Commons:Village pump

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Cast iron pump with handle dated 1875 in the form of a fluted column with Corinthian capital on a profiled, square stone base [add]
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Contents




[edit] January 28

[edit] Hierarchical category system

  • Split off discussion from "Photographs by" category moves
I would also like to suggest that structurally "Category:Photographs by Fred Bloggs" should not be a sub-category of Category:Fred Bloggs but should be a see-also relationship. Otherwise all the works of Fred Bloggs logically now lie in the trees containing people (regardless of the contents of the work). This detail is seldom addressed, and is part of a much larger problem ... but then generally the category tree is pretty mutilated anyway ;-)
  • Not every subcategory is an is-a relationship. That's fine. For example:
    • We have categories for museums, with subcategories for artworks in that museum. That doesn't suggest that the artworks are museums.
    • We have categories for countries, with subcategories for cities (and people, and lakes, and lots of other things) in that country. That doesn't suggest that the cities, etc., are countries.
  • - Jmabel ! talk 15:40, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
Sorry but that is the exactly same mis-use of our hierarchical category system. The category structure should reflect a hierarchy of concepts, from the most generic one down to the very specific. It is as "is a" relationship all the way down. The leaves at the end of the "museums as buildings" branch are pictures/videos etc of museums. Another branch will end in "Artworks in Musuem xyz" and its leaves will be pictures/videos of artworks contained there. There is a relationship between the "Musuem xyz (building)" and the "Artworks in Museum xyz" categories, but it is not a hierarchical one. The problem is that we have categories like "Museum xyz" whose function and structural location is amibiguous and tangle two seperate tree branches. This sort of confusion occurs all over the Commons tree structure because very few people understand what they are doing when they create, categorize or populate a category. And many people will tell me I am wrong because no one else is complaining ... these days I don't spend a lot of time tilting at this windmill (the category structure needs serious pruning, but until there is some automated way to maintain the structure, eg a bot, it can't be kept in shape) --Tony Wills (talk) 21:13, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
You forgot that Commons (as well as wikipedias) is not a collection of words (concepts) but collection of media files (themes) and the categorization should organize media by theme. Contrary to the biological taxnnomy, the hierarchy here is based not only on the relation hypernym-hyponym but also on the relation complex-parts, producer-product (more generally: treating-treated), main-subsidiary, subject-representation and many other types of hierarchic relations. Interconnectedness of all these relations (netting, modular categorization) is a big advantage of electronic wiki-categorization over a simple tree system used in physical paper card index.
Besides it, the category "Albert Einstein" doesn't contain this person (dead or alive) personally but media related to him. Naturally, many themes have more aspects - a museum or school can be categorized as buildings as well as organizations – and eventually, a category of images by some person can be categorized as a category of this person until he/she have his own parent category. --ŠJů (talk) 22:33, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
This is not René Magritte. :-) cmadler (talk) 13:28, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
I do not forget anything of the sort ;-). Multi-purposing categories, eg using a category like Category:Joe Bloggs to contain two entirerly different sets of images (eg works about the person and works by the person) and sticking it in two otherwise separate hierarchical trees, just creates a mess. That approach is akin to using the category as a tag rather than a structural element. If you want to have Category:Joe Bloggs containing lots of stuff 'relating to' Joe Bloggs, then don't put that category in either the 'people' tree nor the 'artworks' tree. Put it in some new tree that starts from the root category with something like 'images related to things', with subcategories 'images related to people', 'images related to buildings', then under each person have 'images of xyz' and 'works by xyz' etc - the later two can then be added to the 'people' tree and the 'artworks tree' as well (actually I am not really asking you to create this structure, in fact don't do this :-), but that is the structure that you seem to be implying). --Tony Wills (talk) 13:08, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
Implicitly, you are requiring that the categories be arranged literally in a tree, but the relevant specification at Commons:Categories#Category structure in Wikimedia Commons is a multi-heirarchy, with the link directed to en:Directed acyclic graph. The latter does a much better job of mapping objects which may each display multiple interesting aspects. Having categories have multiple parents is fundamentally no different than having images fall into multiple categories. Dankarl (talk) 20:11, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
The Commons tree structure is indeed a multi-heirarchy, but with each tree starting at the common root. --Tony Wills (talk) 10:06, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
This would be very useful! MIAdams LCAU (talk) 20:05, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I should have my head read, getting into this, but I can't help it. OCD or ritualistic masochism or something... Pity me! Why are the data design practitioners among us so shy? Surely there must be some of them among us? The whole category system currently is flawed from cellar to cupola. Some person in this talk page mentioned directed acyclic graphs, and that is getting close, but even that is too much and too little; personally I prefer to think of a sixth-normal form relational structure. But whatever anyone thinks of whichever system they prefer, the point is that hierarchical won't cut it, and if it could, single root hierarchical won't even nibble at it. And yet I have had people reducing multiple categories for a single photo to just one. The frustration is maddening. Attributes are only trivially and exceptionally hierarchically structurable without doing violence. Even the poor man's spreadsheet data base does better, in associating an element with as many attributes (categories) as you like, and letting whoever is interested search on as many of those as he pleases. This idea seems to horrify people who think that thus we would burden the system with categories, but it is exponentially (or factorially if you like) effective at narrowing a search path. Why is there no body concerned with the professional design of such a structure; or if there is such a body, why are they so shy? Folks,this is about the emasculation or even the evisceration of our system. Now, before I am tempted to go into the matter, will someone cool my fevered brow? JonRichfield (talk) 13:54, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

If I understand what you are suggesting (some version of tagging by attributes(?)), there are an number of practical constraints:
  • First of all, the basic search function does not implement an AND function; without this, we cannot look for category intersections. Advanced tools requiring finding and learning curves are not very useful for casual users.
  • Secondly there is the whole "Nude people with toothbrushes" / Principle of Least Surprise issue.
  • Thirdly, we have no way of ensuring tagging consistency: Flickr has tagging by attributes but undisciplined tagging has made it almost useless; conversely here casual uploaders often add no categories at all.
  • Fourth, (but higher in importance) any system needs to support efficient browsing as well as specific finding, and
  • Finally, grand schemes may not really be needed: My impression is that most users start with a search and then move up or down the category tree a couple of steps to broaden or narrow their search. It is an adaptive process (for that matter, so is categorization). Local consistency is highly useful but global consistency is not needed and attempts to achieve it might be counterproductive.
Please explain or link "sixth-normal form relational structure". Dankarl (talk) 14:28, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
OK, for starters, let's dispose of 6NF. It is powerful, but we could do all we need in less advanced ways. In fact, I would hate to have to educate the typical user (whether seeker or maintenance staff) in its facilities. Hope I haven't started a hare with that one. Now...
Please don't bite me for talking down to anyone; that is not the intention.
The AND and OR and NOT functions are the kind of thing that in my day no one bothered to specify; if you needed them you programmed them on the fly. In many applications all you needed was AND for category intersection. I like to have NOT as well, which is hugely functional for this sort of thing. OR is less frequently necessary, but if one has bothered with the other two, it is easy to include. In short, if our basic search function excludes the most important pair, the 1) Why? and 2) What can we do about it?
Nude...? people...? with...? errrr...? I tried looking it up, but you lost me there somewhere, I probably should be sorry to say... Is this something to do with unexpected category (or attribute) intersections?
Tagging consistency is a rainbow's end and a duplicated cube. We won't get it nohow. Aint got it now neither. I already have renamed dozens of pic files, including <blush!> some of my own. Trying to get accuracy is bad enough; trying for consistency... Gotta be joking! But it helps. Most of my material is biological. A lot of it is taxonomic, and of course it is possible to demand that we use the lowest practical taxon, always with a hidden structure of the underlying (overlying?) higher taxons to support finding less specific targets. But things change all the time in biology; lately I have begun to develop taxonomists schizophrenia towards Nucleic acid research; it is an incredible blessing and a fear-and-loathing ogre. I have quite recently several times (till I grew gun-shy) jumped in to edit some idiot's articles full of elementary mistakes, only to find that there had been major re-organizations clandestinely introduced by people that I had never heard of, but that hated me personally and were out to get me. Trying to find material in such an environment is a counsel of despair. However, there is the alternative. Have lots of attributes, and let seekers select their own and let the chips where they may. They will miss some? Sure. They will get multiple hits? Sure. And?
And oh yes. Undisciplined tagging? After the toothbrushes I will not challenge you to surprise me, but this one certainly did not. Most (I bet) of our pics are either untagged or insanely tagged. By all means let those who wish go tag-hunting (the passion has hit me intermittently too, usually after finding say, that everyone knows what fits into a given family or suborder of insects, and sticks everything with saltatorial legs into the Ensifera, say. Amateur botanists are not a lot better. The first two hundred pics on any hunt for items needing correction are the worst. We simply never will have enough experts with the time to prevent that, no matter which tagging discipline we use, simple or complex, forgiving or power-hog.
As for tagging discipline, the current one that warns you that your tag is not recognised and-are-you-bloody-sure, because that one isn't going in till someone has OKed it, should be fine. Mot of the way-out, humorous, or plain stupid stuff will fall out at the first hurdle. Because people will quickly get tired of arguing with bots, it will seldom happen that they will insist on adding new tags unless it really is necessary (like a new species or a new place name etc). The main difference would be that there would be a lot of tags, such like "New Caledonia" "parasitoid" ""arboreal" "Crustacea" "Nickel-tolerant" or something.
I am not sure what you mean when you say: "...any system needs to support efficient browsing as well as specific finding...". Are you speaking of machine performance or human interface? Lat I heard we were sitting with a few million items. Suppose that they were to average ten tags each. Suppose that there were say, 100000 distinct tags. I haven't kept tabs with modern software, but if you landed me with a reasonable procedural language and a direct access system with plenty of server memory, I bet I could produce sub-second response time on that with my eyes shut, even after all the parameters had increased by an order of magnitude. (OK, OK, open; I am no touch typist, but with one hand behind my back anyway). Now, I am not sure that that would be a good idea, unless it turns out that current commercial DB applications couldn't manage that and would cost the Earth plus just as much programming, but the point is that hardware and programming should not be limiting factors. After all, Google and Alta Vista work, don't they? And they have some serious capacity challenges! What then? User interface a challenge? Hardly! Just let everyone insert as many keywords as he likes for an AND relationship, and 90% of your problem is gone. Stick in brackets, NOTs and ORs, and it would be a slap-up system for anyone.
Come to that, can't we get into bed with Google and tickle them into lending us a toy system? I have Google Desktop an my machine as I sit here. Useful it is too.
Grand schemes? Wellll... depends what you mean. I reckon that a competent, but very bread-and-butter, design and implementation should give powerful performance and facilities. It is the bells-and-whistles that sink most systems, not grandeur as i see it.
Must run. Back soon to talk to LP. JonRichfield (talk) 14:03, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


Hi Jon. I'm having trouble with "Attributes are only trivially and exceptionally hierarchically structurable without doing violence." I have some familiarity with data structures but I'm no expert (and I suspect, in general, that's the main source of inaction on this topic). What we need is someone to propose a better idea than what we got. Powers (talk) 14:32, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Hi LP. I see your point, but first think about the kind of stuff we deal with. Most of my contributions so far have been photos of animals and plants. Usually I can specify a taxon, say for a wasp dragging a spider in the Huisrivier pass, up the stem of an Acacia. Zimple, no? And yet, already, Which of the four attributes gets to dictate the choice of hierarchy? How about a male Thomisid spider sitting on the female he had mated with, on a Lavandula inflorescence, eating one of the Millichiid flies that had been sharing her catch of an Anthophorid bee? Does it go on one of the categories of kleptoparasitism, mating strategies, ... You get the picture?
You think THAT is messy? Try categorising some of the city or factory scenes we have!
Of course, we could simply post the same picture half a dozen times under different names, once for each distinct tag, hm? (Joke... JOKE....! Hm... Or was it a joke...?)
OK, lets stop flogging that hoss.
Now, better scheme? There are dozens. The catch is to convince the people that are expert on such things that some particular scheme is the best. (Convincing the not-so-expert is a lot harder.) Part of the trouble is that the "best is the enemy of the good". There is no best, but some will insist on the best. My thinking is that we need some of the following attributes (and I am open to a lot of additions to the shopping list.)
Low software and maintenance costs
Loose structure so that the user can select the desired attributes on a repeated heuristic basis.
Current interface could be worse, apart from a rather niggardly search language. Just a small window into which users could enter search terms ad lib, plus perhaps later, search functions.
It would be nice to discipline the addition of unrecognised tags and to have a few bots permanently maintaining a list of vacuous tags (those that apply to too high a proportion of pictures) so that we either could ban and remove them, or do something about limiting their use.
We must of course be cautious about vacuous tags, because I could perform quite a useful search with just a few highly independent tags, even if they applied to a ridiculous number of pics. But still...
Well, that is just for starters of course. But at the risk of sounding obsessional, the principle does work for the search engines, right?
Feel welcome to nail me to the wall for providing such a simplistic list, but on due discussion I can do better, and I am sure, so can you folks.
Ciao for niao. JonRichfield (talk) 14:03, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Dating pictures

I bought 3 large prints and scanned them. (File:Nice paardentram.jpg, File:Havre binnenkomst driemaster.jpg, File:Brest sortie Cuirassé.jpg) There is no clue as to the date, so I have to guess with the content. With the Nice picture I know that the trams where not electrified until 1900. The type of warschip looks around 1900s. And tugboats with sailing mast must be early. (They didnt trust the engines). Bye the way does anyone know the current name of "avenue de la gare"? It is not on google earth.Smiley.toerist (talk) 18:33, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

  • Avenue Jean-Médecin, renamed in 1918--Ymblanter (talk) 18:53, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
Ok ✓ Done. There a similar picture File:Nice - Avenue de la Gare.jpg Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:27, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
  • The battleship in File:Brest sortie Cuirassé.jpg appears to be the French ironclad Hoche, based on photos on this page (towards the bottom). It was apparently launched in 1889 or 1890, and was modified a number of times. Based on the photos, it appears to be more the early 1890s, as it looks like one of the masts was modified during the 1890s and it got a big makeover in 1902. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:56, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
Ok,I wil accept 1892 and the name.✓ Done Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:55, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
I added another link below after finding a source from 1890. -- Asclepias (talk) 05:33, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
  • The image of File:Brest sortie Cuirassé.jpg can be found on the internet in different variants that were published on postcards, etc. It is generally identified as "Port militaire de Brest. - Sortie du cuirassé « Le Hoche »". Some postcards with this photograph are identified as published by "ND phot.", which was the mark of the photographers Neurdein. Examples: [1], [2], [3]. The articles fr:Neurdein and de:Neurdein are unfortunately still stubs. The years of the death of the Neurdein brothers seems somewhat uncertain, but it seems that they died circa 1913-1918. We have a category on Commons for their photographs: Category:Neurdein. Variants of the same photo (or similar photos) are also on postcards without a Neurdein mark, examples: [4], [5]. There are also postcards with other similar photographs of the same event that seem part of the same series by Neurdein, taken at a few minutes of interval: example. For the date of creation of the photograph, the early 1890s, as said above, seems a good guess. There is this reproduction of a page of a newspaper said to be from 1892, showing a different photo but, judging from the position of the other boats, it looks like it was taken on the same occasion. So the photograph would be from no later than 1892. There is this other newspaper with the same photo published on 26 July 1890: Le Monde illustré. At the bottom of that webpage, we see the description "Sortie du Hoche du port de Brest par Neurdein", probably recopied from the description in the newspaper. It is plausible that that publication was soon after the event. So, both photographs were likely created in 1890, or at least they were created no later than the date of publication of that newspaper in 1890. -- Asclepias (talk) 21:40, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the info. I suspect the "port militaire" is not the presentday militairy port. Does anyone know wich swing bridge this is? I suspect the presentday "pont de Recouvrance", now a lift bridge. Intriging are all the smal boats attached to the ship. I suspect the ship was not going out to sea but being displaced from the dry dock to an mooring in the port.Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:24, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
    • Another bridge question in Brest: I notice that the categories "Pont de l'Iroise" and "Pont Albert Louppe" look very similar. Another bridge rename? Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:15, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
      • Solved: The two bridges are very close to each other so dat most views include both bridges.Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:27, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] May 9

[edit] What is computer wallpaper?

Dumb question huh? Please comment at Category talk:Computer wallpaper. I am especially interested in hearing from anyone who has ever tagged an image as "wallpaper" on Commons. Thanks :-) --Tony Wills (talk) 06:30, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I find it odd that this issue is being discussed in three parallel treads at once currently:
  1. Template talk:Assessments#Consensus needed
  2. Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems#User:Shizhao
  3. And now on Category talk:Computer wallpaper#What_is_computer_wallpaper.3F
I do not understand why a decision on perhaps a trivial matter needs to be conducted right-away before giving each discussion a chance to come to a close. I am not trying to negate the third discussion, I just feel it is rushed.
-- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 10:51, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
This is an independant question, and is not even about "featured wallpapers" which are related to those other discussions. It is about whether we can actually make this category useful. At the moment it is little more than "I like this one, and think someone might want to use it as a desktop wallpaper", certainly not an objective classification.
I think few people give any weight to this category, and there is little interest. But some people do take the time to classify images in this category, are they just looking at the aspect ratio "criteria" or is there more to their decision?
I have looked at this on an off over a couple of weeks, and wondered if we should start a wee project and create an RSS feed as you suggested at one point, but first steps first ... --Tony Wills (talk) 11:33, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Regardless there are multiple related discussions and it is quite overwhelming to pay attention to them all.
To be honest, I am not too happy with the non-assessed wallpapers - not that I object them. It would make more sense to have QI, VI variants of the FP wallpapers but I am satisfied with FP only wallpapers.
RSS feed would require additional software. I was thinking of revealing that in about 6 months. The issue is rushed too much and I am curious why this new discussion couldn't wait for example 15 days.
-- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 16:46, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
All "wallpapers" are not assessed as to their usability as "wallpapers" in any sense that I can see. I don't have a clue about what you mean by rushed and reference to 15 days, please explain? --Tony Wills (talk) 20:36, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
I guess en:computer wallpaper explains it as well as can be. There are websites that specialize in it; given all the images you can find out there, what is "good" is probably completely subjective. What is distracting and noisy to one person may be the ideal background for another. Mostly though I'm guessing they are images of at least a particular size, and ones sized to match common computer screen resolutions, or at least the aspect ratios. I can't say I've ever tagged a file that way, but {{Wallpaper}} has been around for a long time. It seems the category is mostly based on the image size and dimensions, and not any other criteria. I don't see the harm, really. There is {{WideCommonsWallpaper}} as well for a different ratio, though marked as deprecated recently (is there a replacement?). Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:12, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
I am merely saying that if I were in your shoes I would have given the parallel discussions a week or two to conclude before starting a new one. -- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 22:13, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
{{WideCommonsWallpaper}} was deprecated and {{Assessments}} is used in its place. {{Wallpaper}}] is used on very few files as it too is deprecated for {{Assessments}} aside from those remaining files. -- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 14:40, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Tangentially related... do we have any categories like Category:Photographs by aspect ratio? I couldn't find them at first glance. --99of9 (talk) 00:25, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
    • We don't and perhaps we shouldn't as exotic aspect ratios aren't that interesting. -- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 00:55, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
      • Lots of our categories aren't that interesting to most people :). But I guess I was thinking about less exotic ratios. Where do I find all the 16:9 (0.5625) images? (and I don't mean somewhere between 0.53 and 0.66) --99of9 (talk) 04:22, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
        • Non-exotic ratios would indeed be worth the while and perhaps exotic ratios can be bulked into one or two categories. This can be implemented into the {{Information}} template. -- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 11:00, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Self-categorizing image templates not updating

Does anyone here know how or when categories get purged if they're added inside a template? For example File:ABS-9314.0-SalesNewMotorVehiclesAustralia-NewMotorVehiclesSalesByTypeAllSeries-Aust-TotalVehicles-A367304A.svg is categorized by Template:AustralianBureauStatistics that uses #ifexist to drill down to narrower and narrower categories as they are created. In this case, Category:Images using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics table 931401 does exist, so it has been categorized as such on the file description page. However, the file doesn't appear in that category, and having tried to purge a bunch of pages, I can't seem to make it appear. Any tips would be much appreciated, because I plan to use this system on around 50,000 files. --99of9 (talk) 01:27, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Changes in a template roll out after a short while. But this can be a few hours. To force it for one or two articles, edit+save the article that contains the template will help, but for 50.000 files just waiting a day should do the trick. Edoderoo (talk) 06:37, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Is there some problem with category updates? If you tag a file with {{subst:OP}}, the file is supposed to appear in Category:Media missing permission after a month. However, Category:OTRS pending as of 16 February 2012, which contains files tagged with {{subst:OP}} three months ago, contains a lot of files, but none of those are listed at Category:Media missing permission. Sure, the category is listed on the file information page, but the files are not listed on the category page. There are also many other ancient OTRS categories which don't appear in the "no permission" category. --Stefan4 (talk) 13:31, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I've waited a day now, and there's no change for the case I reported above. --99of9 (talk) 01:35, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
AFAIR it has never worked properly with the OTRS pending template to auto-change into a properly working no permission tag. I remember to have seen a bot doing this work after a user-defined delay (based on OTRS workload) but this bot must have stopped working. We even have a lot of images with undated OTRS pending tags which the bot was supposed to fix/update. --01:57, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Requested template edit

{{VN}} For some reason, this template results in text like the following from Homo sapiens: "...ไทย: มนุษย์/คน · Tiếng Việt: Loài người · Türkçe: İnsan · 中文: 人 ·" And it has a hanging interpunct at the end of it for no reason. Can someone amend it such that it won't have a final interpunct? Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:34, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Template talk:VN would be a better place to ask, but from what I have seen that would require a major rewrite of the template, because the way it is currently written, each language is done independently and it ends with interpunct, and languages have no way of knowing that they are the last. I do not see any simple way to fix it. --Jarekt (talk) 12:03, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Slovakian railway lines

There seem to be no overview map with the railway line numbers. I have pictures of the regional line (Spišské Vlachy - Spišské Podhradie) number 21 on map File:Trat Regionalna draha.PNG. Should I add a category: Spišské Vlachy - Spišské Podhradie railway? Or is there a railway line number I can use? Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:56, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

These are the pictures: File:Katúň halte.jpg, File:Vlachy - Podhradie railway I.jpg, File:Vlachy - Podhradie railway II.jpg. The type of railcar I cant determine. File:Spiš kasteel.jpg is special case as this was taken from a great distance with a 500mm mirror lens. Do we have any category of pictures taken with mirror lenses?Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:13, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
I have added one.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:54, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
I cant remember wich stations and stops these where in 1993. (File:Slovakije spoorlijn 173 II.jpg and File:Slovakije spoorlijn 173 I.jpg) I was with a hiking group. For the last one I am not certain if it belongs to the Classes 850 and 851. It has two small windows in front. Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:54, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] file use

How it is possible, that this site shows those file usage, while all of them are no longer exists (there were deleted after being reduntant)? - —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.156.172.74 (talk • contribs)

  • Probably just a matter of not being fully up to date. - Jmabel ! talk 15:03, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Sound problem

This file was mentioned and fixed in another help section. File:Alexander Misharin resignation address.ogv. I am wondering why the sound fails on some browser plugins. If a tech would like to look at it we may learn for future video uploads.--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:11, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes check.svg Resolved

--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:13, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] MediaWiki 1.20wmf3 deployment underway

Hi everyone! Yet another deployment in our bi-weekly deployment cycle is underway. See mw:MediaWiki 1.20/wmf3 for release notes. Let us know if you encounter problems caused by this deployment. Thanks! -- RobLa-WMF (talk) 18:19, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Problems

When using the "move files" tool, the moves work but I'm encountering intermittent timeouts. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 18:42, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

When making edits, I have started encountering error messages of the following type: "[7299ab2b] 2012-05-17 08:51:48: Fatal exception of type MWException". Looks like things are back to normal, though. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 09:05, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi JackLee, thanks for the report! It looks like we had a brief partial outage between 08:41 UTC and 09:04 UTC due to a site configuration change. Looks pretty likely to be the cause of what you were seeing. In case you're curious, here's the server admin log which gives a fairly detailed view of site changes that may affect site functionality. -- RobLa-WMF (talk) 19:48, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Map update

This map needs to be updated. It says that brothels are illegal in tehe UK but i know for a fact that several brotherls operate in the UK, such as Soho which is known for its many brothels. Pass a Method (talk) 20:55, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Just because they exist doesn't mean that they are legal.--KTo288 (talk) 21:20, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] May 17

[edit] Mediawiki:difference-title

This message currently contains the text Difference between revisions of "$1". I'm not sure when this changed, why, or what it used to say, but I'm pretty sure diff pages used to have better titles than this until very recently.

A lot of my work here starts with my watchlist. I typically open a bunch of diffs in tabs and go through them one by one. That becomes a lot trickier if the visible part of all tabs contains the same text. It would be much better if the unique part of the title were presented first: $1: difference between revisions. Is this a change we can make ourselves, or do we need to file a Bugzilla report and wait two years or involve non-Wikimedia projects to get it changed? —LX (talk, contribs) 10:14, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Changing it at translatewiki:MediaWiki:Difference-title/en would probably work, but when would the change be applied? Some time ago, I corrected a mixup between Chile and Switzerland on Translatewiki,[6] but the relevant template still tells that it is a Chilean licence. In fact, the earlier change by User:Lokal Profil hasn't been applied on Commons either. --Stefan4 (talk) 13:07, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
As bugzilla:36349. has been resolved, you can see that MediaWiki:Wm-license-cc-by-sa-2.5-ch-text/sv is just fine. Your issue must have another origin. I'd assume a "purge" would suffice -- and it did. --Siebrand 18:09, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
The idea of the change was to show in the title that it's a diff. It used to be just the name, which was also confusing. LX's suggestion to put the title first is good, however, so I committed a patch for this. It still needs to be reviewed. If all goes well, it should go live in a few days (but there may be surprises, too).
In general, changing English messages in translatewiki.net won't do anything. Only changing messages in other languages will have an effect. However, the Support page in translatewiki.net is a very good place to report issues like this one. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 18:28, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] NASA animation

Could someone familiar with {{NASA-image}} please have a look at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Brommonoxid.gif? --Leyo 12:00, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Use of term "Location" in the file descriptions

We have a little bit of a problem with too many different things called "location" in image descriptions. We have:

  • {{Location}} template storing latitude and longitude of the camera location. Displays field name Camera location. Used since 2006.
  • {{Object location}} template storing latitude and longitude of the depicted object. Displays field name Object location.
  • {{Institution}} template displays field name Coordinates for the same content, since field name Location was already used by a text description of the location.
  • Location parameter in the {{Institution}}, {{Information2}}, {{Fossil}}, and similar templates stores subject locations. Displays field name Location. Used since 2006. Other templates use different parameters for the same thing:
  • Location parameter in the {{Artwork}} template for stores artwork's location within the museum (like "Room 13" or "Renaissance Art Collection"). Used since 2005. Displays field name Current location. Field value displays Institution template or name above the location. Other templates use different parameters for the same thing:
  • Templates like {{Walters Art Museum artwork}} mimicking metadata of the artworks stored by the museum distinguish between 4 different types of location related to objects:
  • Place of origin
  • Place of discovery
  • Depicted place
  • Location within the museum

As one can see we have a lot of same names used for different things and different names used for the same thing. I feel like we could use some unification of parameters and displayed field names, at least moving forward. Lately when designing a new {{Photograph}} template (very similar as {{Artwork}} but a better fit for historical photographs) we run into a problem of what would be the most intuitive names for some of the parameters and displayed fields. We are planning to have 3 types of location:

  • Text description of depicted place will use Depicted place parameter and field name
  • Camera coordinates will use Camera coord parameter. Displays field name might be Camera location or Camera coordinates
  • Location within the institution (see "current location" here). Field name Department, Something else? Displays field Institution.

Sorry for the long-winded post, and any suggestions and thoughts would be appreciated. --Jarekt (talk) 13:52, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

This is fine with me, but can the conversion be automated? I uploaded several thousand files and most of them use either {{location}} or {{camera location}}, it would be a bit inconvenient to convert all of them manually.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:38, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Renaming of {{location}} template might not be realistic we have 2,743,275 of them. I am mostly concerned about unification and standartization which can be done without changes to any files. But if any changes to the files are needed than they will be done by a bot. --Jarekt (talk) 14:47, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Change to the way thumbnails are stored

Today Aaron Schulz and I deployed a change to the way thumbnails are stored within Wikimedia's infrastructure. Previously, the image scaling cluster would write thumbnails no an NFS server and Swift (as part of processing the request) would store the image as well. We have changed both Mediawiki and Swift so that Mediawiki writes both copies (to NFS as well as to Swift) and Swift doesn't write at all. If you're interested in the actual changes, see Gerrit changes 7890, 7891, 7900, and 7901. This is a step along the migration path to eliminating NFS from the image-handling infrastructure.

There should be no user-visible effects of this change. All the same, if you do see something odd (images substantially and persistently slower, broken images, etc.) that started today, please let us know, either by email, on-wiki notes, or in IRC.

Thanks! Bhartshorne (talk) 21:48, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] List of unlinked categories

Is there a tool or a list which shows all the red categories. For example, Category:Languages of Mozambique has a subcategory, but it not itself linked to a larger category... I just spent time cleaning up after a user who did a mass recategorization where many of the new cats didn't exist. Some of the his new categories already had a number of images already in it so I'm curious as to what else needs linking into the cat tree... Tabercil (talk) 23:28, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Special:WantedCategories. MKFI (talk) 05:55, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
Added Category:Ethnic groups in Mozambique and Category:Bantu languages to Category:Languages of Mozambique, if you want to populate it w:Languages of Mozambique has a list. Though some of those on the list are not exclusive to Mozambique.--KTo288 (talk) 10:05, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] May 18

[edit] Templates (?) spammed with File:ProphetOfPeace.jpg

Hi, could someone please have an urgent look at this: On many files such as these:

a file: has been added by some vandal. --Jwh (talk) 10:38, 18 May 2012 (UTC)


Also see File:Football at Milan.jpg – JBarta (talk) 10:50, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Update: Issue has been resolved. – JBarta (talk) 19:54, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I think that this discussion is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, don't hesitate to replace this template with your comment. Jmabel ! talk 00:06, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Shouldn't we keep both pictures ?

Hi everyone. I noticed that this picture had been uploaded over another picture (of the same person). Shouldn't we keep both pictures with two different names ? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 21:26, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Probably. Strange: same uploader in both cases, no difference in description, same OTRS. We might want to contact uploader & ask what's going on. - Jmabel ! talk 00:08, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Could someone please check the OTRS ticket to see what it says? InverseHypercube 18:56, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] May 19

[edit] Who is responsible for the Russian-language MediaWiki interface of Commons?

Hello, as there is a gramatically bad expression in every difflink view since some time ("Разница между пересмотров"), I would like to know who is responsible for programming the Russian-language interface, hoping that he/she can correct it. Thx - A.Savin 21:55, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Unless it is changed here, it is done in the MediaWiki translation at translatewiki.net. If you can find the English equivalent (change language preferences for a moment) finding the item to correct is probably easier. I cannot find the string, neither here, nor on translatewiki. Has it been corrected? --LPfi (talk) 08:56, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, it's been corrected meanwhile. - A.Savin 16:41, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Personality rights, et al

Hi everyone, While reviewing past board resolutions (don't ask, I'm a geek, I know), I came across the resolution on Images of Identifiable People. After I re-read it, I admit to being a little surprised because I don't recall there being a ton of discussion about it here. It's possible that I've missed something, but I wonder if Commons has made any progress toward the parts of this that are directly pointed at this project, namely:

  • Strengthen and enforce the current Commons guideline on photographs of identifiable people with the goal of requiring evidence of consent from the subject of media, including photographs and videos, when so required under the guideline. The evidence of consent would usually consist of an affirmation from the uploader of the media, and such consent would usually be required from identifiable subjects in a photograph or video taken in a private place. This guideline has been longstanding, though it has not been applied consistently.
  • Ensure that all projects that host media have policies in place regarding the treatment of images of identifiable living people in private situations.
  • Treat any person who has a complaint about images of themselves hosted on our projects with patience, kindness, and respect, and encourage others to do the same.

An (admittedly superficial) review didn't seem to show a lot of movement on the policy question in the first bullet point, so I'm wonder if there's some way that my team or the Foundation can support the commons community in this. Would it be helpful if we were to get some suggested draft language from Legal/Community Advocacy? I'm not saying we should, it's just one idea for how the WMF could support the commons community in fulfilling this Board resolution that's nearly a year old. If there are other ways that we could be helpful, I'm happy to listen here and try to find the ones that make sense for this community.

I'm not here with any predefined outcome in mind: really, I'd like to open a discussion about how the WMF (and specifically the Legal and Community Advocacy Department) can be helpful in working toward the position laid out in the Board resolution. Thanks! Philippe (WMF) (talk) 01:10, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I may be confused. I think the consent would have a clash with legal issues on privacy. If I take a picture of a friend in my house, he may allow it placed in commons but not wish to have his name known to WMF. WMF would have to go on my word that I have his permission. Anyone that sees an image of themselves could add a speedy delete tag and/or email the adresses that cover that?--Canoe1967 (talk) 01:25, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
I know OTRS is backlogged, but this is what I imagined the service to be when it comes to issues like this. I know this will also run into some of the issues we have now over the PORN that we got, but as far as I am aware, I am not sure a lot of things were done. We just tag an image and call it a day. User:Zscout370 (Return fire) 03:04, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
Could we just create a policy that simply states that WMF is CYA and any uploader can have his butt sued for images? I removed a statement in an en:WP BLP article after the the BLP asked in help desk. I did this without question, speedily, and in good faith. We had a discussion on the talk page as to wording and reliable sources and the statement was replaced with a more accurate one that I think the BLP had to accept legally.--Canoe1967 (talk) 03:42, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
It seems to me that would not comply with the Board resolution, which was not to CYA, but was directed to the community. So it's not a matter of the WMF covering, but rather of the commons community coming into agreement with the resolution passed by the Board, as I read it. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 13:16, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I don't have time to answer properly just now, but two things that I'm aware of were done: COM:PEOPLE now includes the clause expecting evidence (at least uploader assertion) when consent is required, and {{consent}} was created and discussed. The latter has not gone into widespread use yet - I would suggest that anyone who uploads photographs of people tries it out on their own uploads to see if it needs any other parameter options. --99of9 (talk) 04:47, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
    • I note that while you're obviously correct about the statement above, it's also important to say that COM:PEOPLE includes this statement:
“ If you would like to proactively assert compliance with these guidelines for a particular photograph or video, you can add the {{consent}} template to the file's description page. Please refer to the template documentation for further instructions. Use of this template is not required for compliance with these guidelines or other Commons policies. ”
A template without policy enforcement behind it does not satisfy my reading of the Board resolution. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 18:12, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I think the intent of that sentence is to say that there are other ways to assert consent, not just that one particular template. But I agree a bit of clarification could help. --99of9 (talk) 22:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I put all versions of {{consent}} on a file of mine that isn't used much yet: File:Watermark sample.jpg. Feel free to use it as a sandbox file. Should we put a link to the template on the upload page, or possible have a bot add it to all files in category:people to get uploaders to notice it? It seems good enough to be policy to me.--Canoe1967 (talk) 05:18, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Note: this was discussed at VP (archive) last month. The issue hasn't gone away. For instance, we could more explicitly address privacy as a reason for deletion (see Commons_talk:Deletion_policy#Privacy). Rd232 (talk) 13:46, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
  • The issue is serious and should be discussed. I am a bit worried though, that such resolutions are approved without as much scrutiny as changes in our guidelines. It is unclear how the resolution is supposed to affect existing images taken with undocumented consent. I suppose those should be kept, unless deemed very problematic. There is also the problem about declared consent being contested - by the subject, by somebody claiming to be the subject or a third party. The second is a serious threat to some classes of images (I remember a case about dead soldiers). The consent template would satisfy the resolution, but not these other problems. It was also introduced as a suggestion and should get more eyes before made official or put in wide use. --LPfi (talk) 09:33, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
  • At this point should we decide where to actually discuss it. This thread may be buried in time soon, as it seems others have been. On the matter of the consent templates, they could be added to all the images in category people to draw attention to the issue. Changes to all the upload pages including ones like Commonist, Android, etc. may have to be made as well. A statement such as: 'If this image has living people then one of the consent templates MUST be used?'--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:28, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
I like that. Does it have teeth? Is the policy sufficiently strong to back it up? Philippe (WMF) (talk) 17:42, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
I think if a bot master had a bot add:
Gnome-emblem-important.svg

A query has been raised regarding consent of identifiable persons:

A query has been raised as to whether all identifiable subjects have consented to the publication of this image. If you created this media, and it was taken in public or you have the consent of the subjects, please replace the template parameter: query with a more appropriate one from Template:Consent. If this is not rectified, the media may be discussed for deletion as a violation of Commons:Photos of identifiable persons.

...to every image in category people it would bring the issue forward to scrutiny. Just a thought though. Does present policy actually require some type of consent tag now with all images containing people?--Canoe1967 (talk) 17:51, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

My read is that the Board left some wiggle room. I think any attempt at proactively updating policy and strengthening it would be a welcome sign. I tend to think that mass-using a bot to drop a massive number of templates is likely to have a flashback effect that would be unwelcome. In that case, I think what we would see is a hardening of resolve by those opposed (who would also, quite rightly, point out that the time requirements needed to satisfy those would be extreme). I would suggest, instead, some sort of triage system that begins with higher-risk images (if such a thing can be identified) and works toward some threshold. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 18:17, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Could we create a category 'images of people lacking consent templates' type thing? A bot could add all the people images to this new category. I don't think there is a way to add all images of people robotically unless they are in the people category now. Then editors could go through all the files in the new category manually and add approriate tags to the obviuos ones?--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
    I think Canoe1967 is absolutely right that this discussion should be taken to a good place. One cannot be supposed to watch this page as it is busy and more or less English only. And any decision will affect a huge amount of images.
    On the subject matter: The change should be about new uploads. There the key things is having the templates and making the upload forms handle them smoothly.
    The policy has required consent, not documentation of consent. That could be read as uploading an image means implicitly assuring consent. Deleting perfectly good images because of changes in policy should be the last alternative (I have supposed Commons is a stable image repository in that sense). I think we should delete old files only if there is a clear violation of privacy (handling of complaints should probably continue as now).
    --LPfi (talk) 18:57, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
The policy is just rubbish made during the Jimbo pron witch hunt and will get abused by the haters to get rid of images they don't like. Trick question: Find the board member who was an active Commons community member around the time of that resolution.
We don't need a board that sends commandments from their ivory tower, we need a board that actually helps us to improve things here. Now they're only making things worse: Rubbish policy, we don't abide to it and yet more material for the haters to dump on Jimbo's talk page. Good job board! Multichill (talk) 22:13, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
I can see your points. Until this thread was started I assumed that WMF was CYA and uploaders are to be responsible for permission under threat of legal action. I also mention that I read somewhere that WMF can dictate policy unilaterly because they control the servers type thing.--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:22, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Move discussion to:

Commons talk:Privacy policy? We could still have a bot tag all images in Category:Unidentified people? There are only around 10,000 images there, so that may not irk too many people, justify the tags, and create more notice of the issue?--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:04, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

If that is the destination, I would suggest moving the whole discussion there to provide context and prevent forking. Dankarl (talk) 21:25, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Oops. Should it be Commons talk:Photographs of identifiable people instead? That other section is for how commons handles our user data, I think.--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:51, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Private place

What is a private place, speaking of what I know, sport photographies can be done in privately owned stadium. I'm really not against enforcing a stricter policy on personality rights, but we have to consider all the pros and cons, and tune the policy. --PierreSelim (talk) 22:10, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

See Commons:Photographs_of_identifiable_people#Normally_OK. It seems that each country has different laws though.--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:25, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Are people talking about privacy rights or personality rights? They are not remotely the same thing. Personality rights have never been cause for deletion -- they are analogous to trademark, using someone's name or likeness for advertising and things like that, and are sometimes known as publicity rights. As far as the U.S., privacy rights happen when there is an "expectation of privacy". That is definitely not the case for sports photography. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:27, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
I think the OP meant privacy rights. I think most courts would find that if an image from commons is used for financial gain of personality rights it wouldn't matter if the image was even considered public domain and is covered by other laws?--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:33, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Other languages of Template:Personality rights

Template:personality rights/en has changed. Therefore, many non-English languages of this template must be translated to current English version of this template. Any helpers, such as of Japanese and Chinese? --George Ho (talk) 03:43, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Just make sure you use this edit for the translations since there has been editing by IPs and what not. User:Zscout370 (Return fire) 03:46, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
It is indefinitely protected at the moment, so one should be able to trust the current version. --LPfi (talk) 09:54, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] PD-anon-Canada

Canada has a different copyright law for anonymous works than what is covered by, say, {{PD-anon-70}} (50 after publication or 75 after creation). Would the proper name for a new template be {{PD-anon-Canada}}?

Thank you. InverseHypercube 04:03, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

PD-Canada-anon? Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:10, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
Template:PD-in/North America?--Canoe1967 (talk) 04:24, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps Template:Anonymous-CAN ? User:Zscout370 (Return fire) 04:26, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
Template:PD-in/North America works, but can it be used as the sole license on files? InverseHypercube 06:44, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
I don't think so. Probably best to have its own template, as that looks to be a bit different law than most. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:46, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
Okay, I created {{PD-Canada-anon}}. Thank you! InverseHypercube 19:32, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of all remaining PD-Russia files

Just a quick pointer to Template_talk:PD-Russia#Deletion_of_all_files_that_continue_to_use_this_template.3F. My understanding is that these files were PD in both Russia and the USA when they were uploaded (before 2008), but then Russian law changed so that they are now no longer PD in Russia. So the legal/policy types amongst us might have an opinion. --99of9 (talk) 11:12, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

  • Most of these files have been nominated for deletion individually, and this is fine. I known that Russavia made efforts to recategorize the files with the old template, either moving them to {{PD-Russia}} or to {{PD-RusEmpire}}, and he asked me to look at the rest. Since now most of them are nominated, it was difficult to me to find the files which still have the old template and are not nominated for deletion. I found about a dozen which I re-categorized as {{PD-RusEmpire}}. Generally, I do not see any issues: Indeed, Russian government adopted a law which retroactively made many of these files non-free, and there is nothing we can do about this. May be we could be lenient about files whose creators died in 1942 (to become free on January 1) to save the work on first removing them from the articles, and then reinserting them to the articles, but this is about it.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:02, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] why picture name can't be Scandianavian Hunks

I try to upload picture but I can't use picture name Scandianavian Hunks, I must use some other file:Suomalainen tanssiryhmä.jpg name.--Motopark (talk) 14:51, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

File:Scandinavian Hunks looks free to me. You could try template:rename?--Canoe1967 (talk) 17:05, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I added a rename request to the file.--Canoe1967 (talk) 17:12, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Rename ✓ Done russavia (talk) 17:42, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
I think that this discussion is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, don't hesitate to replace this template with your comment. --Canoe1967 (talk) 18:00, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] File:Heusden schandpaal.jpg.jpg

I would like some advice on this file (File:Heusden schandpaal.jpg.jpg). The filename says it's a schandpaal (pillory), but the fact that it is a pillory is extremely unlikely as I tried to explain on the talkpage of the file. Two other users however keep ignoring my arguments, and now one of them (User:Foroa) has changed and secured the file to force his or her own opinion obout this file upon the commons community. This seems to me as not the way to solve a difference of opinions. LeeGer (talk) 16:07, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

  • The ring would be typical of a hitching post, not a pillory! - Jmabel ! talk 16:23, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
    • After looking up what a hitching post is, I have to agree that a hitching post is more likely, but not certain either of course. LeeGer (talk) 16:34, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
    • Would you need a lock on the ring itself though? Its presence implies that the ring needs to be closed around something which then can't get out, and locked shut. A hitching post wouldn't need a lock in that position, nor would the ring need to be opened in the first place. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:36, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
      • If you would hitch an animal to such a borderstone and leave it there to graze for a while (not uncommon around here), then it might be wise to have a lock yes. Otherwise the animal might get stolen. LeeGer (talk) 16:54, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
        • Stealing a horse would be dependent on how well the rope was secured, not the ring. Hitching post rings were solid metal; you didn't need to open them. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:04, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
          • Present time (the ring was added in 1992) horses or any other type of cattle are usually hitched by chains around here. So a metal ring which can be opened could be very useful for hitching the horse I think. But now were just simply guessing, just like guessing if it could be a pillory. LeeGer (talk) 17:51, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
            • If the ring was added in 1992, it's definitely not a pillory. But it seems very odd to have added something like that at the time, unless it was a signature of sorts for the restoring group or something. And unless the key was also present, the lock would still be strange -- you can have a simpler latching mechanism if you just needed to keep animals there. How do you know it was added in 1992? Is that documented somewhere, or is that just your speculation? Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:09, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
The proper way would be to discuss it on the talk page, and not make page moves or edits to the description (beyond adding the {{fact disputed}} tag as a pointer). We do want to keep reverted edits etc. to a minimum, and in particular renames. I'm not sure indefinite protection is appropriate there, but a temporary one may be OK. Most editors are not going to be experts in this type of subject matter; the uploader usually knows more, and the filename and description are usually best left alone unless it can be shown that it is incorrect. You may well have a case, but... you say the ring was added in 1992. Is there a reference for that? Why was the ring added then? It sure looks older. As for the height, is it possible the ring was meant to go around the neck, and force the person to be sitting down? It seems odd, but not impossible, for something like that to be used as a pillory even if not originally designed as such. Really, we'd need to know when the ring was added. If it was only done in 1992, then sure you're correct, but offhand I don't see any definitive evidence of that. On the other hand, the ring is in the middle of a circle which has "Renovatum MCMLXXXXII" on it, which is marked as 1992. So maybe it was newer, or maybe the ring had been there, and they just had to rebuild that portion of the pole, and just put their renovation note around the ring. Without knowing what the pole was like prior to 1992, it may be hard to say. It seems very odd that someone would add an element like that in a restoration without reason, though perhaps it was there originally but had some other purpose. In short though... while it's fine to add the "fact disputed" tag and discuss on the talk page, don't participate in a revert or move war on the main page while the discussion is still going on. It should be possible to convince others you're right with enough evidence. And if there is a legitimate dispute, leave the tag there so interested editors can make note of it (the disputed tag should also not be removed unless most editors can be convinced the pillory ring is authentic, and not used for some other purpose). Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:36, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
Remains the fact that someone called the borderstone a pillory while there is no evidence to be found it was ever used as a pillory, or even intended as an example of a pillory. My opinion is that it should not be called a pillory, and certainly not be added to a category of pillories, before there is any reliable source that it might have been a pillory. And at the moment there is no such source. LeeGer (talk) 16:51, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
I have to admit, I can't figure any other logical reason for the ring to be there. It's definitely a cuff of some sort, and you wouldn't need the lock for any non-human, and while dimensions are tough to judge, it sure doesn't look like a handcuff or ankle cuff (and the position would be odd for that), meaning it would have to be for the neck. Its position seems consistent with a sitting prisoner. Hitching post rings would be higher up at the top of the post, and would not need to be openable anyways (just a solid ring to tie a rope to). If the ring was there originally, it sure looks like that the only logical purpose would be for a pillory. It's obviously not the original purpose of the marker, but it could have been used for that -- it is right in front of a river, so the purpose may be have been as a warning for other river travelers (pretty common means of transportation back then I'm sure). A couple of other photos of its context here. The description could certainly be changed to note the uncertainty, or just say that it appears the marker served double-duty as a pillory, but as a gut feeling, I would not remove all mention of a pillory unless it can be shown the ring is a bogus newer addition. Otherwise, the clear assumption is that the ring was in fact there for a long time, and is a reliable visual reference unto itself -- it served some purpose, as most other similar marker stones (from a quick image search) have no such rings. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:03, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
The position for the ring makes it very unlikely it was used as a pillory as it is too low for the neck of a standing prisoner, and too high for a sitting prisoner. Metal rings for pillories would usually be placed much higher. Asl you can see on File:Appingedam 11.JPG. The fact that one can't think of any other logical use for the ring (allthough I think a hitchingpost is much more logical), doesn't mean one should simply state on Wikipedia that it is a pillory. Especially as there are more reasons to assume it isn't one. We should be careful in describing history. There should not be any room for assumptions on Wikipedia without any reliable sources. LeeGer (talk) 17:51, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
Not having a good idea of exactly how far it is off the ground I can't be sure, but it seems like it could be a reasonable height for a sitting prisoner. Secondly, if the base was rebuilt, it's possible that it is no longer precisely at its former height. I can agree that we probably shouldn't definitively state it was a pillory, but use some sort of hedging on the words -- appears, or best guess or something like that. The lack of knowledge of when the ring was added should be pointed out, absolutely. But if use as a pillory is the best guess anyone has, I can certainly see keeping that speculation in the image description -- labeled as speculation, fine, but not removed altogether. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:09, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
 It may be relevant to note that this object is a national monument (rijksmonumenten), and according to this website it is a grensafbakening (border demarcation). However, I am not a Dutch speaker, so someone conversant with the language should confirm this. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 09:53, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually that description in the national monumentregister is about this borderstone. Which is, as you can see, similar to the borderstone under debate here. LeeGer (talk) 16:24, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Grensafbakening means indeed a border demarcation, but such stones could be on the border or (main) entrance of a fiefdom or manor too. For information: "The word is documented in English since 1274 (attested in Anglo-Latin from c. 1189), and stems from Old French pellori (1168; modern French pilori, see below), itself from medieval Latin pilloria, of uncertain origin, perhaps a diminutive of Latin pila "pillar, stone barrier.", and personally, I think that pillories have been used as border stones too as deterrent for visitors. Anyway, my position is that we should only change the file name, description or categories when we have evidence, not hypothesises or speculation. --Foroa (talk) 10:50, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
You know perfectly well this borderstone is the borderstone of a waterboard, and was never on the border or main entrance of a fiefdom or manor. LeeGer (talk) 16:18, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps we can rename the file grensafbakening since (1) it is used by a government website to identify the object; and (2) it is a neutral name that does not try to identify the object as either a hitching post or pillory. Oh, and let's remove the double extension (".jpg.jpg"). — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 11:10, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Another [blog] I found states that the post is outside of the town defences but next to one of the main entrances, so although pillories may normally be situated in the centre of town, having one outside of the main gate would just have been as visible, especially for those living outside the walls. However the second blog references the blog linked to on the file talk page when it talks about this post having been used as a pillory so can't really be considered independent. I've had a look at the tourist office websitwe for Heusden (http://www.hbtheusden.nl/) but they don't seem to have anything on pillories in their town, maybe someone who can speak Dutch could send them an e-mail?--KTo288 (talk) 11:28, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
You may send them an email in English too. Can't imagine that they don't have people there who can speak and write in english. And you are right that there is no reference anywhere that describes a pillory in or close to the city. And a city so famous for it's history as a fortified city, and because of that, so dependend on tourism, would certainly mention the presence of a pillory. Just like a pillory would certainly be mentioned in the national monumentregister. LeeGer (talk) 16:18, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Is is possible the ring is there because it was at some point a traditional accoutrement for such stones, even if they were no longer actually used as pillories? Then practicality would not matter. Dankarl (talk) 22:18, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
No, it is a traditional waterboard borderstone. They weren't used as pillories. They were used to mark the border of the area where that waterboard was responsible for the quality of the water, and the waterlevel. LeeGer (talk) 19:03, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Rename request

Hi! Could anyone please rename the file Solomon James Owello vs Kyle Helton IMG 6851.jpg, and instead call it Ernest Asante vs Kyle Helton IMG 6851.jpg ??? Kind regards, Bjoertvedt (talk) 23:06, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I added a rename tag to it. You may wish to check my spelling.--Canoe1967 (talk) 01:00, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

✓ Done. Rename looks complete.--Canoe1967 (talk) 15:09, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I think that this discussion is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, don't hesitate to replace this template with your comment. Jmabel ! talk 15:42, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] May 21

[edit] May 22

[edit] Suppressing the license field in upload form

Is there a way to suppress the license field in the form at Special:Upload? Like with GET/POST data. What's happening is a lot of users are coming over via CommonsHelper, which already provides the license, but then the form is asking them to provide another license, which is causing it to duplicate (or, if the uploader is sloppy and/or uninformed, causing an incorrect license to be added). Magog the Ogre (talk) 00:06, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

May be the easiest is to use Basic upload form. I find it the most intuitive. --Jarekt (talk) 03:28, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
OK, I wasn't very clear: I meant with the basic upload form, a way to suppress the license field. If it's not possible, I'll be glad to write the code to do so, if it's something that's handled locally. Magog the Ogre (talk) 06:31, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
I did some investigation at MediaWiki:UploadForm.js, and there is a way to suppress the license field: setting &uselang=fromwikimedia. You might want to create a new "hack" (see var hacks in the JS file) based on that one, that uses different descriptions. InverseHypercube 19:44, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Not sure how you found that, but thank you. I've filed a bug which he'll hopefully address, as it's painfully simple to correct: [7]. Magog the Ogre (talk) 20:38, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
I found it just by looking around in the code. While it is simple to correct it the way you mention, my concern was that the text claiming the file is from Wikimedia might confuse users. InverseHypercube 23:41, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
The License field in Basic upload form can be ignored, if the license is provided in the text. But I guess, it is still confusing for those that notice it. --Jarekt (talk) 02:10, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Is there a way to provide this functionality of omitting a license without using the uselang parameter? Because this parameter automatically means the page will display in English, no matter the user's preference. Magog the Ogre (talk) 02:34, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Replace duplicate files

Can any admin to use User:CommonsDelinker to replace File:Orion Nebula - Hubble 2006 mosaic 18000.jpg by File:Orion Nebula - Hubble 2006 mosaic.jpg? These are duplicates. Thank you, --Metrónomo (talk) 04:52, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Why replace an image with a similar one with lower resolution? /Esquilo (talk) 08:15, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
It seems someone changed and it was reverted. They want both copies because some old XT computers can't load the hi rez one.--Canoe1967 (talk) 11:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

 Not done

[edit] Edit protect page

Is Commons:Upload/es. It says:

<div style="background-color:#ffee99; border: 1px #ffe795 solid; padding:0.1em 0.8em; margin-bottom:1em; font-size:110%;">
¡Ayúdanos a probar el nuevo [[Special:UploadWizard|asistente de subidas]]!
</div>

But can be used: {{UploadWizard}} (now supports Spanish). In addition Template:UploadWizard/ml should be delete. Thanks, --Metrónomo (talk) 05:25, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] User:Flickr upload bot

Who is responsible for User:Flickr upload bot? It uploaded File:Marlon Brando The Wild one.jpg which is an obviously copyrighted image, Flickrwashed by someone who's not the copyright owner. The bot owner User:Bryan is inactive? So who controls this thing? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:26, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

It cannot detect Flickrwashing, unless the uploader on Flickr is placed on a blocklist from having their files uploaded. It is something humans can only catch, since the main thing it looks for is if the user is in good standing on Flickr (so not on the block list) and also for the license. User:Zscout370 (Return fire) 18:51, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
It can be used by any user through [8], so there isn't any single user responsible for its uploads. However, you can see who initiated the upload by looking at the revision history; in the case of the file you mention, it is User:Peprovira. InverseHypercube 19:16, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

[edit] May 23

[edit] looking for poster papa1234

hello,

I'm looking for the person who posts as papa1234. I have a question about this file.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:J%C3%BCdischer_Friedhof_Frauenberger_Stra%C3%9Fe_Euskirchen_13.JPG#filehistory

Are you a relative of the Benders or marxs?


Please respond in English to 1clemkadiddlehopper@gmail.com

Thank you

Retrieved from "http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Village_pump&oldid=71520197"
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