Commons:Village pump

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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.

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# 💭 Title 💬 👥 🙋 Last editor 🕒 (UTC)
1 German currency files without machine-readable license 10 2 Jarekt 2024-07-19 23:52
2 POTY (Picture of the Year) competition needs help! 7 6 Giles Laurent 2024-07-19 18:01
3 Works of art of men smoking (activity) 4 4 ReneeWrites 2024-07-19 05:53
4 What are free media resources for illustrations? 2 1 Prototyperspective 2024-07-20 19:30
5 Oak Island's map 5 2 Tylwyth Eldar 2024-07-19 05:26
6 Category:Flickr streams/Category:Photographs by Flickr photographer 9 5 Prototyperspective 2024-07-19 11:11
7 Mysterious Intel microprocessor/IC 2 2 Glrx 2024-07-18 04:09
8 Results of Wiki Loves Folklore 2024 is out! 1 1 Rockpeterson 2024-07-18 08:25
9 empty sub-categories of Category:EuroGames_2024_Vienna 1 1 Zblace 2024-07-18 10:11
10 Book covers' copyright 2 2 Geohakkeri 2024-07-18 10:44
11 Wikimedia Movement Charter ratification voting results 1 1 MediaWiki message delivery 2024-07-18 17:51
12 Freedom of panorama for photos taken across the border 4 3 A1Cafel 2024-07-19 05:59
13 Glitch 3 3 Speravir 2024-07-19 23:57
14 Video question 4 2 PantheraLeo1359531 2024-07-19 19:08
15 Pre-implementation discussion on cross-wiki upload restriction 9 4 George Ho 2024-07-21 22:14
16 Croptool 3 2 Seth Whales 2024-07-21 05:00
17 Political donation from Thomas Crooks - public record image 5 5 B25es 2024-07-22 06:33
18 Error during upload 5 3 Palu 2024-07-21 11:31
19 What are outgoing and incoming wikilinks? 4 2 Jmabel 2024-07-23 19:13
20 Appropiate mother-cats🐈 for Category:Intel 8286 3 2 PantheraLeo1359531 2024-07-21 13:48
21 Extracted file deleted 3 2 Kakan spelar 2024-07-21 19:44
22 Commons Impact Metrics now available via data dumps and API 1 1 Sannita (WMF) 2024-07-22 14:11
23 Adding an artist to an image within Wikidata 7 3 Broichmore 2024-07-23 09:13
24 Location 6 4 Smiley.toerist 2024-07-23 08:13
25 Should documentation start recommending AV1 over VP9? 4 3 TheDJ 2024-07-24 13:51
26 Overlapping templates 1 1 Trade 2024-07-23 03:19
27 Category:Videos by subject 3 3 TheDJ 2024-07-24 13:50
28 Task — Wikimedia logos categorisation 1 1 JnpoJuwan 2024-07-23 21:01
29 Managing overpopulated categories 3 2 Sinigh 2024-07-24 02:15
30 My historic .svg Inkscape images now showing as blank 6 5 Glrx 2024-07-24 19:46
31 Need help with correct naming 2 2 Jmabel 2024-07-25 04:20
32 Image Annotation 3 3 Adamant1 2024-07-25 04:47
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Water pump next to the church in the town center of Doel. Doel, Beveren, East Flanders, Belgium. [add]
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See also: Village pump/Proposals   ■ Archive

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Adding .wav support to Commons

We have merged Rahul SOC student first phase of his pronunciation recording tool, .wav support into Timed Media Handler. change here This will mean users will be able to upload .wav files to commons and they will be converted into .ogg files via TMH. This is important for supporting in-browser audio capture and upload. The latest HTML5 browsers support capture of .wav via HTML5 api. For example check out this HTML5 audio record sample. This should help make the in-browser record word pronunciation of Rahul's SOC project possible, as well as in the future improve the accessibility of adding to various Spoken articles efforts, or ingestion of original assets where the user is not technical inclined to convert to FLAC. ( which was also recently added )

If anyone has thoughts on adding .wav to commons feel free to discus here. Note we are just adding .wav pcm ( not allowing any of the compressed formats that you can package into .wav ) Mdale (talk) 21:10, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The relevant gerrit commits are 1 and 2 --Rahul21 (talk) 11:35, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

 Support I think the best way to keep sounds is with lossless compression like Flac. But since Flac is not very well known yet, I think it is usefull to allow Wav PCM uncompressed files in Commons to keep all the details of the sounds. It will be easier to reuse them than with compressed Vorbis files. Lionel Allorge (talk) 15:10, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Question. But they are large files—3 minutes will translate into ~ 25 Mb. Some people may have trouble downloading them? Ruslik (talk) 18:35, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Citation from above: "This will mean users will be able to upload .wav files to commons and they will be converted into .ogg files via TMH."
So this seems not to be an issue! People can always download the much smaller OGG version if they do not aim for maximum quality. --Patrick87 (talk) 18:45, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The user will download the ogg flavor of the file which will not be large and if in the future storage becomes an issue we can always convert it into flac and other formats. I hope that answers your question Ruslik --Rahul21 (talk) 19:43, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

seems to lend credibility to windoze though, rather than support free formats and free software, which is superior. Penyulap 17:44, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WAV (at least the part we're supporting) is simple PCM. That's no "codec" by Microsoft but only uncompressed Audio data (e.g. compare uncompressed text which would correspond to PCM to a ZIP archive which would correspond to FLAC). The only thing Microsoft was involved in was the container of this uncompressed data, which actually is freely usable as far as I know. --Patrick87 (talk) 17:59, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
✓ Done This is live now (It was originally scheduled for July 15, but the new version of TimedMediaHandler got deployed early to fix a bug with how embedding videos on third party sites work). Bawolff (talk) 20:00, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Do we need to edit Commons:File types to reflect the changes?--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:10, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Which types of wave are supported by TMH? -- Rillke(q?) 21:40, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like 44,100 Hz stereo from https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:TimedMediaHandler#Installation but the link to the README is broken.--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:12, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is just bugzilla:50398 // bugzilla:41961. It is now on https://git.wikimedia.org/tree/mediawiki%2Fextensions%2FTimedMediaHandler.git ; I was more interested in the algorithm (compression codec) supported. -- Rillke(q?) 22:30, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Only uncompressed pcm is allowed. Bawolff (talk) 23:22, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Distorted "derivative images"

User:Gardenparty has long made a habit of uploading cropped versions of Commons images featuring nudity, occasionally incorporating image effects but usually just cropping to focus on whatever aspect of the image Gardenparty likes best. Although I doubt any of these images are improvements on the originals, they are not violating any particular guideline here. Unfortunately, I have just become aware that some of these "derivative images" are not faithful to the originals. In File:01-Kneeing nude on chair.JPG, Gardenparty has substantially changed the proportions of the model's legs and hip from the original (File:Kneeing nude on chair.jpg). In the process, the image has become blurred as well. In File:00-Nudist woman standing on log.JPG, Gardenparty has enlarged the subject's genitals from the original (File:Nudist woman standing on log.JPG). Again, there is a noticeable reduction in quality. There are likely more instances of this type of "derivative image" , but I have not yet taken the time to look.

User:Gardenparty is an alternate account of a user who has already had at least one alternate account blocked. I do not know why this account or the user's main account were not blocked at that time. I suggest that there is no place on Commons for these distorted images or the user who is uploading them. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:48, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Out of scope.[2] No educational value in a bunch of arbitrarily modified Photoshop experiments. FunkMonk (talk) 23:09, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That seems obvious to me, but I am frequently surprised by the willingness of the Commons community to accept things as educational when they are so obviously done for the personal gratification of the uploader. Would this apply to the non-distorted images as well? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:33, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The non-edited ones could realistically be used for some purpose, articles on nudism and whatever, but the edited ones not so much. FunkMonk (talk) 23:14, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. -- Infrogmation (talk) 21:47, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Haven't the license conditions been violated in the derivative images? 84user (talk) 11:50, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Free licenses acceptable for Commons generally allow for derivative works - sometimes a cropped or contrast enhanced alternative version of an image can be more useful in some contexts. I do not consider the User:Gardenparty images I've seen to be examples. -- Infrogmation (talk) 21:47, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

July 01

There is an NSA-produced video on the polygraphing process:

While an NSA-produced video is public domain, it also uses very short excerpts of footage from copyrighted TV shows: Meet the Parents and The Simpsons So, does this mean, for it to be posted on the Commons, the footage of the TV shows has to be cut out (I assume yes, but just making sure)? Should I put a request in the audio/video Commons request page for this? WhisperToMe (talk) 00:38, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think those excerpts would need to be cut for it to be allowed on Commons, unless there is some evidence that the NSA negotiated their release under some sort of free license (which seems unlikely). We could also upload the complete video to projects whose fair-use criteria allow that. --Avenue (talk) 00:08, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We can have a cut video uploaded to the Commons, and then the uncut one to the English Wikipedia to illustrate the section on "polygraph" - the video itself is discussed in this section. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:56, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Bureaucrats needed

Hi, would it be possible a bureaucrat to take care of Commons:Changing username/Current requests? No bureaucrat seems to have reviewed it for two weeks and there's a backlog of 17 users waiting :-(

July 03

Educational value of masturbation videos

We have 39 from this decade alone, and another 12 from the decade before (I can hardly believe that there's a categorization for masturbation videos by decade, but I digress...). Surely 50+ videos of men masturbating can't all be distinct enough from each other to provide educational value. I suggest that we slim this category down considerably. — Scott talk 13:41, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

 Question How many such videos do you suggest we require in the repository? russavia (talk) 13:47, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That is a good and valid question, and to be perfectly honest I don't have a better answer than "not fifty". I would say enough to satisfy the joint criterion of media quality and diversity of representation. At a glimpse of those thumbnails, there's a lot of average white dude happening there. — Scott talk 15:41, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Problem: to trim it down, at least a couple of users would have to look at all of them, then discuss their merits based on a number of criteria (the mere concept of a discussion about the criteria to keep a masturbation video is entertaining) then decide which may stay...I sure would like to see that talk page ;-) Asavaa (talk) 13:56, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • To compare with some other subjects; we seem to have 3 videos of sneezing, and if we have a video of hammering in a nail I couldn't find it. Without having spent time watching a representative sample of the videos but having experience with the plethora of images uploaded by people who think Commons is an appropriate place to upload blurry snapshots of their penis, I strongly suspect that the number of videos could be significantly trimmed without loss to any potential in scope usefulness. It is the long running issue of trying to balance between human sexuality being a legitimate topic within project scope, and the gaggle of bozos who wish to use any opportunity to yell "HAY L00KIT MY PEEN1S!!" I'll yet again bring up my suggestion that making a simple rule could eliminate the vast majority of such problems: Sexual material can only be submitted by users who have also contributed non-sexual in scope material to Commons. -- Infrogmation (talk) 01:03, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If someone feels like watching them and checking the quality we could delete low quality ones as "Out of scope" the way we do with images.--Jarekt (talk) 03:56, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is a ridiculous situation. Since no one (understandably) wants to check each file, the category will inevitably continue to grow even larger and harder to sieve through. Reminds me of the poor policemen who have to watch hours of child pornography for the sake of documentation. FunkMonk (talk) 04:25, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe we can reduce the potential effort by hammering out some triage guidelines beforehand. Here's one to start off: if the person in the video couldn't even be bothered to fully remove their pants, nuke it.
As I started this discussion, I will reluctantly put myself forward for the unenviable task of going through the videos. (I have no qualms about the content, I just dislike dull and amateurish crud.) But I'm not going to do it if my opinions will immediately be dismissed; there need to be uncontroversial criteria to work with. Is there general consensus that there are too many of these? That's the first thing that needs to be agreed upon before anything can happen. — Scott talk 11:42, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Scott, this is quite a polarizing issue. Some people feel that we have too many practically "out of scope" images in a lot of categories, for example Category:Kittens, and paying more attentions to sexually explicit categories is a form of censorship. Others feel that sexually explicit categories have to be more closely curated. I think there is a consensus that low-quality sexually explicit amateur images are out of scope, see Commons:Nudity, {{Nopenis}} and {{Nobreasts}}. Videos are no different. So as long as in your deletion request you mention that the file is out of scope per Commons:Nudity guideline and that we already have similar media with higher quality or resolution ( may be provide examples), then you should be OK. The files also have to be unused on any projects, and I would concentrate first on new uploads. Finally, as with any deletion requests, try a few and than wait to see how they are received by the admins closing deletion requests. --Jarekt (talk) 12:23, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Jarekt, I was aware of all of that, and have filed a number of DRs based on the same criteria. Given the actual resistance that some of them received, I would need a far stronger basis to work on to address this issue. And this is an issue; doing nothing about it is not a solution. — Scott talk 18:11, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Jarekt, given that you mentioned kittens, we do need one freely licenced photo made available to us; perhaps you are in a position to help with this. I don't believe we have any photos of kotbasa on Commons. We seriously need to rectify this situation :) russavia (talk) 12:36, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
About this proposal above: «Sexual material can only be submitted by users who have also contributed non-sexual in scope material to Commons.» At 1st glance it struck me (no pun intended) as a good idea, but then on a second take seems to me that it would benefit only users who enjoy a previledged status concerning non-anonimity, or the risk thereof, within their home society at large, within their family, friends’ and work circles, concerning their gender, age, body image, and any other obstacle to expose their own most intimate physical likenesses and behaviours, even for bonafine educational goals. I would reccomend to all unpreviledged people wanting to contribute thusly (including 100% of females of any age, ethnicity, and home country) to shield their privacy by means of a dedicated “meatpuppet” account, regardless of how anonymous their primary account is. The proposed guideline would shoot down this protective measure by design, and therefore I consider it ill advised: It would keep trolls at bay from our repository, but would also keep from contributing people who need themselves to keep away from trolls’ attentions. -- Tuválkin 00:54, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to ask editors about these two videos, part of a larger series of similar videos.

File:Samenerguss.OGG
Samenerguss: "Here, the test person is required to achieve his ejaculation within two minutes. He masturbates his penis, which only becomes erect briefly. Very soon, he achieves an ejaculation, which he squirts into his underpants."
File:Beim Onanieren.OGG
Beim Onanieren: "Here the test person is asked to give us a close-up look of the rim of his glans. You can clearly see lots of white spots around the edge of the glans. Then he can't hold it any longer and ejaculates."

They feature text screens in German (with occasional typos) advertising them as "Sex-education materials for pupils, teachers and parents". A translation of the text screens in these two videos is given under each thumbnail. What do editors think of the fitness of this material for its stated educational purpose? Is it in scope? Andreas JN466 12:58, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at that user's uploads as a whole, it's obvious they exist purely for reasons of exhibitionism. My personal feeling on examples such as this is that the entire upload list should be deleted as a discouragement to further similar activity on their part, and possibly accompanied by a warning that any further uploads they make will be subject to much stricter assessment. Frankly, we need to take a stronger stand against people making a mockery of Commons' educational purpose in this fashion. (That doesn't mean I am suggesting every picture of a penis, etc. should be deleted, so let's get that particular straw man out of the way before someone's tempted to use it in this discussion.) — Scott talk 18:08, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We do have the rule "Commons is not an amateur porn site", so clearly exhibitionism is a valid reason to delete a file (or all files) uploaded by a user. --Conti| 18:22, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Hansy2, closed as Keep, 4 February 2013. Andreas JN466 01:43, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps DRs like these should be kept open until their participation is not limited to those with a recognized interest in increasing the amount of amateur porn self-taken penis photographs on Commons. — Scott talk 15:14, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Bump. More comments please, the issue remains. — Scott talk 13:35, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Starting off by deleting the worse quality portion (be it 1/4 or 3/4) for reasons of quality I think would be a good start. Blanket deletion requests for EVERYTHING in such sexually related categories tend to be contentious and often go no where. There's often a counter argument that at least *some* type of example media could be useful in scope, and some resist anything that might be seen as an attempt to bowdlerize Commons. So it can be dealt with similarly to any other case where there's an overabundance of redundant media of no particular use - for example while the human face is within project scope, we routinely delete poor quality "selfies" of non-notable people. -- Infrogmation (talk) 14:29, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I tried a slightly different approach but doing an automated global usage check of Category:Videos of ejaculation by decade and all it's subcategories (it's an quick adaptation of script made for something else, so if something seems odd please ignore it :)). Here's the result:

I counted 42 occurrences of not used, which could very well be the 42 worst quality versions. Given that I do not wish for anyone to do as Asavaa suggests, my simple, yet crude, opinion is to delete those 42 as unused and out of scope. I guess that had they truly and purely been in scope, somebody would have used them. One could add a form of "refuge" for those that have been uploaded within the last 6 months, but I doubt that there is a need for that... --heb [T C E] 15:39, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just a thought: File:Nocturnalemission.ogv, if genuine, should not be in the "masturbation" category, and is probably a useful video of a rarely recorded bodily function, even if it is currently not in use. 85.170.80.194 16:20, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Heb, could you run a similar thing on Category:All Nippon Airways aircraft at Tokyo International Airport. There's 779 photos in that category; perhaps ignored userpage usage on ja.wp (likely mine). It would be interesting to see how many of those photos are in use; and should we also delete those which aren't currently in use for being out of scope due to them not being used? russavia (talk) 17:03, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Russavia, I don't know if this is a point intended by you or not by mentioning Category:All Nippon Airways aircraft at Tokyo International Airport, but I think it's a valid one: We don't just go into a clean-up deletion process, just because they are "redundant" - in fact the policy on deletion of redundant files as it is now, requires a case-by-case deletion request. The reason for me suggesting skipping it in this case, is simply that I don't feel anyone should be "put in" to watch something like 40 videos of male masturbating. In general I do agree on following established procedure, however given the content of these (which do differ somewhat from airplanes) I think there should be an opening for deviating from established procedure. For the airplanes I have changed the script slightly, so it now put's them under two headlines: Used files and unused files. In kind regards, heb [T C E] 19:05, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I do not understand why my correction of a factual error is unwelcome

The graphic in question.

Dear Commons community,

I changed the graphic displayed on the right by fixing a factual error. The graphic incorrectly classifies Y and У as the same. I made my change in good faith and in accordance with “Be Bold”. However, AnonMoos appears to be adamant about reverting this change and asking me to upload the corrected version as a separate image.

In my mind, this policy would result in a proliferation of multiple incorrect versions of a document. It would make it difficult for users to identify which one is the most accurate one. Is this, in fact, the desired state of things?

If I do upload a new version of the graphic and then nominate the factually incorrect one for deletion, the end-result would be a loss of the version history (including the reasoning associated with all earlier corrections made). Is this considered desirable?

Thanks for any advice. — Timwi (talk) 13:59, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ask at COMMONS:AN or any admin's talkpage for a 'history split' and then nominate the one you don't like for deletion. Penyulap 14:04, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Dude, I abundantly explained it on your user talkpage, before you wiped your user talkpage. Making people jump through arbitrary procedural hoops is not a constructive way of encouraging people to discuss things. Unfortunately for you, your actions could be seen to be in violation of COM:OVERWRITE, and in such cases the burden is really on the person who wants to change the file to come up with meaningful reasoned factual arguments as to why the file should be changed, and not just to keep repeatedly reuploading over the old file version. AnonMoos (talk) 14:29, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
AnonMoos, the proper place is the file talk page to discuss it. When he blanked his talk page he referred others to use his en:wp talk page and not the one at commons.--Canoe1967 (talk) 15:45, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever -- most of the time people notice messages on their own user talk pages much more quickly than messages left on file talk pages. If there was an ongoing conversation on the file talk page, or there was an issue that didn't involve any particular user, then the file talk page would be the place to go. However, in the situation as it existed, there was absolutely nothing "improper" about me taking the matter to his user talkpage, or him replying on my user talkpage.
And he can do whatever he wants with his user talkpage (mostly), but if he chooses to impose arbitrary procedural barriers to communication, and I choose not to jump through his particular set of hoops, then that does nothing to move the discussion forward. AnonMoos (talk) 16:41, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What I fail to understand is why you two reverted each other two and three times with nothing brought up on the talk page of the file. Next it comes here, then possibly at ani. It should have been discussed after the first revert on the file talk page. Dragging drama all over when simply uploading a new file page will be the solution. The projects can then decide which file to use.--Canoe1967 (talk) 17:46, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
When only two people are involved, the file talkpage is not necessarily the simplest and most direct discussion path. And it's conspicuous that Timwi has offered little rationale for his actions other than a blanket assertion that his way is the only "correct" way, while I posted a fairly detailed explanation to his user talkpage (before he blanked his user talkpage). AnonMoos (talk) 19:38, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

According to w:Gamma the upper case Y is wrong in your diagram so he does have a point that it should be removed from that overlap section.--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:58, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What does w:Gamma have to do with it? It's У, U+0423 Cyrillic capital letter U w:U (Cyrillic) under question. And it's not a factual error, it's a stylistic choice. Whether or not those two forms are close enough to be treated as the same is not a question of fact.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:37, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Guys, are you experts on Russian? This is NOT A STYLISTIC CHOICE. "Y" is WRONG. Take it from a native Russian speaker. It is not about style. --Romanski (talk) 21:01, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is enough interest at the moment to create a discussion on the talkpage of the file, I've copied everything there to start it off. This is appropriate now because the Village pump would archive the discussion after a week or two and then it would be difficult to find, and even harder to add comments to the discussion. The file talkpage doesn't have those problems. If the discussion stagnates there, just leave a note on the village pump to the effect of "Please comment at File talk:Venn diagram gr la ru.svg so that someone can assist. Penyulap 21:04, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Movement of discussion in progress reverted.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:19, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

{facepalm} Penyulap 21:39, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(addressing the OP) I would just create a new version with a different filename. You could then cross link both files via the other versions field. If I felt strongly about the correctness of any version, I might post a heads-up to the talk pages of some of the wikiproject pages that use the original image, to inform them there is now a choice. -84user (talk) 22:20, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of anything else, the original correction by Timwi is correct. Latin "Y" and Cyrillic "У" do not differ only on stylistic details (a point that can be correctly made about other letter pairs, such as "K"/"К" or "ŭ"/"й") — to prove it behold Cyrillic letter "Ү" (lowercase: "ү"). This point could be argued on historical grounds, refering to the pre-Soviet, even pre-Graẑdanskaâ, state of the cyrillic scripts, but if so the letterforms of all three scripts should be changed to reflect the period in question, as well as their repertoires (no "J", for one thing); any deeper analysis of this subject should not ignore things like Cyrillic "Н" being based on Greek "Ν" and being only visually similar to "H"/"Η" in a later phase, and many other counter intuitive details. This Venn diagram as it presents itself — a simplistic, syncronic assessment that leaves aside historical and typographic details, should not state that "Y"="У". It should be corrected for useful use. -- Tuválkin 01:34, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Tuvalkin -- this diagram has absolutely nothing to do with history at all. It compares only the typical visual shapes of the uppercase letters of the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic alphabets as they are found in modern serif non-italic fonts (and the only form of Cyrillic considered is Russian). That's all it does... AnonMoos (talk) 02:06, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That’s exactly what I said. This kind of simple diagram has no business in considering that Cyrillic "У" comes from Greek "Υ" — its modern upper case letterform is different from "Y" (so much that there is even a modern Cyrillic letter "Ү", as said, used constratively in some Turkic languages, as different from "Y" as modern Latin "U" from "V", or "I" from "J", and history be damned; not a stylistic difference as said above, unlike Greek shaped "Л" and "Д") and therefore the diagram as it stands now is simply wrong and needs to be corrected — exactly because it «has absolutely nothing to do with history at all». I’m glad that we agree. -- Tuválkin 06:17, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
First off, any Cyrillic developments not included in standard Russian are not relevant to this graphic. And the matter is less simplistically black-and-white "correct" than you seem to believe. AnonMoos (talk) 14:59, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
“Second off”, I understand that this diagram purports to consider only “regular” cyrillic letters (as it doesn’t cover “oddballs” from the other scripts, such as "ẞ" or "Ϙ"), but still "Y" is not an acceptable stylistic variant of "У" in the eyes of any Russian litterate person, just like for the typical educated English speaker "Þ" looks a bit like a "D" but a bit too off. This is not comparable with the “monumental” versions of "Л" and "Д", which do look like their Greek counterparts, as «you seem to believe» it is — here’s a few easily found counter-examples: [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
You can make a case for keeping a chalkboard photo showing "5+5=8", on the grounds that file history must be kept and that anyone is free to upload a changed derivative, but you cannot claim that the original is useful or educational or even correct. -- Tuválkin 17:26, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with 84user: we should upload a new file with the "corrected" version. And once this discussion dies down I would either link to it from the file talk page or copy it there as suggested by User:Penyulap. --Jarekt (talk) 03:52, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this discussion should be moved to the file talk page. -- Tuválkin 06:17, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OP’s comment: After reading this discussion, the message I take away is that Commons does want to fill itself up with lots of subtly wrong versions of files and require users to comb through them to find the correct one. This severely lowers my perception of it as a source of useful stuff. Consequently, I am much less motivated, not only to use it as a source, but also to contribute to it. — Timwi (talk) 20:25, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Does Commons want that? And who exactly is Commons? Apparently not me — and that makes me a sad panda. -- Tuválkin 20:38, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Timwi -- unfortunately for you, you seemed to be quick on the file revert button but rather slow to adduce reasoned factual cogent substantive arguments as to why the file should be overwritten (taking into account COM:OVERWRITE), and in fact you seemed to go out of your way to create unnecessary hindrances to discussion. In this context, assuming that your unsupported assertions should be glaringly obvious to all, and getting upset when others don't treat them as glaringly obvious, does nothing to resolve issues. AnonMoos (talk) 04:09, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
His assertions, however unsupported, are glaringly obvious to anyone with a shred of actual knowledge of Cyrillic typography. AnonMoos, you understand that there are millions of Russian elementary school students potentially pointing and laughing at you, right? (Vicious little хулиганкы, they are…) Step down from your high horse, and please allow this file to be corrected to actual usefulness — anything else will just spread even wider the stain on your reputation. -- Tuválkin 08:43, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Maritime festivals

Do we have a category for maritime festivals or something like that? I recently added Category:Wooden Boats Festival (Seattle) and couldn't find anything appropriate. - Jmabel ! talk 18:21, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I see Category:Tall ships events and Category:Sailing events if they help. Rmhermen (talk) 21:44, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So it sounds like I should add a Category:Maritime festivals. - Jmabel ! talk 00:29, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Creative Commons license icons license and authorship ambiguity

The following files:

  1. File:Cc-by_new.svg
  2. File:Cc-sa.svg
  3. File:Cc-nc.svg
  4. File:Cc-nd.svg

have somewhat strange license and/or authorship information. In file #1 the stated author is User:Sting and in #2, #3, and #4 - User:Rei-artur. The #2, #3 and #4 also reference Rafał Pocztarski as someone who edited original yellow GIFs in GIMP.

Isn't Creative Commons the actual (or at least first) author of these images?

Also, the licenses of these files are strange. The #4 contains both {{Pd-ineligible}} and {{Cc-by-2.0}} license tags. Other files simply state they're under {{Cc-by-2.0}}. Aren't the images all in PD because of the threshold of originality?

Finally, only #4 contains the {{Trademarked}} tag while all the CC license icons are trademarks: "The double C in a circle, the words and logotype “Creative Commons,” Creative Commons license buttons, and any combination of the foregoing, whether integrated into a larger whole or standing alone, including but not limited to CC+ (within a circle or standing alone), are Creative Commons’ trademarks" [9].

Since these icons are used on Wikipedia article about Creative Commons Licenses it is important that the authorship and license information of these files to be correct. --YurB (talk) 21:16, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Be a bit careful with adding {{PD-ineligible}} to an SVG file. Many SVG files are copyrightable as computer software even if they aren't copyrightable as artworks. --Stefan4 (talk) 19:46, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The threshold of originality can differ by country. If something is explicitly licensed CC-BY, then it's good to keep that license as that should apply worldwide regardless of the local law's meaning of originality and the ambiguities that come with it. So yes, having both licenses can actually make sense. I tend to agree that these typically would not be copyrightable in the U.S. (as graphic works anyways), but that may not be true everywhere. Also as Stefan4 says, it might be possible for the SVG text itself to be copyrightable as a literary work or computer program, regardless of whatever picture it is drawing. If the first one was just downloaded from Creative Commons' site, then the uploader should not add their name as an author. But if they created the SVG themselves to more-or-less re-create the image, there might be a thin claim of authorship there. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:16, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your answers. So these are adaptations of the original CC icons. One more thing: shouldn't we add {{Trademarked}} to all of them? --YurB (talk) 09:16, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I would think. Especially if they are registered trademarks. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:44, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Google images trick

While using the google images gadget (see Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets and Help:Image searching#Image search gadgets) for the original image of

File:23 giugno 2013- Punto in cui la luna era più vicina alla terra- 2013-07-03 12-19.jpg (I suspected it was cropped), I found the following:

  • Google images search of the uploaded file only found a larger image posted to facebook one day ago.
  • but after I downloaded the uploaded file and then cropped it to about half the area, google images (via searchbyimage) found what I no suspect is closer to the original (still no ExIF, and evidence of processing).

That was a surprise to me, I normally just use google images without thinking and not trying harder when it finds no matches, but now I will be using crops in this way. Has this been seen before? Is there a way to get a gadget to do this for us? -84user (talk) 22:02, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As for the second question, you think of a gadget that automatically crops relevant sections? How should this work? Or letting the user manually crop on a web-interface? However, I have no clue whether subming this crop to Google would work or whether one would have to stash the file first at a server and then submitting it to Google … something to be tested, I guess. -- Rillke(q?) 14:01, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

July 08

Not so much a proposal, but a question

So, I was reading Mono's admin request page, since I was the person who de-sysoped him on Outreach, when I realized that there was a good discussion on the images over that there I missed out on. Does anyone know if Foundation staff members have a certain license that they are automatically blanketed in when they upload an image? The reason I ask is that I want to move all of the images over here, since they would be better-suited here, but I don't know what license to upload them with. Because it is a small project, people got away with uploading whatever they wanted, because they could and no one would fault them for it. Now, I am left with a ton of images without copyright tags, and to move them over here would mean adding them. I'm all for adding CC-BY-SA-3.0 to everything, but I just wanted to see what the community thought before I did anything drastic. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 06:14, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Only the copyright-holder can license their works. That's why I would be extremely carefully applying license tags to other people's uploads. Even if staff should use one particular license, you cannot assume that everything they uploaded is intended to be under this license. All you can do is determining whether they are in the public domain or not. If they aren't, you have to ask the uploader. More information about staff uploads … -- Rillke(q?) 07:12, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Okay, that makes sense. I just uploaded some of Marlita's works, as she no longer works for the Foundation, but it looks like it is all good on here. I'm going to e-mail everyone else who is still active, and see what they say, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Thanks for the help! Kevin Rutherford (talk) 16:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Luxemburg railway bridges

I recently added some pic of railway bridges in Luxemburg city. There seem to be some confusion with names. There are two categories who seem to be referring to the same bridge: Bisser Bréck and Viaduc de Clausen. It is first railway viaduct north of the city railway station and carrying the railway line 1 to Gouvy (Belgium) and the railway line to Wasserbillig. Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:02, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think they are two different viaducts, at least they have separate articles in the Luxembourg wiki: lb:Clausener Viaduc and lb:Biisser Bréck, and they have different lengths. However the spelling is different for Biisser Bréck. ghouston (talk) 02:03, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The images in the two categories aren't necessarily assigned to the right bridge, which will add to confusion. The Biisser Bréck seems to be the one with the white metal frameworks over the rails for the infrastructure (I'm sure they have a technical term), and also has a green tower crane present in some photos. ghouston (talk) 02:14, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is Biisser Bréck: [10], then scroll this map north a very short distance and you find the second viaduct, which would be Viaduc de Clausen. ghouston (talk) 09:46, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Then there's a third one, which may be Pfaffenthal/Pafendall Viaduct. ghouston (talk) 09:51, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I moved some pictures to Biisser Bréck. Those I am certain are taken of the first bridge from the station. There also enlargement works on this bridge to provide separate tracks for the line to Germany. Smiley.toerist (talk) 13:42, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Iv'e created the Category with the correct spelling Biisser Bréck. Moved some files from Bisser Bréck to Viaduc de Clausen. Must say that I was confused at first too, but on these files you see on the upper left a house with a very typical round dome on Plateau Altmünster. Hope this helps. --Jwh (talk) 20:42, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've now added the Category: Pafendaller Viaduc, some of the pics were misplaced in Viaduc de Clausen, on one of these photographs you have the Pafendaller Viaduc in the foreground which continues to the Clausener Viaduc in the background.
Btw I think that there are a lot of misplaced pictures on panoramio.com. You may prefer to use this link, it's the government geoportail. A search for "Pfaffenthal (Luxembourg) (Pafendall)" will show the 3 bridges clearly, starting south with the Biisser Bréck, where the railline splits going East towards Germany and North to Viaduc de Clausen followed by Pafendaller Viaduc. --Jwh (talk) 21:44, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

July 09

Digital washing out of photos.

This file File:20060714 defile p1040618.jpg has been modified (albeit five years ago) to wash out the background and have only the subject (a military vehicle) in true colour. Is it right to digitally alter images in this way, the user who altered it was not the original contributor? Should it be reverted back to full colour, or a file history split be performed? Liamdavies (talk) 13:15, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This file has a similar treatment. Liamdavies (talk) 18:33, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment Please inform both users of this thread, they might know each other (I'm not 100% sure). --PierreSelim (talk) 15:16, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Done, but I don't think that a history split would harm anyone's work, it would just mean that both the altered and original images would be usable. Liamdavies (talk) 15:42, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes a history split is in order, but given that it's been so long, most of the usage is for the washed out version. The work we will harm is the project editors selection of a washed out image. So whoever does it should go through the existing usage and choose the version most appropriate to each use. (or perhaps for this special case the washed out version could be the one left at the original file name). --99of9 (talk) 15:59, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've only checked the EN:WP history, and it appears that the image was in use before it was overwritten, but that was five years ago. I think the best way to go is your second option of splitting the original out and leaving the washed out as 'primary' in both cases, with an alternative link within each image. Liamdavies (talk) 16:19, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

July 10

Audio player not working on some MAC machines

Several times in the past couple of months, the audio file player has ceased to function for me, which is a real problem as I would like to continue uploading audio files for Wikipedia and Wiktionary. And now, once again, the player module used here and on those other projects no longer plays audio files. In fact, it doesn't seem to respond at all except to change the Play arrow to a Pause symbol. Nothing else happens anymore. Is this a known problem, and is anyone working to fix it? This is a huge issue for audio files. Imagine what it would be like if image files wouldn't display anywhere. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:39, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't heard any issues. I think it may help if I add a sample here for people to test their setup and give you feedback on sounds on their system.

right click here, open in a new window music should play immediately. (700kb)

Here is another sample using an on-screen player, 5 Mbytes.

File:Claude Debussy - clair de lune.ogg

I use Linux (Ubuntu), Firefox, and it plays for me. Penyulap 02:39, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know many things that you can try, except the cure-all which is a live-cd. If you download a ISO from www.ubuntu.org and burn it to a CD or DVD, you can test a completely different operating system and browser without touching anything on your current system. It all runs from the CD/DVD in memory, and when you restart the system without the CD/DVD in the drive, everything goes back to your regular system. You can work out if it is something at your end, or something on commons instantly once you run it. Penyulap 02:46, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I guess I wasn't clear about the problem. I'm not experiencing a personal problem unique to me; this is a systemic problem. The on-screen player does not work on Wikipedia, on Wiktionary, nor here. It used to work. I used to use it all the time, but it's been changed. It stopped working a few months ago. The player is therefore broken by some change, and I know I'm not the only person affected. The problem does appear to be Mac specific, from replies I've gotten on other projects, but it's going to affect all Mac users. So, unless you think every Mac user on MediaWiki should have to go through the procedure you've outlined above, I recommend fixing the player, so that it works again for everyone. Until it is fixed, all the pronunciation files on Wiktionary will be unplayable for a significant proportion of its users.
I do a lot of work recording and linking pronunciation files for English and Latin words on Wiktionary (see e.g. Category:Latin pronunciation, where I created most of the listed files). But sometimes I need to hear the files to make sound checks of compare pronunciations. So right now, the only way I can tell the difference between the pronunciation files and is to dowload the files to my computer, open them up in a separate audio program, and play them there. That's a lot of work just to hear how a word is pronounced, and it used to be simpler back when the on-screen player worked for me. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:17, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry to mis-understand you, I do not know and cannot help, except possibly to direct you to mediawiki's wiki, possibly. There are also bugzillas mentioned here sometimes, with links, but I don't know how they work, I'd have to search for it same as you. Penyulap 04:39, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I started a bugzilla report once for a Commons-Wiktionary interaction problem that resulted from the implementation of case sensitive linking. Ffiles with incorrect capitalization on Wiktionary still link fine, but don't show up in usage lists, which is a problem for Commons Delinker, since it can't find those active links. As a result, we often end up with broken links on Wiktionary when files are deleted or renamed. But after three years, nothing has been done about that problem. So, I have no faith in bugzilla. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:27, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I misread that again at first, brain works not. I think a robot would need to iterate the entire database there to find and fix, that can be done though. Penyulap 05:49, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry your bug wasn't fixed. We get a lot of bug reports, some more difficult than others. Some get fixed quickly, some don't. Please still continue reporting bugs as we definitely can't fix issues we don't know about. Bawolff (talk) 15:55, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Can you be a bit more specific as to the machines you experience this on (especially OS X version and browser)? We use the pronunciation files quite often on Mac systems (OS X 10.7.5 & FireFox 22.0 currently) and I haven't heard of any problems. As you have probably seen above the Extension:TimedMediaHandler, which does the actual playing has been updated quite recently. Before that it would probably have been back in March with REL1_21, but I can't say for certain as I don't really track all of this. As far as I can see it is not a known issue though. In kind regards, heb [T C E] 07:54, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually Wikimedia doesn't use the external releases (REL1_XX branches). Instead we use submodules with wmf/1.XXwmfY branches, which get deployed more or less once a week. So a new version of TimedMediaHandler gets deployed roughly once a week (for commons, usually on mondays). See mw:MediaWiki_1.22/Roadmap for the schedule. As for the actual issue, version numbers would be very helpful. Checking your javascript console for any errors would also be helpful. Bawolff (talk) 15:55, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ah - I didn't know that :) Thank you :) --heb [T C E] 06:29, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

One set of discussion occurred at wikt:Wiktionary:GP#Audio_files_not_playing back in May/June. The details from two of us who experienced the problem are given there. The behavior seemed to be "fixed" as I described there, but has since stopped working again. The behavior right now is that nothing discernibel happens. No errors, but nothing happens. I posted a new thread there on the same issue, but have yet to receieve any comments. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:05, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Given the descriptions there, my immediate thought is that this is local issues, rather than problems with the Wikimedia extension. As I wrote previously we have not experienced any issues here. Initially try clearing out your local cache and then purge one of the affected pages. If that doesn't move anything, the following information would be helpful:
  • Browser request headers (from i.e. ip.ter.dk or xhaus.com)
  • Java version (In MacOSX: Open a Terminal (UtilitiesTerminal) and type /usr/bin/java -version)

By the way: Are you experiencing the same issues with videos from Wikimedia? In kind regards, heb [T C E] 06:29, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Clearing the cache doesn't help. The cache only applies to items I've previously visited, and newly visited items have the same problem. Now that you mention it, videos aren't working either, though I hadn't noticed this before (I seldom play videos from here). Videos also used to play for me, but don't now. I do have the XiphQT component installed as recommended, but it doesn't seem to make any difference. FWIW, I've also noticed that, on WP pages like , where the audio file is supposed to play when you click on the icon, it now downloads the audio file locally instead of playing it as used to happen. That, however, could be the result of a template change at Wikipedia.
Which information did you need from xhaus.com? It gives me 11 different data items. My Java version is 1.6.0_45 1.6.0_51 --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:22, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I just uploaded the latest Java, and got some additional updates for my Mac through their App store. I'm still not getting audio or video, but the sypmtoms have changed. Now, the timing counter in the on-screen audio player and video player advances, but I still get no sound nor video. I've adjusted but my computer's sound output and the player's output, but no sound. Otherwise it acts like the audio file is playing now, which it didn't do before. I tried the video on the Commons main page again, and got a black window only. The counter advanced, and repeatedly looped back to 0:00 after a few seconds, but never displayed any of the video. Again, this is different from the previous symptoms, but I'm still not gaining access to file content. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:40, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Clearing the cache also would most likely refresh the player itself; I don't think it is fetched each time you play a media file. I'm not sure however.
I was in fact interested in seeing all the headers from xhaus.com. It is however easier to copy and paste from ip.ter.dk (first link); just grab everything in the yellow box. That said I don't think that is the place to look, given the latest development. Initially I think you should go to http://player.kaltura.com/docs/ kaltura.com] and see if the player (HTML5 initially - then try the Flash version) works there. If it does not either, I'm quite sure that the problem is localized to you and a few other. I have heard of the current problem before; it was related to a combination of a faulty filtering proxy (Bluecoat I think it was) and browsing the secure (https) version of Wikipedia. If you use the secure version, try the insecure and vice verse. Other than that, I can only think of trying to install another browser i.e. Google Chrome and try it from that one and check if you have accidentally blocked Wikimedia in your Java settings in Safari. --heb [T C E] 14:30, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Some replies: (1) The player.kaltura link does not return a page for me. Please check the link. (2) I am not using the secure server, but using it makes no difference. I get the same problematic behavior on both. The problem is not limited to Wikpedia; it also occurs on Wiktionary and Commons, and I have also tried the secure version of Wiktionary. (3) I have checked for blocking in my browser; nothing is blocked. The player is specifically allowed, because it prompted me for that. But if I have to go to another broswser to get Mediawiki sites to work, then that's not a local issue. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:17, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pretty sure that the solution is my original suggestion. That's because if you have altered the symptoms by altering your system, it stands to reason that the problem lays in the Mac's operating system installed on your computer, there must be some non-critical corruption of the operating system or browser (or java?) software. So, it goes back to my struck advice, I can't see any other way, even if it seems a chore. Penyulap 02:36, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have just checked the link on three different machines (2 running MacOSX and 1 running Windows 7) and it returns a working page on all machines. Link is good.
The suggestion of using a different browser, was to try it out with a different/clean configuration. As I have written several times, the player works fine here, using either of the three following browser on Mac OS X 10.7.5 (11G63) (Darwin $$$ 11.4.2 Darwin Kernel Version 11.4.2: Thu Aug 23 16:25:48 PDT 2012; root:xnu-1699.32.7~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64), java version 1.6.0_51:
  • Safari 6.0.5 (7536.30.1)
  • Firefox 22.0
  • Chrome 28.0.1500.71
Similar on an old Mac OS X 10.6.8 (10K549) (Darwin $$$ 10.8.0 Darwin Kernel Version 10.8.0: Tue Jun 7 16:33:36 PDT 2011; root:xnu-1504.15.3~1/RELEASE_I386 i386), java version 1.6.0_45, that we have for some odd reason lying around:
  • Safari 5.1.9 (6534.59.8)
  • Chrome 28.0.1500.71
I really don't think it's a general problem with the player and Mac, but either, as Penyulap also mentions above, a local non-critical corruption of some settings or other or something that is buggering your internet-connectivity, such as a transparent proxy or a web-filter. To me the problem of opening player.kaltura.com suggest the latter to me. --heb [T C E] 11:08, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Watch entire category

Is there any reasonable way to add all photos in a category to my watchlist, or do I have to go through them one by one? - Jmabel ! talk 15:15, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Idea: 1. Use Catscan2 to get a list of all files in the category as a CSV-file. 2. Load that into your favourite spreadsheet program (LibreOffice, Excel, …) or use some magical Commandline-Fu to get rid of anything but the bare filenames (but keep the "File:"). 3. Copy & paste to Special:EditWatchlist/raw. --El Grafo (talk) 15:34, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
For reference this is tracked by bugzilla:1710 (However that bug has been there forever, and nobody is actively working on it currently so it is likely to remain open for some time more). Bawolff (talk) 15:48, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Can't deny that ;-) Would be a little less ugly if Catscan2 would have a simple raw text output – might be worth a try to ask Magnus about that … --El Grafo (talk) 17:05, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
El Grafo, did you try the "gallery" output option of the new CatScan2? it is just a list of files with <gallery> tags in first and last line. --Jarekt (talk) 15:40, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
wget -qO - 'http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=categorymembers&cmtitle=Category:Your_category&cmtype=file&cmlimit=500&format=xml' | grep -oE 'File:[^"]*' | sed -e 's/&quot;/"/' -e "s/&#039;/'/" should give you a list to stick in your Special:EditWatchlist/raw. It's probably not very robust. For example, it only handles apostrophes and quotes, and there may be other special characters that need to be handled. LX (talk, contribs) 18:34, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I take it that is Unix shell script. I'm on a Windows machine. Also, it's not obvious to me what there are constants and what are variables. Obviously, Category:Your_category is a variable. Is anything else a variable? - Jmabel ! talk 00:17, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Not so much a script as a one-liner, but yeah. You could probably get something similar working under Windows with a bit of work. It uses wget to download an XML file through the Mediawiki API, extracts the file names using grep (searching for expressions starting with File and ending just before the first " that follows), and finally uses sed to substitute &quot; and &#039; to " and ', respectively. The only thing you should have to change is Your_category, but there may also be other characters that need conversion at the end. LX (talk, contribs) 10:19, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
// In categories, creates a toolbox link "Create plain list" which, when clicked creates a list at the bottom of the page
importScript('User:Rillke/genCatList.js');

-- Rillke(q?) 19:05, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Rillke is amazing! :-) Killiondude (talk) 02:48, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you are watching some larger categories, don't forget there is the handy-dandy special page changes related to. For example, here are the latest changes to pages in my LACMA uploads, which would make a simple bookmark in your browser, and perusing this special page for the latest changes would save adding tens of thousands of pages to your watchlist. -- (talk) 10:33, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Lawsuit over photo

A photographer whose photo was posted to the Wikimedia Commons and licensed CC BY 2.0[11] is suing a company I'm affiliated with for using the Commons photo on the company's Facebook page. I believe the crux of the complaint/suit is attribution, but I'm not sure. I'm not versed in the whole CC licensing thing.

What I'm wondering is if this is the type of thing that Wikimedia administrators want to know or would be interested in? Essentially, that a photographer who has consented for his work be used in a "freely usable" collection is now attempting to litigate. Woodshed (talk) 21:59, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if admin or the WMF needs to be notified. http://creativecommons.org/contact may be interested though. They may help settle it with a list of legal precedents before the lawyers take too much money from both sides. He does have the legal right to attribution according to they way I read the CC site.--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:08, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Attribution essay.--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:12, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not especially the administrators, but considering that there have been only a very small number of actual lawsuits involving free licenses specifically, then yes some users could be interested to know about your case, in particular if it involves some interpretation of a section of the CC-by license. It depends, really. You haven't been telling much. Is it something simple like you forgot to attribute? Is it something more complex? Is the photo still on the page? Maybe you could give us a hint about the photo or the company? -- Asclepias (talk) 23:47, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Did you attribute? If not, then clearly you didn't conform to the license. "Free" is not the same thing a "public domain." - Jmabel ! talk 00:05, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There have been several known occasions in Germany where users send an en:Abmahnung (link goes to en.wp) to organisations/people who violated the licence terms (for example here: 14.000 EUR for not attributing). There is nothing Commons administrators should do in such cases. If people think that their copyrights have been infringed it is their right to bring the case to the court or use other forms of legal enforcement. --Isderion (talk) 00:09, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Woodshed, if the suing party says the image is indeed under a CC license, but the license terms were not met with this kind of use, the general outcome of the legal dispute (if disclosable) would be of some interest to us. If, on the other hand, the suing party said the image was never released under a CC license, which would make its hosting on Wikimedia-Commons illegal, we would be very much interested in knowing about which image this case is, in order to prevent other re-users getting exposed against similar litigation. --Túrelio (talk) 19:16, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

July 11

20,000 high quality photographs for Art History enthusiasts

129.4% completed (estimate)

   

20,000 high resolution photographs of works of art from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art are being uploaded, starting with art from the Ancient world. The upload should finish by the end of next week. Discussion and testing started back in March 2013; you can read about the project at Batch uploading.

The photographs are described using the basic metadata information from the LACMA catalogue, so please help by adding categories such as date, materials, artwork style or descriptive text, or transcriptions for inscribed objects. The top level hierarchical category for the artworks is Collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and a backlog of images to check and keep track of this project has been created here, which you can remove from the image page if you have reviewed and improved it. Please drop a note on my talk page if you spot a pattern of errors that might need fixing.

If you are interested in working on the Wikipedias, these images are high resolution photographs of artworks that will engage readers when illustrating articles, and are representative of a wide range of art topics, from early Egyptian pottery through to Modernism in the 19th Century.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank LACMA for making so much of their on-line catalogue and images available on a public domain licence for the widest possible public benefit. -- (talk) 15:24, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

English boy's frock, c.1855
Great news and great images. --Jarekt (talk) 15:44, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As an art history student, this is why I love Commons. Especially now our university no longer has a license for ARTstor. I'll see what I can do. Lemmens, Tom (talk) 09:22, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Great news, thanks LACMA. --99of9 (talk) 09:26, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, I find some treasures and my own surprises in these images. The dress at the top right of this thread is a boy's dress and the lacy frock inserted left is also for a boy to wear. To the modern eye, it's amazing to think that English boys routinely wore fancy dresses of this sort in the mid 19th century. :-) -- (talk) 19:40, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple views of the same object

The LACMA catalogue has some artworks where several photographs have been taken (these are displayed as multiple views on their website in an embedded viewer), often these show different views of a 3D object, or interesting detail from a larger 2D object. I am uploading these as distinct images to Commons, though a small number are near duplicate images. As an example, I would like some views on whether we should keep all the images of Lustration of a Jina Rishabhanatha (Adinatha), there are 6 uploaded which appear to actually be 3 images in pairs. Taking one of these as an example:


Image 3: 2,000 × 1,238 pixels


Image 6: 2,100 × 1,300 pixels

Interestingly these are not simple re-sizing of the image, possibly they were taken as distinct physical photographs with different settings and differences in lighting (sharpness?) can be seen, unfortunately the EXIF data has been lost on one of these. I am unsure of why the curator has decided to keep such near-identical photographs in the catalogue, however it could be that they are trying to bring out slight variations in detail for future research purposes. -- (talk) 11:00, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

July 13

resizing big images will get faster next week (VipsScaler)

On Thursday 18 July, Wikimedia Foundation is planning to deploy something new on the sites: the VipsScaler extension.

We expect this to make resizing big JPEGs and PNGs faster and more reliable, leading to fewer errors -- no matter whether you get a different size by clicking on a link like "Other resolutions: 320 × 239 pixels" or by hand-editing the filename to something like https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c9/Thompson-Pond-2009.png/1000px-Thompson-Pond-2009.png . Also, right now, there is an "area limit" -- we don't let anyone upload a PNG to our site that's more than 50 megapixels. The area limit will go away; that should be nice for Wiki Loves Monuments! (There will still be a filesize limit, of bytes).

Downside: We'll see slight changes in visual quality, and a few images might break. We've already tested this ourselves, but we'd love more testing ahead of time to check for bugs so we can fix them early next week.

There's a test page at https://test2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:VipsTest that you can use to test this and find bugs before we roll this out on Thursday the 18th. This blog post helps you understand how to report a bug in Bugzilla. If you would prefer to mention problems in this thread, I can understand that -- we will respond but it might be a little slower than if you use Bugzilla. :)

Thanks to volunteer Bryan Tong Minh who wrote most of the code, and to WMF's Greg Grossmeier, Jan Gerber, and Tim Starling for working on this! Please feel free to comment here with any questions. Sumana Harihareswara, Engineering Community Manager at WMF (talk) 00:04, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • I just played around with Special:VipsTest a little bit which basically left me with one question: What default settings for the Scaler will be used on Wikipedia?
My tests yielded that bilinear scaling should most probably be on (what is used when this is unticked? Nearest neighbour?). The Amount of sharpening should probably be left at "0" (probably off?), it's already much sharper than with the old scaler anyway. --Patrick87 (talk) 00:48, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The default settings of the extension (which I assume are the one's that will be used but I don't know for sure):
  • If its a jpeg file, and the thumbnail size is <83% of the original file size, then bilinear is not checked, and sharpening is set to 0.8
  • Otherwise for jpeg files, bilinear is checked, and sharpening is set to 0
  • PNG files have sharpening of 0, and bilinear not checked.
Bawolff (talk) 03:02, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm... no bilinear resizing for PNGs? I mainly tested PNGs yesterday and the quality is pretty poor in my opinion. What is the resizer used when not usig bilinear? Is it nearest neighbour (looks a bit like it from the output).
I'll do some further tests this evening and report. Is there some talk page dedicated to VipsScaler (I don't want to directly file a bug as was proposed in the inital comment). --Patrick87 (talk) 13:20, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Just put comments here. I'll make sure the relavent people see them. For reference, which PNG's have you been testing? As for bilinear - Checking it makes the scaler use im_resize_linear instead of im_shrink (I'm not personally familiar with the precise differences). Bawolff (talk) 19:47, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

problem with new thumbnailer

Unfortunately, there's a big problem with the thumbnailing of File:Shield of Trinity Aveling 1891.png. The current 595px thumbnail is a rather optimized 16bit grayscale+alpha image 82kb in size, while the 595px thumbnail under the new algorithm is a 32-bit RGB+alpha image 155 kb in size (or almost twice the filesize). It took about 6 years to get grayscale PNGs to generate grayscale thumbnails (one reason why some people still preferred GIFs for such images until relatively recently: File:Harleian Ms2169 St Mihell arms tricked original.gif etc.), and I would be quite disappointed to see such belated and hard-won progress suddenly be reversed at this point... AnonMoos (talk) 18:20, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Filed as bugzilla:51298. Bawolff (talk) 19:19, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

502 error page

While trying to open https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:1208_Monnickendam_065.JPG&action=edit I received an error page:

502 Bad Gateway
nginx/1.1.19

I tried again a moment later and the page opened normally. I didn't note the time but it was probably about two hours ago, Rybec (talk) 00:08, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Opens without problems now. Ruslik (talk) 18:59, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Google Earth on Toolserver

For the past two hours, when I click for Google Earth on a picture that has coords, for example File:Lincoln Av Elementary Orange jeh.JPG, the browser says it cannot contact Toolserver. Google Maps works okay. Jim.henderson (talk) 13:55, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ToolServer issues are known. Will be good idea to move tool to WMFLabs. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:18, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So, I returned a few hours later to find it working. Thank you, whoever repaired it, if anyone did. And yes, I hope the frequent problems with coords and other features can be made less frequent, somehow. Jim.henderson (talk) 20:37, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still having this issue with Google and Bing Maps on the English site, with it not giving me all of the coordinates for a category, so I don't think it's solved perfectly just yet. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 17:25, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A/V sync hell and subtitles on Creative Commons Wanna work Together? video

I've translated the subtitles for the mentioned video but then saw that the video plays back slower than sound: the javascript player reports duration of 3:34 while the actual video duration is 3:07. This was happening in Firefox (17) and Chromium (27).

Then I've re-uploaded the original video from creativecommons.org as a newer version on top of the same file (I thought the previous file was corrupt) but the problem didn't go away.

Interestingly, when opened directly by the ogv URL, video plays back correctly in both these browsers.

Moreover, I've downloaded the video with my subtitles and played it back in VLC, and discovered that the timestamps no longer match the audio (but the A/V sync itself is correct.) So I opened the audio track in Audacity, edited the timestamps in the .srt file accordingly and uploaded the subtitles back to Commons. But now the timestamps don't match the audio track in the javascript player.

I believe there's some strange incompatibility of the file with the javascript player UI used on Commons. How can I help fix it? --YurB (talk) 14:28, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Additional note: the first (WebM) version of the file was indeed corrupt: it's playing incorrectly locally with VLC and mplayer. --YurB (talk) 15:21, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relevant discussions (that either died or do not fully address the usability issue):

Cross-posted to en:Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) here.

Ever since wikidata was rolled out to automate the display of language links I have been frustrated by the loss of a way to easily populate Commons categories with interwiki links.

I made the following post at [12]:

Before wikipedia used the wikidata automated tool that displays links to other wikipedia language projects, it was simple to copy the list of interwiki links from any wikipedia article and use it in a Commons category. One would just copy the list, add the source language link and paste to the end of the commons category page.

Well, now I am quite stumped. What is needed is a a simple way to trigger wikidata to show the language interwiki links in
each Commons category.

I tried and failed to do this at [1], but I may have succeeded some months ago only by tedious trial and error.

How about a means for the wikidata page to extract all the links as a single page in copyable plaintext? It appears that functionality has been lost and is sorely needed (by me if noone else). I will back link my posting from the Village pumps at wikipedia and Commons. -~~~~

-84user (talk) 16:37, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We are in between working systems and there are no good solutions out there. I just add a single interwiki link to a single wikipedia and wait for wikidate support for Commons. --Jarekt (talk) 17:03, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Until something firm is done that makes this an "automated" process, please use Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2013/06#Commons_interwiki_links_generator_tool as an easy way to add those interwiki links to our categories here. russavia (talk) 17:21, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User:IAidanBarry passing copyrighted material as their own

I want to draw attention to User:IAidanBarry who has uploaded two screen shot images taken from the soap opera Hollyoaks. They are obviously not his own work and they are copyrighted to Lime Pictures who produce the show. They probably need removing now as they have gone unnoticed since April 2013.Raintheone (talk) 19:19, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Images filed for deletion. --Túrelio (talk) 19:25, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Jmabel ! talk 19:29, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

July 14

userpage tabs

Out of pure curiosity, can we/do we have userpage tabs like we do at en:User:WorldTraveller101 or en:User:Mrt3366. These are cool tabs that would likely be useful for editors trying to navigate? Like? Dislike? If so, I need help making them so the codes and parameters work. Thanks. WT101 (TalkStalk) 21:27, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

July 15

WMF intends for Only VisualEditor to be usable on Talk pages; representative states he would "dearly love to kill off Wikitext".

The VisualEditor thing hasn't affected commons much yet. If anywhere is less suitable to it, it's here.

However...

Jorm is a representative of the Wikimedia Foundation, who are in charge of all of us. He's responsible (I believe) for developing "Flow", the new talk page system. And he's saying some things that no member of the WMF should be saying.

""You should strive to achieve Zen acceptance that the only editor for Flow will be the VisualEditor. If, by the time Flow is released, the VisualEditor supports a native code editor, it will likely be there. But nothing is promised - nor can it be." - Jorn (WMF)"

He went on to add "It is entirely possible that the data for each post will not be saved as wikitext because there are considerable performance issues that arise when doing so. If this is the case, things like templates will simply be unable to be supported." and further added "I would dearly love to kill off Wikitext."

I apologise if the links are a bit weird - they use LiquidThreads there, and linking to individual threads is buggy.

Is Jorm acting in a rogue manner? Perhaps. But until the WMF denies it, we need to presume this is true. Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:35, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the idea is to produce low-quality HTML output, like every other WYSIWYG editor out there. The code usually renders OK but is an utter mess. But it is a whole lot cheaper and easier for the WMF to build. What I find strange is the huge overhead costs for developing rather simple software projects. Spending inordinate amounts of money on features that should be cheap to build means the complex, important stuff rarely gets done. —Mono 01:45, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ugh. I quit editing one of the Googlesite wikis because it was so hard to do anything with text that wouldn't misrender. The code is so simple and clear.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:44, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Copyviol images, vandalisms and menaces

User Mevesager uploaded some metro maps in copyviol, taken from the official sites of the transport company without any authorisation (see [13] and [14]). I proposed those files for deletion, but the user continues to remove the requests and attacks me for that ([15]) and tryes to intimidate me, with a menace to report my contributes to the police ([16]). Is that allowed?--Friedrichstrasse (talk) 01:35, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

100,000,000th edit

Here is the 100,000,000th edit on commons. Congrats! //  Gikü  said  done  Monday, 15 July 2013 06:02 (UTC)