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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.

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  1. If you want to ask why unfree/non-commercial material is not allowed at Wikimedia Commons or if you want to suggest that allowing it would be a good thing, please do not comment here. It is probably pointless. One of Wikimedia Commons’ core principles is: "Only free content is allowed." This is a basic rule of the place, as inherent as the NPOV requirement on all Wikipedias.
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June 15[edit]

Wikidata infobox in hidden administrative category[edit]

yes or no? --C.Suthorn (talk) 05:42, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Your question is unclear; please don't make us try to guess. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:06, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
I would have thought the question can not be any clearer. But then: a bot adds the wikidata info template to a hidden adminstrative category. The category happens to be my user category, that I use to organize my work and as a "business card" of sorts, when trying to beg for a accredtion to an otherwise closed event. It is unsettling not to know how this business card will look like at the moment a host of en event will read the message that I did sent. --C.Suthorn (talk) 14:32, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
I would not think a user category should have a Wikidata item, let alone a Wikidata Infobox. We don't give Wikidata items to users, unless they are otherwise notable. Why to user categories? Did you build the Wikidata item yourself to get interwiki links, or did someone else build it? - Jmabel ! talk 15:59, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
Creator:-Entrys are filled from wikidata. Therefore there is a Creator-Wikidata-Item. A link from wikidata to commons can be included to or deleted from anyone at wikidata at will. Even if i remove that link, a bot at wikidata may add it again.
Why are wikidata info templates are added at all (and by bot edits). Just have the wikidata info template in the css of category pages (and make it invisible in hidden cats). No more bot edits needed. --C.Suthorn (talk) 17:14, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
The problem is the infobox at Category:Files by C.Suthorn? I think it looks quite good, but could do with expanding. I'm not aware of any way that the infobox could be added by css rather than by bot. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:47, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
Again, though, why does {{Creator:C.Suthorn}} exist? I don't remember there ever being a consensus to set things like that up for normal Commons contributors. In fact, rather the contrary: while Commons:Creator has never been formally adopted, I believe it reflects more of the thinking here than not, and among the listings for who should not have a "creator" page, "Wikipedia and Commons users, as well as photographers from image-hosting websites, like Flickr, who do not meet notability criteria. Many such templates are autobiographical, and there are no proper sources to support any of the facts, other than other autobiographical sources. The usual practice is to use username with a link to customized user's page in the author field." - Jmabel ! talk 02:40, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Importing maps from Open Street Maps[edit]

Hi!

I'd like to import a map that depicts an avenue, in order to illustrate an article in the Portuguese WP about said avenue (as done previously in File:OSM-Lisboa-AvenidaLiberdade.jpg).

What's the best way to do this? I've been searching in both Commons and OSM and can't find a tutorial concerning this... Thanks in advance! JonJon86 (talk) 10:39, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

  • @JonJon86: I think you can just take a screenshot and upload it here, making sure to add the appropriate tags (see Commons:Village pump/Copyright#Are screenshots of openstreetmap free to upload?). Or, even better, it should be possible to embed an interactive map into the article. I’ve seen this but I don’t know how to do it myself. Brianjd (talk) 13:42, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi @JonJon86:, please join the OpenStreeMap slack where there is a Wikimedia channel :) https://slack.openstreetmap.us/ Sorry I can't be of more direct help! Carlinmack (talk) 22:53, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
    • The main OpenStreetMap domain is openstreetmap.org. I am sure that the openstreetmap.us people are nice and do good things, but I don’t know whether this domain is official. (If you did not know about the .org domain, you would probably think the .us domain is official. This is a worry.) Brianjd (talk) 10:16, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

June 17[edit]

Is Commons' aim to store all free scientific articles?[edit]

Background: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Research of an Intelligent Sale System of Guilin Rice Noodles Based on SCM.pdf

There're several million scientific articles in free license. Is every such article in scope of Commons?--GZWDer (talk) 12:51, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Brianjd (talk) 13:08, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
  • For the DR you referenced, this is a moot point, as the file is in use. I have mentioned this at the DR as well. Brianjd (talk) 13:39, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
    "A PDF or DjVu file of a published and peer-reviewed work would be in scope on Wikisource and is therefore also in scope on Commons." An entry on Wikidata does not constituted in-use on Wikisource. -Mys_721tx (talk) 18:29, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
    However, in-use on Wikidata constitutes as in scope for Commons, as being used on another Wikimedia project. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 18:54, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
    The text you quoted does not say “in use on Wikisource”. It says “in scope on Wikisource”. Which the file subject to this nomination is, as far as I can tell (but I am unfamiliar with Wikisource). This is separate to it being in use on Wikidata. Brianjd (talk) 02:32, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
    I agree that the file is in-use. However, Hans Publishers is possibly predatory. The quality of the review is questionable. Articles in open access predatory journals have the guise of peer-review and a compatible license yet they have little education value. The policy needs to be updated to exclude those. -Mys_721tx (talk) 03:10, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Is preadatoryjournals.com itself reputable? The best external source I could find is [1] (via enwiki), which recommends researchers check one of the sites listed there (including predatoryjournals.com).
    Perhaps we should look at predatoryjournals.com itself. It does not seem to give any details on why Hans Publishers is listed as predatory. The article in question is from a journal called “Dynamical Systems and Control”, which is not listed on predatoryjournals.com.
    I suppose we’ll need to clarify this if we’re going to update the policy. Brianjd (talk) 03:49, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
    • I should point out that Hans Publishers is also on Beall’s List, again with no apparent explanation. Brianjd (talk) 03:53, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
    • preadatoryjournals.com states that they inherited the list from Beall. The journals on Beall's list are standalone such that those journals do not have a publisher. A journal published by a publisher would not be included in the standalone list. Perhaps DOAJ could be used as what journals is allowed. -Mys_721tx (talk) 22:20, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
    • I think these big text files should not be added, unless there is an Wikisource entry. Better to sourcelink the PDF by the Wikipedia articles, with the advantage of keeping up with updates. Wikisource can only have public domain entries. Because of that most Wikisource entries are historical text and literature.Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:17, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
    • @Smiley.toerist: I can’t work out what you’re trying to say. If a paper is public domain, then put it on Wikisource and it’s fine. If a paper is copyrighted but freely licensed, then it’s not worth hosting. Did I get that right? We have plenty of externally-published files, and there is no precedent for this “sourcelink to save space and keep up with updates” thing, as far as I know. If it’s in scope, we should have a copy. (Otherwise, we might be scrambling to make a copy later.) Brianjd (talk) 10:35, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
  • There are millions of PD books are they all in scope - Yes. Is someone going to import them all - Unlikely. Same with photographs (useful for educational purposes) or with photographs of artworks. I do not see scientific papers any different. --Jarekt (talk) 21:58, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Out of interest, we are just populating United States Census Bureau publications with a few thousand large-ish to extremely large documents. These are, to my mind, dull as ditch-water to look at, apart from the odd map, but might be very exciting for someone to run some analysis of the data and create charts to support a Wikipedia article. The issue for Commons is that it's still not very nice to browse a PDF on our website, and the only way to link to a specific page (like a map) is to use a thumbnail as the normal image syntax still misses a "page" parameter. Without some basic improvements to the reader interface for articles and books, an import of a million articles is highly likely to remain virtually unused and impenetrable. --Fæ (talk) 10:04, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

June 18[edit]

Co-operative projects[edit]

I'm thinking of organising a project for people around my village to take photographs of local buildings (specifically buildings officially listed as of architectural or historic interest) and uploading them to Commons. Clearly there will be a number of different photographers, many of whom may have limited IT skills. Does each person have to upload their own images (it might be difficult to explain to them how to do this), or is there some way I or the project can upload them en bloc, while crediting those photographers who wish to be identified? I imagine I'm not the only person to have raised a similar issue.--Ross Burgess (talk) 15:16, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

You need a process of releasing. Though the quick response will be to say COM:OTRS, emails to that system may take months to get looked at, and your group will probably find it frustrating if the photos get deleted after upload and have to wait months for undeletion, due to bureaucracy.
Instead, you might think about setting up a Flickr account as the 'official' group or project account with a contact email back to yourself. Files can be uploaded directly from Flickr using the upload wizard, and a bot then reviews the license (make sure a CC license is used, not PDM).
So long as the description on Flickr names the individual photographer, and that as part of the group/project they have individually released the image, that's probably going to be sufficient. There is a certain level of COM:AGF, but as you are here an can respond to any immediate questions, it seem doubtful that anyone would want to try deleting the results from a local photodrive.
--Fæ (talk) 15:46, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Another possible approach: assuming the people you are mentioning with "limited IT skills" are nonetheless literate, you could have everyone sign a single paper document authorizing you to upload on their behalf, and forward a scan of that document to OTRS. - Jmabel ! talk 16:32, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I think the best way would be to make all photos as a group and all works are works by the group releasing all their rights to the group. Such an agreement could be written down, but if you trust each other an oral agreement would be enough too. --GPSLeo (talk) 17:36, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
  • You can also create a category for your group, such as Category:Photographs by the Groupname, and add a paragraph about the group. Fae's idea is the best but would double your work. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:48, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
    Importing a Flickr album to Commons en-mass is very easy, it's built-in to the standard upload wizard and sucks in all the dates, titles, descriptions and the license is neatly reviewed by a bot. For anyone used to the Flickr interface, it's probably a lot easier to organize the photo albums there, then upload them via the Wizard an album at a time (presuming slightly different Commons cats might apply to each album) here afterwards without having to do much more to the results. --Fæ (talk) 22:01, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
  • There used to be a great tool for running photo scavenger hunts, which made it easy for an organiser to upload everyone's photos. I just had a look, and I can't find the tool now (I can't remember what it was called). — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 22:15, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Importing via Flickr, creating a category, fine. Not sure what "make all photos as a group" means. But none of that seems to address the fact that in most countries (Ross hasn't said where this is), copyright cannot be transferred orally. Hence my suggestion above. Jmabel ! talk 01:03, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

upload wizard[edit]

I understand the upload comment of the upload wizard has become more useful on 7th june 2020 betweeen 15:00 and 20:00. While this is a nice feature, well known bugs are still there. For example the "you are already uploading this file" message.

Could I have known about this change?

Will the errors in the wizard ever be fixed?

--C.Suthorn (talk) 16:28, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Do you mean this bug (Error after "Upload more files" (already uploading the file...))? — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 22:20, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Ja, aber das ist wirklich nur ein Beispiel dafür, wie kaputt der Zauberer ist. Dieser Fehler ist nur eine Unannehmlichkeit, lässt sich eibnfach wegklicken. Es zeigt aber, dass der Zauberer in sich fehlerhaft ist. Ich gehe davon aus, dass das ein Symptom für Memory Leaks ist, die selber viel schlimmer sind. Besonders ärgerlich sind auch die Fehlermeldungne. Kürzlich hatte ich bein einem upoad von 153 Dateien 150 mal den Fehler "Error" (<- Das ist die vollständige Widergabe der Fehlermeldung). --C.Suthorn (talk) 04:17, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

WMF rebranding[edit]

Hi folks, just a note for those who may not have seen it already - this has been doing the rounds on enwp, but I've not seen it on Commons. Feel free to remove if it's somewhere on here that I've just missed!

You're probably aware by now that the WMF are considering rebranding, and that a survey on the topic has been started, with three options presented - all of which involve renaming Wikimedia to variants on the Wikipedia brand.

In a statement made earlier today, the WMF Head of Communications, Heather Walls, announced that when community discussions began to sway toward attempting to prevent a rebrand, we failed in clearly and consistently responding that a rebrand itself was not up for debate, and that a rebrand will happen. This has already been decided by the Board.

This is obviously of particular relevance to Commons, because "Wikimedia" is literally in the project name. | Nayptatalk opened his mouth at 22:21, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

  • I predict a large number of departures of longstanding contributors over what should have been a trivial matter of listening to the community. - Jmabel ! talk 01:02, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Ja, aber das macht nichts. In Deutschland ersetzen AfD-Anhänger die LEute, die Sportvereine oder die freiwilligen Feuerwehren verlassen. In Amerika werden dann in gleicher Weise Trump-Unterstützer die fahnenflüchtigen Wikipedia-Mitmacher ersetzen und in Little England Boris-Brexiteers. Und die schreiben dann viele schöne neue Artikel. In der kroatischen Wikipedia hat diese Übernahme ja schon vor vielen Jahren reibungslos geklappt. --C.Suthorn (talk) 04:22, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
      • I'm pretty livid about this. Especially since previously (like within the last week) staff said the opposite. Earlier this week, staff claimed that the rfc took place too early, before all the options could be considered [2], and now they claim that the decision was already made prior to the rfc even taking place. Its a nice catch-22 where the RFC took place both too early and too late at the same time. And that's not even touching on the use of statistical manipulation in the surveys. Even if one doesn't care about the naming, surely everyone should be mad about the blatant bad-faith and disrespect in the "consultation" process. Bawolff (talk) 04:57, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
        • Agree this is the deeply unpleasant aspect.
        While on the one hand praising volunteers, saying how valuable their time is, on the other hand the WMF is seen to be massively wasting volunteer effort. Running an effective PR campaign while pretending it's a survey and valued feedback which in practice is pointless and will be binned at a quiet moment, is hypocrisy and seriously damaging to the trust of key stakeholders. Even now, with an open about-face confession that "we are going to ignore you whatever the feedback", they are still asking volunteers to waste our time giving yet more feedback that will make no difference to the outcome.
        It's a mockery, equivalent to sticking up a poster saying "press this fake button for free money (only press if you are stupid enough to think there is free money)". --Fæ (talk) 05:15, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

We are the most affected project as we are the only project for externals with Wikimedia in the name. It Wikimedia gets remanded we need a new name too. commons.wikipedia.org would be a very bad name. --GPSLeo (talk) 08:30, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Personally I don't think the Foundation's changing its name need necessarily affect Commons. As someone (I forget who, sorry) mentioned in previous discussions, Commons has a better semantic claim to the "Wikimedia" name than almost anything else: Commons is a wiki for media, and also repository of media for wikis. The name "Wikimedia Commons" could thus be parsed as "Wiki Media Commons": the common media for multiple wikis. --bjh21 (talk) 10:14, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
If I recall correctly, the Wikimedia Foundation is not going to abandon Wikimedia name altogether; they are going to reserve it for themselves as a redirect to their new brand. So the Commons project should not think that the "Wikimedia" name will be free to usurp. 4nn1l2 (talk) 15:24, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes, the message that has been communicated for a long time now, that the Foundation is "considering rebranding" is not accurate. Apparently, the Foundation decided a long time ago that they were going to rebrand. It's not entirely clear why they are asking for the community's opinion at all. GMGtalk 14:28, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
    • I'll make a strong guess from dealing with rebranding efforts at other organizations: they asked for community input because they expected it to be enthusiastic. - Jmabel ! talk 16:10, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

June 19[edit]

Structured data postcards[edit]

I see that bots are buzy with filling in the copyrigth license data from the files. For most users this is of little search relevance. Almost by definition all files in the Commons do have to have a good copyrigth license, otherwise they are deleted. I do add some 'content' structured data to files. Is it an idea to let bots scan all postcards categories and add (P31) (Q192425) to structured data?Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:50, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

  • Convenience link: wikidata:Q192425 Brianjd (talk) 14:54, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • @Smiley.toerist: Licences are not trivial. Copyright licences have important details. Some (like GFDL) have crazy rules about not including sections with certain titles. Some (like GPL and, I think, GFDL) require you to include the entire licence text. Some (like GPL, GFDL or CC BY-SA) require you to use the same licence for derivatives. Some have none of these restrictions. Many files are not copyrighted at all; that’s important too. From what I can remember, the structure data bot(s) capture all of this information. Brianjd (talk) 14:56, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Regarding your categories question, apparently structured data is supposed to replace categories, so it is bound to happen anyway. For the record, I think that structured data in its current form sucks. It’s not intuitive at all, whereas categories are. Brianjd (talk) 14:58, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Commons Categories do not have the same function. Categories are often a combination of many Wikidata properties. For example the main category Postcard is subdivided by many location categories such as 'Postcards of Antwerp'. There is no need and it is not desirable to create similar Wikidata items. Idem for the categories of 'Postcards by publisher': Publisher is a separate property. Another example: 'Trains at Groningen station'. These subcategories are created to limit the number of files and in practice most searches are either interested in the trains or the buildings, not both. In structured data, trains will go to a depicts (P180) wikidata item and the station as a location wikidata item (Groningen station). If the main subject is the station building (with no or marginal train content) then it wil be a depict wikidata item (Groningen station). This is a fundamentaly diverend way of structuring the data. It is no way a duplication of the existing Commons categories.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:34, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
    • In practice one searches the categories upwards until the category has a linked Wikidata Item. (if the wikidata item is over a Commons:category, look at the underlying Wikidata item. One who has links to Wikipedia articles). These are the Wikidata items the bots can use in Stuctured Data. As an example I have added all all structured Data I could to File:Le chalet forestier Namur.jpg.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:48, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

The state of the help pages ..[edit]

.. leaves much to be improved.

I was trying to find out what information should generally be entered in the "caption" box versus the "description" field of an image (when I come across images which haven't been proberly labelled) and performed a search of the help pages using these terms:

  • description versus caption
  • description caption box
  • description caption field

There were no relevant results ...

Browsing the help pages for information on this topic I came across some ambiguities on Commons:First_steps/Quality_and_description which I mention on the talk page.

Doing this I noticed that the questions posed on this talk page have not received any answers since around 2010.

This obviously leads to the question of whether the foundation shouldn't perhaps focus on fixing some of the basics of the apparatus before initiating a comparatively insubstantial rebranding process.

The file and category cleanup that constantly needs to happen is already a strain for the community of volunteers and maybe some extra ressources would be required to sufficiently deal with the fundamental deficiencies of the help pages.

After all thousands of images are uploaded every day and most of the occasional users must be facing the same issues and must be confused when trying to find relevant information in the help pages.

Shouldn't there be a more "institutionalised" way of establishing a coherent system of help pages which comprises a routine review of the relevant talk pages and the help desk and using this information to update and generally improve the catalogue of help pages of this central repository of the universe of Wiki... ?

(.. not to mention the state of the help pages of the German and probably many other Wikipedias ..)

best regards,

KaiKemmann (talk) 10:04, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

  • One solution is to use Google search. This gives commons:File_captions. Wouter (talk) 14:58, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
    • If you’re telling people to use an external search engine, instead of your own search engine, to find documentation on your own site, then you have a bigger problem.
    That page says that captions are under CC0. Wait, what? The system didn’t bother to point that out when I went to edit some captions. (Doesn’t bother me, since I put everything under CC0 anyway, but I really think this needs to be changed.) Brianjd (talk) 15:03, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
    • I believe you will have a hard time here finding anyone enthusiastic about captions. They were more or less imposed on Commons by the Wikidata team. - Jmabel ! talk 16:13, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Captions are pointless, a vandal magnet, and confuse newbies by forcing them to enter some vague text in that box before they even get to the real description box where they then realize they have to type in the same thing again. If everyone were not so tired trying to adapt to pandemic fallout and spending our nights worrying about the multiple existential threats, we might have run a RFC to get the upload wizard and image page layout changed back by now. Oh, yes, making them CC0 was never properly agreed with the Commons community when everything we have ever typed here is CC-BY-SA and cannot be "undone" to pretend it's now CC0 and can be cut and paste into a CC0 compliant free database for Google to harvest for a commercial AI service. --Fæ (talk) 05:58, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
      • Actually, what I meant was that the software needs to be changed to make it clear to users that structured data is CC0 (I think it applies to all structured data, not just captions). About changing the policy to not use CC0 at all, it’s a nice idea but it’s too late for that now, isn’t it? Brianjd (talk) 08:37, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Just chiming in to join the chorus that captions are bad. Between annotations, captions, categories, the description template, and structured data statements, we have a very confusing, very cumbersome, and very broken system to essentially have five different things doing roughly the same thing and they have different licenses and with a clunky interface that is outright hostile to users in my estimation. The roll out of structured data here is sincerely the biggest blunder I have seen in 17 years using WMF wikis. I'm not one for mindlessly whining about the WMF and I really don't see why others do so but man, this was 100% forced onto this project with no real forethought and it is a sorely broken system. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:17, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
    • I’ve commented elsewhere how strongly opposed I am to structured data. It sounds like a nice idea, but they way it has been implemented, it is virtually impossible for ordinary people to use properly. Brianjd (talk) 08:37, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

User:AHC300[edit]

There is no user page here, but this user has created several files. 2601:643:8101:64E1:50B1:1232:12F6:85AB 16:26, 19 June 2020 (UTC)2601:643:8101:64E1:50B1:1232:12F6:85AB

@2601:643:8101:64E1:50B1:1232:12F6:85AB: This is normal. Users pages aren't automatically created for users, and users aren't required to create them. – BMacZero (🗩) 17:28, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Some of our strongest contributors choose not to have user pages. - Jmabel ! talk 23:39, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

3,000,000 Wikidata Infoboxes in Commons categories[edit]

Just to note that we now have over 3 million Commons categories using {{Wikidata Infobox}} - see Category:Uses of Wikidata Infobox! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:20, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

June 20[edit]

ZDF documentary videos[edit]

Hi there, I am thinking about how to help people reuse the ZDF documentary clips in category:Videos by Terra X that are in use on German wikipedia, etc. To translate to multiple languages, it would be helpful to have transcripts or subtitles, which can then be translated and / or recorded as new audio. Is there a way to add transcriptions / subtitles? The original length German videos have subtitles, which it may be acceptable to use, where the German dialogue is already released as cc-by, or otherwise Google translate could speed up transcription from German. JimKillock (talk) 10:26, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I found that adding subtitles is per video quite easy (thanks whoever coded it all up). I will make a stab at one of the videos and see where we can go from there. JimKillock (talk) 11:39, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
Update, for Das Straßennetz im antiken Rom I have added German and English; a file for Latin for them to work on, and someone else has done NL! JimKillock (talk) 13:19, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
File, I can't work out how to do this without it embedding:
Das Straßennetz im antiken Rom (CC BY 4.0)
My Workflow for subtitling
  1. Using Google translate phone App, play video audio from computer so Google translate app can transcribe the German from the audio
  2. Copy and paste the German to a file, send to computer for editing
  3. Listen back to the German to spot any obvious errors
  4. Create a German subtitle file through the "Add subtitles" link on the video player
  5. Listen through the video to timecode the German subtitles
  6. Copy and paste the German timecoded file
  7. Use Google translate to render the German subtitle file as English
  8. Edit the English to seem sensible
  9. Use "Add subtitles" link on the video file to create English subtitle file
  10. Paste in the English translation
  11. Create files from English or German as desired for Google or manual translation — Preceding unsigned comment added by JimKillock (talk • contribs) 17:35, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

The first video has ca, de, en, es, la, nl subtitles in an afternoon! Not bad :) JimKillock (talk) 17:43, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

  • OK, someone else really needs to jump in here. I cannot believe what I am reading here! Firstly, machine translation is infamous for producing nonsense in certain cases. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, what are the copyright implications here? Brianjd (talk) 13:16, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
On copyright, this is a very good question.
The transcription is a simple copy and cannot be subject to a new copyright, any more than a scan or photograph (this is long established Wikimedia policy on verbatim copies).
I am pretty sure copyright is the result of human work, not machines, so machine translation should not be able to attract copyright. There has to be a creative element or decision; this is absent when a machine processes text. As any translation is a derivative work in any case, there is even less reason for any claim. And in any case AFAIC Google have never attempted to claim any IP rights over the results of their translate facility. Of course I am open to being told otherwise and you are completely right to ask this question.
As for the content of the translation, I am editing it, and have just about enough German to check the English makes sense and matches it. In practice I am only using some of Google's words; mostly it is just making it a lot quicker and easier to render a translation than I woul be able to otherwise. Occasionally the German is a bit harder, and Google unhelpful; and I may have made mistakes: the texts certainly need a read through. JimKillock (talk) 15:47, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

June 21[edit]

Do we have a guide on how to provide OTRS permission?[edit]

I found a series of photos related to a historical event made by an onlooker that I want to add to Wikipedia collection. I established communication with the son of that photographer (who is deceased by now) who is willing to PD these photographs. Can you please outline the steps for him to do so in a manner that would be recognized by Commons? Thank you. -- Wesha (talk) 13:23, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

  • @Wesha: Please see COM:OTRS/CONSENT. --Wcam (talk) 15:37, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
  • @Wesha: But also: often much simpler that the OTRS process is to make the license clear at the original site where things are posted, as long as that is clearly under the control of the copyright-holder. Then cite that site that as source. Much quicker and easier. - Jmabel ! talk 15:46, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
    • @Jmabel: I think you mean “cite”. :) And that is a good idea, assuming the copyright owner actually has their own site. Brianjd (talk) 15:50, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
      • @Brianjd: Actually, I meant "cite that site", but I just woke up. - Jmabel ! talk 16:01, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
      • The content owner doesn't "have their own site", they are posting on a public forum where enthusiasts are talking about old photos. I am not sure that is sufficient for OTRS. -- Wesha (talk) 18:47, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
        • If the son of the original photographer is willing to PD his inherited images, it is a case for COM:CONSENT. And yes, posting the images in a user-generated public forum isn't helpful. If they have been posted before though, he should mention the weblinks in his OTRS email. De728631 (talk) 19:03, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

June 22[edit]

5000 Wikiportret uploads[edit]

Wikiportrait logo.svg

Hello all! I would like to draw your attention to the Wikiportrait initiative. 5000 images of notable Dutch and Flemish people have been uploaded through the Wikiportret website. The photos are visible on more then 17.000 pages in the Main namespace of all Wikimedia projects. The uploads are gathered in the category Wikiportrait uploads. Please click on GLAMorous to look for the use in your favourite project outside Commons. Of course, we will continue this project, together with the Dutch Chapter.

However, I still have a dream. The Wikiportrait software is in Dutch but could be used in other languages too. If you are interested, please read this blog. Or contact me through my talk page. Kind regards, Elly (talk) 07:51, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Join map elements in one picture[edit]

This map was cut up and pasted on a textile support. I scanned the sections individualy, hoping to digitaly paste them together again. However the panorama photomerge from Photoshop (elements 10) refuses to merge unless there is a sustantial Common area. Is there a way (or tool) to manualy join them together?

  • Flobecq 1922.jpg
  • Everbeek 1922.jpg
  • Geraardsbergen 1922.jpg

The other method is to rescan the map with several sections and move them together (with the standaard move tool). Example:

  • Borinage sud 1933 orig.jpg
  • Borinage sud 1933 afgeleid.jpg

The problem is that this is limited with size of the scan area. The total map contains 3 x 7 = 21 sections. About 30 cm x 90 cm. I am only interested in the 3 selected parts. I would be nice to scan all 21 sections and digitaly recreate the original map.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:15, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Smiley.toerist, I would suggest taking this to Commons:Graphic Lab/Map workshop and letting those folks take a look. — Huntster (t @ c) 12:48, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Commons partnerships emails[edit]

Hi All,

I've created a new page, Commons:Example requests for partnerships which contains sample emails that can be sent to potential GLAM partners. I hope it makes it easier to contact institutions, feel free to expand/edit.

Best, --Adam Harangozó (talk) 11:42, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

  • I can’t believe we don’t already have such a page. @ShakespeareFan00 had the excellent idea of writing to GLAMs asking them to mirror (public domain) material on Commons as well as the Internet Archive. That letter should be added to this collection. Brianjd (talk) 11:48, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

June 23[edit]

File:Standard Model of Elementary Particles.svg[edit]

We have just had a discussion about this file, which has just been archived at Commons:Village pump/Archive/2020/06#Potential huge mess, how to deal with it?. I would like to revive this discussion. It only went idle because @Cush was waiting for a response from @MissMJ. You might be waiting a while, because @MissMJ’s last contribution was in 2013. Pinging @Speravir, King of Hearts, AnonMoos.

I happened to come across this file at Commons:Help desk#Copyright violation on external site, and commented there about how confusing it was; then I remembered this discussion. Brianjd (talk) 10:10, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

  • @Brianjd: If you feel a discussion wasn't completed, you can unarchive it and bring it back to this page. - Jmabel ! talk 14:49, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
I had this in mind all the time. Unfortunately I had not noticed that Cush hat added an answer below my long reaction … SMirC-medium.svg. — Speravir – 01:23, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
For a split request see COM:SPLIT (actually a bit lower). — Speravir – 01:36, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
Stop attacking me. Cush (talk) 08:17, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
What? Actually I tried to respond to your latest answer in the now archived thread, so this new reaction is quite odd. I requested the split now for you. — Speravir – 22:00, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Retroactively adding a category for a GLAM[edit]

We now have literally thousands of pictures from the Seattle Municipal Archives, but we never set up a category for them as a GLAM. I'd like to remedy that; if we set up such a category, is there an easy way to add the category to all images with https://www.flickr.com/photos/seattlemunicipalarchives as part of their file-page wikitext? That will be at least the bulk of such images; it will certainly be less daunting to find the outliers by hand than to go through finding all of these. - Jmabel ! talk 23:30, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

@Jmabel: I used the search "insource:https://www.flickr.com/photos/seattlemunicipalarchives" and User:BMacZero/gallery.js to generate User:BMacZero/Search results (1539 files). Looks like you can run VFC on that gallery to add the category, or let me know if you want me to tackle it. – BMacZero (🗩) 23:50, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
Actually, you can also run VFC directly on the search results page. – BMacZero (🗩) 23:53, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
@BMacZero: Thanks! I can take it from there. - Jmabel ! talk 23:55, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
No, I guess I can't take it from here. Using regular expressions, I don't see how to reuse a matched string in the replacement, and it looks like there is no relevant example in Help:VisualFileChange.js/samples. Basically I want to match the following regex; this is PHP style, not sure how that compares to what VFC may need:
  • /[|]\s*[Ss]ources\s*=[^|}]*/
Then if we call the matching string %0 (but in fact I have no idea how to refer to it in VFC), I want to replace that by:
  • %0\n{{Seattle Municipal Archives via Flickr}}
Other than the %0 and the \n (newline), that last is a literal string.
Because regexes can be a bit of a "write-only language", let me paraphrase my intent for the match:
  • A single pipe character (and, yes, you can also write that as '\|')…
  • any amount of whitespace…
  • "Sources", initial letter may or may not be capitalized…
  • any amount of whitespace…
  • a single equality character…
  • a string consisting of anything but a pipe character or closing curly bracket, which should bring us to the end of the source field; the next pipe character would be the beginning of the next field; allowing also for the template ending here (no next field).
Can anyone help me out? And can someone document how you use a regex here if you care to reuse the value the regex matches? - Jmabel ! talk 03:56, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel: That's pretty close. If you want to grab part of the matched string for use in the result, you have to wrap it in parenthesis (). /([|]\s*[Ss]ource\s*=[^|}]*)/. And you reference the match with $1 in whatever flavor this is (yes, it's one-based for some reason, I don't know why). – BMacZero (🗩) 04:27, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
Ah, '$' instead of '%'. And probably 1 is first parenthesized expression, 0 is the whole string.
Is the $1 thing documented somewhere, or was this done by a PERLer who just thought that was common sense? - Jmabel ! talk 04:46, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
It's not super well documented, but it's mentioned in the dropdown that enables it (Preserve nowikis, comments. Allow usage of substring and $1 (internal usage of placeholders (%v%f%c%\d+)).). The $ syntax comes from the ECMAScript RegExp standard, which was modeled after but is not exactly the same as the PCRE syntax. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 05:18, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
We probably should add an example of this in the examples for using VFC. Does someone else want to do that, or should I? - Jmabel ! talk 17:26, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

June 24[edit]

Page which should be merged[edit]

Hi, the page IIITM Gwalior is created in Wikipedia style. I believe it should be merged to its category Category:IIITM Gwalior. Thanks.--Hindust@niक्या करें? बातें! 13:31, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Brianjd (talk) 13:48, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Blazonry[edit]

If you are into shields/blazons/coats-of-arms, and maybe know a code/language called blazonry, you might enjoy my new tool to generate them. --Magnus Manske (talk) 15:22, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Examples. --Magnus Manske (talk) 15:22, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Books from Great Britain[edit]

Currently there is a series of categories Books from Great Britain by year spanning from 1425 to 1934. There is also Books from the United Kingdom by year spanning from 1733 to 2001. Is Category:Books from Great Britain by year supposed to be scoped to the Kingdom of Great Britain (in which case it should span from 1707 to 1801) or to the island of Great Britain (in which case it should span from the Middle Ages to today)? There seems to be no consistency in how the categories are used. British books from the 1800s are sometimes in one category and sometimes in the other and sometimes in both, making the categories somewhat useless for actually finding what you're looking for. Kaldari (talk) 19:31, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Mirroring works from "Internet Archive"[edit]

There was a proposal to mirror certain resources from IA to Commons: Commons:Village_pump/Proposals#Mass_"Evacuation"_copy_of_Public_domain_resources_from_Internet_Archive_to_Commons.

It's starting to happen! - User talk:Fæ/CCE volumes#Forks.

What's needed from Commons contributors and admins[edit]

  • Checking items in the categories linked from User talk:Fæ/CCE volumes , to ensure they are correctly licensed.
  • Checking the meta-data swept from IA, against additional ndications in the scanned works themseleves.
  • Identification (and rapid removal) of material which is not license compatible with Commons, or which would still be in Copyright.
  • Conversion of the Userspace page, into a more formal WikiProject page in consultation with User:Fæ

amongst many other enumerable tasks.

One contributor cannot curate this content alone. It needs many.

Let's keep the 'Public domain' free, accessible and presented with an appropriate context!

Pinging: @Fæ, Nemo bis, MGA73, Koavf, Brianjd:

ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:48, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Very happy to help. If you want to make a list of all uploads and break them into tranches of 100 or something, you can assign me a batch to look over. Let me know. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:52, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
I think User:Fæ has a list, The page linked above has a section for the Forks of the original script User_talk:Fæ/CCE_volumes#Forks which has links to the categories which contain what's been uploaded so far. The categories can be group into batches of 200 IIRC. An alternative is to use the Upload log. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&offset=20200624173809&limit=100&type=upload&user=F%C3%A6&page=&wpdate=&tagfilter=&subtype= the earliest entry I can find relating to the additional forks is on https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&dir=prev&offset=20200610115153&limit=100&type=upload&user=F%C3%A6&page=&wpdate=2020-06-04&tagfilter=&subtype=

(Dated 14:59, 12 June 2020). Most of the earlier items uploaded in this effort are in distinct "collections" and thus potentially fairly easy to review at rapid pace. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 21:03, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

@Fæ, ShakespeareFan00: If one of you (naturally, it should be Fae) are willing to take ownership over this list, divide it into manageable sections, and assign me some, I will check them and mark them off the list. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:17, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
Paging @AntiCompositeNumber: , Is some way of generating a 'batched' list of the uploads for review, from the log feasible (perhaps using the API backend)? Given the volumes involved splitting it by hand would be too cumbersome I feel. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 21:26, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
The easiest way of doing it would be to create a backlog 'to review' category, targeting the collections for which there might be some doubt but avoiding the obvious (like anything dating before 1870).
Then batching could be done using a search either by year ranges or by taking alphabetic chunks of internet archive identity numbers (which are the default sort for the categories) and volunteers removing the backlog category as they go along, which is super quick.
It would help for folks to raise exemplar deletion requests where there is significant doubt in a particular scenario (like documents dated 1920 published in Mexico).
Completed are the seed catalogues and census bureau, though both collections are probably all uncontroversial. I'll add some 'done' marks tomorrow to make it clearer what's done. --Fæ (talk) 21:57, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

@Fæ, Koavf, Billinghurst: : Some of my recent edits Special:Contributions/ShakespeareFan00 have been to add links to Creator: for works, or to suggest renamings. I can continue if this is thought to be worthwhile, However, I'm not an expert when it comes to tracking down author details from more obscure bibliographic sources, Hence why I've pinged a respected contributor I know has more expertise in this area. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:12, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

June 25[edit]

License burried deep inside archived page's source code[edit]

I need some help here: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Zoey Deutch at Golden Globes Red Carpet 2020.png. Gikü (talk) 07:38, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

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