Commons:Village pump

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Welcome to the Village pump

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

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Water pump next to the church in the town center of Doel. Doel, Beveren, East Flanders, Belgium. [add]

Contents





Oldies[edit]

Charinsert[edit]

The Charinsert extension is installed but I can't find its management in the Gadgets. In Wikipedia and Wikisource, I added a row of "User" characters and strings but here it doesn't seem to work. User:Ineuw/common.js -- 01:28, 21 June 2014 User:Ineuw

Category:Art by subject - what is it for?[edit]

No really, I'm serious. What Commons content should be placed in the Category:Art by subject tree? IMO its its grossly underpopulated. My concern becomes apparent if you focus on a sub-category like Category:United Kingdom in art. The category basically contains:

  1. Paintings and drawings
  2. Engravings, lithograms, etchings
  3. Stamps

These are mostly landscapes, but also includes images of buildings and portraits.

The trouble is that's missing every other form of artwork, especially photography. Why should the UK in art contain Constable landscapes, but not FP landscapes by Wikimedians? One is a painting, the other is a photo, but both are artworks that a gallery might choose to display. Artistic merit is in the eye of the beholder...

This suggests that the art tree should be expanded to include all forms of art, with the photography tree added, and paintings moved to a sub-cat. It goes without saying that every sub-cat of Category:Photographs by country is underpopulated itself, but that's a different issue...--Nilfanion (talk) 11:07, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

  • In general, the "default" on Commons is a photograph, and within that a color photograph. So we tag non-photographic images as "art" and we also tag "black and white photographs" as such. Yes, photography can be art rather than just documentary, but it's not how we generally use the term here. - Jmabel ! talk 17:43, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
My concern is that even a typical holiday snapshot is a form of art, protected by copyright as a work of art. It might have little artistic merit, but we aren't meant to make value judgements in categorisation. On the flip side, Ansel Adams was a hugely influential artist, yet his work is excluded from Category:California in art by the current structure. I can't see a consistent way to include Ansel Adams, and exclude all the modern snapshots that imitate him.
If the art tree is meant exclude photography (I can see value in that - to mark the image as "unusual"), then it is poorly named. Should it just be redirected to the paintings tree? After all isn't that what most people mean by "art", and the subcats seem to basically be just paintings plus a eclectic mix of other less significant artforms? Including photography means Category:California in art would be broadly the same as Category:California, which is useless in a different way.
There might be value in a bot run to do a mass tagging of photos, to explicitly mark them as such, but that's a different thing.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:05, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
Where you have a painting, a photograph of the painting isn't the artwork itself. So it seems fine to have a category for these. Photos can also be like this, since a digital scan of a photo print isn't identical to the photo itself. On the other hand, digital photographs can be uploaded directly to commons, as not a representation of the art but the art in its own right. For this latter case there's no point in tagging these photographs as art. Perhaps the best you can do is place a note in the "art" category pointing out that every photo in Commons can be considered to be either art in its own right, or art as a reinterpretion of other art (the photo scan etc.) However you can also have categories for the subset of photos that have been recognised by the art establishment in some way, e.g., by winning awards or by being displayed in a gallery, or just because they were made by somebody recognised by the art establishment as a leading artist (through the winning of awards etc.) --ghouston (talk) 23:30, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
Disagree there, its co-opting the category into being something else - you are talking about "Digital conversions of artwork showing X" rather than "Artwork showing X" (but still a useful concept to track). If a digital photo is displayed in a real-life art gallery - is the artwork the RAW image, the post-processed JPG, or the print hanging on the wall? Why would a scanned film photo be categorised in the same way as a scanned painting, and not a direct-to-commons digital photo? With regards to the cats, I'd expect California in art to contain those files containing "art" showing "California" (in some medium). I think my problem here is the X in art cats are being used to segregate out paintings (and some other things) from everything else (eg photos, music, video) when just about everything in the category is ultimately an artwork.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:20, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
You may be right about scans vs originals. But if you want California in art to include every photo you may as well redirect California in art to California, since most of the files in that category can be interpreted as "art", and relate somehow to California. --ghouston (talk) 01:37, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
Maybe a tweak gets to the real point: What's the subject of this file? Is it the painting by da Vinci, or the painting's unknown subject? In such a case, its the artwork (not the subject of the artwork) that is being categorised - regardless of its medium. Furthermore, we normally only care about the artwork itself (as opposed to its subject) when its by a known artist. California is for "images showing California", California in art is for "images showing artworks (by known artists), that depict California" - California is a subordinate concept. Something like "Art depicting California" might be better than the status quo as it puts the primary concept first.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:03, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
Fair enough, and it seems like something that should be written in the description of Category:Art. --ghouston (talk) 22:58, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
By this argument, categories such as Category:Diagrams shouldn't be part of the Art category tree? --ghouston (talk) 23:03, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
I don't think Category:Art has such a big problem (which has both photography and diagrams as 2nd level subcats). Its only really Category:Art ''by subject'' where I see difficulty - I've started a CFD on that cat now.
I agree diagrams aren't normally art (though I could see a contemporary artist displaying a circuit diagram as an "artwork"). That said Category:Diagrams probably should stay in the art tree, due to the usual 2nd order effects that happen in the category tree.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:54, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
I always assumed that this category was for "Fine art", which would include photographs by Ansel Adams but excludes anything I take a picture of (or paint, or sketch, or engrave, or whatever). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:56, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Cherry blossom, Cherry Blossom, Sakura[edit]

We have the following three categories that I think need some attention:

  • Category:Cherry Blossom -- contains pictures of trees and closeups of blossoms
  • Category:Cherry blossom -- contains only the subcat Category:Sakura
  • Category:Sakura -- supposedly the ornamental tree and its blossoms, but it's a subcat of "Cherry blossom" -- shouldn't that either be the other way around, or not be in the same category branch at all (assuming that there are cherry blossoms other than that specific species of tree)?

I would propose:

On the other hand, maybe we should remove all these categories and just put the files in taxonomic categories. I don't know, so I'm looking for more input here. --Auntof6 (talk) 11:08, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

University of Washington Quad cherry blossoms 2014 - 15 (13347872433).jpg
I agree with rename Category:Cherry Blossom to Category:Cherry blossoms and delete Category:Cherry blossom. I think Category:Sakura should be retained (or replaced with Category:Hanami) for activities relating to cherry blossom festivals, etc. We could use Category:Cherry blossom festivals, but it's a little too narrow: for example, an image like the one at right belongs in Category:Sakura or Category:Hanami (or a subcat), but is not a festival as such. We don't have an English word quite equivalent to hanami, and sakura has passed into English a more than hanami has. - Jmabel ! talk 14:25, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

✓ Done Category:Cherry Blossom and Category:Cherry blossom are bad names. I put all files and the cat "Sakura" in the correct Category:Cherry blossoms, and I ask to delete the wrong categories. --DenghiùComm (talk) 08:22, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

International/languages display issue[edit]

At File:1562 Americæ Gutiérrez.JPG I'm seeing an odd problem. In the Summary section I'm seeing all of the language descriptions not just one, a side effect of which is the table is too wide, just wider than my display. I can't read the text without scrolling even if the window is 1920px wide. I think that's a problem with a the Arabic language block, which I wouldn't attempt to fix. But the broader problem is that it's showing me all of them and not just the one, English (my language is set to British English). The edit that seems to have caused this is this one. Revisions before this look fine, i.e. just show me English description and other Summary text.--JohnBlackburne (talk) 15:25, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Some of the Arabic text lines had a space as their 1st character, which causes in wikicode (not only in Arabic and other furriner squiggles, but even in HM’s English) that line to be rendered as monospaced and non-breakable. Fixed now. -- Tuválkin ✉ 15:54, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, it's no longer 1920ish pixels wide. But I'm still seeing all of the languages, and need to hunt for a second for the English, while previously I saw only English.--JohnBlackburne (talk) 16:44, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
Many (including myself), actually prefer to show all languages all the time, but there should be a little language select box immediately below the "other resolutions" listing... AnonMoos (talk) 18:01, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

I think I've worked out what the problem is: my language is set to British English, and this seems to be confusing it. If I set or force the language to English the problem goes away. Compare e.g. force English and force British English. As noted this was working before, i.e. if I look at the version before this change I see English with my language set to British English.

It should still work. British English/en-GB should be treated as English 99% of the time. The only time there's need to respect the British/GB is when alternative content, such as with variant spellings, is provided for British readers. But that's not the case here, and I imagine never happens on file pages; few enough pages have more than one or two languages. Now I've seen it I can fix it myself but I'm probably not the only editor who's chosen the 'British English' option, or some other local option, in the language settings not realising the problems it might cause.--JohnBlackburne (talk) 19:12, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

June 24[edit]

Upload of 500+ video's of birds[edit]

Spoonbill at sunset

I have just finished uploading over 500 video's of bird filmed in The Netherlands by a professional film producer. This is a donation made possible by the Foundation for Nature Footage (Stichting Natuurbeelden) and the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. The collection contains beautiful and unique footage of different bird species, in a variety of landscapes displaying different types of behavior. The entire collection can be found in the category Stichting Natuurbeelden on Open Images.

How can you help?

  • The meta-data is in Dutch, however the Latin bird-names are contained in the meta-data as well, which should make it possible to still find these videos. Adding the English birdnames to the videos would still be a great help though.
  • Because the collection consists of raw, uncut shots, usage in articles on Wikipedia will often profit from the start-end functionality of the Wiki-syntax. E.g. "[[File:Filename|thumb|300px|start=5|end=12]]" will start a certain file at 5 seconds and will end it at 12.
  • For bird-enthousiasts that don't have a lot of experience in editing articles on Wikipedia, I made a brief ad-hoc tutorial on how to add a video from this category to an article. It can be found here, feel free to share.

Have fun browsing these videos and spread the word! Thanks. 85jesse (talk) 10:55, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Many thanks to all involved, especially the donor, looks like a great resource. --Tony Wills (talk) 11:29, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
+1. Its not often you see mass uploads of videos. Thanks to everyone involved. Bawolff (talk) 03:52, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
Thank you both! More might be coming up from the Foundation for Nature Footage. The more these video's find their way into articles the more they are inclined to upload more material, so thank you for spreading the word! 85jesse (talk) 14:09, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Media Viewer software feature[edit]

Reminder: @Rillke, Jkadavoor, Emw, RP88, Alvesgaspar:@Taxiarchos228, Jebulon, Ipoellet, Johnbod, Smiley.toerist:@Kelvinsong, Russavia, Keegan (WMF), Jmabel: You have all expressed interest in what happens with this feature; I want to make sure that you see, I did start the RfC, so you might want to consider moving or adapting any statement you made above in casual conversation, for this more formal discussion: Commons:Requests for comment/Media Viewer software feature A few of you have posted there, but many have not. -Pete F (talk) 17:11, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

My previous input on Media Viewer was in the vein of a bug report, and I haven't thus far been very concerned about the merits of Media Viewer as an idea. If I do participate in the RFC, it will be as a general Commons contributor - my participation will not flow from my previous comment. — Ipoellet (talk) f.k.a. Werewombat 23:34, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

June 26[edit]

File summary—upload date vs date of creation[edit]

On the file pages, the date entry is ambiguous, especially when one uploads another person's creation (which usually has a much older creation date, and likely an earlier publishing date). I therefore propose to change the entry from "Date" into "Date of creation".

The upload form furthers the use of the wrong date, as the upload date is suggested when you fill in the form. I therefore propose to give only the YYYY-MM-DD format in the upload form, to let the uploader think about it, but tell in which format to write. Furthermore, the clocktime is not really useful, if not misleading. --Wickey-nl (talk) 07:25, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

There are templates like {{taken on}} and {{published in}} that are supposed to be used there to clarify what you mean. Sometimes the date of publication will be the only information you know, and that can be very relevant information e.g. for copyright reasons. darkweasel94 08:27, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
  • If the photograph has an EXIF date of creation, then I think that this date should be suggested by default. This date is more likely to be accurate than today's date. There are still going to be some errors, but fewer of them. For example, if you scan a mediæval manuscript, the date when the document was scanned might be filled in as 'date of creation' in the scanner's EXIF data. --Stefan4 (talk) 20:30, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
The date= parameter is often useless (f. ex. with BSicons), so in my opinion it should disappear in the {{information}} if left blank, also, not providing any date should be possible in the UploadWizard (and the case if otherwise the date of uploading would be used).    FDMS  4    20:40, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
Yes the date field has always been ambiguos, but changing the infobox entry to "creation date" would just make the data it contains wrong on an awful lot of files and definitely should not be done. The upload date may well be the date of first publication which is more likely relevant to copyright than the actual creation date. Separate date fields for creation and publication might be sensible as it would make parsing the field easier for bots etc (do many files have both {{taken on}} and {{published in}} ?). --Tony Wills (talk) 21:14, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
I came at the issue because of the upload form, which may be a more urgent point. The explanation is hidden behind a button. Once you have used the form, you are inclined to ignore it the next time. It must be not difficult to fix that. And I think two entries in the infobox is a good idea. It forces uploaders to think about it. If kept empty one of them, it will simply not appear on the page. --Wickey-nl (talk) 14:16, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Reworked duplicates[edit]

Flickr - …trialsanderrors - Panoramic view of Lyon, France, ca. 1899.jpg
File:Lyon croixrousse congres.jpg

This Flicker image seem to be the same as File:Lyon croixrousse congres.jpg. Do we keep both and under wich license?Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:07, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

  • Yes we keep both. They are two variants of the same image, but they are not exact duplicates.
  • As for your license question: could you be more precise about the issue so each reader here doesn't have to do their own research? - Jmabel ! talk 16:08, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
    • I suspect the Flickr version is a modified version of the original library of congress version. I would like to know wich is closed to the original version. Or maybe it is a scan of another separate printed version (not a library version)Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:14, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
The flickr page specifies that its source is the LoC image, links to it, and specifies that the image is in the public domain. The CC tag was on the flickr page probably only because flickr does not seem to have a public domain tag available for ordinary users, and using a CC tag may be a trick some flickr users find to have those public domain images found when someone uses the flickr search to find free images, although their specific mention that the image is actually in the public domain clarifies that they're not actually claiming a copyright or a CC license. And then, the CC tag got copied to Commons probably only because that's how the operator programmed his bot, to automatically tag all his uploads with a CC tag, not with the actual copyright status specified on the flickr page. You can remove the misleading CC tag and indicate the actual PD status. Anyway, there doesn't seem to be an advantage to upload a copy of a copy from the flickr page, with the potential loss of status and source information in the process, when the image can be uploaded and sourced directly from the LoC. -- Asclepias (talk) 18:51, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Guidance for corporate editors[edit]

This section has been moved to Commons talk:Guidance for paid editors. Thanks to everyone who participated! —LX (talk, contribs) 15:49, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Replace sidebar links from Commons category pages to Wikipedia article pages with a sidebar link to Wikidata category item[edit]

Hello. I have some problems with relatively newly-registered User:Tamawashi (but who apparently already has some experience, at least on Wikidata). Aside from the mess he/she left renaming perfectly fine categories (still not resolved, criticism on his/her talk page has been reverted), he/she blindly removes all Wikipedia links from the sidebar in categories claiming that they come from Wikidata (like here), which I find wrong as only links to categories come from Wikidata and in many cases there are only a few related Wikipedia categories but many more related Wikipedia articles. I've found some chat about that here but there's no consensus about removing all links. What I prefer to do is keep/add links to WP articles when there are no WP categories (by the way I don't use Template:On Wikipedia as I find it visually very ugly: it clutters the screen top, occupies several lines and shows full article names making it difficult to browse, aside from duplicating the sidebar functionality).

So my question is: as there's no consensus about deleting Wikipedia article links on Commons categories (i.e. all links since the category links come from Wikidata anyway), can those edits be reverted safely? Or is everyone right and one should let contributors waste each other time doing/undoing sidebar edits? — Bjung (talk) 16:28, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

It seems like it's a Wikidata contributor trying to enforce Wikidata policies on Commons without agreement. — Bjung (talk) 16:53, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
I removed the attacks that the user:Bjung on my talk page and pointed him already to Category_talk:Category_redirects#Categories_not_showing_up_in_Non-empty_category_redirects. Calling my work a mess, while not showing that I did something wrong is not helpful either. I wait for User:Bjung to cool down. For the sidebars:
  1. if a page in es-WP is linked from Commons then a category from es-WP linked in Wikidata will not show up
  2. the sidebar links are misleading, if on a category page they lead to article pages for some Wikipedias. The category description can be used for direct links to articles. Tamawashi (talk) 21:15, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Tamawashi, there is no consensus here on Commons to go this way, and so far Wikidata has ignored our widely expressed concern that typically a Commons category (unless it is rather "meta") should link to a Wikipedia article rather than a Wikipedia category. Please don't make these edits without (or, worse, against) consensus. - Jmabel ! talk 00:09, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

I fully agree with Jmabel. Futhermore, Tamawashi’s contributions should carefully analyzed and undone where they have been harmful for Commons. -- Tuválkin ✉ 03:06, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
@User:Tuvalkin: That should be done with everyone's edits, not? Let's have a look at Category:Ruente:
Was this harmful?
Now look at Category:Bárcena de Cicero,
  • 2009‎-10-27 in esWP
  • 2010-09-20 in Commons - no page link
  • 2013‎-11-17 in itWP and linked in Wikidata with esWP, not linked with Commons, this will last until 2014-06-27
  • 2014-06-27 a) Commons linked with Wikidata item in sidebar, b) Wikidata item linked with Wikidata article item, which links to 23 Wikipedia article pages
Was this harmful? Now think about, will you really want to manually have page links duplicated hardcoded in Commons? Or do you better use templates and Wikidata queries to display page links on Category pages? Tamawashi (talk) 04:07, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
@User:Jmabel: The Wikipedia articles can be linked with Wikimedia category items via category's main topic which is a reverse of topic's main category. So the links are there, see the Bárcena de Cicero example above. Commons just needs to find a way to display them. Maybe look for a user that can program a template, I think Lua is the technology used for this kind of queries. Tamawashi (talk) 04:30, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
  • "...Commons just needs to find a way to display them...": perhaps. But until that is sorted out, it is premature to change Commons' content. - Jmabel ! talk 04:47, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
The other way around, it is urgent that this is done, I gave examples of already, another one follows. One can already today, without a special way of display do this: just click Data item in the sidebar and find correct connections, or use "add links" to establish such connections. The current article links block users and contributors to do this. See errors at Category:San Vicente de la Barquera - it links to articles, but no single link goes to the category or the Wikidata item. Furthermore, there is no Add links link, because the erroneous links block it. Then see San Vicente de la Barquera - there are all the links again, but via Wikidata and an additional Data item link. Then from the data item one can go to the category Wikidata item, and only from there the correct links to categories in other Wikipedias are shown. Tamawashi (talk) 08:12, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
@Tamawashi: I think that current Wikidata policy doesn't fit what is needed for Commons, despite concerns voiced by many contributors. Until a solution is found, many people, including me, will link categories to articles, and articles to categories. Regards, Yann (talk) 10:52, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
+1 --Steinsplitter (talk) 10:55, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
@Yann: @Steinsplitter: - what can be learned from the fact that "Wikidata policy doesn't fit what is needed for Commons"? Does this support position A or does it support position B? "despite concerns voiced by many contributors" - probably there are more concerns raised by other contributors? What would you do? enWP-art1 -link to- commons-cat1 AND enWP-cat1 -link to- ??? What does Wikidata say about plain links in Commons to Wikipedia articles? Maybe nothing? That means that one can have plain links like "en:Earth" instead of interwiki links and thus end the blocking of the Data item link and "add link"-link? Tamawashi (talk) 12:13, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

June 27[edit]

http://yahoolabs.tumblr.com/post/89783581601/one-hundred-million-creative-commons-flickr-images-for[edit]

This announcement caught my eye. As we already know many of Flickr's images are set to NC use only but it is interesting Flickr continues to foster CC licensing. Saffron Blaze (talk) 03:22, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Interwiki links duplicating Wikidata links[edit]

As of 2014-06-27 Category:Santander has hardcoded interwiki links to categories in esWP and euWP. But these already exist in the linked Wikidata item. Can a bot clean this up? Tamawashi (talk) 04:22, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Ask at COM:BWR. -- Rillke(q?) 11:02, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
m:User:Addbot (unfortunately inactive) should be the best choice. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 11:42, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Categorized images remain in Category:All media needing categories as of 2014[edit]

There are images in Category:All media needing categories as of 2014 that have already been categorized. (Here is one which I removed manually from the metacategory.) How can we rectify this problem? --Jonund (talk) 09:11, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Surely you wanted to show this diff. Removing the {{uncategorized}} template should do the job. Are you suggesting a bot-run? COM:BWR. -- Rillke(q?) 11:01, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
Actually; I meant the diff I mentioned, to show an example of a categorization which failed to remove the metacategory, although I mentioned that I had later removed the metacategory.
When I use HotCat, the metacategory is automatically removed, but evidently, that is not the case for all editors. If the feature could be activated for all editors, it would solve the problem, to the extent that HotCat is used. --Jonund (talk) 11:56, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
It works the other way around too, with images that aren't in the "uncategorised" categories, e.g., File:Estadio_de_softball.jpg. --ghouston (talk) 23:06, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
  • And oddly enough it was me that removed the uncategorised tag, even though I had no intention of doing so. --ghouston (talk) 23:08, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
Is it technically possible to have the Category:All media etc removed automatically when a category is added with HotCat, while making exceptions for certain categories like Category:Black and white photographs or Category:Unidentified people? --Jonund (talk) 10:49, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
Yes, the easiest way would be to mark them as hidden categories. There would be some justification, since Black and white photographs is a technical criterion similar to JPEG files, and Unidentified people could also be considered a maintenance category. --ghouston (talk) 23:59, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
I suppose once the template has been removed, it will never get added back automatically, even if the file has no non-hidden categories? There's no bot that periodically checks the entire database for uncategorised files? --ghouston (talk) 00:02, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Disputes relating to URAA, policy, Israeli images, and behaviour[edit]

Please see Commons:Administrators' noticeboard#Disputes relating to URAA, policy, Israeli images, and behaviour. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:25, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

June 29[edit]

Wrong connection[edit]

In the Category:Sascha Schneider when we clic on the interwiki "Italian", we don't arrive at the page of the artist, but at the page of "Radebeul", a german municipality. Where is the problem, and how can we correct this mistake? Thank you at all for your help. Cheers, --DenghiùComm (talk) 07:55, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm guessing this was the problem. —LX (talk, contribs) 09:27, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
Thank you so much! --DenghiùComm (talk) 10:31, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Comparison Template:Trimming ↔ Template:Remove border[edit]

Because in the most cases there is no feedback on "specific" pages/templates (often there are faults for years and nobody recognize it, but this is another matter) I put the matter here. In most cases nobody cares if someone do larger changes, also do the unwritten rule, no answer mean agreement. But I would get more clarification. So I think the new template: Trimming could be easy merged with template: Remove border, as it was in the past also done with template: Remove caption which was simply redirected (to template: Watermark) by a single user (without agreement(. → User: Perhelion 11:54, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Actually I stumbled across {{Trimming}} some time ago an did some major fixes, since it was pretty broken back then. Later on I discovered {{Remove border}} which was redundant in parts. I was thinking about ways to resolve this conflict, but I figured that both templates had their pros an cons and none could replace the other entirely:
Remove border
– seems to be more popular
– is much more detailed on some specifics of images with borders
but
– is limited to image with borders
– does not accept any parameters to give further information
Trimming
– is less popular (probably because it was a mess before I cleaned it up and badly maintained)
but
– is much more general an therefore flexible
– is not limited to borders but can mean any trimming imaginable (e.g. a finger in front of the lens Face-wink.svg)
– can be feeded date, comment and source parameters to precisely explain what needs to be done
Therefore – although {{Remove border}} seems like the generally accepted version to tag images for trimming – {{trimming}} (it's even in the name) is much more flexible and covers a lot more use cases (also in my personal opinion it's prettier with the nice scissors Face-wink.svg). Plus it's much shorter while achieving basically the same, which is the way to go (image description pages or maintenance templates shouldn't replace help pages but only tag images that need work in the shortest possible way).
So if you still want to merge the templates (I chose not to for the above reasons back then) either merge {{Remove border}} into {{Trimming}} or port all the functionality from {{Trimming}} to {{Remove border}} which will result in pretty much the same. --Patrick87 (talk) 12:31, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
Yes, thanks for detailed clarification. So the border template could be theoretically easy merged with a border parameter (and so the sorting cat). But if no one seems to be interested in a simplification, I also don't see a significant necessity for a merge. → User: Perhelion 21:07, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

June 30[edit]

Personal acquaintances goes international[edit]

The "Personal acquaintances" tool for Wikip/medians to confirm that they have met a real person behind a user account was started in 2008 in de:wp and has meanwhile been translated into 7 languages and spread to more than 13 WMF projects. Over 1,500 users have given more than 50,000 confirmations since. The English language pages in en:wp, de:wp, wmflabs and Commons are looking for native speakers to improve the text and for more Wikimaniacs to go to Meetups and connect to each other. Spread the word and let's make it a big thing at the upcoming Wikimania in London (please help improving the English text for the Wikimania leaflet). Looking forward to meeting you! :) --Jan (media) 21:25, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

  • Does one still have to come through de-wp to use this? If so, it might be good to come up with some very precise instructions about that part of the process. - Jmabel ! talk 16:47, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
Yes.
  1. Set your de:Special:Preferences to English language.
  2. Go to de:Spezial:Einstellungen#mw-prefsection-gadgets Section "Veränderung der Oberfläche" and check the box at "Erweiterte Benutzeroberfläche für Persönliche Bekanntschaften aktivieren, um Bestätigungen hier vornehmen zu können." (the only text that has no translation yet afaik).
  3. Go to de:Wikipedia:Persönliche Bekanntschaften/neue Anfragen (it will be in English if you followed step 1) and register yourself.
  4. Once you have got confirmations by three users you can start confirming yourself. (Post your username into this list to receive bot-messages for all confirmations you receive.)
  5. Go to de:Wikipedia:Personal Acquaintances for more information if you want. – Feel free to improve the English explanations there (and here and here), they were all written by non-native speakers, so better wording is very much appreciated!
Good instruction? :) --Jan (media) 20:00, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
Too complicated. Stopped reading after #3. A Finnish guy recently told me, Germans are unable to produce easy-to-use software and I tend to somewhat agree :) Also looking forward meeting you, Jan. -- Rillke(q?) 20:05, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
I am still trying to figure out what is the purpose of this tool. What is the advantage of confirming someone or being confirmed. In my view it is fine is some users never meat others in real life, or if they are robots or dogs, as long as they have valuable contributions. --Jarekt (talk) 20:11, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
If it is international it should be moved imho to metawiki and translated there. --Steinsplitter (talk) 20:26, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
@Jarekt. It is nothing more than a part of German Stammtisch culture. Anyone who knows it, will also guess the reason for the high level of administrative tolerance for destructive users in de.wp. With other words, not the users with most productive article work are most renowned ones on de.wp, but those with most real-life "friendships", preferably with admins and meta discussants. I don't think that we need to adapt kind of it on Commons. --A.Savin 21:23, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
first, yes, unfortunately there is a high level of (not only !!!) administrative tolerance for destructive users in de.wp, but this is no direct result of the stammtisch culture. -jkb- (talk) 08:31, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

July 02[edit]

WikiSense down?[edit]

I wanted to once more update the number of all children files of this category, and followed the usual link to https://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryIntersect.php?wikifam=commons.wikimedia.org&basecat=Trams+in+Lisbon&basedeep=999&mode=iul&go=Scan&format=csv&userlang=en. There I arrive to an unexcpeted CatScan V2.0β form page, devoided of any of the parameters passed by the url, and showing this enigmatic and frustrating message:

If you're upset because you wanted WikiSense and got this page instead, complain to Daniel, not me!

linking to https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Daniel_Kinzler — Well, upset is a good word: What’s going on?! -- Tuválkin ✉ 06:28, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I suggest you ask Duesentrieb via e-Mail (a friendly one) whether they are inclined to port their tool to tool labs. As you probably know, Toolserver was shut down on June, 30 and not all tool authors ported their tools. -- Rillke(q?) 06:51, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Template for text book cover[edit]

During transferring File:Eszperantó-Magyar Szótár (Pechan Alfonsz, 1983).jpg from Esperanto Wikipedia I found no license tag for text book-covers (similar to Template:PD-textlogo). Instead I used Template:PD-ineligible, but it seems to be too general. There are many text book-covers on Esperanto Wikipedia, which could be transfered so I would like to know the recommended way and recommended templates. (or respond in Esperanto in Diskutejo) Thanks! --KuboF (talk) 14:36, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

{{PD-text}}? --Jarekt (talk) 16:18, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Download all files ?[edit]

There used to be a "Download all files" button on category pages.

Has it gone? Is there a way to get it back? Jheald (talk) 15:12, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

i think it was a default enabled gadget possibly removed by https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition&diff=127213023&oldid=127212316 Bawolff (talk) 16:27, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Indeed. Activate the ExtraTabs2 gadget now! -- Rillke(q?) 17:08, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Why does that still work, in fact? That gadget links to a tool on the Toolserver, which I believe shut down? darkweasel94 17:37, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Basil[edit]

File:Sant Basil The Prayer.jpg This picture say that it has a permission to use. Why are they deleting it now? here discussion ? --Hafspajen (talk) 15:33, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

There is no problem here. Images were uploaded without proper proof of permit from the painter, than they were deleted, proof of permit from the painter was received and the images covered by it were reuploded or restored. That is all. Everything is OK now. --Jarekt (talk) 17:14, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Oh, great. --Hafspajen (talk) 18:27, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Overwritten picture[edit]

Why has the first version of http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Train_wreck_at_Montparnasse_1895.jpg been overwritten? It is a different picture, with less resolution, but more clearly visible und not so much cut off. --94.220.234.162 21:30, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

No idea, but it was done a long time ago. There'd be nothing wrong with uploading it again under a different name (and at a higher resolution if available.) --ghouston (talk) 00:49, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
✓ Done See File:Train wreck at Montparnasse 1895 - 2.jpg--Jarekt (talk) 19:03, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Better to {{split}} the upload, make the earlier version a different filename and retain the upload history, rather than re-upload. --Tony Wills (talk) 10:54, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

July 03[edit]

Link to {{edit request}}[edit]

When you click "view soure" in proteced pages appears a message that links to {{editprotected}} but it is now a redirect. Could someone change it in {{edit request}}. thanks--Pierpao.lo (listening) 08:10, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

And what's exactly wrong with a link to a redirect? The redirect will stay forever. -- Rillke(q?) 08:29, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
We keep some old, cryptically brief template redirects that say nothing about what they're supposed to be used for, like {{db-f9}} or {{editprotected}}, for the benefit of those who are already used to them. In instructional texts, it makes sense to use real template names if they are more readable (i.e. use full words with spaces between them) and descriptive. —LX (talk, contribs) 21:57, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
thanks LX --Pierpao.lo (listening) 10:46, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
✓ Done by an admin--Pierpao.lo (listening) 10:46, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Change to other resolution line on image description page of svgs[edit]

Just a heads up, starting on tuesday, the other resolutions line on the image description page will change for svg files (bugzilla:6834). Previously it only showed other resolution links for sizes smaller than what the width and height attribute on the SVG was. The end result was usually the other resolution line was not shown for SVG files. To see what the new functionality looks like, compare File:CC_some_rights_reserved.svg on beta wiki vs commons. Given that SVGs are vector images, it will now shows other resolution links for all sizes regardless of the source image size. Given this change, I think it would make sense to disable the SVGThumbs function in mediawiki:Common.js, as it essentially duplicates MediaWiki functionality (but with slightly different size choices). Bawolff (talk) 18:01, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

That's great news, thanks! -Pete F (talk) 18:17, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Flickr2Commons: inadvertent censorship?[edit]

Flickr2Commons (on labs) apparently sees (and therefore can transfer) only those Flickr images which are marked as "safe" in terms of which Flickr users may view them: e.g. no visible female human breasts, no visible genitalia, etc. (Yes, some people mis-mark their Flickr images in this respect, but they are cruising for getting their accounts blocked on Flickr.)

In theory, at least, Commons is not censored in this respect, and images of nudity, etc., should be exactly as available for upload as any other images. This came up because I was uploading from my photos of this year's Solstice Parade, and the bulk of the images of the naked, body-painted cyclists never showed up in the list of images to be transferred. As a result, at present Category:Solstice Cyclists in 2014 consists entirely of rather anodyne and unrepresentative images of this aspect of the parade.

I first brought up this Flickr2Commons limitation in an online meeting with some of the Labs folks about a year ago, at that time with respect to my photos from the 2013 parade, and was told it would be addressed, but obviously it hasn't been. Now that Bryan's tools are no longer available and labs effectively has a monopoly on such uploads from Flickr, I think the matter should be considered reasonably urgent. I really don't want to have to re-upload all of these images from my own computer: it is markedly faster to transfer them from Flickr. - Jmabel ! talk 05:44, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Censor, shmensor. No censorship involved. The uploader would need to have a Flickr account to see "non-safe" images, which would be technically quite a bit more complicated than the current implementation. I think this matter is of very low priority. And this is the wrong venue anyway; talk again with the people who maintain that uploader. They're the only ones who could do something about it, so you'll have to convince them that spending their time on this was time well spent. Lupo 07:03, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
  • As I said, inadvertent censorship. But since the only tool we've got is completely unaware of the images, most people attempting a bulk upload will never see these, which effectively carries Flickr's filtering into our domain as censorship. As for venue: I pinged Magnus, who is the relevant person from Labs to see this. Other than him, it is mainly relevant to people at Commons, not Labs. - Jmabel ! talk 17:01, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
I checked the API, but there is no easy way to do this; requires MD5 signature, oauth token, whatnot. Gave it a quick try, didn't work. Unlikely to fix anytime soon. --Magnus Manske (talk) 08:38, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
While Jmabel know this perfectly, others may not and be wondering: It is always possible to upload these (or any) images from Flickr to Commons manually, with more work. -- Tuválkin ✉ 10:32, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
Then no one should have assured me a year ago that this would be fixed promptly. And, yes, eventually I will upload these from my own machine, but I have a rather slow connection at home, so uploading twice (once to Flickr, once to Commons) is a pain. It is normally far simpler for me first to upload images I want on both to Flickr, then bulk upload from there to Commons. Apparently, this is not (and will not be) the case for anything Flickr considers "moderate" or "restricted". At the very least, this deserves a note at Commons:Flickr files, which I will add. - Jmabel ! talk 17:01, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

July 05[edit]

Question DR - keep duplicates of SVG because IE6 support.[edit]

As I tagged some duplicate images of SVG in the past which were deleted, now a DR was speedy closed (with false reason, there was only a template use on arabic wiki) with a PNG rendering copy.

Is this DR really invalid? I mean we really don't need IE6 support of transparency, which does simply add white background, which is also for this image "nearly completely" irrelevant. (The interpretation of Commons rules seems completely arbitrary and between decisions are worlds apart.) → User: Perhelion 13:36, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

  • Do what you want, I only want understandable justice. However, some admins seem to be incompetent here. → User: Perhelion 14:03, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

File[edit]

E pluribus unum.jpg

What do you think of my image? Is it OK and why? --Alex‘s SeeSide 14:08, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Commons:Photography critiques is a better place for these kinds of questions. darkweasel94 14:33, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
It would be a lot more useful if you could add the location where it was taken, please! - MPF (talk) 23:15, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Upload of 200,000 Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) high resolution images[edit]

Main HABS category · Batch upload Project Page · Live Catscan list

23% — 46,009 files uploaded out of 200,000 (as of 7 July)

   

This huge upload of high quality photographs and plans is from the archive of the U.S. National Parks Service. Over the last couple of weeks I have been uploading most of those available from the Library of Congress. The images date from a year or two ago, to more than a century. Some are archives of the first photographs taken of buildings, others are surveys of buildings in ruins, and they vary from details of door knobs, through to landscape views of lakes and mountains. This first class collection provides Wikimedians and other re-users photographs to illustrate and learn about American history.

Sample gallery

  • San Francisco College for Women - tower restored after 1868 earthquake, 1870

  • Plaza Fire House, Los Angeles, 1887

  • Train disaster due to bridge collapse at Salt River, Tempe, Arizona, 1902

  • Old slave quarters, Leighton, Alabama, 1935

  • Stairwell at Montgomery-Jones-Whitaker House, Prattville, Alabama

  • Sea lions at Gorbatch Rookery, Saint Paul Island, (Historic American Landscapes Survey, 2004)

  • Los Angeles City Hall, 1997

  • Alabama Theatre, Birmingham

  • Bridgeport Covered Bridge, California, 1984

  • Dome of Quapaw Bathhouse, Hot Springs, Arkansas

  • Front of Quapaw Bathhouse, Arkansas

  • Fish conveyor in Kake Salmon Cannery, Alaska, 2000.

  • Drawing of train terminus, Oakland, California, 1882

  • San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge, 1933-36 (drawing 1999)

  • Plan of USS Shackle (ARS-9) as in 1942, (drawing created 2007)

  • Geopolitical significance of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System Site II, Alaska, 1960-61 (drawing created 2007)

  • President's House, University of Alabama

  • Painted Desert Inn, Navajo, detail of decoration

There are a significant number of plans uploaded as TIFFs over 50 megapixels resolution but of a modest/small filesize. Derivative versions are being created as PNG files which can display on Commons, at precisely the same very high resolution though with a larger filesize, and there may be a minor/imperceptible loss of quality so it is important to keep the original file. See Uploads by Fæ (over 50 MP). Other systematic improvements are gradually being made to add geographical coordinates, fix minor format problems, add missing place categories, identify color photographs from the image EXIF data and cross-link sheets of drawings from the same archive document.

As well as the main HABS files, the collection includes the archives of the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) and the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS).

Uploading is going to take several more weeks at a rate of around 2,800 per day. No special kit was needed, this is an example of an independent project with no funding or special support. I'm using my 7 years old macmini with a free installation of the Python programming language, and I have a 1GB freebie memory stick as a "swap space" to convert very large resolution TIFFs to PNGs when necessary (though I do have to turn off some processing when doing stuff in parallel is overly ambitious for my old machine and I start getting the wheel of death Rotating Pie 2.gif). --Fæ (talk) 14:22, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Things you can do to help with the HABS uploads[edit]

  • All images need better categorization. Individual sites or buildings can be found by their location category, which is being added to files by finding the nearest existing Commons category matching the places listed on the Library of Congress record. Additional categories are needed relating to the image content, such as decoration styles, particular events or special categories for the building to help users find the images they might need.
  • Descriptions tend to be weak. Better explanations of the significance and background to a building and links to other articles or images would be helpful.
  • On the English Wikipedia, you can discuss issues such as whether to include images on articles, or create articles for the historic site or building at the WikiProject National Register of Historic Places. The photographs probably cover all major buildings currently on the National Register of Historic Places (84,000 sites). There is currently no automatic way to link to NRHP references, though {{NRHP}} can be used to add any that are spotted, volunteers are needed to explore and discuss the best way of identifying NRHP sites. At the time of writing, 200 photographs were already identified with NRHP numbers, see this live catscan report.

I am hoping to finish, or mostly finish, the uploads in advance of Wikimania in August, to use as a case study for my talk about the GWToolset. If you have ideas for improvement, or are using the images to create Wikipedia articles or use elsewhere, please do leave a comment. Smile fasdfdsfoiueire.svg --Fæ (talk) 14:22, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Copyright status of works by the North Carolina government[edit]

North Carolina General Statutes § 132‑1(b) holds that "The public records and public information compiled by the agencies of North Carolina government or its subdivisions are the property of the people. Therefore, it is the policy of this State that the people may obtain copies of their public records and public information free or at minimal cost unless otherwise specifically provided by law. As used herein, "minimal cost" shall mean the actual cost of reproducing the public record or public information." Is this statement enough to consider works by the NC government automatically in the public domain? I'd like to get photos #9 through #11 from this page onto Commons, though I could settle for the Coast Guard ones, as well. (Uploading atm.) Cloudchased (talk) 15:58, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

NC government works are public domain, the statute just allows for admin fees if they are relevant. If media is already released online, then it can be taken as PD. {{PD-US-GovEdict}} is probably the best license to use. Take care if images are taken by independent citizens and uploaded to a NC Gov website, as these may not be PD. --Fæ (talk) 17:27, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
en:Wikipedia:Reference_desk_archive/Humanities/March_2006#North_Carolina_public_records / en:Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2006_March_23#Template:PD-NCGov concluded the situation is not clear. Available to the public does not mean public domain. --Martin H. (talk) 17:55, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
I briefly looked through the template deletion discussion from 8 years ago on the English Wikipedia, and I found it bizarre. The close appears to go against an overwhelming consensus to keep, and I note that the closer has not contributed to the projects for the last 5 years. That discussion should not be considered to represent an existing consensus for Wikimedia Commons. If you wish to find an example uploaded file that is public domain under the North Carolina general statutes, you may want to either take the time to write to the NC local government IP department, or create a DR on this project to test the matter. As far as I am concerned, if the local government has stated in a binding statute that the intellectual property in their works is to be owned by "the people", then it is intellectual sophistry to interpret that as anything other than public domain, as no individual or organization can ever have a claim of copyright in the work that they could defend in a court of law that could stop "the people" (i.e. us) from reusing the works as we see fit. --Fæ (talk) 21:39, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
The regulation is even older, so its hard to simply ignor previous discussions. But sure, it always worth reviewing someting like that. You say that "property of the people" means "public domain" and is not only related to public access. Can you provide a source for that? --Martin H. (talk) 23:46, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
Ownership of property typically goes hand-in-hand with an ability to decide what can be done with that property. I don't think a source is needed, though it definitely couldn't hurt. Rather, I think a source would be needed for the opposite -- "you own this, but you CANNOT use it." That, it seems to me, would be a very strange thing for the authors of the NC law to have said, and I would definitely want to see a source for a conclusion like that.
It should be noted -- like PD-USgov, this is "public domain" for a limited group of people -- in this case, the people of NC. I don't have a clear idea how much that should affect our approach to NC gov-authored works. -Pete F (talk) 23:55, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
That does not mean that each individual has a choice over how it is used, as I said below, releasing the works -ND-NC would meet the policy, the state (for the benefit of its Treasury and thus the People of the state) could then licence the works for a fee. LGA talkedits 00:11, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
The statute is about public access, it says nothing about copyright. The people - the sovereign - also decided that there is a copyright law, its not up to us to make a different decission. --Martin H. (talk) 00:15, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
(Edit conflict × 2) @Fæ: I don't see the outcome of the enwp debate as bizarre, rather thoughtful "This issue cannot be solved by a vote. It requires us to do legal research, and possibly obtain legal advice" shows a high degree of common sense in fact. That aside, if the North Carolina government released it's works -ND-NC it would be complying with it's own policy so we need to have a more definitive source as to how they are licensing the works to host them on Commons. {{PD-US-GovEdict}} is not appropriate unless the works are of an administrative nature such as "judicial opinions, administrative rulings, legislative enactments or public ordinances", none of the images listed by the OP are such. LGA talkedits 23:56, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
This discussion about various U.S. states keeps coming up, and for some reason people keep wanting to reply by looking at laws, requiring public agencies to provide access and copies, and re-interpret them as laws about the right of random private people to copy things from other random private people when neither of the people were the creator. Just because a state law says that a public agency has to allow you to get a copy from them, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have a license or any other right to copy it to others. The laws are usually written to be a required behavior of public agencies; remember that public agencies are created and ruled by the state, and the state can tell them to do anything the legislature wishes. That is not the same as the state releasing the copyright or any other rights over the intellectual work contained in the copies. If a book author gave you a copy of a book as a gift, would you consider that to be permission to make more copies and distribute them? Copyright law does not make a distinction between a state or local government work and a private author's work. (In the U.S., any part of the work that is an edict of government cannot be restricted, however, regardless of its source.) For North Carolina specifically: I am not a lawyer, but I think the phrase "the property of the people" is more rhetoric than any legally defined meaning; many legislators are lawyers, and if they meant to say "public domain" they would say it. Absent specific law, court ruling, or order by the state to limit the power of the state to restrict further copying, I would say that North Carolina doesn't have a law releasing its (non-edict) works from copyright. --Closeapple (talk) 02:31, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
Map of the State Offices, published by the North Carolina General Assembly and consequently "are the property of the people", i.e. you and me, who are free to try to sue themselves.
Perhaps I'm tired, but this discussion seems rather pointless, verging on discussing what the word "word" means. Creative works which "are the property of the people", and nobody can make a valid sole claim of ownership without overturning a statute, is pretty obviously intended to make the property public domain. To make this real, real easy, (A) the file uploaded and displayed to the right of this text has been made and published by the North Carolina state government, so that could be a suitable DR if anyone feels like setting a precedent and (B) if anyone wants to actually write and ask the North Carolina government, you can contact the Governor at http://www.governor.nc.gov/contact or there is a phone number for the NC Secretary of State at http://www.secretary.state.nc.us/sitemap.aspx. --Fæ (talk) 02:46, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
Fæ this upload is so clearly POINTY that I would think the first administrator that comes across it should speedy delete it as such. The North Carolina State Legislative Building is owned by the people, that does not mean anyone could demand to hold a meeting in either of the chambers, the same goes for these documents, they need a specific copyright release from the state not someone trying to bend a law to imply something that is not clearly intended. LGA talkedits 07:13, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
Please follow either A or B above. It's easy, you can even see some past examples of my writing letters to governments at User:Fæ/email, I just don't see why it should always be me that does this when so many good contributors have time to put up hypothetical reasons against keeping PD works.
As for pointy, nonsense. I am well known for uploading over 300,000 public domain government works; this is just another on that pile and perfectly valid based on that experience. I just don't hang around talking about uploads, rather than getting on with it. --Fæ (talk) 10:12, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
My appreciation for your dedication. But one tip: It would be very helpful if you lable your personal opinion as such. "NC government works are public domain" is not a fact, it is nonproven or unprovable and it is very much possible that others conclude different on the basis of the same legal framework. Its your personal opinion. Just dropping it here like a fact can be seen as very disruptive by others - at least by me, dedicated to reliability rather than number of files. --Martin H. (talk) 15:09, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
Your use of the words "very disruptive" has a conventional meaning within the Commons:Blocking policy. The words you have chosen to use appear to be a warning from an administrator which I do not find appropriate if we wish to encourage open discussion. I have no intention of qualifying every comment I make on the Village pump with a disclaimer saying that I am not a lawyer or that my views are my own rather than any organization I am associated with; it can be presumed that applies to every comment that everyone makes here, and were I to start doing it, it would probably be quickly complained about as pointy and sarcastic. My viewpoint is based on both my experience over several years with government copyright issues and as supported by the precise wording of the NC statute, as explained above, which I find convincing unless there is some evidence that the North Carolina government defines media files belonging to "the people" as something other than public domain when not (as the statute goes on to give an example case of) specifically qualified otherwise.
With regard to the idea that just because one Commons contributor creates ten times or a hundred times the number of uploads compared to another, that they must be more sloppy when it comes to copyright; if you wish to provide feedback on my uploads, I would appreciate some real numbers, perhaps you could spend a moment statistically comparing accuracy on copyright on uploads for this year before jumping to assumptions. Before I start a major upload project such as the HABS upload of 200,000 images above, I run tests, discuss options on a specific project page and canvass for opinion on improvements to accuracy and template use. During the upload I continue to respond to feedback and improve the process and make corrections to existing uploads. As a result the percentage accuracy in terms of copyright statements for my uploads is highly likely to be a magnitude more accurate than the vast majority of regular contributors to this project. Faster is not always better, however it is a lazy assumption that faster must always be worse. --Fæ (talk) 18:07, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘

6 July 2014, sent via website form
Dear Governor Pat McCrory,

I am a volunteer on the Wikimedia Commons project, which makes 20 million images freely available for the public benefit and currently hosts around 2,000,000 photographs from archives and agents of the government on a public domain license.

It would be of great help for our volunteers if you could confirm that when the North Carolina General Statutes § 132‑1(b) states that "The public records and public information compiled by the agencies of North Carolina government or its subdivisions are the property of the people." this can and should be read as meaning that, unless otherwise specified, creative works published by NC government can be validly reused as public domain media. For example, this would include the neat downtown map published on your website at <http://www.ncgov.com/contacts/index.aspx>.

Thank you in advance,

[Fae]

If any other volunteer has a moment, particularly those that actually live in the USA, perhaps they could write or phone appropriate contacts as per http://www.ncgov.com/contacts/index.aspx if we don't get a speedy reply from the Governor. --Fæ (talk) 11:09, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Just a quick thought on this debate. South Carolina also has a Freedom of Information Act which permits the public to have access to public documents (with a few exceptions involving on-going police investigations and stuff like that) at a very low cost. But, that has been interpreted by a court as not surrendering the copyright in the documents. It's the same idea as a library. Just because I have a right to access the materials for free doesn't mean I have a copyright in them. (Yes, I know there are differences, but it's an analogy.) Also important is who the "People" are in the law. In Virginia, it is only citizens of Virginia who can get cheap copies of government documents, not everyone. So, that would be a problem on Wikipedia.ProfReader (talk) 23:27, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

July 06[edit]

July 07[edit]

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