Commons:Village pump
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January 07[edit]
Slight issue with template acting up in image caption[edit]
See this discussion on the file page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noliscient (talk • contribs) 14:34, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
March 03[edit]
Apparently video2commons hasn’t been working properly. At least I’m not the only one to note that.
Is there anyone else having similar problems? Does anyone have a clue on how to solve that? RodRabelo7 (talk) 04:51, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- @RodRabelo7 There are two ways to solve that: 1) You travel back in time about two weeks and vote in the technical wishlist survey for the project to repair video2commons. 2) you wait 11 months and vote in the next technical wishlist survey for the project to repair video2commons. C.Suthorn (talk) 09:58, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
- If the devs can fix it as part of the technical wishlist, why don't they fix it now, then? I stopped using that list, as I felt like a beggar - a volunteer in the projects and still begging for some basic support. The disregard WMF gives to the technical needs of the community is disheartening. Darwin Ahoy! 23:10, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
- There are 10000 thinks to fix by devs. v2c is not an official project, but was done by a volonteer, who left the project. In the tech wishlist survey v2c ended at place ~70 of ~180 entries. Maybe it will actually be fixed. But video obviously has a very low priority. Checking videos for copyright needs significant human ressources - something that is extremely scarse at Commons. Every video not uploaded helps. OTOH you could use Offroader a tool that is able to transcode videos to WEBM and upload files of up to 4GiB even with a feeble internet connection. C.Suthorn (talk) 11:40, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
- If the devs can fix it as part of the technical wishlist, why don't they fix it now, then? I stopped using that list, as I felt like a beggar - a volunteer in the projects and still begging for some basic support. The disregard WMF gives to the technical needs of the community is disheartening. Darwin Ahoy! 23:10, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
March 05[edit]
Suggestion: NSFW tag[edit]
I was looking for GIFs of people doing "the finger", and... well, try it for yourself. Thankfully, I was not in public. --Synotia (talk) 18:21, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
- @Synotia: The problem is that there is no one clear line. There's been a lot of talk of how we might address this and allow one or more "safe" viewing modes, but it's really tough to do it in a way that isn't culture-specific. It would take an enormous investment of effort to tag for the dozens of different things that could be issues, in order to allow someone to build an adjustable filter. - Jmabel ! talk 20:57, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
- That is a bit tame. Wikipedia and Commons are international projects and the same Medium that is NSFW in one society can be completely Ok in another society with another medium the other way around. The image of a child with an automatic weapon may be ok in USA or Afghanistan but considered child abuse in Germany. And what is a NSFW tag considered to do? With the MW software as it is, readers would see the image, scroll down the file desription page and then see the NSFW tag. For other ways the software would need to be changed. But in what way? What should the tag do? Trigger age verification? Ask the user for them religious beliefs? Open a window with a red border: Caution. this is NSFW. Proceed at your own risk. While simustanly playing a voice recording: "Attention, your colleage at desk seven is about to view NSFW content" C.Suthorn (talk) 22:33, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
- What a bureaucratic answer. All this bla bla bla to say "no, don't change anything"
- Are you familiar with any websites outside of Wikipedia? Tumblr or Reddit are examples for NSFW warnings. Synotia (talk) 23:55, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
- Tumblr and Reddit aren't caring about being an encyclopedia. Do you want advertising here as well? It's an entirely different purpose for this website. Again, give more specifics on what you want. A block from searching? From displaying? From being used at all? Why not propose the deletion of those offensive images if you want to have a sanitized website? They will be overruled but feel free to try it. Ricky81682 (talk) 00:06, 6 March 2023 (UTC),
- @Ricky81682: I, for one, don't want Commons censored in terms of what we can store, but I think it would be entirely appropriate to make it possible to filter out unwanted results in any given search. If we can work out a way to define what a certain person finds inappropriate, they should be able to filter all of their searches by saying, effectively, "but not this stuff". In any case: what Synotia links below is, at least, a pretty egregious search result. If I were searching for "finger" on a general educational website, even if I were specifically looking for GIFs, I would not expect to get a bunch of videos of women masturbating. I don't think anyone can defend that as good UX. - 02:21, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- Tumblr and Reddit aren't caring about being an encyclopedia. Do you want advertising here as well? It's an entirely different purpose for this website. Again, give more specifics on what you want. A block from searching? From displaying? From being used at all? Why not propose the deletion of those offensive images if you want to have a sanitized website? They will be overruled but feel free to try it. Ricky81682 (talk) 00:06, 6 March 2023 (UTC),
- That is a bit tame. Wikipedia and Commons are international projects and the same Medium that is NSFW in one society can be completely Ok in another society with another medium the other way around. The image of a child with an automatic weapon may be ok in USA or Afghanistan but considered child abuse in Germany. And what is a NSFW tag considered to do? With the MW software as it is, readers would see the image, scroll down the file desription page and then see the NSFW tag. For other ways the software would need to be changed. But in what way? What should the tag do? Trigger age verification? Ask the user for them religious beliefs? Open a window with a red border: Caution. this is NSFW. Proceed at your own risk. While simustanly playing a voice recording: "Attention, your colleage at desk seven is about to view NSFW content" C.Suthorn (talk) 22:33, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
- On "the finger", at least the first 20 items I get are pretty innocuous. But I'm using the "old" search. - Jmabel ! talk 20:59, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
- There you go. Don't click on this if you're in public. Synotia (talk) 23:58, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose. We have a hard enough time policing things and what is offensive to one person's sensibilities is not to another's (the swimsuits section varies heavily on acceptability). Looking at Category:The finger (gesture) it starts off fairly tame. I question whether all the nude or partially nude people images are all that educational in purpose but that have been strongly kept for a while now. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:58, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
- My proposal is just for a measure similar to Tumblr or Reddit: extreme violence and hardcore porn should be, in search results, at least covered with a NSFW tag so that no kid looking for the innocuous term "finger" (no the!) will be greeted by this assortment. Synotia (talk) 00:00, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- Do you think you are the first person in the decades of this website to find something offensive? There are governments who have banned the entire website because one page is offensive but please explain why "think of the children" is an acceptable discussion when we have entire categories like Category:Nude or partially nude people. Do you want a warning on each image? Should it only display on Commons? On every page that displays the image? On every website that displays the image not on Wikimedia? At least do a little more effort than "I find something offensive so I want a warning because I search public websites without a filter and I find things I don't like." Ricky81682 (talk) 00:04, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- My proposal is just for a measure similar to Tumblr or Reddit: extreme violence and hardcore porn should be, in search results, at least covered with a NSFW tag so that no kid looking for the innocuous term "finger" (no the!) will be greeted by this assortment. Synotia (talk) 00:00, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- Please explain why "think of the children" is an acceptable discussion The main purpose of this site is to be educational and to that end be used in an educational setting. Are you seriously going to argue that any school out there is going to advocate for their students using the platform at school if there's nude pictures on here that come up in search results when people aren't even looking for them? Come on. There's clearly a difference between a government censoring something just to be autocratic versus a website not allowing certain content because it undercuts their target market. There's zero legitimate reason anyone should have to see multiple gifs of a woman fingering herself when they do a search for someone giving the middle finger. That's not autocratic, it's just smart and shows the platform cares about it's users. Just like if someone does a search for "death" in Google search they don't get a bunch of websites and images about snuff films or bondage porn. Either way, there should be a basic expectation with any website that if someone does a search for "X" topic that the "X" shouldn't be pornographic unless it's specifically what they are looking for. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:21, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- I don't understand your point. Me, I don't want the pictures of all this clit-rubbing to be removed, I just want an option to hide such images for people not looking for them, so that this kind of stuff doesn't show up when in public.
- You're mocking me with "think of the children", but I don't see what's unreasonable in my proposal. What's wrong with not wanting a child looking for a picture for his school presentation to encounter pics of clit rubbing and fisting? Synotia (talk) 10:57, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- "but please explain why "think of the children" is an acceptable discussion when we have entire categories like Category:Nude or partially nude people" - because ability to skip display of pornographic images is entirely desirable tool when doing something with a children. "think of the children" is often misused (and therefore mocked) exactly because in many contexts it is entirely valid Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 19:03, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- Comment This is obviously a problem given the educational nature of the platform and the fact that most users probably don't want to see pornographic images when doing otherwise innocuous searches. That said, it seems like the problem would be better solved by taking a clear stance against the platform hosting such images in the first place, which is way more doable then creating a filter would be. Although I agree that what is pornographic varies by culture and people's sensibilities, but so do most things. Including some types of images that Commons has clear guidelines against hosting. So I don't think that means it wouldn't be doable. That's not to say there wouldn't be edge cases, but so what? If nothing else it would at least stem the near constant flood of non-educational pics of random people's private parts that seem to be clogging up the DR process lately. It would be way more reasonable to just speedy delete all that crap as clearly out of scope then have the umpteenth conversation in a week of if the millionth "hard penis of man from X minority group" or whatever image serves an educational purpose or not. There's better ways to spend our time and there's no shortage of similar images out there on other sites. Either way, it's not our selling point, the purpose of the project, or a good usage of time to deal with. So at the end of day who cares? Just ban it. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:13, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- I've created a Phabricator ticket, linked at the top of this section. Please, Phabricator is not the place to discuss a proposal for censoring or filtering Commons, but it probably is the place to discuss an anomalous search result. @Synotia: if you have other examples of comparably egregious results, you might want to add them to that ticket. - Jmabel ! talk 02:15, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- For the NSFW thing, WMF tried hard and the proposed solutions had too many problems to be workable. In addition to cultural differences, the main problem was that such taggs are prone to misuse and impossible to police in any reasonable manner. If you think you have some solution to that problem, first read at least a summary of that heated and mile-long debate. I think nobody who was here at the time wants to repeat the debate anytime soon. Any proposal that isn't very much better than what WMF could come up with will at best be ignored by most of the community and soon forgotten, otherwise the debate will be repeated with nothing accomplished but some contributors leaving and others wasting a lot of time and energy. –LPfi (talk) 09:33, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- Haven't read it all, but perhaps some folks might be turned on by this, which would explain why they would argue against any change. Synotia (talk) 11:03, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- I was there, and no, I do not want to have that discussion again. Still think there might be a solution if we approach the whole thing with a clear mind and from a different angle. El Grafo (talk) 11:33, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- As other have pointed out above, we can not decide what is NSFW or otherwise objectionable due to the vast variety of different views on this in different cultures. That's partially why a couple of years ago, the whole "Image Filters" idea of the WMF blew up spectacularly. Any discussion in that direction will inevitably drift off towards an emotional "freedom" vs. "but the children".
- What we could do, however, is define a couple of "tags" in COM:SDC and have a place in the settings where users could opt out of seeing certain types of content (replace them with a "you chose not to see this image, click here to reveal" placeholder). For logged-out users, you could store those choices in a cookie. Sister projects could be allowed to set sensible defaults; default on Commons would probably be nothing being hidden per COM:CENSOR.
- If you think about it for a moment, this could be about much more than penises: Archnophobes could opt out of seeing spiders, people with en:epilepsy could avoid flashing GIF's. Maybe dry alcoholics would like to avoid seeing images of alcoholic beverages? Of course we would not be able to guarantee that every single image will be tagged accordingly, but given how much we obsess about categorizing the tiniest detail, I think it could be at least mostly functional. To manage expectations, call the filter "try to hider spiders" rather than "do not show spiders". On the community side of things, we would probably want to have a process for determining what is worth making a filter tag for. --El Grafo (talk) 10:20, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- All this discussions about whether pictures of even numbers of flowers might be offensive to Ukrainian women etc etc etc are in my opinion just filibustering. I don't know what's their motive.
- Might as well replace the front page by goatse. Synotia (talk) 11:07, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- And here we go, drifting off. I understand you're probably experiencing a variety of negative emotions right now. That's understandable, but they are not helping. You will not get what you want, for a number of (partially highly frustrating) reasons. I was trying to work towards a solution that might actually have a chance of succeeding. If you're not interested: fine, I'm out. El Grafo (talk) 11:29, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- @El Grafo: I totally agree with Synotia about the filibustering. Otherwise, I'd be interested to know exactly where in the world it's culturally acceptable to display images of women fisting themselves at work or in public place, because I can't think of any. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:18, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- It's not the blacks and the whites we need to talk about. No, we do not need to discuss numbers of flowers (where did that even come from?), but we do need to discuss where to draw the line between black and white on a long spectrum of shades of grey in-between. That is going to be a long and difficult discussion that requires discipline and the will to work together towards a solution every side can somehow live with. This is not a debate club situation where in the end one side can "win". This is not the place for polemics. Repeatedly yelling "CENSORSHIP!" and "PORN!" back and forth at each other is not going to help. El Grafo (talk) 08:53, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- @El Grafo: I totally agree with Synotia about the filibustering. Otherwise, I'd be interested to know exactly where in the world it's culturally acceptable to display images of women fisting themselves at work or in public place, because I can't think of any. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:18, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- SDC is the way to go. However there are currently 90 million files at commons and they all need to be accessed by a human. Commons has about 20000 active users. C.Suthorn (talk) 15:24, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- we absolutely can't have goatse on the front page, it's not properly licensed DS (talk) 03:27, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
- And here we go, drifting off. I understand you're probably experiencing a variety of negative emotions right now. That's understandable, but they are not helping. You will not get what you want, for a number of (partially highly frustrating) reasons. I was trying to work towards a solution that might actually have a chance of succeeding. If you're not interested: fine, I'm out. El Grafo (talk) 11:29, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- I have run into it in another context - I wanted to tag in Commons Android app something as "Forest" and got unexpected dick pic. As I am not fan of unexpected dick pics I am no longer adding categories when uploading (except few that I remember adding without unwanted side effects). See https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons/issues/5138 I do not have a ready solution, but ability to skip photos where genitalia are primary focus would be nice. Maybe this Wikidata-powered tagging content of images can help? With data consumers able to filter out whatever they want? Someone may want to filter out genitalia, someone dead bodies, someone else images of spectacular gangrene. Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 19:00, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- Given that Commons is volunteer driven, I'm not sure how reliable SDC would be if it user-contributed data. (Having formal censors, would be completely unacceptable.)
- The issue is what constitutes 'NSFW' content. The issue is a POLICY problem, not a technical one, and perhaps it's something the WMF needs to set out based on legal requirements in the US, and consultation with the Community in line with what is industry practice on other platforms.
- ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 19:26, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- Bingo. That's exactly my stance. It's 100% a policy problem. Although you said it a lot more clearly then I did ;) But the suggestion by some people that we can't stop images of women fisting themselves from showing up in searches by not allowing for it to be uploaded in the first place because of cultural differences or whatever is just ludicrous. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:18, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- It's not a policy problem so much as there are too many people who absolutely enjoy uploading this nonsense and are probably putting in keywords so that their images go to the top for basic terms. We either need to get rid of those images/uploaders with a nonsense purpose or better figure out the keywords. You can put all the image blocks in place but the people who get a thrill out of this nonsense are always going to volunteer more time at it. It's the same reason categories like Category:Middle-aged men in 2022 are constantly filled and refilled with NSFW penis images no matter how much you remove that stuff. Ricky81682 (talk) 18:29, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- Bingo. That's exactly my stance. It's 100% a policy problem. Although you said it a lot more clearly then I did ;) But the suggestion by some people that we can't stop images of women fisting themselves from showing up in searches by not allowing for it to be uploaded in the first place because of cultural differences or whatever is just ludicrous. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:18, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- We should not rate any file in this way. But I could imagine to have an option at MediaSearch for easy negative filtering where people can add to exclude all files depicting human reproductive system (Q20645683). --GPSLeo (talk) 20:00, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
Hier ist der Wunsch aufgebracht worden, bei der Suche nach dem gewünschten Thema "X", keine Medien des Themas "Y" gezeigt zu bekommen, obwohl das eingegebene Suchwort "Z" sowohl Medien "X" als auch Medien "Y" finden muss. Und das läßt sich umsetzen, indem die suchende Person individuell Filter bestimmt (in der Suche, in den Präferenzen oder durch Gedankenübertragung). Damit das funktionieren kann müssen allerdings alle (derzeit 90 Millionen, künftig mehr) Medien maschinenlesbar beschrieben sein. Dafür stellt MW ein Verfahren zur Verfügung: SDC-depicts. Damit kann eine Person, die eine (zB) Ukulelen-Phobie hat (oder irgendwelche Finger für NSFW hält) für sich sicherstellen, nie von SVGs belästigt zu werden, die das Wort Ukulele als Vektor-Pfad enthalten, oder Videos, wo in der 37ten Minute eine Ukulele durchs Bild fliegt, oder DJVUs die im Literaturverzeichnis das Bild einer Ukulele enthalten. SDC-depicts sind keine Wörter sondern Begriffe - also sprachneutral, was für ein internationales Projekt unabdingbar ist. Irgendwelche Tags wären im besten Fall eine Wiedererfindung von SDC - also eine Doppelstruktur, die doppelten Pflegeaufwand verursacht. Aber das Problem bleibt bestehen: Es gibt bereits 90 Millionen Dateien und mit 20000 Usern dauert es Jahrzehnte diese alle zu markieren. JEDE der 90 Millionen Dateien kann für einen User NSFW sein.
Die Alternative wäre, dass Synotia festlegt, was NSFW ist, und einen Tag NSFW in die 3000 animierten GIFs setzt, die Synotia aufgrund einer nicht-eindeutigen Suchanfrage findet.
--C.Suthorn (talk) 20:06, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- @Synotia: Please see meta:Image filter referendum/en, meta:Image filter referendum/Results/en, and meta:Image filter referendum/Sue's report to the board/en. Nosferattus (talk) 20:22, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- Ich verstehe was Sie meinen. Es ist ja schwerig retroskeptiv zu tun, aber warum nicht prospektiv für neue Files? Und ja, wäre es möglich gewesen, hätte ich sie markiert als NSFW, aber so etwas besteht nicht. Synotia (talk) 20:28, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- ANY of the 90 million files can be NSFW for a user. That's a ludicrous statement. Most images on here aren't NSFW and no one is acting like they are. This issue was raised because of specific images of women fisting and fingering themselves, which are clearly not safe for work. Especially if that work is being done in an educational setting. Why not address the actual issue instead of acting like people are just needlessly bitching about innocuous images of Category:Pie charts pie charts or some nonsense?
- In the meantime I'm not really convinced that filtering out the images through search custom filters would work since the search shouldn't be providing people with images of penises when they search for ""Forests" in the first place. Just adding another level of obtusity on a broken search system isn't going to stop it from being broken. Also, it assume people would know about the search filters in the first place, which they likely wouldn't. Plus they would have to add filters for every possible term even slightly related to pornographic images for it to be effective. No one associates the term "forest" with penises though. So if you create a filter for "forest" that blocks images of penises great, but no one is going to use it. Sure, you could create a search filter for "penis" that filters out images of penises. That's not the issue here though. I shouldn't have to explicitly ask a search image to not give me images of penises by actively filtering them out when I'm looking for forests either. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:40, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
- That is naive. Pie charts are extremely controversial, as they are used for propaganda and fake news. Someone typing "Forest" into the search box may very well looking for Category:Fuck for Forest. Fuck for Forest contains nudity. That there are until now no penises is a fault of Commons' lacking diversity and low number of contributors. And it is likely that someone omits the word "Fuck" from a search as other websites tend to censor the word. C.Suthorn (talk) 09:43, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
It might be time to seriously revisit this filtering issue in general. I'd suggest, though, that there is little to be gained by continuing what is becoming a repetitive discussion here on the Village pump. Just to be clear:
- I've opened a Phabricator ticket about the anomalous search result. I'd suggest that if other people have concrete examples of equally bizarre search results, whether about NSFW issues or otherwise, they should add to that ticket.
- Would someone like to start a new page to discuss possible technical approaches to a filtering system? It seems pretty clear at least where to start in a problem statement, Both from what I've observed in discussions over time and from User:Adamant1's links above) it seems that it remains a widely supported principle that Commons is not censored, and that anything we do should be more about providing people with a chance to be warned before seeing certain imagery, rather than preventing them from seeing that imagery if they so choose. There seems to be widespread concern about sexual imagery and violent imagery, with a lesser but parallel concern from those who would like the availability of other filters. I, for one, don't see anything objectionable in providing the option of such filters; the question is more a technical one, and about the amount of effort it would take to enable this. I'd also suggest that any useful discussion should take up the question of what percentage of false positives and/or false negatives would be acceptable, because in my experience the closer to perfection we would need this to be, the harder it would be to achieve. But, again, I don't think we are going to get much further in the present discussion. Either someone should take on driving a new page where this really can be usefully discussed (creating the page, laying out the basics of the issue, sticking around to make sure it doesn't just go stale), or we should just say, "yes, this problem has cropped up before; no, we still have no concrete idea how to solve it." - Jmabel ! talk 00:58, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks for opening the Phabricator ticket at least. It will be interesting to how they deal with it and how much whatever the solution is helps things. Although I still think there should be a discussion about what exactly people should be allowed to upload or not when it comes images that are NSWF, but your probably right that this isn't the best venue or discussion for it. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:45, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- Technical approaches, won't solve the policy issue. The community here needs to set out clearly defined and enforceable guidelines on what constitutes unacceptable NSFW content beyond what it and the WMF is already legally required to remove. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 07:26, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- Mention has been made about explicit nudity, and religious iconography. To this I would suggest that consideration should be given as to the appropriateness of certain media which promotes outright disinformation ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 07:26, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- I don't know if I'd go as far as censoring disinformation since what constitutes disinformation clearly isn't a bright line and it can serve an educational purpose sometimes regardless. But anyone who is being at all good faithed about this has to agree that images of women masterbating are both pornographic and not educational. So I think the guidelines could slightly clarified to not allow for such images without running into any kind slippery slope or going to far in the direction of censorship. At least from what I've seen most even semi-pornographic images are deleted when someone does a DR for them anyway. So it's not like having it would be a drastic change in the current state of affairs or anything. We could just deal with those types of images more expediently and without having to get a consensus through the DR process first. Unless someone wants to argue videos of women masterbating are educational, which OK I guess they could be, but so could a lot of things that already aren't allowed. Even things that aren't even necessarily illegal like videos of beheadings. I don't really see what the difference is. --Adamant1 (talk) 07:46, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- Is that a clear indication that cultural issues will be difficult problem? Where I live, I would expect most people to agree that women's masturbation is an important thing to talk and educate about, and probably at least a significant minority would believe some such files are educationally very valuable. Ergo, discussing what is non-educational will quickly lead astray. I have much more to say on that theme, but let's keep this discussion focused on NSFW filtering.
- Voluntary filtering has at least two main problems, in addition to the technical ones: the filters can be used by some authorities forcing a target group to use their filter settings (by imposing a proxy or by other means; think public libraries), and some may tag innocent images, to make them less visible. I assume a lot of borderline images would be tagged, like when Jimbo started deleting nude images, including old paintings.
- The project Jmabel suggested should include a discussion on these and other issues and be humble about their judgement on what should be filtered.
- –LPfi (talk) 16:41, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- Videos of women masturbating are educational, see for example Venus_Berlin_2018_148.webm It contains the personality rights template and is part of three categories that have the nudity warning template, which constitutes a NSFW tag, that could be used in searches or whereever you want. C.Suthorn (talk) 16:45, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- I'm getting really tired of the straw-man arguments. The issue here is that, normally, and especially in public, if someone searches for "finger" they should not see a bunch of videos of women masturbating. This is not a question of whether such photos, or photos of men masturbating, or whatever else, should be on Commons. It's a question of being able to avoid seeing such images when making a presumably innocuous search.
- Either we can set up a place to talk about this seriously, or people can keep hitting each other with trout. - Jmabel ! talk 16:50, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- To my understanding the author of the thread was looking for something called a "Stinkefinger" (and obviously "the finger" in english?) but used a broad search term that could mean anything from depictions of the unix finger command (a stalking tool and clearly NSFW) to human fingers, a brand of ice cream (Flutschfinger), a high rise building, or whatever. C.Suthorn (talk) 17:03, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- I suppose we all agree on the search issue, that "finger" should primarily show result for human fingers, ideally suggesting more specific search terms for the unix command (which was very useful), icecream, masturbation and whatever. I hope WMF will not try to solve the issue by raising the bar for sexual content; if you search for masturbation you should get media on masturbation. For educational videos of masturbation, I don't understand how the linked one makes the mark. It might be an educational video on sex fairs, but that's it. –LPfi (talk) 17:20, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- Perhaps if the request were more specific, i.e., request "Middle Finger" rather than just finger. On the other hand, if you receive something you don't want, just ignore it and move on. As for stating that a search for finger should primarily show human finger, that would shut out the fingers of primates, or fingerling potatoes, or even chicken fingers. I promise, it's really not that hard to ignore something you don't want or didn't ask for. Now, I do understand that the search was made in public and there could be a certain amount of embarrassment associated with whatever popped up, especially in the US where people tend to be more on the prude side. The entire issue can be easily fixed with a simple, cheap screen saver.
- "Kerkstraad Katze" Kerkstraad Katze (talk) 00:02, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
- I suppose we all agree on the search issue, that "finger" should primarily show result for human fingers, ideally suggesting more specific search terms for the unix command (which was very useful), icecream, masturbation and whatever. I hope WMF will not try to solve the issue by raising the bar for sexual content; if you search for masturbation you should get media on masturbation. For educational videos of masturbation, I don't understand how the linked one makes the mark. It might be an educational video on sex fairs, but that's it. –LPfi (talk) 17:20, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- To my understanding the author of the thread was looking for something called a "Stinkefinger" (and obviously "the finger" in english?) but used a broad search term that could mean anything from depictions of the unix finger command (a stalking tool and clearly NSFW) to human fingers, a brand of ice cream (Flutschfinger), a high rise building, or whatever. C.Suthorn (talk) 17:03, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- And what about a photo of a woman protesting against the Compulsory headscarf in Iran while climbing the Reichstag? Is it NSFW? in the US, in Germany, in Iran? C.Suthorn (talk) 16:58, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- Is topless women considered NSFW in the US? Trade (talk) 17:19, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- Is the issue censoring the image itself or what keywords pop that up? If I search for "headscarf" that image should not be anywhere in the top search result. Possibly related to the protests but the bigger problem is that people are definitely going out of their way to ensure that the images in something banal like Category:Young men in 2008 are not NSFW. Ricky81682 (talk) 18:32, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- The nude images shouldn't be directly in that category: there are more specific categories where people wont be surprised to find them. But this is a problem of curating the categories and about categories it is a fool's errand to curate. The category should include at least a substantive proportion of portrait photos taken that year, and arguably a lot of other files. Thousands of subcategories and thousands of individual files. –LPfi (talk) 19:09, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- Things like that are exactly why I said above that a broken search with filters is still a broken search. Cool, add filters. But it's doubtful people are going to even add them to images or use them if they aren't even curating basic things like what images go in which categories. So I think it's both a technical question and one about if the images should be on Commons in the first place. If technical things aren't going to be dealt with or used then it seems like the only option is not allowing for the images to be uploaded in the first place though. Personally, I say we wait and see what happens with the Phabricator issue and how effective whatever they implement (if anything) is and then go from there. It's pointless to discuss alternatives or other ways of dealing with the problem at this point though. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:48, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- Would you be in favour of a CSD for explicit images? Media that violates COM:NOPENIS is in effect speedy deleted on scope grounds already. Widening COM:NOPENIS is a policy debate that could be had.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:55, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- But it's doubtful people are going to even add them to images or use them if they aren't even curating basic things like what images go in which categories. - Original uploaders in most cases certainly won't. But the community is already obsessively categorizing pictures of nude or partially nude women planting flowers - just need to divert that energy. Of course that doesn't mean we shouldn't delete things that certainly shouldn't be here in the first place. Filtering (opt-in) would be for those files that are not entirely black nor white and could go beyond things like nudity and violence (arachnophobia, epilepsy, ..?). This is a complicated issue and there will not be a simple, single solution to it. El Grafo (talk) 08:27, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
- Things like that are exactly why I said above that a broken search with filters is still a broken search. Cool, add filters. But it's doubtful people are going to even add them to images or use them if they aren't even curating basic things like what images go in which categories. So I think it's both a technical question and one about if the images should be on Commons in the first place. If technical things aren't going to be dealt with or used then it seems like the only option is not allowing for the images to be uploaded in the first place though. Personally, I say we wait and see what happens with the Phabricator issue and how effective whatever they implement (if anything) is and then go from there. It's pointless to discuss alternatives or other ways of dealing with the problem at this point though. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:48, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- I understand your concern but at the end of the day these are pictures of young men taken in the year of 2008. It's hard to argue they dont fit the category Trade (talk) 01:47, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
- You can move them to subcategories but you will find more NSFW pictures specifically in the main category. I don't know who immediately thinks of "that's a young man" when seeing those photographs but people do. Ricky81682 (talk) 22:26, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
- The nude images shouldn't be directly in that category: there are more specific categories where people wont be surprised to find them. But this is a problem of curating the categories and about categories it is a fool's errand to curate. The category should include at least a substantive proportion of portrait photos taken that year, and arguably a lot of other files. Thousands of subcategories and thousands of individual files. –LPfi (talk) 19:09, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- I don't know if I'd go as far as censoring disinformation since what constitutes disinformation clearly isn't a bright line and it can serve an educational purpose sometimes regardless. But anyone who is being at all good faithed about this has to agree that images of women masterbating are both pornographic and not educational. So I think the guidelines could slightly clarified to not allow for such images without running into any kind slippery slope or going to far in the direction of censorship. At least from what I've seen most even semi-pornographic images are deleted when someone does a DR for them anyway. So it's not like having it would be a drastic change in the current state of affairs or anything. We could just deal with those types of images more expediently and without having to get a consensus through the DR process first. Unless someone wants to argue videos of women masterbating are educational, which OK I guess they could be, but so could a lot of things that already aren't allowed. Even things that aren't even necessarily illegal like videos of beheadings. I don't really see what the difference is. --Adamant1 (talk) 07:46, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- Mention has been made about explicit nudity, and religious iconography. To this I would suggest that consideration should be given as to the appropriateness of certain media which promotes outright disinformation ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 07:26, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- I also want to add the note that these files are on the top of the search results because they are so popular. More popular files are considered more relevant and become ranked higher in the search result. Category:Videos of penile-vaginal intercourse is with 180.000 views in the last month the most viewed category followed be some more sexuality related categories. --GPSLeo (talk) 07:13, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
- Which search are you talking about here? That may be true for external searches vie Google et al., but popularity or number of views is not mentioned as criterion for ranking search results at mw:Help:MediaSearch at all ... El Grafo (talk) 08:49, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
- More effective deletion of low-quality penis images won't solve the NSFW issue. I suppose a high-quality penis or masturbation image will be more probable to show up in a search and can be used in chock vandalism as easily as a lower quality image. And I hope we all understand that covering both penises and female masturbation in our media is important for providing "all human knowledge", and for certain educational uses. More workforce and better tools help in categorising and reverting chock vandalism (and avoiding unexpected search results), but in the foreseeable future, Commons will probably remain NSFW. I don't see an effort of tagging or developing filters will help, and I see our coverage as more important than avoiding the risk of people getting embarrassed. –LPfi (talk) 10:52, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
- None of the proposed solutions will solve "the issue" because it is a complex of sub-issues that requires a complex of different approaches. Deleting some stuff can help. Tweaking the search function can help. Many other things can help. There's no silver bullet and there will always be something slipping through the meshes, but there's a lot we can do to improve the situation.
- As far as I can tell, MediaSearch only looks at 1) keywords in the wikitext and file name and 2) "depicts" statements in SDC. Image quality so far is not taken into consideration unless you actively filter for QI/FP. So one way to push the fingering away from the top of the search results is to make sure that pictures that actually show just fingers can be found easily (for example by adding finger (Q620207) to depicts (P180)). Part of the reason the search function sucks is that our meta data sucks. El Grafo (talk) 14:12, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
- Just for the records: Some of those NSFW pictures actually have "finger" as a depicts statement, even marked as "prominent". Seems to explain the search results.-- Herbert Ortner (talk) 14:58, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah, it's not a solution either, but at least now you have to scroll down a bit before you hit the first unexpected fingering when you search for finger. (There are arguments to be made that those indeed feature fingers quite prominently. That brings us back to the unresolved problem of how to use depicts (P180). Let's not go there, we can not solve this now & here. Afaik, current status is that we're waiting for the MediaSearch people to get back to us on some essential questions). El Grafo (talk) 15:52, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
- Just for the records: Some of those NSFW pictures actually have "finger" as a depicts statement, even marked as "prominent". Seems to explain the search results.-- Herbert Ortner (talk) 14:58, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
- I think what can be done is marking "offending" files with a tag ("depicts masturbation", "depicts porn", "depicts nudity") and this tag would cause the pictures to not be filtered completely out out of the searches (that is soft-censoring, I'm opposed!), but to have them blurred and non-animated in the search results. They would still be entirely and normally visible when clicked upon, and people who want them directly accessible can opt-in by "disabling the blur-filter for search results". --Enyavar (talk) 14:11, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
March 09[edit]
Arthur Szyk[edit]
Do you guys know which of his work is in the public domain and which isn't? He died over 70 years ago now. --Synotia (talk) 15:48, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
- Arthur Szyk (Q711673). It will depend on the circumstances in each case as he operated in several countries during his lifetime. Works first published in countries with copyright protection of up to life +70 years will now be PD in the source country. Works first published in the USA after 1928 will depend on if copyright rules were followed correctly and if the copyright was renewed. From Hill To Shore (talk) 16:40, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
- I had more specifically in mind his series Visual History of Nations Synotia (talk) 16:43, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
- If the 1945 date given at File:Arthur Szyk (1894-1951). Visual History of Nations, The United States of America (1945), New York.jpg is accurate, and that is a date of first publication, and that publication was in the U.S., then it is unlikely to be public domain, though it could be if the copyright was not renewed. I am very skeptical of the {{Cc-by-sa-4.0}} claimed on that page with no evidence provided. User:Allison.c.chang who uploaded this appears to have been active only for a few months in 2015, and done nothing but upload Szyk's work, claiming all of what she uploaded to be under that license. All of her uploads cite "www.szyk.org" as a source. That domain does not appear currently to exist, and going by archive.org it was hijacked for a gambling site for a while. Going back to 2015 versions, it seems to have belonged to the Arthur Szyk Society and to have contained a lot of his work. Offhand, I see nothing on the site supporting the claim of a CC license.
- So, Pinging @Synotia, it would definitely be worth working out here what is public domain, changing the license templates on those to appropriate PD templates, and nominating the rest for deletion until such date as their copyrights expire. -- Jmabel ! talk 03:26, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
- @Jmabel: I took a look at these earlier. Many of User:Allison.c.chang's uploads related to Arthur Szyk have an OTRS/VRT ticket. From related deletion discussions, it appears that an organisation related to Arthur Szyk released some of his work under CC licences before selling the rights to a university. An account claiming to represent the university requested deletion of some files on the basis that they now owned the copyright, so the previous CC licences were invalid. Those files were kept as CC licences granted by the copyright owner can't be revoked, even if the copyright ownership changes. If you have found some files without the VRT ticket, it may be worth asking a VRT member to check the case linked to the other files. From Hill To Shore (talk) 09:33, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
- Here is the file for his Israel artwork uploaded by the same account, and you see there is some VRT ticket related to it. I wonder what the Szyk society had to say in it, but I ain't got access. Synotia (talk) 08:39, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
- I had more specifically in mind his series Visual History of Nations Synotia (talk) 16:43, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
See Commons:Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard#Arthur Szyk. Someone can add more there, as may be appropriate. - Jmabel ! talk 17:45, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
- HI all, I'm answering here. The permission was valid for Allison.c.chang's uploads like Arthur Szyk (1894-1951). Love for Man and Nature (1940), Ottawa.jpg. If there are other files that need permission, probably we should tag them, as the ticket, after the copyright statement, said: "We plan to upload many additional Szyk images in the future, including... [a long list of files]" --Ruthven (msg) 14:23, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
- @Ruthven: I'm not sure what you mean on two counts.
- "Like" is vague. "Like" in what manner? Are you just saying that the files uploaded by Allison and tagged with ticket 2015030210000935 are valid, or are you saying something broader?
- "tag them" is equally vague. Are you saying someone not on the VRT should feel free to tag these as having that same ticket apply, or that you want us to tag them in some other manner so that someone from VRT can review? FWIW: Allison.c.chang uploaded nothing other than this Szyk material, so her uploads that are not yet tagged with the specific ticket are already trivially easy to find.
- Jmabel ! talk 16:09, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
- @Jmabel I rephrase. The permission was accepted for a series of similar uploads (check the files with that ticket number for a list). The {{PermissionTicket}} can be added to a file page by a VRT agent only. Consequently the ticket will be reopened with a note, pointing at this discussion, and the other uploads will be checked by a VRT volunteer. Thanks Ruthven (msg) 20:53, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
- @Ruthven: I'm not sure what you mean on two counts.
Illustrations generated by AI[edit]
We intend to open an edit-athon in Vietnamese Wikibooks in which participants will use AI to generate illustrations for book pages, somewhat similar to WikiHow. Therefore, I would like to know about any existing policies regarding AI illustrations in Commons to check the copyright issues may have. Thank you! A l p h a m a Talk 17:03, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
- The two main issues that AI images run into are copyright (mostly COM:DW) and COM:SCOPE.
- The question of whether AI works are copyrightable is currently a bit controversial, but the most common opinion is that it is OK as long as you do not refer to copyrighted entities (e.g. Mickey Mouse) in your prompt.
- Since the universe of possible AI images is theoretically infinite, we can't allow indiscriminate uploads of AI-generated works. However, per COM:SCOPE Commons is meant to be a neutral hosting site for all the projects, so as long as one project deems some set of images to be useful, no one else has the right to object.
- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:53, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
- I think User:King of Hearts is conflating two issues in the first of his points here
- There is serious question as to whether AI works are copyrightable. It is quite likely, from what I've seen in discussion so far, that AI works may be deemed to be public domain. I'd be very skeptical on anyone confidently claiming copyright on these works, and right now it isn't even clear that we have an appropriate license template for this situation.
- What King of Hearts says is probably correct with respect to AI works infringing on someone else's copyright (with the caveat that in his specific example, the copyright status of Mickey Mouse is somewhat equivocal, though I wouldn't recommend taking the chance, given Disney's propensity to sue). - Jmabel ! talk 03:34, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
- The folks from Craiyon write in their terms of services that any work you make with their tool is theirs. I have no idea if that is even valid, to me it's like a paintbrush manufacturer saying your work is theirs because you used their paintbrush. Synotia (talk) 10:43, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
- Although it is unreasonable, I believe that they will put some pixels in the generated images to prove their copyright. A l p h a m a Talk 17:07, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
- I think User:King of Hearts is conflating two issues in the first of his points here
- That is a work in progress (not anything close to a policy but good for an overview) at Commons:AI generated media. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:26, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you all for your information. @Đức Anh: Have a look and avoid some cases pointing out. A l p h a m a Talk 16:57, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
- At this early moment of the evaluation of our stance towards AI-generated images, probably the most important thing is to clearly mark each of these types of images as "AI-generated". --Túrelio (talk) 20:43, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks, I will take note of copyright issues. Đức Anh (talk) 04:04, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
March 10[edit]
@ Server-kitties - again groundhog-day-problem[edit]
Some WMF-server seems to need a reboot. Since yesterday a way much too high rate of file-deletion-commands are not performed, but – after a marked delay of time – yield (sort of) random error-messages, such as:
- Fehler bei Datei-Löschung: In der Datenbank „local-swift-codfw“ ist ein unbekannter Fehler aufgetreten.
- Fehler bei Datei-Löschung: In der Datenbank „local-swift-eqiad“ ist ein unbekannter Fehler aufgetreten.
- Fehler bei Datei-Löschung: In der Datenbank „local-multiwrite“ ist ein unbekannter Fehler aufgetreten.
- Fehler bei Datei-Löschung: Das Verzeichnis „mwstore://local-multiwrite/local-deleted/g/9/7“ konnte nicht angelegt werden.
- Fehler bei Datei-Löschung: Die Datei „mwstore://local-multiwrite/local-public/1/14/Krada_Lab.png“ befindet sich, innerhalb des internen Datenbanksystems, in einem inkonsistenten Zustand
- Fehler bei Datei-Löschung: Die Datei „mwstore://local-multiwrite/local-public/3/35/আলু_ডিমের_চপ_-_Aloo_O_Dimer_Spicy_Chop_-_Egg_Potato_Kebab.jpg“ befindet sich, innerhalb des internen Datenbanksystems, in einem inkonsistenten Zustand.
The problem affects both deletion-commands by user (admin) and by script, such as the duplicate-deletion-script. When the deletion-command is repeated, it is usually peformed normally, showing it’s a server-problem, not with the individual file. --Túrelio (talk) 08:30, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
- i think i also got the error "local-swift-eqiad" while uploading a jpg using uploadwizard from my phone via home wifi. RZuo (talk) 08:33, 10 March 2023 (UTC)--RZuo (talk) 08:47, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
- As the attack-rate has reached 1:5 with the duplicate-script-deletions, I stop performing deletions for today. No need to waste my time. --Túrelio (talk) 10:00, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah, I had that too when deleting files. --Rosenzweig τ 11:58, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
- FYI I get this systematically for at least 3 days: phab:T328872. May be not related, but also the error message something mentioned "local-swift-eqiad". Yann (talk) 12:17, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
March 11[edit]
Can't move images to new category[edit]
Hello. I was trying to move images of stereo cards from the category Category:Images from the New York Public Library into Category:Stereo cards from the New York Public Library, which is a sub category of the former. Apparently I can't do it though because apparently is preset and can't be changed or removed from the files. At least not in any way that I can figure out. Even if I edit the file and delete all the categories it still doesn't remove Category:Images from the New York Public Library. So does anyone know how I can move the files and/or remove the original category? Adamant1 (talk) 06:30, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
- That is because the category is added automatically by {{NYPL-image-full}}. It would require editing that (and maybe underlying) template(s) to remove the images from Category:Images from the New York Public Library. --HyperGaruda (talk) 11:11, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
- @Adamant1: You're mixing up source categories and subject categories. You don't want to do that. Category:Images from the New York Public Library is a flat source category that should contain all the images provided by the NYPL and shouldn't contain any subcategories. It's easier to explain with paintings.
- Category:Images from the Rijksmuseum are for images provided by the Rijksmuseum. As you can see it contains a lot of paintings. These paintings are categorized under Category:Paintings in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam together with images from other sources.
- I see you also added Category:Stereo cards in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam to Category:Stereo cards by source. This is not correct. Just like with the paintings, the Rijksmuseum is the collection holder and doesn't have to be the source of the image. I would make or update a category tree structure by collection holder and not mix it with who provided the images. Multichill (talk) 14:34, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
- You're mixing up source categories and subject categories..Category:Images from the New York Public Library is a flat source category that should contain all the images provided by the NYPL and shouldn't contain any subcategories. Not really. The category already contains plenty of subcategories. At the end of the day it shouldn't matter if the images are in "source category" or not as long as the subcategories have "from the New York Public Library" in their name. Like "Stereo cards from the New York Public Library" is a "source" category since it says where the images came from in the name. Otherwise you have instances where images are both in the main category and it's sub categories. Which not only goes against the guidelines about how to categorize images. Not to mention it's super obtuse. It also doesn't seem to be that way with any other "images from" categories. Like with images in Category:Photographs by University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections for instance I can put the images in subcategories and get rid of the main category from the images all day long if I want to. So what's so special about the New York Public Library? Also, why would it matter if the images go in subcategories or not when that's the policy and "from the New York Public Library" is still in name of the subcategory? --Adamant1 (talk) 20:49, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
- BTW, the thing with Category:Stereo cards in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam being in Category:Stereo cards by source is a distinction without a purpose as far as I'm concerned and not relevant to the discussion anyway. Your free to create a better category for it if you want to or discuss it with me on my talk page, I could really care less. I'd appreciate it if we stuck to the topic at hand though. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:52, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
What's wrong with the disambiguation categories?[edit]
They used to show all the available options in a kind of dropdown list, but that doesn't seem to be working for months or years, resulting in images being accumulated in these maintenance categories, as there's no way to see they are disambiguations rather than the proper thing. Random example: Category:Cocks ( was looking for a category for a rooster figure in a nativity scene figure 🙄).
What's broken with disambigs?-- Darwin Ahoy! 23:07, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
- In a dropdown list where? Maybe this is related to the new skin? Ricky81682 (talk) 06:44, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
- @Ricky81682 The former behaviour was that when I would pick a category, if it was a disambiguation, it would present me with a list of the available options stated in the disambiguation itself, which was very useful. It doesn't seem to be working anymore, for about an year at least... Eventually it was some gadget doing it, like HotCat, but it was very useful and it's sad it's not working anymore. Darwin Ahoy! 09:57, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
- Indeed HotCat used to offer, for a selected disambiguation cat, a droplist of the cats linked in its page, the same way subcats of a normal cat are offered. This was a very handy behaviour, allowing for faster categorization and ensuring that disambiguation cats were not being filled up by mistake (at least not with HotCat); I seem to recall that Cat-a-Lot used to work like this, too.
- This behaviour must be reinstated ASAP, as it’s way more important for Commons than the usual WMF makework, such as polls for pie-in-the-sky break-everything vaporware gadgetry, meatspace meetups for the previledged jetset who can afford international travel, or constant spam about some nonsense or other.
- -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 02:53, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
- @DarwIn and Tuvalkin: You don't say what is the sort of URL you are looking at that doesn't offer you this, but my guess is that you have a URL with a query string. That is, for example you won't see the HotCat stuff on https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Mum, but you should on https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mum. - Jmabel ! talk 04:46, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
- I have become more active on Commons about 20 months ago, and I never encountered that behaviour with HotCat. It does sound like a GREAT way to a lot of problems, I concur. It should be enabled automatically, too. --Enyavar (talk) 12:42, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
- @Jmabel: Those two urls give me the same result: a text area to create the new page’s wikitext, with blank HotCat UI on top. I otherwise don’t understand your question:I might have derailed DarwIn’s original post, but I was only refering to how diambiguation cats are given faux subcats in HotCat and Cat-a-Lot, the url in question being any usual Commons category page http address — no queries included (no
?s nor&s in the url). -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 18:58, 16 March 2023 (UTC)- @Tuvalkin: (1) Interesting if you get HotCat in a situation where I don't, but so it goes. (2) On an image with no categories, what would you have expected other than a blank HotCat? (3) On the disambiguation thing, what you want seems reasonable, though I don't remember it ever working that way. - Jmabel ! talk 19:41, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
- @DarwIn and Tuvalkin: You don't say what is the sort of URL you are looking at that doesn't offer you this, but my guess is that you have a URL with a query string. That is, for example you won't see the HotCat stuff on https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Mum, but you should on https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mum. - Jmabel ! talk 04:46, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
- @Ricky81682 The former behaviour was that when I would pick a category, if it was a disambiguation, it would present me with a list of the available options stated in the disambiguation itself, which was very useful. It doesn't seem to be working anymore, for about an year at least... Eventually it was some gadget doing it, like HotCat, but it was very useful and it's sad it's not working anymore. Darwin Ahoy! 09:57, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
March 12[edit]
A question about facsimiles[edit]
Hello, I'm not sure that the term "facsimile" in Hebrew (my natural language) is identical to the English meaning of the term, so I want to make sure: Are the files in Category:Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, Category:Julius Euting and Category:Mark Lidzbarski considered facsimiles, or is there more accurate term for them? פעמי-עליון (talk) 10:28, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
- @פעמי: In English, a "facsimile" is a near-perfect reproduction, especially of something 2-dimensional. - Jmabel ! talk 16:12, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
- So what is the right term for the pictures of the inscriptions that appear in Category:Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum? פעמי-עליון (talk) 16:35, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
- @פעמי: These are just photographs of stone inscriptions, no? Almost anything on here, except computer-generated graphics is, at some level, a photograph, since you can't exactly put a stone inscription or an oil painting on line. - Jmabel ! talk 19:36, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
- @פעמי-עליון: The ones that are on stones (I haven't checked to see if they're all on stone) could be in Category:Inscribed stones, or maybe Category:Sandstone inscriptions if they're on sandstone. If those don't fit, check other subcategories of Category:Inscriptions by surface or Category:Objects with inscriptions. -- Auntof6 (talk) 19:49, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
- Jmabel, most of them are stone inscriptions, but not all... what I want is a category for pictures or reproductions of Phoenician inscriptions in books, but I don't know how to call it (in Hebrew they are simply called facsimiles).
- Auntof6, I want it to be one category for all of the files as I described above.
- Thank you both for your help, פעמי-עליון (talk) 14:48, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
- So what is the right term for the pictures of the inscriptions that appear in Category:Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum? פעמי-עליון (talk) 16:35, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
- @פעמי-עליון: are you looking for something like rubbing (Q7375860)? we have this concept in east asia. see the japanese or chinese wp for some examples.--RZuo (talk) 15:22, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
- @RZuo: These don't look like rubbings to me, they look like photos of the inscriptions.
- @פעמי: Again, as I said, "Almost anything on here… is, at some level, a photograph". We don't usually add a category for the fact that it is a photograph, though there is Category:Black and white photographs (and its subcats) if you want to use that. Categories normally describe what the photograph shows, which in this case is (for most of these) Category:Inscribed stones and probably some subcat of [[[:Category:Inscriptions by language]].
- Why would there be one category for all of the files that are already in relevant categories like Category:Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum? What is the concept you want that category to express? - Jmabel ! talk 17:32, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
- RZuo, thanks, some of them are indeed rubbings of inscriptions, but many other are not, so it doesn't solve the problem. I know this technic for a long time (we use it on coins we find for good luck, according to the trundition) so it's nice to know its name :)
- Jmabel, you are right, the whole Phoenician inscriptions category is actually Phoenician inscriptions photographs category. what I want is to concentrate all of the imapes of pages with phoenician inscriptions in one category (they are now scattered between the categories by country etc.). Do you have an idea for a name for it? Or maybe I am wrong and this is an unnecessary category, I am open to this possibility... פעמי-עליון (talk) 20:05, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
- i guess you can build a new cat for phoenician alphabet/language, just like Category:Ancient Egyptian inscriptions, Category:Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions... RZuo (talk) 20:54, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks, but there already is Category:Phoenician alphabet and Category:Phoenician inscriptions פעמי-עליון (talk) 21:13, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
- @פעמי: We don't tend to build "flat list" topical categories, and when we do they usually contain only other categories (e.g. Category:Ships by name (flat list)). Typically, when categories get to more than a few hundred images, we want to break them up. What problem exactly is it that you are trying to solve here, where you feel a flat category would be called for? There may be some other way to solve the problem. - Jmabel ! talk 21:43, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
- I want the images as I described (images of pages with...) to be concentrated in one category (or maybe splitted into sub categories for every publication, like the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum and Mark Lidzbarski's), and to put the dozens of these images which are in Category:Phoenician inscriptions in a more specific category. פעמי-עליון (talk) 21:56, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
- @פעמי: That doesn't answer my question at all. I'm not asking you to propose a category scheme. I'm asking what problem you are trying to solve. Is this something you want to do for your own use? For editors generally? For end users? And, whatever the answer to that is, what are you trying to achieve for that group? - Jmabel ! talk 02:05, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- It's for all of the users, and what I noted (the images of inscriptions from books are not concentrated but scattered between the sub categories) is the problem I want to solve. It will help people who want to see these pictures in one place, but not in the form of a book like in the Internet Archive (which is the source of these files). I hope it answers your question. פעמי-עליון (talk) 20:00, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- @פעמי: I know you won't like the first part of this answer, but please keep reading for the next paragraph. You seem to be saying that (at least in this case) you don't like the way Commons category system works, and would rather have something more like tags on Flickr. You are, of course, entitled to that opinion, but you are unlikely to overturn longstanding policies. You might want to read Commons:Categories if you want to understand the current policy and some of the rationale for it.
- If you want to collect these images on one page so they can be viewed that way, the approved way to do this is a gallery page. That also lets you organize them in any appropriate manner (rather than have their sequence driven by filenames or sort keys) and to add notes and captions as appropriate. See, for example, what I did with Places of worship in Seattle. In that case I did not choose to be exhaustive -- instead, it's more of a "one of each" -- but you can do a page like this that is exhaustive, as you seem to desire. Also, possibly see Seattle and the Orient, another one I did; some of the ways parts of that page are organized might also be good for your purpose. And, of course, you can look around at other gallery pages and see if someone has taken an approach that meets your needs, or you can come up with something of your own. - Jmabel ! talk 23:41, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- Hi Jmabel, sorry for the delay. Thank you for the respectful response, I really appreciate it. I understand my Idea contradicts the policies in Commons, so I won't execute it. I will consider making agallery page, but I guess it will firce me to maintain it myself, because it doesn't appear stand out like a category, so I don't know if I will do it.
- I really thank you for your patience and help! פעמי-עליון (talk) 18:35, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
- It's for all of the users, and what I noted (the images of inscriptions from books are not concentrated but scattered between the sub categories) is the problem I want to solve. It will help people who want to see these pictures in one place, but not in the form of a book like in the Internet Archive (which is the source of these files). I hope it answers your question. פעמי-עליון (talk) 20:00, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- @פעמי: That doesn't answer my question at all. I'm not asking you to propose a category scheme. I'm asking what problem you are trying to solve. Is this something you want to do for your own use? For editors generally? For end users? And, whatever the answer to that is, what are you trying to achieve for that group? - Jmabel ! talk 02:05, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- I want the images as I described (images of pages with...) to be concentrated in one category (or maybe splitted into sub categories for every publication, like the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum and Mark Lidzbarski's), and to put the dozens of these images which are in Category:Phoenician inscriptions in a more specific category. פעמי-עליון (talk) 21:56, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
- @פעמי: We don't tend to build "flat list" topical categories, and when we do they usually contain only other categories (e.g. Category:Ships by name (flat list)). Typically, when categories get to more than a few hundred images, we want to break them up. What problem exactly is it that you are trying to solve here, where you feel a flat category would be called for? There may be some other way to solve the problem. - Jmabel ! talk 21:43, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks, but there already is Category:Phoenician alphabet and Category:Phoenician inscriptions פעמי-עליון (talk) 21:13, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
- i guess you can build a new cat for phoenician alphabet/language, just like Category:Ancient Egyptian inscriptions, Category:Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions... RZuo (talk) 20:54, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
March 13[edit]
Map categories from Gallica[edit]
Hi, Category:Maps from Gallica by name contains all categories that are also included in Category:Files from Gallica needing categories (maps). This double-categorization is confusing, I suggest that we remove the first of the Categories from all entries that also contain the second. --Enyavar (talk) 10:52, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
- Hi, These have different purposes. The first is meant to be permanent while the second is meant to be a temporary category with files waiting to get more categories and subcategories. Yann (talk) 12:19, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
- I've now added __HIDDENCAT__ to the latter, which should always be done on maintenance categories. - Jmabel ! talk 21:46, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
U.S. and non-U.S. law on the public domain[edit]
On the English Wikipedia, it says that – because the servers are in the U.S. – stuff in the public domain in the U.S. is by principle admissible, even if it is not in the country of origin.
Does it apply on Commons as well? Synotia (talk) 11:28, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
- No, Commons requires content to either have a suitable licence or be in the public domain in both the source country and the US (see Commons:Licensing). If something was first published in the US, then only US copyright rules apply. There are a couple of exceptions though:
- If something was published simultaneously in more than one country and one of those was the US, then we treat the US as the source country. The file may still be in copyright in the other source countries but we should just include {{Simultaneous US publication}} on the file page.
- If a file is PD in its source country today, its US copyright may have been restored in the US by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (see Commons:URAA). The community is currently split on how to deal with cases with copyright restored solely through URAA. If a relevant file is nominated for deletion, some administrators will delete the file solely on the grounds of URAA, while other administrators will refuse and say that additional reasons are required beyond the URAA status. These two views are a result of interpreting legal advice (from the Wiki Media Foundation's legal team) in different ways. From Hill To Shore (talk) 11:44, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
Wikimania 2023 Welcoming Program Submissions[edit]
Do you want to host an in-person or virtual session at Wikimania 2023? Maybe a hands-on workshop, a lively discussion, a fun performance, a catchy poster, or a memorable lightning talk? Submissions are open until March 28. The event will have dedicated hybrid blocks, so virtual submissions and pre-recorded content are also welcome. If you have any questions, please join us at an upcoming conversation on March 12 or 19, or reach out by email at wikimania@wikimedia.org or on Telegram. More information on-wiki.
– Wikimania Programming Sub-Committee
- @CKoerner (WMF): Please sign your posts. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 02:36, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
- Yep, my mistake with MassMessage. Added the signature that was dropped. CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 03:01, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
March 14[edit]
Files are not appearing.[edit]
In Category:Media_needing_categories_as_of_26_February_2022 I experienced that the thumbnails of several images are not appearing. Usually a few reloads helps, but not in this case. Also when loading a file the image is not visible as with File:Peter J. Kim.jpg. If you view the image in a different resolution, the image will be displayed. I cropped the image into a new file for use in Wikidata. That went well, but the the image itself was not displayed there. Is this a temporary problem? Wouter (talk) 14:52, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- I can't replicate any of the issues you mentioned and they all look fine to me. I suspect either a temporary problem with the servers or a local problem with your cache or browser. If you are still having problems on your end, try clearing your cache or using a different browser to see if that fixes it. From Hill To Shore (talk) 15:31, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- The reason that you can't see it is probably that (for some unknown reason) different users have this same problem but with distinct files. For example, while others have display problems concerning Commons:Deletion requests/File:Karl Horstmann 2023.jpg, I haven't. Still I have this problem with lots of other files, categories, and WD infoboxes. --A.Savin 13:19, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
- +1. This has been the problem for several days now. I have "white rectangles" instead of thumbnails of particular images on categories, galleries, user upload lists, Wikidata items. You can purge/refresh as many times as you want, doesn't help at all. --A.Savin 15:34, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- I'm experiencing some problems with files not displayed and broken thumbnails too, here are my screenshots:
._Visual_History_of_Nations,_The_United_States_of_America_(1945),_New_York.jpg){kind=link}
._Visual_History_of_Nations,_Israel_(1948),_New_Canaan,_CT.jpg){kind=link}
._Love_for_Man_and_Nature_(1940),_Ottawa.jpg){kind=link}
- In addition to this (not sure it is a related issue): in these days I'm experiencing also problems when uploading files, I have to try several times before I can complete the upload of all of them with Upload Wizard, an error message is shown.--Pạtạfisik 15:52, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- +1 Same as above (in searches and "my uploads" for example) -- Deadstar (msg) 17:41, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- +1 The thumbnails are not generated for new images. Also, some disappeared for older images. -- Jakubhal 18:37, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- Already tried a different browser (no change - this is not the local issue). Generation with thumb.php does not work either. -- Jakubhal 18:41, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- For some links to thumbnail, I got a commons error like this: Request from [redacted IP address] via cp3051 cp3051, Varnish XID 535444539 Upstream caches: cp3051 int Error: 404, Not Found at Tue, 14 Mar 2023 18:44:01 GMT -- Jakubhal 18:45, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, I got that too, and I reported it to phab:T331820. BTW the screenshots above aren't useful to developers, but the message mentioned by Jakubhal is. Additionally the error in the console (developers' tools on Chrome) may provide more useful technical details. Yann (talk) 19:27, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- Also phab:T332019. RodRabelo7 (talk) 19:58, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, I’ve been getting this too, in the last 36 h or so. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 02:35, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, I got that too, and I reported it to phab:T331820. BTW the screenshots above aren't useful to developers, but the message mentioned by Jakubhal is. Additionally the error in the console (developers' tools on Chrome) may provide more useful technical details. Yann (talk) 19:27, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- I have the same problem. New files are taking up to 30 minutes to generate the thumbnails. It started last night. --RAN (talk) 22:50, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- Me too and it is getting worse. It's like the servers can't handle the load. Krok6kola (talk) 00:23, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
- And me, and participants in one of the local WMNYC Discord groups. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:48, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah, I had and have it as well. Others too, compare Commons:Deletion requests/File:Karl Horstmann 2023.jpg. @Yann: Thank you for reporting it. --Rosenzweig τ 12:33, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
- I've the same problem. Please resolve it. --ComputerHotline (talk) 12:49, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
- I've noticed the same issue, which makes doing maintenance work on some files a little more difficult. Hopefully the issue gets resolved soon. Abzeronow (talk) 16:46, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
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Comment apparently it has been fixed, at least I’m not having any more problems. RodRabelo7 (talk) 18:58, 15 March 2023 (UTC)- Same here. (It happens even on toolforge pages.) I wasn't aware of it due to lasting problem with phab:T266155. — Draceane talkcontrib. 19:59, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
March 15[edit]
Cat for mixed use of different writing scripts？[edit]
is there already a cat for things like https://twitter.com/Zwitzerer/status/1431303037176397830 ? i dont seem to find one under Category:Writing systems.--RZuo (talk) 13:35, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
- @RZuo: We have Category:Bilingual text and Category:Multilingual text, but probably no equivalent about mixing writing systems. - Jmabel ! talk 15:45, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
- Category:Transliteration is close and should probably become of subcategory of the missing category. El Grafo (talk) 09:47, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
- This is the Category:Romanian transitional alphabet, currently part of Category:Romanian alphabet and Category:Romanian Cyrillic alphabet. If you want, you could consider adding Category:Mixed scripts. --HyperGaruda (talk) 05:16, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
- Category:Transliteration is close and should probably become of subcategory of the missing category. El Grafo (talk) 09:47, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
March 16[edit]
File:Dich vu apple.png[edit]
I think that File:Dich vu apple.png has copyright problems. While some elements are just geometrical, at least two others (second from right and left) are property of companies. I could be wrong but, do you think there is a base to propose a deletion? Thanks! B25es (talk) 08:29, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
- All of these icons are already on Commons seperately. No issue here Trade (talk) 16:12, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
Naming conventions: Person qualifiers[edit]
Hi, I sometimes accidentally mismatch persons because they share very common names. And our biographical category tree is a total mess. My idea is that each person-category should include either a description (artist, writer, politician...) or even more preferably, the d-o-b/d-o-d, where possible. Examples would be: Hans Adler (ophthalmologist) and Hans Adler (lawyer) or John Smith (1580-1631), John Smith (1814-1853). Obviously this is already done where disambiguations are needed, but as I typed, I regularly encounter cases where no disambig exists already. Which means that I then have to create new disambiguations where I have to choose how this gets done - shall I let the existing category remain untouched, or move it as well? Which qualifier will I choose? Just let me tell you, this is not my forte and I imagine many other people also have problems with it. I would rather just stay lazy and don't give flying expletives about the miscategorizations - they are not really my problem after all. I typed in the name "George E. Norris", nothing gets found. "George Norris", one matching category! This must certainly be the disambiguation point where someone else will probably disentangle George A. Norris, George W. Norris and George E. Norris at some later point in the coming decades - right?
- Question 1: Can we make the disambiguation-qualifiers 'mandatory' for every(**:see #3) person? This means that even categories like Peter Andre and Matteo Renzi would get a qualifier ("born 1973" / "singer" or "born 1975" / "politician") preemptively, because you never know when another "Peter Andre" or "Matteo Renzi" from the distant past or in the future comes up. Obviously this means that this solution is not quickly done because someone[TM] would have to go through some hundred thousand categories, but I argue that would be a good thing because most disambiguation pages are very poorly maintained anyway, or don't even exist (like Hans Adler and George Norris above).
- Question 2: Which qualifier is preferable - job description (becomes a problem again whenever there are two "John Smith (artist)"), or the date-of-birth-date-of-death (becomes a problem when people don't know the correct dates, despite Wikidata). Right now we have a wild mix based on whoever thinks of whatever qualifier first; and of course even mixtures (three vocalists named Kim Dong-hyun). Even if we don't go with mandatory qualifiers, this is still a question I have each time I encounter the problem.
- Question 3: (**) Exceptions?
- Should people with a middle name or with a whole string of names (like this) get excluded from a rule to add qualifiers? Hans Georg Adler should still appear in the non-existent disambig-page together with the other Hans Adlers mentioned above, but he doesn't need a qualifier because of the middle name. This would mean if a person has a middle name, it should already get used for the category.
- Really famous people only known under two names ("Bill Gates" and "Martin Luther") might also qualify for exceptions, although we then run into the definition problem of what "really famous" is. Is the explorer "John Smith" really famous enough to not get a "1580-1631" qualifier?
- Sub-categories dealing with all the works or appearances of a person would not need a qualifier, I think.
Well, so far my thoughts. --Enyavar (talk) 12:38, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
- One problem is that the user creating the category doesn't necessarily know what disambiguation to use. Perhaps they don't know the year of birth, perhaps the person was a nobleman better known as politician or the other way round, a musician doing their main carrier as scientist, whatever. Using middle names can also get confusing, if the middle name is known but not commonly used. I think sub-categories should use the same name as the main category, otherwise you'd get a tune composed by John Smith the explorer in the music by category of the composer John Smith, which would be hard to notice afterwards. We should probably look at what schemes the Wikipedias use, as they have the same problem. –LPfi (talk) 16:21, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
- I don’t have easy answers for these questions, but I wanted to say I find that the way Enyavar presented the issue was very comprehensively outlined. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 18:50, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
March 17[edit]
Photo challenge January results[edit]
| Rank | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| image |  |
 |
|
| Title | Hospital corridor in the “Marienhaus Klinikum Hetzelstift“ |
Hospital corridor covered with Namib sand in ghost town Kolmanskop, Namibia |
Ny del av Haukeland Universitetssykehus fra Møllendal gravplass i Bergen |
| Author | F. Riedelio | Mozzihh | Odd Roar Aalborg |
| Score | 16 | 14 | 11 |
| Rank | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| image |  |
 |
|
| Title | A growler became a sculpture | wind-blown rime ice found on a summit cross |
jogger crossing the icy right barrier gate of the Jahnwehr weir in Bamberg, Germany |
| Author | Virtual-Pano | Roy Egloff | Ermell |
| Score | 19 | 18 | 15 |
Congratulations to Virtual-Pano, Roy Egloff, Ermell, F. Riedelio, Mozzihh and Odd Roar Aalborg. Jarekt (talk) 02:11, 17 March 2023 (UTC)