should be required from the start, and some level of representativity, but not much more). –LPfi (talk) 10:01, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
October 14
Google's semi-censorship of Wikimedia Commons must end
Please see meta:Community Wishlist/Wishes/Do something about Google & DuckDuckGo search not indexing media files and categories on Commons. I think we can and should do something about Google not indexing most files (including all videos) and category pages on Commons. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:42, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
- It is a private company and if not violating the law, they can do whatever (...) they want. If they choose to ignore stuff on commons - that´s fine. Alexpl (talk) 20:02, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
- I was not saying it's illegal. That may be fine according to law. I wonder if it's fine to Commons that users' contributions are just blacked out and not available to people. Prototyperspective (talk) 21:39, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
- Huge filesizes for photos are a cost factor when it comes to processing and are almost never worth it anyway. I dont blame them from not wanting photos with the megabytes in the three digits to show up, whenever somebody types in a generic searchterm. Alexpl (talk) 14:13, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- This seems offtopic. 1. Most files on WMC are not many MBs large and this is not about some particular few large files. 2. It only shows gstatic thumbnails in Google Search, not the whole image, and it's the same for DDG and other search engines.
It's absurd to argue that Google's storage or processing would have notable issues that out of the millions of indexed website makes WMC one whose media is not findable.
You can of course defend anti-WMC practices – despite that I don't understand why Commons contributors could be supportive of that – but this point does not make sense, partly because this isn't about the <0.1% of WMC files that are large image files to begin with. Prototyperspective (talk) 14:33, 15 October 2024 (UTC)- This is not the first time I have seen you try to dismiss comments with which you disagree as "off topic", when they are not. Please do not so that. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:46, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- I said it seems offtopic and I did notdismiss the comment but address it comprehensively. When I say it seems offtopic that is for example because I may have misunderstood it and/or the user may want to clarify how it would be ontopic. I do wonder why you're so super sensitive about me using the word offtopic. The user did say something but did not explain how it relates to this subject and clarifying that with clear language is I think more constructive than beating around the bush. Prototyperspective (talk) 16:41, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- This is not the first time I have seen you try to dismiss comments with which you disagree as "off topic", when they are not. Please do not so that. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:46, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- There already is a thumbnail for every file here anyway so not even any need to create any anew. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:30, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- This seems offtopic. 1. Most files on WMC are not many MBs large and this is not about some particular few large files. 2. It only shows gstatic thumbnails in Google Search, not the whole image, and it's the same for DDG and other search engines.
- Huge filesizes for photos are a cost factor when it comes to processing and are almost never worth it anyway. I dont blame them from not wanting photos with the megabytes in the three digits to show up, whenever somebody types in a generic searchterm. Alexpl (talk) 14:13, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- I was not saying it's illegal. That may be fine according to law. I wonder if it's fine to Commons that users' contributions are just blacked out and not available to people. Prototyperspective (talk) 21:39, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
- See also meta:Talk:Community Wishlist/Wishes/Do something about Google & DuckDuckGo search not indexing media files and categories on Commons. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:41, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
- There is a commercial interest in steering the search results to commercial and social websites. These generate clicks, not the commons. I do have the impression that Google is much more interested in SDC of files than the Commons categories. Every effort should be made to fill in the P:P180. Google certainly uses the labels in Wikidata as datafeed for the search engines. Also used for educating the translation software.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:12, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia itself is indexed rather highly on Google search results though. And it does index images that are used in Wikipedia articles, but this treatment isn't extended to the other Wikimedia projects. (I can't speak for other media files however). ReneeWrites (talk) 18:26, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- Yes Wikipedia is, but not Commons, the second largest Wikimedia project with a type of content that lots of people are interested in, watch and search for (media of all kinds). It does not index any video on here (at least in my tests I could not find any so far even when searching for the exact title) and images I think are only indexed when they're used in Wikipedia articles and even then often missing from the main results. One part of the proposal is systematic tests/investigations so there is some data on this. I think overall the indexing is pretty bad even when one is searching for a subject that WMC has lots of high quality contents and other image results that are shown are fairly low-quality. One could also focus on the videos. Prototyperspective (talk) 20:32, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- Google often indexes images that are not in a Wikipedia article. I find plenty if I do specifically an image search. But it doesn't tend to list pages that are mainly an image in its general results, so Commons image pages often don't show in the result if you do a general Google search. - Jmabel ! talk 05:11, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
- Rarely it does, but indexing a random tiny subset of files doesn't change anything about the issue and only makes it harder to notice this. I did not find plenty of images for prior searches I did where I then either used an image not from WMC despite that I know WMC has at least as good images well-organized or used the WMC search. Again, investigations are the first step of what is proposed so maybe you could share your searches. Images certainly shouldn't show up in the general search results (well nearly always) – I made it clear that this is about the Images and Videos tabs of these sites...only when it comes to category pages is this about the general search results. I currently don't have many good examples. Things I searched for (those may not be the best examples) I think included roughly
Rivers from space
andAlgae blooms from space
andSatellite picture of cities at night
. This is not about Google&DDG not indexing any files on WMC. Please let me know if that should be clearer in the proposal. It is about them indexing only very few images (and those are not even the most relevant or best) when it should be many (e.g. in searches where WMC has lots of good-organized files), not showing nearly all categories in the results and not indexing any videos. Maybe it should be clearer that isn't necessarily all Google's fault – the investigations may reveal things Wikimedia community & tech could do to improve its inclusion in external search results – however such steps depend on investigations and don't mean step 2 & 3 are invalid, other things could follow up on that step in addition and shape these two. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:30, 16 October 2024 (UTC)- @Prototyperspective: Colourpicture Publishers. There isn't that many results to begin with, but maybe it's at the top because the category has a description that contains the companies name in it? --Adamant1 (talk) 01:21, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, that's the kind of investigations I'm proposing are done large scale and in systematic ways (and well visibly e.g. published in diff) so we can identify cases that are well indexed, find out why, and identify cases that should be well-indexed but aren't and so on.
- It could be that it's at the top because it contains a long descriptive category description – which most cats however don't really need because the category title is self-explanatory – as well as an infobox with all sorts of data. It's not unlikely also because there's few other websites with info on that subject, especially not recent ones that are linked from other pages. As a result of findings like your example, one could for example conduct tests (and/or check the theory via the dataset) whether it's the company's name in the description that caused the cat to show up this high or the description and consider things like adding category-descriptions (partly automatically via WP article leads and/or Wikidata item description). An open letter doesn't have to be as provocative and confrontational as the title of this thread, one could nicely ask Google & Co to improve their results by considering specific things or identified requested changes. Relevant to that is that Google & Co heavily make use of Wikimedia content in all sorts of ways but this isn't about fairly giving back (some media attention however could be due to that and reference that): it would be about them improving their search results for everyone so it shows media or pages that the person searching would likely find useful (e.g. via considering how many files and how many Wikipedia-used files are contained in the category). (When it comes to videos however it seems like purposeful exclusion.) Prototyperspective (talk) 08:24, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Prototyperspective: Colourpicture Publishers. There isn't that many results to begin with, but maybe it's at the top because the category has a description that contains the companies name in it? --Adamant1 (talk) 01:21, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
- Rarely it does, but indexing a random tiny subset of files doesn't change anything about the issue and only makes it harder to notice this. I did not find plenty of images for prior searches I did where I then either used an image not from WMC despite that I know WMC has at least as good images well-organized or used the WMC search. Again, investigations are the first step of what is proposed so maybe you could share your searches. Images certainly shouldn't show up in the general search results (well nearly always) – I made it clear that this is about the Images and Videos tabs of these sites...only when it comes to category pages is this about the general search results. I currently don't have many good examples. Things I searched for (those may not be the best examples) I think included roughly
- Google often indexes images that are not in a Wikipedia article. I find plenty if I do specifically an image search. But it doesn't tend to list pages that are mainly an image in its general results, so Commons image pages often don't show in the result if you do a general Google search. - Jmabel ! talk 05:11, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
- Yes Wikipedia is, but not Commons, the second largest Wikimedia project with a type of content that lots of people are interested in, watch and search for (media of all kinds). It does not index any video on here (at least in my tests I could not find any so far even when searching for the exact title) and images I think are only indexed when they're used in Wikipedia articles and even then often missing from the main results. One part of the proposal is systematic tests/investigations so there is some data on this. I think overall the indexing is pretty bad even when one is searching for a subject that WMC has lots of high quality contents and other image results that are shown are fairly low-quality. One could also focus on the videos. Prototyperspective (talk) 20:32, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia itself is indexed rather highly on Google search results though. And it does index images that are used in Wikipedia articles, but this treatment isn't extended to the other Wikimedia projects. (I can't speak for other media files however). ReneeWrites (talk) 18:26, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- Google clearly does take these images into account. I looked up a handful of terms:
Google Images searches |
---|
|
If you narrow your search to CC images, you get more from Flickr and Commons:
Google Images searches - Narrowed to Creative Commons |
---|
|
I don't believe there even is a problem. Sure, results from WMF projects are only 1 or 2 in many cases, but:
- it's not like there was any other site that did have a majority of the top results
- you can improve them by searching for CC content
- Wikipedia was almost always in the results, even if they didn't have a majority in the top images (which there's no reason it should, might I add). I can't say the same about other results I saw, like Britannica, NatGeo, Adobe Stock, etc.
- Google is showing results from Wikipedia, Commons, and even smaller projects like Wikispecies and Wikivoyage, at times .I wouldn't put it past them that they're prioritizing commercial and social sites that run Google Ads (purely speculation from my part, don't take my word for it), but I find it hard to believe that they're straight up censoring, shadowbanning, or otherwise limiting results from WMF projects. Rubýñ (Scold) 17:21, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- I haven't repeated all the searches to test this, but with the ones I did I only got 1 result from WMF, and it was the image in the infobox of the Wikipedia article about the subject. ReneeWrites (talk) 20:29, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- I personally use Ecosia to search things and I often just type in something in Ecosia rather than search it here because I am too lazy to use the convoluted Wikimedia internal search method (yes, using external websites to find something is oftentimes easy than the internal "search" engines on Wikimedia websites), but I noticed that in the past few months Ecosia has been suppressing non-Wikipedia Wikimedia websites more, now, this seems to coincide with the switch where Ecosia now mixes in Google Search search results with those from Microsoft Bing, before this change Ecosia exclusively used Microsoft Bing and while I've used Microsoft Bing as my main search enginge since 2011~2012'ish, I switched to Ecosia a couple of years ago (after I saw one of their advertisements on Google YouTube) and I occasionally compare it with Google Search and other search engines. Judging by the fact that Google Search suppresses Wikimedia Commons and Microsoft Bing does this to a lesser extent I assume that this likely is a deliberate choice by those companies. But it could probably also be something internal at Wikimedia websites as all non-article space pages at Wikipedia are also excluded from search engines (meaning that someone cannot find any Wikipedia policy pages unless someone looks for them within Wikipedia, which I've always found to be a rather odd choice).
- Now, we know that Google Search, Microsoft Bing, Ecosia, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo! Search, Etc. all heavily rely on Wikidata, perhaps linking all Wikimedia Commons category pages with Wikidata items might help integrate this website better with search engines, if you think about it, the exclusion of the Wikimedia Commons is exclusively the exclusion of the Wikimedia Commons, I have no trouble finding results from the Wiktionary or Wikivoyage, which probably means that the integration between Wikidata and other Wikimedia websites helps them. Now, I know that "SEO" is considered "a curse word among Wikimedians", but if we want the Wikimedia Commons to show up in search results we most likely do need to link to Wikidata and properly use redirects, alternative titles, translations, Etc. in a way that makes sense. For example, if you search for alternative titles on Wikipedia you get them, like "Communist Germany" in a search enginge you'll find the DDR because "Communist Germany" is a redirect at Wikipedia. Meanwhile, we tend to have highly specific titles and redirects are typically deleted. But my guess is that the main culprit is the lack of Wikidata integration at the Wikimedia Commons, I wonder if files with more optimised structured data also show up in search engine results more as these are dependent on Wikidata items. Alternatively, we could compare if categories with or without Wikidata integration show up more in internet search enginges. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 18:52, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for this interesting info contribution.
- Comparing indexing results between search engines like so and across time (especially after algorithms were reported to be changed albeit it's often probably not announced) could help identify causes and potential mitigation measures.
- I never noticed or thought about search engines not indexing policy and meta pages of Wikimedia sites (nonWMC), if so that's also I think something that would be good to be changed if possible. For example, new editors or readers may search for these with a search engine instead of the internal one. If they searched for a meta/help pages on Commons it's often quite possible they can't find it because they don't show up in the search results even when in the MediaSearch' Categories and Pages tab (issue #8 here).
- [Google & Co] all heavily rely on Wikidata that good integration with Wikidata is a cause for SE indexing or good indexing and that improving that integration are two hypotheses that could be tested. I do not think this is the case much because category pages that are linked to Wikidata items also do not show up and only a tiny sub < 0,01% of files are used in Wikidata items or usable there while most items are somewhere underneath a category that is linked to Wikidata item. I think 'it's not linked to a Wikidata item' or 'it doesn't have structured data depicts statements' would be not much more than false excuses (not necessarily deliberate) for not indexing and I don't see why it would rely on / require it / why it should be expected. Moreover, some categories should probably be well-indexed without being linked to a Wikidata item or linking such would be inappropriate or at least can't be done at scale(?) – e.g. Category:Drone videos with lots of organized content can't even be found in DuckDuckGo when searching for
drone videos wiki
(btw I think it should also show up high for searches likefree drone videos
). The linked proposal however is interesting but I have doubts this can be done both at scale and affects the SE much. Data suggesting such as has any significant effect is also missing. So I don't think it would solve this, e.g. videos on WMC still don't show up in the videos tab and many large categories are already linked. - and properly use redirects, alternative titles, translations, Etc. in a way that makes sense Agree. One option is to sync ENWP redirects of items to WMC so WMC has the same redirects [ie a tool for doing so]. Another is Adding machine translated category titles and this could also be implemented via redirects and be extended to category descriptions. This however is another case that I don't think should be required for the pages to show up in search results but only improve them. It's possible that this would solve this even if it shouldn't be that way due to how pages are ranked. Note that this may require that the category page is an actual url with an actual title and not not the same url with some Javascript dynamically changing the title depending on the user language. Another option of creating redirects of translated titles – Category:Tiere (de; only plural form not singular) currently redirects to Category:Animals – can't be done at scale and may cause issues (such as HotCat autocompletes).
- In any case such comparison data would be great even if it's just a small factor (I doubt it's the main culprit for the plural indexing issues).
- Prototyperspective (talk) 20:03, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
- From everything I've been able to tell, Google does index pages in "Commons" space. For example, do a Google search on "structured data commons" (no quotes). - Jmabel ! talk 16:43, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, this is known, e.g. the intro already is about "most" files, not "all" files as well as results' ranking/findability. I've yet got to see a WMC video in the videos tab however. Prototyperspective (talk) 16:46, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Sorry I misunderstood your comment Jmabel – it's addressing point #2 and you're right on that.
- Some examples of low-views useful major categories below. Please comment if anybody knows more in regards to why Videos on WMC are not showing in the Videos tab of Google, DuckDuckGo, etc. Maybe one could ask them or see if there's any other large websites whose videos are not shown there (and why).
- Yes, this is known, e.g. the intro already is about "most" files, not "all" files as well as results' ranking/findability. I've yet got to see a WMC video in the videos tab however. Prototyperspective (talk) 16:46, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- From everything I've been able to tell, Google does index pages in "Commons" space. For example, do a Google search on "structured data commons" (no quotes). - Jmabel ! talk 16:43, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for this interesting info contribution.
- Prototyperspective (talk) 17:23, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
- The 14th most viewed page and the second most viewed category on Commons [1] in also a video category [2]. Views on all Commons pages are quit low there is nothing special with videos on Commons. GPSLeo (talk) 19:13, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, even Commons pages with most view get few views which is consistent with the problem description in the proposal. I did not suggest there was something special with videos except that none of them are shown in and indexed in the videos tab of the search engines. Prototyperspective (talk) 19:29, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
- The 14th most viewed page and the second most viewed category on Commons [1] in also a video category [2]. Views on all Commons pages are quit low there is nothing special with videos on Commons. GPSLeo (talk) 19:13, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
- Prototyperspective (talk) 17:23, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
October 15
Admin action rational
I wonder how much explanation we should expect from admins for their admin actions.
Supposedly, an admin should be able to explain which policy they applied when the delete content from Commons. It's fairly obvious when the content is deleted due to copyright issues, but less so, in other case.
If they can't detail based on which policy they acted, their conduct appears irrational.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 12:40, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Enhancing999: Is there a particular action which concerns you? — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 13:42, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- It's a general question.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 13:44, 15 October 2024 (UTC) - His question probably relates to deleting unnecessary empty categories that will not be filled in the foreseeable future. To be fair, I would like to inform admin @Yann about this ongoing discussion. Lukas Beck (talk) 14:29, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- It's a general question.
- @Enhancing999: I already told you 5 times that we don't keep empty categories. That's the rationale used for deletion. Yann (talk) 15:15, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- Yann: Please avoid off topic comments in discussions.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 15:21, 15 October 2024 (UTC)- @Enhancing999: That was directly on point. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 16:24, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- Jeff G. Maybe you could rephrase it in a way to answer the general question I asked above.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 20:38, 15 October 2024 (UTC)- @Enhancing999: If an Admin is doing something wrong, then certainly they should be held accountable. On the other hand, if a user is doing something wrong (like trying to keep empty categories without good reason), then they should be held accountable. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 21:29, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- Let me rephrase the question: can we expect from an admin that the explain their action in terms of the policy they applied?
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 21:32, 15 October 2024 (UTC)- Up to a point. But if I had to give a detailed explanation tying every action I took back to policy, I would not get much done. Most of the time, it should be clear on the surface. For example, if I correct a misspelled category name, I'm probably not going to cite a specific policy to say why. - Jmabel ! talk 05:15, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
- Not by default, but when asked about it, shouldn't you be able to explain that category names are to be spelled in English per our policy on categories (insert link), that the word is written without the letter "y" as can be found in Wiktionary (insert link), and thus you fixed a typo, applied this or that part of speedy deletion policy (insert link) after the stated delay (insert link). The detailed explanation would be almost the same for thousands of admin actions.
- Imagine you'd repeat <We don't use "Y"> on questions about each aspect instead, wouldn't that be somewhat irrational?
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 08:59, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
- Up to a point. But if I had to give a detailed explanation tying every action I took back to policy, I would not get much done. Most of the time, it should be clear on the surface. For example, if I correct a misspelled category name, I'm probably not going to cite a specific policy to say why. - Jmabel ! talk 05:15, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
- Let me rephrase the question: can we expect from an admin that the explain their action in terms of the policy they applied?
- @Enhancing999: If an Admin is doing something wrong, then certainly they should be held accountable. On the other hand, if a user is doing something wrong (like trying to keep empty categories without good reason), then they should be held accountable. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 21:29, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- Jeff G. Maybe you could rephrase it in a way to answer the general question I asked above.
- @Enhancing999: That was directly on point. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 16:24, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Yann: Right, this is why we have COM:CSD#C2. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 16:23, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- Jeff: your comment appears to be off-topic. Please discuss CSD with Yann on their user page. The question here isn't about a particular action of Yann.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 21:39, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
- Jeff: your comment appears to be off-topic. Please discuss CSD with Yann on their user page. The question here isn't about a particular action of Yann.
- Yann: Please avoid off topic comments in discussions.
- Generally admins don't give rationales for their actions. Nor do I think they should in a lot of cases because it would just get in the way of them doing their jobs. Deleting empty categories being one instance where it's totally pointless and would just needlessly slow things down. Probably with something like blocks they can and should do a better job explaining the reasoning behind it though. I don't think the default block message is really helpful or gets at the issue that led to the block in a lot of, if not most, cases. And the person who is blocked risks having their talk page access restricted or the length of the block getting extended if they ask for clarification about it. Which just seems like a bad way to go about things. Although I don't really see it changing either though. There doesn't really need to be a policy based reason for anything admins do in most cases anyway and it's not like they are (or ever will be) held accountable for anything either. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:51, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
- I'm a big believer in holding admins accountable for questionable actions, but it is no secret that Commons has some fairly severe issues with backlogs. Requiring detailed explanations in situations where the reason is obvious places an undue burden on admins. If asked, they should of course provide at least a basic explanation but requiring it upfront in all cases seems needlessly burdensome. Just Step Sideways (talk) 22:13, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
- In general it's fairly trivial to provide a full explanation. Either there should be a relavant policy or guideline that can be linked. Otherwise, one would have discussion that lead to a consensus.
- Obviously, if one just tries to avoid stating that it's a personal view or one just tries to close a discussion with a disagreeing view, one would have a hard time to provide a link to any of these.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 19:11, 24 October 2024 (UTC)- For information. The user has already been informed several times about which policy serves as the basis for deleting the empty categories. Lukas Beck (talk) 07:34, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
October 16
Patent search
See this about an ice mixture that was patented: File:Alfred Ingvald Naess (1877-1955) in The Pittsburgh Post of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on February 25, 1914.jpg I am hoping someone can find the patent mentioned. --RAN (talk) 00:43, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
UploadWizard gives author as "[[User:Example|Example]]"
UploadWizard has started between 16:42 and 18:41 UTC today in my uploads to put the whole wikitext syntax again as the label of the link for the author, e.g. here. In wikitext this is: [[User:Example|[[User:Example|Example]]]]
. Other files uploaded with UploadWizard at Special:NewFiles seem not to be concerned. Do you know if this is a known bug? --Marsupium (talk) 19:30, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
- Hi @Marsupium, this should not be the correct way UW should be working. Can I ask you to please report this bug on Phabricator and then ping me back? If you want, I can help you in filing it. Let me know. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 16:57, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
Done with phab:T377656. --Marsupium (talk) 15:51, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Marsupium Thank you, I'll put it soon on the dev's desk, and I hope I'll let you know asap. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 10:07, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Marsupium The bug should be solved now, can you please confirm it is? Sannita (WMF) (talk) 08:49, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Marsupium Thank you, I'll put it soon on the dev's desk, and I hope I'll let you know asap. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 10:07, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
October 17
Has this image been reversed?
Before I change it, perhaps someone else could offer their opinion or confirmation that the image File:Isle of Portland from north.jpg is reversed. It does seem that way to me, but OTOH it has been the lead image on the Wikipedia "Isle of Portland" page for well over a year, and I am surprised that no one would have noticed it, so just in case I am somehow getting totally confused ... ITookSomePhotos (talk) 20:50, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- @ITookSomePhotos: image looks correct based on https://www.google.com/maps/@50.5815434,-2.47068,3a,15.4y,141.92h,91.33t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1syOV48P10BlMZCqMO26pIyw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-1.325757803622352%26panoid%3DyOV48P10BlMZCqMO26pIyw%26yaw%3D141.92418667477529!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205410&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTAxNS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D - Jmabel ! talk 07:51, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
- It's correct, compare this image Broichmore (talk) 12:25, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
- Oh yes, sorry, I made the mistake of thinking ... well, never mind, just being an idiot. Thank you both for taking the time to look at it. ITookSomePhotos (talk) 14:45, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
- Your confusion is completely understandable. IMO, you won’t be the last. I know Portland well, and it gave me pause. If I were you, I'd consider leaving a confirmation on the image's talk page confirming the orientation. You could also put in camera co-ordinates, as a suggestion. Broichmore (talk) 11:06, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
- Oh yes, sorry, I made the mistake of thinking ... well, never mind, just being an idiot. Thank you both for taking the time to look at it. ITookSomePhotos (talk) 14:45, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
October 18
More junk data being added to 'depicts' statements
Do you want to know what "historic site (Q1081138)" looks like? Or the village of Egton (Q4394967)? See the above picture! According to User:GeographBot, that's what this image depicts.
I thought we had stopped the automatic addition of vague and irrelevant "tags" as values for depicts (P180) when we turned off the WMF's benighted Tagging Tool and reverted most of its edits, but apparently not. This has been going on for months, it seems. I just removed a load of nonsense values from an image and replaced them with the value for the item describing the actual subject. They were added by the bot in August 2023.
We currently have over 415,000 images with P180=Q1081138.
The bot approval - dated 2021 - says "depicts (P180) - What do we see in the photo. This based on the [[tags and on the reverse geocoding of the object coordinates". Separate SDC properties for tags exist.
The conversions are apparently handled by the list at User:GeographBot/Tags - but this includes some very problematic pairs, suggesting, for example, that a Geography tag of cross should be interpreted as depicting cross (Q40843) - a "geometrical figure". But the tag is most likely to be used on images depicting a Christian cross (Q392371) ("symbol of Christianity") or a Celtic cross (Q229788) ("Christian cross superimposed on a circle"). Another entry suggests that images might depict Ordnance Survey (Q548721) ("organisation that creates maps of Great Britain"). Another that images tagged as "standing+stone" depict menhir (Q193475) - a subclass of standing stones. Anything tagged "town hall" will be said to depict Rathaus (Q543654) - which is unique to German speaking countries. Odd, given that the entire Geograph corpus consists solely of images from the UK.
I do not believe there has ever been community consensus expressed that tag values should be used in P180 (I have asked previously, more than once, and have never been furnished with evidence). Such behaviour needs to stop, or be stopped; and the values moved or removed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:53, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
October 19
Category:Toy stores is currently a subcategory of Category:Toy shops. What is the difference between these two categories? --トトト (talk) 05:27, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
- Category:Stores is a redirected to Category:Shops. So the differences probably don't matter even if there are any to begin with. Personally, I've always found putting everything having to do with retail selling in a category for shops to be a little weird. But it is what it is. So Category:Toy stores should probably just be a redirect unless your willing to relitigate the whole thing more generally. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:51, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for your reply. Things are quite a bit clarified for me now. --トトト (talk) 07:10, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
How should I indicate the source of these images
12 Public domain images from an archived page at archive.org, which I uploaded. I was was unable to specify the web-address/origin of the uploaded images, due to the current version of the website being banned. I can't even put the address here for you to look at because
- "The text you wanted to publish was blocked by the spam filter. This is probably caused by a link to a forbidden external site. The following text is what triggered our spam disallow list: turismo-prerromanico.es."
An example of what I'm trying to give a source for, File:Beatus Emilianense - page 130r.jpg.
I will try to show you the source page in a different way: to see the original page, put a period between prerromanico and es:
- https://web.archive.org/web/20100929110253/http://turismo-prerromanico es/ARTERURAL/MINIATURA/BEMILIANENSE-BN/BEMILIANENSEficfrn.htm
Links to images are beneath the photo on the right side, top.
Should I forgo giving the specific address these came from? Any suggestions? Jacqke (talk) 11:07, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Jacqke: The license should be
{{PD-Art|PD-old-100-expired}}
. I fixed some of your files. Please do the rest. Yann (talk) 11:17, 19 October 2024 (UTC)- Will do. Thank you. I need to change many that I've loaded recently Jacqke (talk) 15:46, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Jacqke and Yann: I suspect what I did here is about as well as we can do. - Jmabel ! talk 14:33, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
- That looks good. Thank you! Jacqke (talk) 15:47, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
- nowiki works too.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 19:27, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
- nowiki works too.
- That looks good. Thank you! Jacqke (talk) 15:47, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
How to handle a widespread hoax flag used as official flag?
Fake joke flag
This troll Martini-flag has nothing to do with Saint-Martin. It's not used on the island. It's a well played booze and word joke. It's funny to see that the joker or marketeer who made this fictional flag rotated the Sint-Maarten flag 90°, just like the Dutch and French flag are rotated, and modeled it after a Martini cocktail. I hope you do see that the glass is low on liqor but still has an olive in it. Of course this must mean that the whole nation is drunk and possibly hung over?
Too few involved users = Wikisupport for the troll
Not so funny is the naming on Wikimedia and widespread use on Wikipedia, of the liqor flag as the or as a Saint-Martin flag. That's similar to replacing the US Stars and Stripes by a Coors flag and then editing (templates on) 1001 pages to deliver the joke. I suspect that would be considered offensive and vandalising. Probably the changes would be corrected very fast, as there are many of our users that salute the US flag on a dayly basis.
But here we have only a few users from Saint Martin, like this anonymous who complains about the troll flag: File talk:Flag of Saint-Martin (fictional).svg and asks for deletion. They get just one kitty you just don't like it-reply that sweeps the problem under the rug. The one "Active user" from the Saint Martin work group cannot reply, because he's permanently blocked... And this old 2008 threat Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Flag of Saint-Martin (local).svg sings the great song of indifference, protest is futile. Even the as unreliable tagged en:WP:FOTW Flags of the World website is more critical then us, by calling it a dubious flag.
Meanwhile the "look at this funny drunken nation"-flag spread onto nearly a 1000 pages. I've just removed the flag from the Dutch wiki, including an EU navigation template with all the official flags of the EU... That's what you get when the name of the flag seems official, and users expect Commons to uphold the same reference based quality checks as Wikipedia. It would not surprise me, if "we" had a significant part in spreading this joke of a flag to the flag-shops of the world.
How to solve this and learn from it?
I've read a whole series of pages to see where this problem would fit. On several specific pages you can post simple problems, like the talk page which has no traffic whatsoever, or action pages to simply rename, delete or ... This complex problem transcends them, it is not a simple to do action or policy, more like a whole project. I'm new here, so I wonder how we discuss these complex problems and break them into simple steps like these:
- removing all the above flags and flagmaps, except for the first one.svg, to break up the troll relation with Saint-Martin;
- renaming the pranksterflag as such: Martini cocktail joke flag.svg (remove the StM reference from the name);
- uploading the official French flag in the old namespace, as it would solve most of the problems on the 1001 pages in one go;
- using the cocktail flag as an example and reminder on Commons that we should check sources before posting an image ¿is this policy?
- ...
Do you think this flag is offensive to Saint-Martin inhabitants? Do we have policies to deal with this complex kind of problems? If not, what can we do to solve the problem? How would you reach out to 50? different language Wikipedias? Are there joke categories or pages that would embrace the Martini flag? ...?
Flags that are in fact used on Saint-Martin
Official flags that are used at the border monument, or used to in the past.
-
border
-
EU
-
FR
-
NL
-
Ant.nl
-
StM.nl
On the streets you can see the local government logo and the before 2010 Coat of Arms, the new one is used in local government documents.[3][4]
Another flag that is visable on local photos is a political island unity flag.
Discussion
I've posted the above. Let's talk here? Groetjes, Peter (talk) 22:27, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
- Hoo boy, what a mess.
- The flag maps absolutely need to go; I've just nominated them for deletion. The educational value of flag maps is marginal at best; if we're going to have these images at all, they should only be based on official flags.
- The other flags should, at most, be consolidated to a single image with a filename which makes it very obvious that it's a joke. Official-sounding filenames like File:Flag of Saint Martin.png are part of the problem here; they invite editors to assume that the flag has official status (particularly since the same naming scheme is used for real national flags). Omphalographer (talk) 22:39, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
- Nobody ever takes any file talk page complaints by IPs seriously unfortunately Trade (talk) 01:05, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
I had thought about nominating some pretty dubious "flag maps" for deletion awhile ago but they were all in use on other projects and the creator of a DR can't usually remove images involved in it from other projects without people on here crying foul about involved editing or whatever. There really needs to be solution to that though or I don't imagine these types of fake images will ever be dealt with to any meaningful degree. I don't think it's an issue of there being to few users to deal with it though. There's plenty of people on here who are against Commons hosting these kinds of files. It's more the bad faithed personal attacks and obfuscation from the other side that tends to happen when someone nominates in use files for deletion or tries to remove them from other projects before doing so. The same usually goes for the uploaders BTW. They also tend to obfuscate and derail DRs having to do with their uploads. So there's really no point in bothering. --Adamant1 (talk) 04:20, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
Categorization is another thing to think about. This one for example somehow ended up in subcategories of Category:Proposed flags. I think that category tree should be used for flags that were actually somewhat seriously proposed to become an official flag of something, not merely fictional/parody flags like these? The Category description offers no guidance on this. --El Grafo (talk) 08:39, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- To some extent, any content can be used for jokes. We can't really edit Wikipedia on behalf of users there.
- Obviously, our file names shouldn't imply that it is or was an official flag. This was renamed in 2014 already, so Wikipedia's should have had time to sort it out.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 11:28, 20 October 2024 (UTC)- Cleaned-up the file description page of the png version asked it to be renamed: Special:Permalink/946887090. Instead of updating the filenames on other wikis, one could consider delinking it there.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 11:45, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Cleaned-up the file description page of the png version asked it to be renamed: Special:Permalink/946887090. Instead of updating the filenames on other wikis, one could consider delinking it there.
- Totally agree about the Category:Proposed flags. I get in a little tiff with a user once because they thought user created flags should go in the category. Kind of a weird opinion really, but I don't think the category should include user created flags that haven't been proposed anywhere outside of a Wikimedia project. --Adamant1 (talk) 11:33, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Ætoms you uploaded the svg one. @Fry1989 you reverted a png version. Other uploaders don't appear to have been active in 2024.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 12:25, 20 October 2024 (UTC)- In the one case where I could find a way to remove it, I was promptly and kindly advised to not remove the flag from a "Flag of St Martin" page, because it is "clearly labelled fictional and so there is no need to remove it". 🤯 --Enyavar (talk) 19:52, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
However, this template-shit looks really bad to me. When I first saw this I thought it just needs some diligent work to revert it, but quick reversion is impossible if you cannot revert changes. The flag has been spammed into all projects via some undetectable template... or something. The code in the projects says [[File:Flag of Saint-Martin (local).svg]]
(
good!) and the rendered content for that very code then shows
. Has this magic trick been done in Wikidata, in Commons, or in each project separetely with a template? How does this even work? However it was done, right now it seems to me like a really heinous way of project sabotage. --Enyavar (talk) 19:52, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- I think something was cached. I purged that page and the martini flag has disappeared. Omphalographer (talk) 20:05, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- Huh. I force-reloaded the page a few times (usually solves similar issues), and my problem with it was also already there yesterday, so I hadn't considered a stuck cache. Thanks, that makes it much much less heinous. Does that mean we have to manually purge all 900+ pages where the flag is still cached-in-use, or is an administrative action possible? --Enyavar (talk) 21:45, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- Wouldn't it be better to make redirects to a correct file rather then renaming? This will avoid all manual replacements. Ellywa (talk) 22:14, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- Huh. I force-reloaded the page a few times (usually solves similar issues), and my problem with it was also already there yesterday, so I hadn't considered a stuck cache. Thanks, that makes it much much less heinous. Does that mean we have to manually purge all 900+ pages where the flag is still cached-in-use, or is an administrative action possible? --Enyavar (talk) 21:45, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
October 20
Special:Upload
What's the best way to make a bulk upload using the same Summary, License and Categories across all images?--Trade (talk) 01:03, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- With the Upload Wizard. You enter the license all the images will share in the first screen. In the second screen where you enter the summary and categories (and depicts statements, etc.), enter this information for the top image, then below there's a drop-down menu (closed by default) to "Copy information to other uploads". ReneeWrites (talk) 01:14, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- While the above is good for up to around 50 images at a time (and can be repeated by selecting "upload more images" for a second batch, etc), if by "bulk upload" User:Trade means many more than that, then Com:Pattypan or Com:OpenRefine are good alternates. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:34, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- And if it's not enormous, and the Upload Wizard does not quite produce what you want, ping-ponging with Special:Upload can also be quite effective. - Jmabel ! talk 17:00, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- While the above is good for up to around 50 images at a time (and can be repeated by selecting "upload more images" for a second batch, etc), if by "bulk upload" User:Trade means many more than that, then Com:Pattypan or Com:OpenRefine are good alternates. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:34, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
Usage of "on Wikipedia" header for subjects that have multiple Wikipedia articles
To give an example Category:Photography. Maybe it's just me, but that large of an infobox just seems needlessly obtuse and pointless. Especially considering people can find links to Wikipedia articles from Wikidata if they want to. IMO it's not really useful to have a link on our end to every single Wikipedia article having to do with photography though even if some of the articles might be worth linking to. As it just gets in the way of people finding images and categories related to the topic. Thoughts? Adamant1 (talk) 05:21, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Both the {{On Wikipedia}} template and the cluster of "sister" ({{Sisterwiktionary}}, {{Sisterwikiversity}}, etc) templates below that seem unnecessary given that the Wikidata infobox automatically displays links to any associated projects in the user's preferred language. This may have been necessary before interwiki links were centralized at Wikidata, but it isn't anymore. Omphalographer (talk) 06:46, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Agreed, these are remnants of days gone past. Nowadays, they just add additional clutter and make the user experience less consistent across different pages. I think they can be weeded out without much concern. El Grafo (talk) 08:23, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Agreed. ReneeWrites (talk) 09:32, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Agreed, these are remnants of days gone past. Nowadays, they just add additional clutter and make the user experience less consistent across different pages. I think they can be weeded out without much concern. El Grafo (talk) 08:23, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Actually it displays the term in multiple languages which the infobox doesn't. For photography, this isn't particularly interesting beyond the F/PH question.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 10:45, 20 October 2024 (UTC)- The infobox automatically translates terms like these to the user's preferred language. If I read the page in English it has "animal" at the top, but if I change my language setting to Dutch, it changes to "dier", and so on. ReneeWrites (talk) 12:25, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- That's a monolingual approach. Depending on the topic, the preferred language may change. I would generally want to see English and Portuguese descriptions on anything related to Portugal or Brazil.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 12:28, 20 October 2024 (UTC)- The template on "Photography" showed more than 100 different languages. On "Animals" it was more than 300. ReneeWrites (talk) 12:55, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- ? The comment was about the infobox. Prototyperspective (talk) 14:25, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- We were talking about both the template and the infobox. Enhancing999 said he wanted two languages, and defended the use of a template that adds hundreds without filtering them out, because the infobox only does one at a time. That is wildly excessive. ReneeWrites (talk) 15:06, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- "photography" is obviously pointless as a category name to look for, as it's implied in almost all categories. Besides, the word isn't really any different every language.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 17:10, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- "photography" is obviously pointless as a category name to look for, as it's implied in almost all categories. Besides, the word isn't really any different every language.
- We were talking about both the template and the infobox. Enhancing999 said he wanted two languages, and defended the use of a template that adds hundreds without filtering them out, because the infobox only does one at a time. That is wildly excessive. ReneeWrites (talk) 15:06, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- ? The comment was about the infobox. Prototyperspective (talk) 14:25, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- The template on "Photography" showed more than 100 different languages. On "Animals" it was more than 300. ReneeWrites (talk) 12:55, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- That's a monolingual approach. Depending on the topic, the preferred language may change. I would generally want to see English and Portuguese descriptions on anything related to Portugal or Brazil.
- The infobox automatically translates terms like these to the user's preferred language. If I read the page in English it has "animal" at the top, but if I change my language setting to Dutch, it changes to "dier", and so on. ReneeWrites (talk) 12:25, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Agree and I have already removed such from several categories. Category:Animals is one example where I removed it. Btw, it doesn't seem like it led to a drop in pageviews. The Wikipedia articles of various languages are already linked in the sidebar / the language panel and so redundant in terms of links. When it comes to descriptions and titles for categories in other languages (to make the cat understandable, findable in external search engines, and findable in the internal search engine when for some reason searching in another language), see Wish:Add machine translated category titles on WMC. In short I think all of these boxes should be removed since the Wikipedia links are already in the panel and it clutters the page while pushing its content down. Prototyperspective (talk) 10:47, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- I think you are assuming Commons is an English language website. It isn't.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 10:48, 20 October 2024 (UTC)- I don't know why you take this comment to suggest that instead of the exact opposite. Prototyperspective (talk) 10:51, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Replacing a working solution with a link to a wishlist entry (possibly existing for 20 years) results in the opposite you might intend.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 10:55, 20 October 2024 (UTC)- Well good point. It's a link to a wishlist proposal to be precise. However, a) the motivation and need for it to be implemented would increase if problematic workarounds are abandoned instead of kept which inhibit truly addressing this b) such large headers aren't that useful for that purpose because it's hard to spot your own language text among the many links there and most categories miss these headers. Prototyperspective (talk) 10:59, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- (a) Yeah, it's true that things that have a half way working community solution might be less likely to be fixed then matters where we just let it be not working, afterall Wikimedia has paid staff for just that part. I doubt we should remove working approaches just for that.
- (b) isn't there a feature that highlights that? Personally, I think these are more useful in cases where the language is less known (to me) or the terminology a bit obscure.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 11:06, 20 October 2024 (UTC)- Isn't the language thing a none issue if the Wikidata infobox automatically displays links to any associated projects in the user's preferred language anyway? I really don't understand what purpose a list of articles in different languages serves at that point. Especially considering as Prototyperspective points out it's impossible to find an article for any given language in the list anyway. --Adamant1 (talk) 11:12, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- There are no links involved in p's sample nor does the infobox display any of that.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 11:17, 20 October 2024 (UTC)- Looking at Category:Animals there's links to other projects in the infobox under the images of animals, right above the section for audio. So I'm not really sure what your talking about. --Adamant1 (talk) 11:27, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- I was referring to what P. removed.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 11:29, 20 October 2024 (UTC)- ? these were links and the language panel has these links (hundreds thereof). Prototyperspective (talk) 11:58, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Other than the layout being suboptimal, it displays actual translations, sometimes more than one (sample: Esperanto/eo). The links are secondary.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 12:07, 20 October 2024 (UTC)- 1. You said no links involved which is what I referred to 2. The language panel also displays actual translations (indeed just one which is the page title). Prototyperspective (talk) 12:14, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Good point. I had looked at the diff only.
- The language panel isn't really a substitute. For English language only users, it might be sufficient, but it doesn't really support our multilingual website for other languages.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 12:18, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- 1. You said no links involved which is what I referred to 2. The language panel also displays actual translations (indeed just one which is the page title). Prototyperspective (talk) 12:14, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Other than the layout being suboptimal, it displays actual translations, sometimes more than one (sample: Esperanto/eo). The links are secondary.
- ? these were links and the language panel has these links (hundreds thereof). Prototyperspective (talk) 11:58, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- I was referring to what P. removed.
- Looking at Category:Animals there's links to other projects in the infobox under the images of animals, right above the section for audio. So I'm not really sure what your talking about. --Adamant1 (talk) 11:27, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- There are no links involved in p's sample nor does the infobox display any of that.
- Isn't the language thing a none issue if the Wikidata infobox automatically displays links to any associated projects in the user's preferred language anyway? I really don't understand what purpose a list of articles in different languages serves at that point. Especially considering as Prototyperspective points out it's impossible to find an article for any given language in the list anyway. --Adamant1 (talk) 11:12, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Well good point. It's a link to a wishlist proposal to be precise. However, a) the motivation and need for it to be implemented would increase if problematic workarounds are abandoned instead of kept which inhibit truly addressing this b) such large headers aren't that useful for that purpose because it's hard to spot your own language text among the many links there and most categories miss these headers. Prototyperspective (talk) 10:59, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Replacing a working solution with a link to a wishlist entry (possibly existing for 20 years) results in the opposite you might intend.
- I don't know why you take this comment to suggest that instead of the exact opposite. Prototyperspective (talk) 10:51, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- I think you are assuming Commons is an English language website. It isn't.
- Apart from all the other things wrong with this, it's manually populated, which is just silly. I've removed it from Category:Photography, along with the duplicative sister- project templates (incusing one linking it to, er, Category:Photography!). We should probably consider a script to mass remove them from categories and galleries; then delete them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:16, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- I started doing this for some existing instances of sisterlinks and noticed a couple of other category page cleanups which should perhaps be performed concurrently:
- Placing templates in a standard order to achieve a consistent appearance.
- Converting {{Translation table}}, {{Other language}}, or standalone language tags like {{En}} to {{Multilingual description}}.
- Removing redundant, nonstandard navigation templates like {{Category tree}}.
- Removing interwiki links (which, as far as I'm aware, no longer have any effect?).
- Manually removing ad-hoc content like images or untagged description text.
- Anyone interested in making a project out of this? Omphalographer (talk) 19:09, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Would be good if somebody did that and probably the place to request this would be Commons:Bots/Work requests. Probably something should be done to increase the number of people able to and engaged in creating in Commons bots since there's already a fair amount of requests there + a number of archived unsolved requests. Prototyperspective (talk) 19:51, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- It's a good initiative. I think it would be helpful to first establish what the actual template order should be and what is and isn't suitable for category descriptions before we start initiating a mass editing campaign. Wikipedia has an elaborate manual of style but Commons does not (though I think we could copy a few pages from there). The upside to having established policies is that it leads to clear guidelines, uniformity, and avoids conflict and edit warring. ReneeWrites (talk) 19:56, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, absolutely. The first step in the project would be establishing consensus on what changes should be made. Omphalographer (talk) 20:33, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think {{En}} should be converted to {{Multilingual description}}.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 20:26, 20 October 2024 (UTC) - What's to be the alternative to {{Sisterwiktionary}}, {{Sisterwikiversity}}?
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 20:37, 20 October 2024 (UTC)- With regard to {{En}}, the table at Template:Multilingual description#Other multi-lingual templates disagrees. It describes single-language templates like {{En}} as "deprecated" and recommends that they only be used on file description pages.
- The alternative to the "sister links" templates is the existing list of links in {{Wikidata infobox}}, as well as the automatically generated interwiki links in the sidebar ("In other projects" / "In Wikipedia"). Manually maintaining a local duplicate of these links is unsustainable. Omphalographer (talk) 20:48, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Weird, depending on how one reads Template:Multilingual description#Other multi-lingual templates it shouldn't be used even for file description pages.
- For sister links, Wikidata Infobox might be an alternative. Maybe it can be enhanced to point to other languages. The sidebar doesn't seem to work in general.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 20:56, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- I started doing this for some existing instances of sisterlinks and noticed a couple of other category page cleanups which should perhaps be performed concurrently:
Close discussion
Please close this discussion. Микола Василечко (talk) 10:27, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
Improve search?
I was looking for Category:We Can Do It but i didnt remember the exact slogan. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=work+poster+women or "work poster women war" doesnt really help, but google can understand it better and give the wp link as the top result.
this makes me think that commons search should be improved. RoyZuo (talk) 18:26, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- It's unclear what or how you think it should be improved. I recently listed 11 issues for MediaSearch and its underlying search algo that is also used in the prior SpecialSearch that you link to here. I think it should show some results of the category you linked to because e.g. it contains the word "work" that you searched for multiple times in its categories, description etc combined with the other terms you searched for. I also think the Commons search should be improved, and one issue that I listed there relevant to your case here is that files in use in mainspace on some or several Wikipedias would be good to display high up in the search results and several/many files in the cat you linked are used. The files in the search results are also used but files in the cat you linked aren't even displayed on the next few pages (or scrolling down in MediaSearch). Prototyperspective (talk) 18:41, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
Use of "opaque" background request template on photographic images
Hi,
I'm looking for some feedback upon whether or not it is considered reasonable to apply the {{Opaque}} template specifically to an image that was originally a photograph taken against a white background. This template states
- "This image was uploaded with an opaque background where it should have been transparent. If possible, please upload a PNG or SVG version of this image, derived from a non-JPEG source so that it has an alpha channel and no compression artifacts (or with existing artifacts removed). If it is not possible to obtain a cleaner version then consider creating a new, derivative, image with the background removed, while leaving this image alone; use templates such as {{Retouched picture}} and {{Derivative versions}} as appropriate; then ignore the rest of these requests."
koavf (talk · contribs) applied this to of one of my images here (which was in turn propagated to a cropped derivative).
An image that was taken as a photograph with no inherent transparency "should" have been uploaded with a transparent background? Really? Are you arguing that every such image "should" have been manually (and painstakingly) worked on to do this before upload? Because that's the only way you're going to get that from a regular photograph.
I reverted the change on both versions, but on the derivative copy, my reversion was undone by Koavf with the argument that
- "It's totally valid to have a photographic element extracted from its background to have a transparent one and it's totally normal in a lot of bitmap formats such as PNG. It's not possible with JPEG, that's true, but the photo could be embedded in PNG and have the background removed."
This misses the point. There's a big difference between effectively arguing that it would be *nice* to have a version of this image with a transparent background and (mis-)using a template that states that it "should" have been uploaded like that in the first place.
To me, it seems obvious that this template was intended for images where transparency *already* inherently existed and could be restored from the source, or where it could easily be applied by re-rendering.
In a previous message on Koavf's talk page, I noted politely but pointedly that
- "If you [Koavf] are willing to do the hard work [emphasis added here] of Photoshopping it to (convincingly) remove the background yourself, and upload that version as a borderless PNG version under a different filename, please feel free to do so."
The hint clearly wasn't understood or taken. And Koavf didn't, of course, get round to doing themselves the "hard work" they seemed to take for granted the uploader would be magically able to do.
Regardless, by that logic, one could slap this template on countless JPEGs of objects photographed shot against a white background, and it would just end up being similarly pointless and inappropriate clutter because there's no inherent transparency in photographs, and no simple way to add it. If you *want* someone to do that, please don't misuse {{Opaque}} for that reason.
Please let me know what you think. Multicherry (talk) 20:35, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Agree when it comes to photos. However, I have to add that there's now AI tools to easily and quickly remove backgrounds so maybe it actually makes sense to add them now since a few months or in the near future. Search for
hugging face remove background
to find some Web tools to do so. Maybe something could be done there. The large template seems unwarranted in such a cases however. Prototyperspective (talk) 20:46, 20 October 2024 (UTC)- @Prototyperspective: Even if that were the case- and there is a place for that- I would disagree with the misuse of the {{Opaque}} template for that purpose.
- I'd also disagree that such versions *should* be uploaded- or expected- as the "original" rather than as a derivative and modified version (and clearly marked as such), if only for reasons of veracity. Multicherry (talk) 21:07, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Entirely unreasonable. {{Opaque}} is clearly intended to be applied to non-photographic images (like logos or diagrams) which were "generated" with a matte background, and where it's possible for the creator of the image to losslessly regenerate the image from source data without that background. It is not applicable to photos. Omphalographer (talk) 20:56, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Omphalographer: My point exactly, thank you. Multicherry (talk) 21:07, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- "one could slap this template on countless JPEGs of objects photographed shot against a white background". So? There's a lot to do. This is a media repository with an extremely broad scope and we could plausibly have... 100 billion pieces of media? Just because that's a tall order that we're not likely to ever fulfill, does that mean we should give up? I just don't even understand this line of reasoning. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:37, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Koavf: - You're still missing- or ignoring- the main point that has been stated multiple times. Please go back and read what I already said elsewhere in this discussion, especially here.
- Again, the problem is that you're misusing a template whose wording makes clear that it isn't intended for cases where one would like the background manually removed, it's for ones where the background *should* be removed.
- Whether or not it would make sense to plaster a wish for background removal on every single white-background-image (and my personal feeling is that it would just be clutter because no-one will have time to do that vast majority), it certainly shouldn't be done via the misuse of the {{Opaque}} template, which covers a different use case.
- If there's no existing way of requesting such edits in a more appropriate manner, IMHO a new template or mechanism should be created. Multicherry (talk) 18:24, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- You are making up stuff about what Template:Opaque/doc says. I have yet to see a usage of {{Opaque}} that is inappropriate. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:27, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Koavf: That's precisely what this discussion was started to clarify. Several others in this thread (myself included) disagree with you.
- But let's go with your assumption that you *were* using the template correctly and that it accurately reflects what you want to say- namely that that I "should" have uploaded a photograph with transparancy pre-applied.
- Really? Do you imagine I have a magic camera that automatically does that? Or are you suggesting the onus is on me to manually apply transparency to an image where it never existed in the first place?
- I'm not saying that particular photograph is especially great, or that I spent that much time taking it, but it's still irritating to see someone slap wording on it telling me I "should" have uploaded it with transparency applied when I already spent time taking the photo and they haven't done anything.
- Or maybe that's not what you meant, and that's only how it comes across because the wording was never written with that usage in mind?
- Multicherry (talk) 18:54, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- Could you please stop with the hysterics? No, I don't think you have magic. It's fine to upload an image with one format or border or cropping or whatever and then modify it to add another. This happens all the time and doesn't require magic. No one is saying that you should have done anything: I'm saying that a modified version of the image would be best. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:09, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- "Hysterics"? No. You can read that "magic" comment as irritated sarcasm if that wasn't already as obvious as it should have been.
- Regardless... if what you were actually saying- or rather, what you wanted to say- was "that a modified version of the image would be best", well... that's not what the template says. Which is the point I was trying to make. Multicherry (talk) 19:35, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- If you could please stop saying one thing and then rewording it as another and also rewriting what I say, that would be nice. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:46, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- Could you please stop with the hysterics? No, I don't think you have magic. It's fine to upload an image with one format or border or cropping or whatever and then modify it to add another. This happens all the time and doesn't require magic. No one is saying that you should have done anything: I'm saying that a modified version of the image would be best. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:09, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- Multicherry (talk) 18:54, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- Agree with Multicherry. Prototyperspective (talk) 18:55, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
I don't like the phrasing of the template. It's almost accusatory, like the person who uploaded the image it's applied to made a mistake. But it's used on various .jpg files (files that don't support transparency), where it basically serves as a request for a .png version to be made where the subject is isolated from its background. In that sense I don't think the template was mis-applied, but the wording should be fixed so a request for a derivative version doesn't read like an insult to the original. ReneeWrites (talk) 21:26, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- @ReneeWrites: As you note, misusing {{Opaque}} in that context gives it an irritatingly accusatory and entitled tone, and I don't think that was ever the intention.
- The reason it comes across badly is because it *is* being "mis-applied" for something it wasn't meant for.
- It clearly *wasn't* written to be used as a "request for a .png version". As Omphalographer (talk · contribs) noted, it was intended for cases where it would be easy for the uploader losslessly obtain or create a transparent version.
- I don't think it should be reworded. If a "transparency request" template is needed, a new one should be created for that distinctly different purpose (assuming there isn't a suitable candidate already).
- What we *shouldn't* be doing is slathering the {{Opaque}} template all over images where it doesn't make sense.
- Multicherry (talk) 21:49, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
New report: Category cycles
Thanks to SD0001 there is now a report for categories that contain themselves somewhere in their subcategories: Commons:Database reports/Category cycles.
For each item in this report there is a flaw in the categorization somewhere creating a categorization loop. This may also be a problem for search results and the deepcategory search operator that can be used to show or search files across a category's subcategory branches.
Here's a small sample:
- Fungi of Italy (→ Fungi of Italy)
- Rosenberg (Adelsfamilie) → Rožmberk Castle (→ Rosenberg (Adelsfamilie))
- Svyataya Rus (ship, 1955) → Rodina (ship, 1955)
- Habe-3 (ship, 1999) → Ahto-03 (ship, 1999)
- Water supply buildings in Osnabrück → Water supply infrastructure in Osnabrück
- Harry S. Truman → Truman Committee → Truman Committee people
- Black Hawk → Black Hawk War → People of the Black Hawk War
It is easiest to find a category that should be removed for page 1 where one can simply remove the direct self-categorization. In this example one would remove category "Fungi of Italy" on category "Fungi of Italy". In later pages it's not necessarily more difficult to identify a miscategorization somewhere in the cat-path than in earlier pages. In some cases, a new category is needed or a change in a category description (from where one could link to a category). The same report also exists for Wikipedia categories.
SD0001 who ran the code said Due to the sheer volume of data involved, even the initial step to fetch the list of all subcategory associations from the database was failing both on Toolforge bastions and on the Toolforge kubernetes cluster. I then spun up a 16-core, 32 GB RAM instance on Cloud VPS, and there it all worked out! So the report probably can't be updated frequently. Maybe it could be possible to make it rescan the cats of a particular page and then update just that page but for now it doesn't seem so. Thus, if you work on this report a lot, it would be good to coordinate with other users, for example by removing/striking items from the report if you solved them or making a post on the talk page which page(s) you work on. Prototyperspective (talk) 21:36, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Nice, maybe the 7000 small cycles (parent=child) could be listed separately?
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 21:41, 20 October 2024 (UTC)- They are on page 1 (starting at 津まつり → Copyright (C) 八幡の笛木) up to page 15 (ending at Selve (Unternehmerfamilie) → Hermann Dietrich Selve) so they're already separate.
- However, it would be best if one could update specific parts of the reports individually. I think a straightforward way for that would be rescanning cat links on a particular page and updating that page and I asked whether that's possible on the talk page where the report was requested. Maybe it's also possible to make it scan all categories again for parent=child category-cycles but I think that would run longer etc than simply checking a list of cat-links. I don't know though, maybe it would actually be easier to implement that if not yet possible / or only that is possible with the current code. Prototyperspective (talk) 21:52, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- In any case, they are still at Quarry:history/87030/938798/910988.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 21:53, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- In any case, they are still at Quarry:history/87030/938798/910988.
- Awesome. It looks like some of the single cycle categories are that way because of templates. Any idea what to do in those cases? (I assume you can't just remove said category from the templates code for something like that). unsigned by Adamant1 (talk)
- It varies: often the template parameters need to be changed. In some cases the template itself may need to be edited in which case one can ask on its talk page and/or remove (or comment out) the template to replace it with just the remaining categories. In the case of Category:1559 sculptures in Italy with Template:StatuesItalyCat, the template was made for statues cats but is also used for sculptures cats causing this problem. There the solution I think would be to remove the cat or ideally to create either a new template for sculptures (such may already exist and only be adjusted for Italy) or add a parameter to the existing cat. I think people going through that report could ask the people who added the template and/or created the template to fix this problem instead of fixing it themselves.
- However, a template for this purpose may already exist so maybe if some people have a good handle of such navigation templates they could take a look at those items which appear many times in these reports and fix the underlying template issues of them (such as those {year} sculptures cats). --Prototyperspective (talk) 20:58, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
Photo challenge August results
Rank | 1 | 2 | 3 |
---|---|---|---|
image | |||
Title | Mustangs in Colorado, USA, 1971 | Dusty Billiard Table, former Pozzuolo del Friuli barracks, Ferrara, Italy |
The Milky Way with cosmic dust |
Author | Foeniz | Nicola Quirico | Zwiebackgesicht |
Score | 13 | 10 | 7 |
Rank | 1 | 2 | 3 |
---|---|---|---|
image | |||
Title | The Christmas spices star anise, cinnamon and cloves | Chili peppers at the market in Santanyí | Blüte mit Safranfäden |
Author | F. Riedelio | F. Riedelio | Tetraeder |
Score | 17 | 6 | 6 |
Congratulations to Foeniz, Nicola Quirico, Zwiebackgesicht, F. Riedelio and Tetraeder. -- Jarekt (talk) 22:12, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Jarekt dust no.1 title should read "...USA, 1971"? RoyZuo (talk) 08:38, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
Template:Commons Archive
A few months ago I noted that the link in Template:Commons Archive is a 404 error.
It still seems broken. Does anyone know why? If permanently shut down the template should get updated wording, it appears on over 200 file description pages. Commander Keane (talk) 23:08, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Per my understanding of https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T306064 and https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nova_Resource:Commonsarchive&action=edit&redlink=1 and my generally hazy memory, Commons Archive was deleted. The files there were mirrored at Internet Archive, which is an issue for now, as the site is experiencing some catastrophic issues. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:14, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- Internet Archive is back up; the contents of this archive can be retrieved (with some effort) from [5]. Omphalographer (talk) 20:19, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks. Fixed the link. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:02, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- Internet Archive is back up; the contents of this archive can be retrieved (with some effort) from [5]. Omphalographer (talk) 20:19, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
October 22
Question about images with serial but non destructive watermarks
I know that there is the "Graphics Village Pump" that may be more suitable for this question, but I think that this issue is more general and may be discussed even here (and even because here there are more users that can see and answer. XD)
There are some guidelines about watermarks on images, but those are not official policies of Commons (and I hope that they don't become part of them)
There are archives that put their watermarks even in a serial way, over the commonly one in a corner. These are ratherly non-destructive and sometimes even "invisible" due to the nature of the historical photo. How should we handle this particular case?
The images in particular I'm talking about are something like this ([6]) and this ([7]), from the huge archive "Istituto Luce" from Italy, with tons and tons of PD photos waiting only to be uploaded, and another one called EBAD (Italy has a particular law, that distinguishes between "creative" and "non-creative photos", the second ones being the ones from natural and everyday society and events... at least with the object not in a particular "position" and things like that; for those "non creative" photos the copyright is only 20 years after being taken, that is to say that all the 'non creative' photos shot in Italy until 1975 can be directly uploaded here on Commons, a great deal)... the only problem being that there are those serial watermarks on it. Here in Italy they love putting tons of watermarks even on perfectly PD photos and on entire historical archives... they think they can still profit from them, scaring ignorant people... but they still didn't know about us Commoners.
There have been some discussion about this (even in the discussion page of the guidelines theirselves) and I have even talked to some experienced users here, like the italian @Ruthven: (who still pointed to those guidelines).
In general, I (and the the other users in the guideline's discussion page) believe that PD and free-license photos should be uploaded regardless of their quality and how they are "adorned": we simply put the Template:watermark and simply hope that in future we will be able to find the same photo without those watermarks.
What do you think about it (even about those images that I linked specifically)?
Thanks alot for your attention, it is important. --LucaLindholm (talk) 11:45, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- Hi, I checked the two links you provided, but I think it would be good if you also linked to the previous discussions you had. I'm sceptical about the Italian law claims (it says here: "use very carefully" with regards to "non-creative photos"). But in my following opinion I am mostly disregarding possible Copyright concerns, as the topic is watermarks here.
- Now, the link to Luce, labeled [5], is in my opinion a highly destructive way of watermarking. The watermarking pattern covers the entirety of the image: if all images from that archive look like that I don't see why Commons should host these basically unusable files.
- The Ebad watermark [6] is big and flashy and possibly distracting when used to illustrate an encyclopedic article... but it's not as bad as the other one, as long as it doesn't cover important features of the images. Users would be able to crop an image for their purposes if needed.
- Yet, unmarked images would be preferable. To get those, I would assume that one could ask the archives directly (via GLAM contacts etc.) to kindly give access to non-watermarked versions for Commons uploads. There are benefits for them too: Just look at other big contributors like Rijksmuseum, Eran Laor, LoC, Polonia and Gallica: uploads from these institutions have big templates with the contributor's logo that link everyone to the original files: that shows providence properly, gives prestige back to the institution and makes watermarking fairly unnecessary. That's my reason for wondering why the archives insist on watermark-only images? Oh, and in case that we haven't asked for such permission yet, we should: The reaction tells us whether Commons/Wikimedia could get into trouble if we just rip the watermarked stuff from their pages without asking. If we "rob" them now, that makes future collaboration more difficult. The archives would also warn us away from stuff that might still be copyrighted for whatever reason. --Enyavar (talk) 21:21, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- -------------------------
- @Enyavar
- Ok, so we have to proceed first by contacting them, confirming what @Ruthven said. So how should we do that? What is a "GLAM" contact? Who should do that? I'm still not expert on this.
- Yeah I know it's an embarrassing way to watermark, but here in Italy they want to speculate on everything, profiting about the fact that people is very ignorant about their own rights (Ruthven may know it well, being him Italian too).
- Let's see, so, if we can contact these archives and bring so much more value to our good Commons portal. :)
- The EBAD one is little and unknown... we may persuade them in a fast and easy way.
- The "Luce" one, instead, is perhaps the second most important and big archive in Italy and most of all, it is the most famous, being particularly linked to the fascist Italy and the first half of the 20th century in general. It is well guarded and won't give away anything in a easy way.
- I suggest to start with the EBAD (Eboli Archivio Digitale, main page: [8]), what's the next step? -- LucaLindholm (talk) 22:54, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- From experience, it is best to have one designated Wikimedian for "first contact", and not speak in many voices. For first contact, a polite and careful approach is best. One approach is to lead with "we'd like to use this/that image for this/that article to illustrate the topic", to show some specific practical usage. Once a contact was made and the archive can see how we'd use the files, they may provide more.
- GLAM stands for "Galleries • Libraries • Archives • Museums", and there is a wikimedia page on GLAM outreach as well as a Commons page: Commons:GLAM.
- Ohhh, and now I see that Commons has great resources there: get started, form a content partnership... --Enyavar (talk) 07:09, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
Accusation about "vandalizing" without giving reasons
A. Savin accuses me of "vandalizing" without giving any reasons. I don't know what this person means, I did'nt vandalize anything. What should I do? Could it be that someone has broken into my account and is doing nonsense under my name/pseudonym? And how could I check on this?Hornstrandir1 (talk) 13:28, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- All contributions made by your account can be seen at Special:Contributions/Hornstrandir1, there will be a "Contributions" link somewhere at the top of the interface when you are logged in so you can find the page easily. Check the edits there for nonsense from a break in.
- If you don't understand a warning, discuss it. I see you already have on your talk page. Reasons have been given. Keep in mind that "vandalizing" can be used as a broad term with varying understandings. Commander Keane (talk) 22:20, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- This is difficult with as many edits as the user has. Moreover, a clear reason should always be given. There have been a reason given now by another user. It's not vandalism or doesn't seem like it at all. However, there seem to be many problematic edits that make large-scale changes that the community disapproves of or would disapprove of – but that should probably be discussed at some place rather than the user talk page. The reason is with no editors approving of the level of splitting you are performing but this is not a problem specific to this user but a general problem. I have proposed a technical solution to the issue but it's not applicable in all cases and the issue may still exist even if things like Help:Gadget-DeepcatSearch always worked and very readily accessible & known to most users. What about categories that have been split to the by day level when the subject is only relevant at the year scale and even that is debatable for example? Prototyperspective (talk) 08:55, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
- I do agree that he sulfuric springs example seems like overcat. Overcatting is good-faith editing that results in undesired outcomes. It does NOT merit placing an unexplained "stop vandalizing" template on the talk page of a user who has done thousands of edits. Alexander Savin completely overreacted by calling it "vandalism" and I would also say he under-reacted by not considering an actual talk with Hornstrandir. --Enyavar (talk) 09:06, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
- +2. Overcat yes, vandalism no. But Hornstrandir1 should take more care with how they categorize things. --Adamant1 (talk) 15:52, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
- I do agree that he sulfuric springs example seems like overcat. Overcatting is good-faith editing that results in undesired outcomes. It does NOT merit placing an unexplained "stop vandalizing" template on the talk page of a user who has done thousands of edits. Alexander Savin completely overreacted by calling it "vandalism" and I would also say he under-reacted by not considering an actual talk with Hornstrandir. --Enyavar (talk) 09:06, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
- This is difficult with as many edits as the user has. Moreover, a clear reason should always be given. There have been a reason given now by another user. It's not vandalism or doesn't seem like it at all. However, there seem to be many problematic edits that make large-scale changes that the community disapproves of or would disapprove of – but that should probably be discussed at some place rather than the user talk page. The reason is with no editors approving of the level of splitting you are performing but this is not a problem specific to this user but a general problem. I have proposed a technical solution to the issue but it's not applicable in all cases and the issue may still exist even if things like Help:Gadget-DeepcatSearch always worked and very readily accessible & known to most users. What about categories that have been split to the by day level when the subject is only relevant at the year scale and even that is debatable for example? Prototyperspective (talk) 08:55, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think we should have admins calling our contributors "vandals" merely because they have a different editorial view. Consider contacting WMF.
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 19:02, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Non-deletion decision File:19-23-038-davis.jpg
Commons:Deletion requests/File:19-23-038-davis.jpg Creuzbourg (talk) 13:33, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
The uploader claims copyright, although he is only the photographer. No statement of original author (painter) exists. This is a newly made painting Creuzbourg (talk) 18:41, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
Keep Attribution fixed. Keep if "made public" in 1959. --RAN (talk) 00:08, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
Kept: no valid reason for deletion. --Sadads (talk) 01:18, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
The uploader is only the photographer; still claims to be copyright holder. The painting is presented by Georgia Division by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1959. When did the artist lose copyright to the photographer?
Creuzbourg (talk) 13:36, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Creuzbourg, hasn't the file page been updated to fix your issue? Now the author is George Mandus, photographer is Dsdugan and licence is PD. Commander Keane (talk) 18:46, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- (e/c)
- The licensing information for the file is inadequate. It does need to show that the painting (and the frame) has a free license.
- If the painting were published in 1959, then COM:Hirtle leads many places. Published without a copyright notice would put the image in the public domain. The plaque on the frame does not have a copyright notice. If there were a copyright notice somewhere else, then there would need to be a renewal 28 years after publication. That would need to be checked.
- This topic should have been brought up on Commons:Village pump/Copyright.
- (talk) 18:52, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- @GlrxThank you for your reply. Shall I move the matter to: Commons:Village pump/Copyright? I do not understand how the photographer becomes the copyright owner, and believe that the image should be deleted. Creuzbourg (talk) 20:05, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- I can edit the license so it's more clear. The license stated is for the photograph as this is a 3D work with frame. Abzeronow (talk) 20:17, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- Ordinarily, George Mandus (the painter) would have a copyright to his work. In many circumstances, a photographer making a photograph of someone else's work has a copyright on his derivative work. That copyright does not negate the original artist's work. In this case, the File page adequately described the photographer giving a free license to the derivative work, but there must also be a free license for the underlying painting. A faithful photographic copy of a 2D painting usually does not qualify for a derivative work copyright.
- Moving this topic to the copyright page would be good. The contributors there understand the issues far better than I. Glrx (talk) 20:58, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- I can edit the license so it's more clear. The license stated is for the photograph as this is a 3D work with frame. Abzeronow (talk) 20:17, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- @GlrxThank you for your reply. Shall I move the matter to: Commons:Village pump/Copyright? I do not understand how the photographer becomes the copyright owner, and believe that the image should be deleted. Creuzbourg (talk) 20:05, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- Ask the admin who closed it?
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 18:48, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
October 24
Instructional links at Category:Unidentified logos
Being one of the biggest backlogs in Commons I suggest adding some instructional links to help editors at Category:Unidentified logos. Commons:Copyright_rules_by_subject_matter#Trademarks seems to be the most suitable page. I think direct links to the galleries at Commons:Threshold_of_originality#United_States_of_America and Commons:Threshold_of_originality#Logos_and_flags would help too. Commander Keane (talk) 03:14, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Picture of the Year 2022 finalist with an undeclared fake background: what should be done?
Dear users,
It was recently discovered that this picture that achieved rank 4 in POTY 2022 fooled everyone by making them think that it was taken at the perfect place and time when in reality the sky is completely fake and comes from this other picture. Because of that, the picture was delisted a few days ago from it's previous Featured picture status.
The questions that now remain are : should a picture that fooled everyone keep it's POTY award or not ? Should it be disqualified or not ? How should things be presented on the POTY 2022 results page and on the file page?
If the question of disqualifying the picture from POTY is of the POTY committee competence, everyone is nevertheless invited to give it's opinion. One easy way to do so is by voting here (and everyone can feel free to add alternative voting options).
(To avoid having two parallel discussions I invite people to only reply on this page and not here).
Thank you for your time and I wish you all a beautiful day. -- Giles Laurent (talk) 10:54, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- Pointless. Wikipedia can not vouch for a photos authenticity, so why tell the world somebody has won? Take away the competitions official status. Alexpl (talk) 17:02, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- Sorry but I don't understand the meaning of your comment (perhaps you could rephrase it in a clearer way). I also invite you to discuss the matter on this page (instead of Village pump) to avoid two parallel discussions on the same topic. Thank you for your understanding -- Giles Laurent (talk) 17:12, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- Why are you talking about Wikipedia? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:29, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- Because of the general public´s perception of these things: Wikipedia (somehow) screwed up. Alexpl (talk) 07:01, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- I think 2022 is already history. Mostly people have a strong dislike to that being rewritten. Just add a note that it was delisted ..
∞∞ Enhancing999 (talk) 18:45, 24 October 2024 (UTC)- As written on the initial message and on my other reply, I kindly encourage you to participate in this discussion (and not on the Village Pump advertisement of the discussion) to avoid two parallel discussions. This is the third and last time I will be repeating this. Thank you for your understanding -- Giles Laurent (talk) 19:49, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- It's such an obvious fake!!! Broichmore (talk) 10:44, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- Totally agree. I had my suspicions about it at the time but wasn't sure where or how to bring them up. It's clearly fake though. I'm actually kind of surprised no one noticed until now. --Adamant1 (talk) 13:44, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- Hey, just to point something out that I noticed right away: The uploader has only contributed with edits for two days: November 23rd and 24th in 2019. Unless we're dealing with an unproven long-term sock puppet acount, the uploader has not self-nominated the picture for the PotY contest and never even acknowledged any of it - they might not even know that they participated, that they won a final spot, nor that they were disqualified just now. I claim that the uploader never intended to fool or deceive anyone, especially not in a contest: or they wouldn't have uploaded the original aurora image as well. The manipulations in several (!) of the images by that uploader can only be seen when you zoom really in, too. It's not that obvious (but our image quality buffs should have noticed). --Enyavar (talk) 19:11, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- We don't know if the author knows that the picture participated in POTY. But what we know for sure is that the author uploaded this image alongside other pictures to participate in the Wiki Science Competition 2019 in Ireland and won two awards in 2019 and the church picture is one of the two awarded pictures. One of his two winning pictures was honest about being a photo montage (but in that case it was anyway quite obvious) : this picture while the church picture original description was falsly claiming : "The aurora or northern lights shot with a Canon camera over the church at Vik in Iceland on a clear night" making any reviewer of the file think it was a single picture and not a photomontage. To me, claiming something is a single shot taken only with the camera when in reality it's a photomontage with a fake background is cheating. And the author not only won an award by cheating but was also likely paid for it (at least with WSC 2023 I personally had a money prize but for WSC 2019 in Ireland I don't know if there was a money prize but that wouldn't be impossible). Also, just for your information, the author also came back in 2023 with a second account and won two other awards in the Wiki Science Competition 2023 in Ireland -- Giles Laurent (talk) 20:38, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- Hey, just to point something out that I noticed right away: The uploader has only contributed with edits for two days: November 23rd and 24th in 2019. Unless we're dealing with an unproven long-term sock puppet acount, the uploader has not self-nominated the picture for the PotY contest and never even acknowledged any of it - they might not even know that they participated, that they won a final spot, nor that they were disqualified just now. I claim that the uploader never intended to fool or deceive anyone, especially not in a contest: or they wouldn't have uploaded the original aurora image as well. The manipulations in several (!) of the images by that uploader can only be seen when you zoom really in, too. It's not that obvious (but our image quality buffs should have noticed). --Enyavar (talk) 19:11, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- Totally agree. I had my suspicions about it at the time but wasn't sure where or how to bring them up. It's clearly fake though. I'm actually kind of surprised no one noticed until now. --Adamant1 (talk) 13:44, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Source for Wiki Loves Monuments IDs?
Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments in Greece/Sites/Central Macedonia has IDs GR-B53-0001 to GR-B53-0055 but IDs have been added to Wikidata up to GR-B53-0097 with several gaps. Is there a source somewhere to check whether these IDs are valid (and add them to the Commons list if they are) and if items in Wikidata such as https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q25939112#P2186 should have a value or no value? Peter James (talk) 17:02, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Peter James: have you been in any communication with the person who added the IDs in Wikidata? - Jmabel ! talk 20:39, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
PetScan not working
It is just me ? The server is not responding--JotaCartas (talk) 23:39, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- Now, it working, thanks JotaCartas (talk) 09:14, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- Please see its issue page first before asking on its talk page: https://github.com/magnusmanske/petscan_rs/issues/ (it was #184). Prototyperspective (talk) 13:42, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
October 25
I need to have Category:Symbols of municipalities in Japan used in Wikipedia articles with vector versions available to be cleared. The category contains symbols of Japanese municipialities that are needed to be replaced with their vector versions. I know I could do the job myself, but unfortunately, I can't edit English and Spanish Wikipedia pages, due to my IP address being blocked in those Wikipedias. So, I would like you to do the job for me if you can. If you think I'm wrong about it, please let me know. Thank you. OperationSakura6144 (talk) 12:21, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- @OperationSakura6144: If you have been blocked in those Wikipedias, I am not sure why you think it is appropriate to ask someone else to edit there on your behalf. For that matter, when you say you are blocked on these wikis, I take it was under a different account name (since this account name never registered on either of those Wikipedias. Without knowing what account you edited under there (and were blocked) we have no way of knowing whether you may have been blocked precisely because they found edits like the ones you are requesting objectionable. - Jmabel ! talk 18:40, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- If the block was not about you, IP address blocks normally do not prevent logged-in users from editing. If you are in good standing there, and the blocks are simply coincidental but include logged-in accounts, say so, and I'll see what I can do about appealing those blocks. Feel free to email me off-wiki if you want to indicate the IP address in question without making it public. - Jmabel ! talk 18:42, 25 October 2024 (UTC)