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COMMONS DISCUSSION PAGES (index) Commons Help desk Village pump (general discussion) Copyright Proposals Technical Graphics and photography discussion Photography critiques Image improvement Illustration workshop Map workshop Photography workshop Video and sound workshop Categories for discussion Undeletion requests Deletion requests Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard Translators' noticeboard Work requests for bots Contact administrators Vandalism User problems (Dispute resolution) Blocks and protections Bureaucrats' noticeboard CheckUser requests Oversight requests Telegram IRC webchat Commons mailing list (archive) Commons' bugs on Phabricator Welcome to the Village pump This page is used for discussions of the operations, technical issues, and policies of Wikimedia Commons. Recent sections with no replies for 7 days and sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=--~~~~}} may be archived; for old discussions, see the archives; the latest archive is Commons:Village pump/Archive/2024/07. Please note: If you want to ask why unfree/non-commercial material is not allowed at Wikimedia Commons or if you want to suggest that allowing it would be a good thing, please do not comment here. It is probably pointless. One of Wikimedia Commons’ core principles is: "Only free content is allowed." This is a basic rule of the place, as inherent as the NPOV requirement on all Wikipedias. Have you read our FAQ? For changing the name of a file, see Commons:File renaming. Any answers you receive here are not legal advice and the responder cannot be held liable for them. If you have legal questions, we can try to help but our answers cannot replace those of a qualified professional (i.e. a lawyer). Your question will be answered here; please check back regularly. Please do not leave your email address or other contact information, as this page is widely visible across the internet and you are liable to receive spam. Purposes which do not meet the scope of this page: Please do not make deletion requests here: use the relevant process for it instead. For technical support and graphics talks (PNG, SVG, GIF, etc.), please post on the Graphics village pump. To ask for image improvement, see: Graphic Lab/Photography workshop for photographs. Graphic Lab/Map workshop for maps. Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop for other illustrations. To ask for video or audio improvement, see Commons:Graphic Lab/Video and sound workshop. For translation requests, please post at Commons:Requests for translation. For media requests, please post at Commons:File requests. Search archives:     Start a new discussion

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Village pump and gaslight at a meeting place in the village of Amstetten, Germany. [add]

Centralized discussion See also: Village pump/Proposals   ■ Archive Commons:Requests for comment/Hosting of free fonts in Commons (18 July 2024) How do we organize categories by date (14 May 2024) Should PD-CQ Roll Call be used for recent images? (5 January 2024) Technical needs survey (17 December 2023) When does PDART apply to textile works? (15 November 2023) Does this image contain "love hearts"? (17 August 2023) Overhaul of categories by period (5 December 2022) Version of Saudi flag to use (11 July 2022) Concern regarding revocability of KOGL licenses (22 December 2021) Should deleting content from your own talk page be forbidden? (11 November 2021) Revise the COM:FOP Sweden section (1 February 2021) Change technical name of LRs to license-reviewer from image-reviewer(2 November 2023) Template: View   ■ Discuss    ■ Edit   ■ Watch

	SpBot archives all sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=~~~~}} after 1 day.

Oldies

US Govt works being categorised as CC-PD-Mark

I have noticed that files using {{PD-USGov}} (and associated templates) are being categorised into Category:CC-PD-Mark. It would appear that the template has had "This file has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights." added to it. This is not correct, as US Govt works are only PD in the US. Can someone with the necessary permissions please make the necessary changes to have this removed and fixed. 177.67.82.190 04:38, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

US Govt works are PD every everywhere. Ruslik (talk) 13:05, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Ruslik0 that is not correct at all. US Govt works are only PD in the US. You can read more about that here. {{PD-USGov-CIA}} is somewhat closer to what the reality is. However, re-users from outside the US of US Govt works could be put into a very false of security by Commons US-Govt copyright tags here on Commons. All PD-USGov templates should have 1) a disclaimer that the work is ONLY PD in the US and 2) a disclaimer that re-users outside the US are warned to check the status with the relevant agency before attempting to use the content. Pinging: Odder to look at this. 106.68.153.3 16:11, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

I have changed a number of the license tags in the PD-USGov category to state that the work is "in the public domain in the United States." as opposed to the work being "in the public domain." (Some of the PD-USGov license tags are protected and would have to be edited by administrators.) Even if it is unclear as to whether US government works can be copyrighted outside the US, this change should help clarify the situation. Perhaps adding a statement along the lines of "This work may be copyrighted in countries outside the US. See this article for details." to PD-USGov license tags could be useful. --Gazebo (talk) 21:06, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Can we get the necessary changes made to these templates? A change was requested here but Jarekt thinks we need discussion (the ping is for his benefit). It would appear that Multichill made these changes way back when. Firstly, we need to get a list of ALL PD-USGov templates for these changes to be implemented. 217.170.207.86 15:38, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

By the way, Category:CC-PD-Mark is added by {{Cc-pd-mark-footer}}, which just links to http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/. That page states clearly that "The work may not be free of known copyright restrictions in all jurisdictions. " which is consistent with the use in {{PD-USGov}} templates: It is PD in the US and it may or may not be free outside US. We could change "This file has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights." to better reflect http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/, but that might make it too wordy. --Jarekt (talk) 18:40, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Though the PDM (Public Domain Mark) license deed does not mention any specific jurisdictions, the information at the Creative Commons FAQ for the PDM states that "the PDM is recommended only for works that are free of known copyright restrictions around the world" (emphasis mine.) At the same time, the FAQ states that a user who applies the PDM to a work is not actually warranting or promising that the work is out of copyright worldwide unless the user chooses to make such a guarantee or the law requires that the user do so. Given that there are definite indications that US government works are not definitively out of copyright worldwide, it would seem that the PDM should not be used for PD-USGov license tags. (A situation where a work is hundreds of years old, for example, might be a more appropriate application for the PDM. This is mentioned in the CC FAQ.) --Gazebo (talk) 07:49, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Copyright of Xanadu house photos from the Florida Memory Project

Would this photo and this other photo be allowable under the provisions indicated in {{PD-FLGov}}? The information pages for the photos indicate that they were taken in 1985 by Randall G. Prophet and are part of the Department of Commerce collection. {{PD-FLGov}} lists agencies in Florida that can claim copyright; as of now, there is no mention of the Department of Commerce (which was abolished in 1996, not sure how this affects things) though it is not clear as to how up-to-date the list of agencies is.

In addition, these two photos were included in the Florida Memory Project, and {{Attribution-FLGov-PhotoColl}} seems to indicate that any material that was deposited in the Florida Photographic Collection can be freely reused if attribution is given. (To be sure, the template talks about a work being "released into the public domain," but it seems to actually be a case of a copyright license that basically allows all reuse with the attribution requirement being the only restriction.) Also, in 2011, there was a deletion request concerning the copyright of material in the Florida Photographic Collection though the result seemed to indicate that such material was OK with regard to copyright. --Gazebo (talk) 23:56, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

We have no reason to doubt the copyright status of FPC-hosted works in general, the law being nice and clear about it (I don't understand why the template says PD, but the legal statement is a clear {{Attribution}}), and while of course there could be exceptions, we'd have to see crystal-clear evidence to say that the professionals made a mistake with any individual image. Nyttend (talk) 05:11, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. The first of the two photos has been uploaded. For the second photo, would the depicted "Welcome to Xanadu Home of the Future..." sign (which appears to have something like a star or a compass over the word "Xanadu") be a copyright issue or would it be a case of {{PD-ineligible}}? --Gazebo (talk) 09:31, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

The discussion has been moved to Village pump/Copyright. --Gazebo (talk) 08:25, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

December 28

Whinge —Quality of images after uploading

File:1908 Rover 20hp front suspension design.png

old Rover car

Over the last few months I've uploaded a number of scans of photographs from old magazines. When I upload them for at least a few minutes they remain in a state where great detail is discernible. Then a few minutes later the nice picture goes dark and I imagine readers asking themselves why the ... would anyone bother to upload this picture let alone display it with an article. I thought this might be temporary but evidently it is not. Here is one of the images that has almost completely lost detail. Eddaido (talk) 08:44, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Some kind of thumbnail generation problem - the full-size image seems fine. Looks like the levels are getting blown out for some reason? Maybe you should file a bug ([1]). BMacZero (talk) 01:45, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

The full size image is very far from "fine". I have the original still on my computer. I think the thumbnail is an accurate representation of the full size image. There is something that adjusts the image while I watch after the upload is done, some sort of automatic contrast whatsit. Eddaido (talk) 19:10, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

By "full size image", I mean the one that you get when you click the "Original File" link. The image on the file description page is still thumbnailed. That one looks lighter to me - is it right or is there still something wrong with it? BMacZero (talk) 19:51, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

A similar issue has recently been discussed in the german language forum. --Magnus (talk) 07:29, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

This is known bug: phab:T107706. Yann (talk) 17:37, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you Yann. I'll just wait now unless there is something I should do? Eddaido (talk) 19:10, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Black and white scanned image quality

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T106516

File:White and Poppe 2.6-litre engine on trial 1910.png

PNG version with bloaty thumbnails.

Thank you! so much nicer!(jpg)

I've just uploaded two more that were shaded out instantly, no delay, and with lots of cross-hatching added. Eddaido (talk) 02:30, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

I’m sure part of the problem is the use of the PNG format. While also PNGs should be properly thumbnailed, in this case the type of image (scanned photograph, even if claned up) recommends JPG, a format whose thumbnail behaviour is much more satisfactory. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 06:41, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

One should never be forced to choose a lossy format because it won't thumbnail right. Anyone can convert the PNG file to a JPG and not loose anything, but not vice versa.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:23, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

You are right in principle, User:Prosfilaes: We should not be allowing hackjobs to compensate for glitchy software, and indeed there’s a special place in Hell for those who use the JPEG image file format to export from vectorial originals, or to create resampled versions of clean originals in PNG or GIF or other such losseless format (assuming such format was properly used). Yet we do have in Commons thousands of JPG flags, maps, and assorted diagrams — that needs to be fought against.

But when the original shows a scanned or photographed real life object, then JPEG, albeit lossy, is a good choice for final formats (and even suitable for some derivative work, such as lossless cropping). In this case of monochrome image files (that is, 256-level greyscale), other options are worth checking, as GIF and PNG offer good compression ratios, too, but JPEG is not wrong for this case, either.

-- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 18:13, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

There was last year the same topic. I linked the Phab-task. ↔ User: Perhelion (Commons: = crap?)  21:31, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

December 29

unesco.org

Hello. I wonder that pictures from unesco.org are free to upload to the commons? For example, from here.--Shahrux (talk) 07:53, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Why should they? --Magnus (talk) 08:31, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

@John Cummings: ! Andy Mabbett (talk) 19:20, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi @Shahrux: , thanks @Pigsonthewing: , UNESCO has made around 1000 files available under an open license which I've uploaded to Commons. I created a set of pages on Meta to help people navigate the content and see which content is used and where. There's quite a wide range of content including photographs from the UNESCO image archive and of World Heritage sites, infographics, illustrations, video documentaries and news b-roll. If you know of any Wikiprojects that you think would be interested in it please do let them know, here's a small selection:

• 
  Mohana fishermen hunters use lures from real birds to catch more birds
• 
  Primary school-age population, in school vs out of school, girls vs boys in Guinea
• 
  Illustration from Nzinga Mbandi Queen of Ndongo and Matamba
• Visit of Mr Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations to UNESCO

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 12:30, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi, @John Cummings: . Thank you for information. I will begin to upload Azerbaijan-related photos from unesco.org to commons.--Shahrux (talk) 19:06, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

I uploaded some photosː [2] for chovqan game. But I have problem about permission. Commons gives this warning to meː

Warning You are trying to add a OTRS permission tag to this page. In general, such tags should only added by OTRS members. You should not add such tag unless explicitely instructed to do so by the OTRS member. You may press "Save page" again if you like to save this edit. If you do so, your edit will be tagged for review. In case you aren't sure if your edit is okay, it's best to ask for help, on the OTRS Noticeboard.--Shahrux (talk) 19:38, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

@Shahrux: please do not add images from unesco.org to Wikimedia Commons, the only images that are available under a Wikimedia compatible license have already been added to Commons. More will be added in future once the permissions are agreed. The images you upload from UNESCO.org will just get deleted. Thanks John Cummings (talk) 22:55, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Information: Author

There seems some ambiguities, concrete for logos of companies (or signs, flags etc.). So can be in the author field the (copy)right holder, like File:BenQ-Logo.svg (and dozen other) or must it be reverted like this? Can we do write something like more concrete in the Information documentation? ↔ User: Perhelion (Commons: = crap?) 19:51, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

There’s so many meaningful differences between an author and a copyrights holder that treating those concepts as one would only obfuscate the matter. Think of PD works, those with transfered rights, those managed by deceased authors’ estates, etc. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 21:43, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

@Tuválkin Thanks for answer, but I'm just as smart as before. Can you be more clear, can the copyright holder be there or not? As we can see User:Yann restored the copyright holder now. So it's simply for both? ↔ User: Perhelion (Commons: = crap?)  17:24, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

In my opinion, no. The field |author should be filled with an identification of the creator of the work (even in special cases of multiple authorship). If that’s different from the copyright holder, then its identification should be stated separately (with |other_fields, or even in running prose within the file’s description). Of course Commons keeps only free media, so most of our files do not have a copyright holder in the true sense of the word (to make a long story short). All this i.m.o., though I’m surprised this is not consensual. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 17:16, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

It seems to me to be a collective work (the company). Sometimes a logo is designed by an external agency but then the company becomes the copyrights holder as this is an integral part of its identity. I would like the Commons to treat collective works separatly for licencing purposes. There are many more collective works: newspapers (non-signed articles), maps (example Michelin roads maps. Lawyers always try to split hairs and try to rescramble the eggs out of an omelet for works created by many people.Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:52, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

It might be a collective work, but of BenQ’s itself? Or by some advertisement agency? (Or, better said, by some specific team of designers working for said agency at a given time? Why not put their names, if known, instead, then? Ditto for the case of this having been internally design by BenQ’s own design department.) While the fact that BenQ’s trademarked logo belongs to BenQ is obvious (and therefore not warranting a specific separate mention as such), assigning authorship to this merely commercial ownership degrades the semantic value of data we store in the |author field. In this case, |author = {{unknown|author}} would be the right way to do it., i.m.o. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 17:16, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Okay, the BenQ logo is maybe not that good example, in the point that there are companies or organizations with different name as copyright-holder of the logo calls. I'm also very surprised that there is no clear consensual on Commons. The |other_fields field seems strange for me. The documentation of {{Information}} tells us, that we can give multiple authors. So would this be the solution |author = {{unknown|author}}; BenQ!? (Maybe MaxxL can also tell something) ↔ User: Perhelion (Commons: = crap?)  21:47, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Cool, Gadget usage statistics!

See Special:GadgetUsage. Quite a lot of Cat-a-lot users :-) BTW, how many "gadgets enabled for everyone by default" on commons? --Atlasowa (talk) 09:22, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Special:Gadgets shows 16 "Enabled for everyone by default." I wonder why cat-a-lot isn't a default gadget, though. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 10:45, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Cat-a-lot as a default gadget? No, thanks. I had to rollback more than 10000 edits as a result of abuse of cat-a-lot this week, and I remember we even had to delete hundreds of edits from a cat-a-lot batch task. So facilitating access is not really a good idea. --Didym (talk) 14:12, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

CommonsDelinker

Malfunction maintaining entries of deleted dupes: [3] and [4]. Didn't find another one looking back until december 20th. --Achim (talk) 13:46, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

@Magnus Manske: --Steinsplitter (talk) 15:29, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

January 02

Happy Public Domain Day 2016!

Logo Public Domain Day

On January 1 we celebrate Public Domain Day as many works of authors who died 70+ years ago now enter the public domain and can be used freely.

Let us be aware: copyright is temporary. It only lasts during the authors lifetime and 70 years afterwards (in most countries). During those years it is limiting Wikipedia and her sister projects in showing works of art, literature, public art and buildings in countries without freedom of panorama, and more in the articles. But now a new batch is freed from copyrights!

An overview of images and texts that are restored or added to the Wikimedia Commons, are collected on: this page.

Many of these files still need a place in articles. You can help!

You can also help by uploading new files of subjects that are freed of copyrights.
You can also help by tagging all requests for deletion pages with the category when the file can be restored, which will be/was deleted.

As I follow the log of restored files this week, more images and texts will follow. If still files or texts are missing in the list, let me know or add them yourselves.

A very happy Public Domain Day! Romaine (talk) 13:41, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Again, life+70 is not most countries. I doubt it's even the majority of countries. Of the ten countries with the highest population, five (China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Japan) are life+50, India is life+60, the US is publication+95, and only Brazil, Nigeria and Russia are life+70. That's 2.1 billion life+50, 1.3 billion life+60, 0.3 billion US, and only 0.5 billion life+70. We already have more than half the world's population (3.7 / 7.3 = 51%) not life+70 and we've only considered 10 countries.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:36, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

• Some of the freed files:

• 
  Leifur Eiríksson
• 
• File:Pennsylvania Memorial 4.jpg
• 
  El Lissitzky
• 
• 
• 
  Alfred Ost
• 
  Leonid Pasternak
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• File:Maison émaillée 2.JPG
• 
• 

Idealized images of children

• 
• 

These are idealized images of children from long past and are therefore interesting. Is there any classification for these kind of images? And who is Sylire Wilmotte?Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:48, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Une des multiple Sylvie Wilmotte [5]. --Havang(nl) (talk) 16:31, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, not the Sylvie Wilmotte of 1904. When Google has a modern day version the ancient õnes are swamped.Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:46, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

January 03

Question regarding content displayed in categories

Hello and happy new year. I'm wondering if anyone can clarify for me whether there is any policy or guidance regarding the content that categories can display. A few weeks ago I had a discussion with another user who is inserting location maps in every category of Spain's regions and provinces, which are plenty, like in the following example: Category:Buildings in La Rioja (Spain). In my view this only leads to clutter and I think it has no use at all, except maybe in the province/region main category. Has this been discussed before? Any opinions welcome. Thank you, tyk (talk) 09:17, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

I am not aware of any specific policy except Commons:Categories#Creating_a_new_category, but it does not forbid additional content. Ruslik (talk) 16:43, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Ok, thanks Ruslik0, tyk (talk) 22:13, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

January 04

Caption challange..

This weeks image :

is at Commons:Silly things ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 12:20, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Which base map?

Does anyone recognise which base map File:TurdusMerulaDistribution.png is a derivative of? I can't find it in Category:Maps because there's far too many subcategories to search through and they're not organised well . . . thanks! - MPF (talk) 13:43, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

There is a Category:Blank SVG maps of the world which can be used as templates for derivative maps. --Alexrk2 (talk) 14:11, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

I know! But the particular base map I'm looking for isn't there (for starters, it's a .png format, not .svg ;-)). I need to know which exact base map it is from, (a) to add the necessary derivation link required by the derivative's cc-license, and (b) to do some clean-up work on the map. - MPF (talk) 14:32, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

The uploader @Cactus26: is still active. I think it's easiest to ask him. --Alexrk2 (talk) 14:50, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

@Alexrk2: Thanks for notifying me.

@MPF: I don't understand why you modify the map without duplicating it. Not all authorities have split the species yet. Of course the text regarding the distribution in various languages also still describes the "old" more comprehensive point of view. If you change the map directly, the text in some languages doesn't match to the map anymore. Moreover the authors of pages in these language have no opportunity to detect your modifications using their watchlist. I have reset your changes of the map. Please duplicate it before modifying. I assume, I used this base map [6].

--Cactus26 (talk) 12:08, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

File:Blank map world gmt.pdf is not the same map as that has lat. & long. lines (which yours doesn't), and is a pdf not a png - I have seen the original before, but just can't find it in the labyrinth of ill-sorted map categories. Most of the wikipedias follow IOC, and therefore use the up-to-date taxonomy, so it means your revertion of the map causes an inappropriate four-species map to be used on numerous pages about just one of the species. I will upload a new map but it is very annoying to have to do it like this; updates to maps are a accepted reason for uploading new versions of an image file; yours should also be renamed to reflect that it is now covers an amalgamation of four species. - MPF (talk) 22:55, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm afraid, nevertheless this was the base map. I converted it to png and removed the lat/lon lines. You can rename the file if you want, please don't forget to adjust pages relying on that map.--Cactus26 (talk) 09:04, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Looking for a tool to help find a home for images

Hi all

I'm not sure if what I want exists or not, I'm looking for a tool that will show which articles related to a subject (over different languages) do not have an image. E.g UNESCO have released some of which may be the only photogaphs of that subject on Commons. My assumption is that this could be done through Wikidata e.g which articles linked to items with the proprty World Heritage Sites do not have an image but a Commons category linked to the Wikidata item exists.

Thanks

--John Cummings (talk) 16:09, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

January 05

Wikimania 2016 Scholarships - Deadline soon!

Please help translate to your language

A reminder - applications for scholarships for Wikimania 2016 in Esino Lario, Italy, are closing soon! Please get your applications in by January 9th. To apply, visit the page below:

• Wikimania 2016 Scholarships

Patrick Earley (WMF) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:49, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Videos of live dissected animals

I came across a series of videos of Earthworms that were dissected whilst still alive. Is this permitted? RSLlGriffith (talk) 08:59, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes. See COM:Scope. --Fæ (talk) 10:02, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Of course, the usual licensing issues would apply. - Jmabel ! talk 16:41, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

The only reason I can think of to NOT host the items are 1) Project:Project scope issues, 2) licensing issues, 3) provenance issues (aka Flickrwashing or similar, which are really a special case of "licensing"), and 4) "contraband" issues ("crime scene photos" or, in some countries, photos of "government sensitive" locations, photos of "government sensitive" people, etc.). Live dissections of lower animals are typically not illegal in the United States if they are done for "legitimate" research or educational purposes (IANAL, there may be cases where these are illegal in some US states or nationwide) so unless the photo was taken in a manner or in a country where such laws would make it a "contraband" photo I don't see #4 being an issue. I'm not sure what the animal-cruelty laws are for lower animals when it comes to non-"legitimate" reasons (e.g. a guy pouring gasoline on an earthworm and lighting it and posting it to YouTube with a voiceover of "I can almost hear them scream bwuhahaha" - if it were a cat or dog it would be a felony in most states). As a general rule of thumb, if the person or institution that did the dissection was not afraid to put it online and attach their name to it, they are probably not afraid of being arrested for cruelty to animals. I agree with Fæ, they are very likely within-scope. So, unless there is some reason to believe it is a "contraband" photograph, that just leaves licensing and provenance issues. Davidwr (talk) 22:33, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

move a pages generates a redirect?

Is this a bug? I have chosen "move" to transfer a gallery page to another with alle the versions. But the execution resulted in a simple redirect. Could someone please do that properly? Gallery Sandro Botticelli Redirect to: Sandro Botticelli. Now it's a mess. History of events:

2016-01-05T11:45:30 (diff | hist) . . (0)‎ . . m Sandro Botticelli ‎ (Mattes moved page Gallery Sandro Botticelli to Sandro Botticelli) (current)

2016-01-05T11:45:30 (diff | hist) . . (+31)‎ . . N Gallery Sandro Botticelli ‎ (Mattes moved page Gallery Sandro Botticelli to Sandro Botticelli) (current)

Thanks and happy 2016! --Mattes (talk) 10:57, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

At 20:41, 3 January you moved Gallery Sandro Botticelli to Sandro Botticelli/Pa. This created a redirect at Gallery Sandro Botticelli to Sandro Botticelli/Pa. Then at 20:43 you requested speedy deletion of Sandro Botticelli, which at that time was a redirect to Gallery Sandro Botticelli but had a non-trivial history. At 07:26, 4 January 2016 Túrelio deleted it. After that at 10:10, 5 January 2016 you moved the redirect at Gallery Sandro Botticelli to Sandro Botticelli. Then at 10:12, 5 January 2016 you blanked Sandro Botticelli page and immediately requested it to be speedy deleted the second time, which was accomplished by Taivo at 10:20, 5 January 2016. After that you again moved the redirect at Gallery Sandro Botticelli to Sandro Botticelli. So, now we have the gallery at Sandro Botticelli/Pa and two redirects to it at Sandro Botticelli and Gallery Sandro Botticelli. In the process the history of Gallery Sandro Botticelli page was merged to the history of Sandro Botticelli (it is currently deleted). Is my explanation sufficient for you? Ruslik (talk) 17:56, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

{{Must be substituted}} and automatic substitution

Good day, I would like to get an issue sorted out as it pertains to my approved bot task for substituting templates that must be substituted. Having recently gone over the code for this task, as well as some logs, I had come to notice that a lot of substitutions were being missed, because there was a stage at which the bot would check a certain page which raised an uncaught exception. After fixing that and supervising the first part of the big run following that, all went well, until some templates that were not expected to be substituted got substituted.

I post was made here in the village pump before the task was originally approved, but it received to comments, and apparently drew no attention to the bot request. In an attempt to get the current situation sorted as-is, I had analyzed the cause of the "malfunction" per User talk:Hazard-SJ/Archive 2#Malfunction, and responded there as well, after which the thread eventually got archived from inactivity.

I would like to resume the task, but can't until the issues get sorted out. If you had read my previous response, you may see what I'm getting at, but what I'm trying to gather some sort of consensus on is if I should simply ignore what I find to be issues with the use of |page= and skip substitution of templates with that parameter, or, my personally preferred option, make the changes I suggested, then continue everything as-is (and possibly minimize future risk of confusion).

I look forward to your input.  Hazard SJ  18:43, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

This was a bad edit. Maybe there should be a opt-in for templates? And likely the script should run every day, this would minimize that new templates will be substed wrongly (your bot was down for a while). :-) --Steinsplitter (talk) 18:50, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

@Steinsplitter: As I said, from my review while reverting the edits, the problematic templates were {{Category for discussion}} and {{Verified account}}, and maybe 1 or 2 others. As per the bot approval, it checks for {{Must be substituted}} (it doesn't check {{Should be substituted}} or anything else). If a template is tagged saying that it must be substituted, why shouldn't it be substituted? That was the logic we followed in the approval, and I'm still in agreement with that logic, but then, what breaks this is when the template says is tagged with {{Must be substituted}}, but that template mustn't be substituted. That defies logic. Even the very wording of {{Must be substituted}} with |page= says "This template must be substituted...", so obviously (to me at least) there is some confusion, since there are two different templates, one of which shouldn't be substituted even though it's descriptions says is must. As for the script running everyday, I believe that's how I had it, but as I said, it never got to complete it's run before, only the first part of it because of an exception that the script didn't handle. Since I had just recognized the issue and got it fixed, it just became able to check all the pages without being killed part-way. As for opt-in, it is possible, but then, back to the statement I started with: why say a template must be substituted if it mustn't? P.S. as I said, it's the minority of templates that cause this issue, so technically you might be opting in almost all of the other templates, the ones without |page= at least).  Hazard SJ  19:43, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

@Hazard-SJ: Template:Verified account must be substed as described, using {{subst:+va}}. Not substing the template itself. As aforementioned, your bot was inactive for a while. If you run the script daily, it is unlikely that such things happen. A opt-out/opt-in for template would be helpful. I personally see no problem if you run the bot daily, so user will see that there is a bot substin templates containing a must be subst template :-). --Steinsplitter (talk) 20:05, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

@Steinsplitter: And what I'm saying is that Template:Verified account and Template:+va are two different templates. Template:Verified account must not be substituted. Template:+va must be substituted. I don't think you get what I'm saying. They are two different templates. It's like saying a car must be driven using a tow truck, when the tow truck is what is being driven, and the car is just being pulled around. I also guess you don't understand what I've been saying about the exceptions... the script was running regularly (until I disabled it following this issue), but it wasn't able to complete it's task. As for opt-in/opt-out, that'd definitely an option, though I don't believe it solved all the problems, such as the wording etc. I already have per-inclusion opt-out (via |nosubst= and |demo=) in place, and {{Nobots}} prevents the bot from editing the pages with the inclusions, but I could definitely do an entire template opt-in/out for perhaps an |auto= parameter to {{Must be substituted}} as well.  Hazard SJ  20:19, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Now i got it. Thanks. (Sorry for spamming the VP). --Steinsplitter (talk) 20:24, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

January 06

Old postcards uploaded under self licence

I frequently come across old postcards uploaded under a self licence, with the name of the collector. (As a curtisy I add the collectors name) I have added the correct licence, but wat should I do with the ols self licence? Change to: Custom license marker? And if so with wich date? Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:00, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Old see https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Caluire_Gare_1910.jpg&direction=prev&oldid=183903255 and as proposal, I adapted author and license, visualising as https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Caluire_Gare_1910.jpg&oldid=183903255 , it may be undone. --Havang(nl) (talk) 11:26, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Huge collection available from NYPL

See here If anyone is good at batch uploading, this is a great collection. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:43, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Maybe @Fæ: can assist here? --Steinsplitter (talk) 13:10, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

January 07

Wikimania 2016: call for proposals extended

Dear Wikimedians,
the deadline for the call for proposals for Wikimania 2016 has been moved on 17th January 2016, so you have 10 days to submit you proposal(s). To submit a presentation, please refer to the Submissions page on the Wikimania 2016 website. --Yiyi (Dimmi!) 09:28, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Time to split upp some UK categories?

For example: “2008 in rail transport in the United Kingdom” into: “2008 in rail transport in England” and “2008 in rail transport in Scotland”? Their are some station split offs but they are minor. In this example there are more than a thousand images. Years with much less images can remain UK. Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:17, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Pictures in "Google Art Project" and wikidata

How to add wikidata to "Google Art Project"-files? like this one were I have added wikidata, but it is not visible File:P.S. Krøyer - Summer evening on Skagen's Beach. Anna Ancher and Marie Krøyer walking together. - Google Art Project.jpg and File:P.S. Krøyer - Roses. Marie Krøyer seated in the deckchair in the garden by Mrs Bendsen's house - Google Art Project.jpg --Villy Fink Isaksen (talk) 12:51, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

I went ahead and added it as "commons:wikidata" to stay in line with the rest of the templates there. See my edit to File:P.S. Krøyer - Summer evening on Skagen's Beach. Anna Ancher and Marie Krøyer walking together. - Google Art Project.jpg. BMacZero (talk) 17:17, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Google Art Project already has it as 'wikidata', Google Cultural Institute was the one that was missing it. BMacZero (talk) 17:19, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Our information pages misleads visitors

Our {{Information}} template misleads visitors, who subsequently credit images from the wikipedia to the uploader, not the actual photographer.

I am not vain, but I do google myself, occasionally. Through those searches I do find images I took myself, and uploaded here, which have been re-used elsewhere. But, by far, most of the images credited to me are images I merely uploaded.

I am sure other prolific uploaders would find that they too are routinely credited by visitors who re-used images from the commons, and were confused as to who to credit. These third party re-users are acting in good faith. They want to honor the IP rights of the actual photographer. The problem is that our Information pages place more emphasis on the uploader than the photographer. Geo Swan (talk) 17:34, 7 January 2016 (UTC)