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November 13
Long-term disputes on various wikis involving a cross-wiki IP author
Latest comment: 6 days ago26 comments5 people in discussion
There are numerous disputes involving an IP user indulging in cross-wiki spam, particularly articles on West Germanic varieties. I am hounded for a while.
From what I can see, he's a user who upload much about mapping and cartography, for which is great, but to engage in further conversation with German Low, or etztes with or without a s, Low Saxon with Low German to Low German only, for me all this and the on-going conversation, does not contribute to anything positive. Germanic lang have much variation, as well as French or Latin, especially from those area. You could simply add a variant, or suggest that it might be spelled with a different phonetic sounds. I did review quite a few contribution he made, and this could be solve quickly. In my opinion he is contributing for which is great, if you are trying to bring post back from 2003... It seems like he is using the same account, and he will keep using it since he's in love with the appreciation of contribution... I suggest to close this topic for now and simply add a watch alert.
@Sarcelles: Is this some sort of request for administrative action? If so, it belongs on the appropriate Administrators' noticeboard, not on the Village pump. Conversely, if it is something you are just bringing up for general discussion, I don't know what you want discussed. - Jmabel ! talk18:37, 13 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
None of these accounts have edited in recent weeks, some not in as long as half a year, so it is hard to imagine what anyone can do about this at this point. - Jmabel ! talk18:40, 13 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
It can be anticipated, that this author continues to be active on several wikis including Commons. I think this is a good place to discuss this cross-wiki spam. On en.wiktionary I have been removing numerous typical edits by this user. Sarcelles (talk) 14:29, 16 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
File:Niederfränkisch.png is a file of this kind. It attempts to picture Low Franconian varieties in Europe. It has the following threefold-division:
A minor transitional area to Low Saxon, in the Netherlands
East Bergish running from near the city centre of Essen to Westphalia, also quite small#
A somehow larger area cutting through all of the following: an arrondissement bordering to Brussels, Antwerp province, Dutch Limburg, Belgian Limburg, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Wuppertal, German-speaking Belgium and French-speaking Belgium.
This is called Nordniederfränkisch (North Low Franconian) and running from France to Holland, Friesland province, Brussels and Westphalia. Sarcelles (talk) 11:45, 22 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Dialects of Dutch and German This is a typical German map of some of the dialects from Italy to Denmark. The author is MicBy67, User:Postmann Michael (The discussion creator's blatant and deliberate lie has been corrected! The map creator was not the Commons accounts mentioned, but the account User:Et Mikkel~commonswiki! Let's stick to the truth for once! --MicBy67 (talk) 02:34, 7 December 2024 (UTC)). There should be a further discussion of this issue. Sarcelles (talk) 20:07, 5 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Yawn!
Cook up a fresh idea! ;)
Hey, did you happen to catch the latest post on the discussion page? Just checking!
@MicBy67: consider yourself formally warned that the wording of your posts here has been unnecessarily uncivil, and continuing in this vein will probably result in me (or someone else) blocking you. - Jmabel ! talk17:53, 6 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Jmabel: I take note of that. And I'm aware that the discussion creator (or his mentor) will bring up the old story again with the original account (Postmann Michael) was blocked on the German-speaking Wikipedia because of POV from dubious sources, trivialization of National Socialism. Harmful to Wikipedia on the one hand, and with the successor account (Et Mikkel) was permanently blocked on the German-speaking Wikipedia as a way to circumvent the blocking on the other hand.
Nobody really cares about the past two decades anymore!
What is striking, however, is the fact that the discussion creator is trying to construct a connection between the IP's and me. And is cross-wiki hounding actually allowed on Wikimedia Commons? I am asking now for an interested friend … --MicBy67 (talk) 02:55, 7 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Are the accounts I allegedly attacked just one that launched a smear campaign against me, to which I responded sarcastically? By the way, this is irrelevant to Wikimedia Commons!
I doubt the identity of the account stated. And that is my right.
You were for yourself banned from the German-speaking Wikipedia for years because of “pointless article work,” right?
Do you haven't anything better to do than try to link my account to the Paderborn IPs in all Wikimedia/Wikipedia projects?
Sarcelles has a history at Dutch Wikipedia of dropping questions about dialects and languages and their boundaries, aimed at construing one opinion as being the truth and falling silent when objections arise. Even so one day before arrival of the archive bot he used to add a random remark to avoid archiving so I took to manually archiving his messages or scrapping them altogether. Also I often alert unsuspecting users to this behavior implying that answering is pointless.
Although Sarcelles poses no acute threat to the wikis, I would be relieved if he could be banned for good from all projects. These tedious and time-consuming discussions lead nowhere, least of all to our prime objective. His minor contributions in the main space do not in any way compensate for the inconvenience.
Not. They will be resolved when the linguists reach consensus i.e. not before 2080. Our task is to describe the debates, not to resolve them → bertux16:14, 19 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
I reject this type of “apology.” It is not sincere and is merely intended to fool!
First and foremost, the person who initiated the discussion is a die-hard advocate of a “missionary” mission. That's always been the person behind this account!
I'd like to remind you that this account initially solely campaigned on Wikipedia for “human rights violations” outside German-speaking countries and indicated in its blocking procedure on German-speaking Wikipedia that it had created these “reports” or “articles” at Wikipedia “at the risk of its life.”
We all realize that this statement is complete garbage!
The owner of this account has primarily focused on languages and dialects. He now describes himself as one of the “most experienced linguists,” most likely due to his participation in dubious accounts.
In addition, there is a tendency to conduct monologues that usually lead nowhere!
Based on my history with this account, I expect this discussion will go nowhere and reopen in a month or two with a different lemma—as is typical with the person behind this account! --MicBy67 (talk) 01:06, 22 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
December 16
Advertencia
Latest comment: 3 days ago12 comments3 people in discussion
Hola @AbchyZa22: no soy un administrador, pero las imágenes generadas mediante AI no están sujetas a copyright (más información), y quedan, por tanto, automáticamente en dominio público, luego, hasta donde yo sé, cualquier imagen generada mediante AI por un usuario puede ser subida sin problema a Wikimedia Commons, en cuanto a copyright (siempre que además sea considerada como apta para una finalidad educativa). MGeog2022 (talk) 15:33, 16 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
AbchyZa22 wrote here to warn administrators that images generated by Grok AI (created by Elon Musk) include a non-freely licensed watermark, so when images generated by this AI tool are uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, and they contain that watermark, it may be necessary to delete them (or maybe removing the watermark is enough, since AI generated images are public domain in any case). MGeog2022 (talk) 19:43, 16 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Vale, el logo es dominio público, luego solamente se trata de una cuestión estética. En ese caso, no es algo que sea muy importante (no creo que sea tan necesario que los administradores lo tengan presente).
---
OK, the logo is in the public domain, so it's only a purely aesthetical issue. In that case, this isn't a very important issue (I don't think it's so necessary for administrators to keep this in mind). MGeog2022 (talk) 20:55, 16 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
@AbchyZa22, bien, por tanto, no hay ningún problema con el copyright, como te decía (sólo podría haberlo si el logo no fuera libre, pero no es el caso, porque ya vimos que es un logo de texto, por lo que aplica PD-textlogo). Las imágenes generadas por AI, como tales, no tienen copyright, incluso en el caso de que el proveedor de la AI afirme que sí lo tienen (puedes ver aquí lo que dice al respecto la política de Wikimedia Commons (en inglés). MGeog2022 (talk) 14:00, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
A dangerous precedent - DMCA after false relicensing
Latest comment: 3 days ago29 comments15 people in discussion
I wish to make the community aware of a serious issue that seems to be arising as Commons ages. I had a habit of uploading material in 2014-2016 from other sources to Commons, with much of it lost from the internet today, no longer accessible through traditional sources. I did not have the habit of archiving all pages with license information at that time, something I only later began with.
The reason I bring this up here, is twofold: 1) this is the second time I have seen this bait-and-switch with regard to licensing, with me having to spend time to comb through the Internet Archive last time to identify that it was originally licensed under CC-BY, and 2) that I do not find that the message on my talk page abides by community guidelines or takes account the WMF's role on Commons. It makes threats of banning me relating to repeat DMCA violation - which can not be grounds for a ban. Rather the question is if the copyright has been violated, which it hasn't, an issue which as far as I can see has not even been explored here. This has a potential chilling effect, in part because it requires me to disclose my name to counter-claim, which violates community guidelines - but also in part because this legal battle should be precisely for the WMF to take, not me personally. This is about a private entity, uploading to a YouTube channel which they still control, then revoking the CC-license, and issuing a DMCA-takedown request 9 years later.
There was never a source linked on these file pages and the license was never proven. When noticed by someone these files would already have been deleted. GPSLeo (talk) 19:17, 16 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Of course there was, are you telling me that it was unlicensed for 9 years? And what do you mean by proven? The page included a link to a page that upon being uploaded in 2015 included correct license information, that subsequently was changed. As I said, this is not about "proof". The matter at hand is about pages changing their licensing. I don't care one bit about the file itself, it was of marginal use. CFCF (talk) 19:19, 16 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Your license information was Anatomy video from youtube by Kenhub. Licenced as CC-BY as of download date 3/1/15. This is quite plausible, though you didn't provide a link to the YouTube video directly. I'm absolutely assuming your good faith and willing to believe that this was the case, but we would need proof (see my comment below). Gestumblindi (talk) 19:23, 16 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
(edit conflict) Just as a service, if you intended to ping Joe Sutherland, your link didn't work, because his user account is User:JSutherland (WMF), but this link should generate the ping now. - Without deeply delving into the specific case, I agree that, if the videos ware originally uploaded to YouTube under CC-BY and the license was changed later (after you transferred the videos to Commons in 2015), you are of course not at fault and could have done nothing to prevent this. There was no License review as far as I can see (as an admin), so we have no proof, but maybe the original license can still be found at the Internet Archive or the like. As CC-BY licenses are irrevocable, maybe the WMF itself should file a counter-notice in case it can be shown that the content was - and therefore would still be -, in fact, freely licensed? Gestumblindi (talk) 19:21, 16 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
As response to both comments, that seems possible I could have for whatever reason have omitted the link in lieu of the name of the video. I don't think it's likely that the correct license can be found, as YouTube is generally not covered by the Internet Archive, and I have no idea at what date they relicensed. Also, frankly - I don't think it's worth it for these files (also why I only uploaded 2 of maybe something like 50 files at the time). I never did find any use for them in any project, and restoring them would likely leave them as orphans. However, I think the issue itself is the dangerous thing. We have amassed a huge trove of material that could be relicensed incorrectly, and even if material has been "proven" - does that imply that a permanent record of the licensing has been kept? CFCF (talk) 19:43, 16 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
YouTube video pages which are linked from Wikimedia web pages are generally pretty well covered by the Internet Archive. Unfortunately, since none of the source videos were linked on these files, it's quite possible that the original videos weren't archived. Even if they were, we have no easy way to find them. (Kenhub appears to have refreshed their YouTube content at some point between 2015 and now; the original videos don't seem to be online anymore.) Omphalographer (talk) 20:59, 16 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Asking for license review before it's too late, as I just did here, is a good option, especially for sites like YouTube and Flickr (this fact should be better known). Sadly, it seems that for this case, it was too late. Linking to the exact video, if a Commons bot automatically archived the page in Wayback Machine, would be another way to prevent this. About a year ago, a survey was carried out, and I created this proposal to try to avoid this kind of problem. In fact, I wasn't aware of the existence of license review then: that's basically what I was asking for, and nobody said in the discussion page that it already existed (perhaps what I exactly meant was not well understood). MGeog2022 (talk) 21:17, 16 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
I don't think anyone is suggesting to tackle this one file at a time. I don't care about this file, and came here to make this general point. CFCF (talk) 20:15, 16 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
The "Show more" link on the Wayback Machine archive doesn't work properly for me, but looking at the HTML source isn't hopeful (whitespace elided): <h4 class="title">License</h4><ul class="content watch-info-tag-list"><li>Standard YouTube License</li></ul> --bjh21 (talk) 22:38, 16 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
That's what I was looking for. IMO this doesn't look good. I support deleting these videos unless we get some evidence of a free license. Yann (talk) 18:07, 17 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Yann: I've found some evidence of a free licence. Since this is complicated and not really related to the original subject of this thread, I plan to start a discussion about it over on COM:VPC. --bjh21 (talk) 14:08, 18 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Unfortunately, one of the details of the DMCA is that a web publisher relying on the DMCA, like Wikimedia does, must block users that get too many DMCA strikes. You do have the right to counter the DMCA, at which point the company would have to drop it or initiate legal action against you. I don't think it's an issue here; Wikimedia just doesn't get enough DMCA strikes to ever block someone over them.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:58, 16 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
I agree with attempting to counter the DMCA takedown notice if you believe that it is wrong. Sometimes DMCA notices are overzealous, specious or downright fraudulent. During my time at Wikimedia, there were several successful counters, and I have myself countered takedown notices from YouTube successfully as well (for public domain music, for example. Bastique☎ let's talk!17:11, 17 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Typically, the WMF refuses to act on DMCA complaints that are clearly bogus. In this case, however, I think the WMF took the correct action. There is no evidence to point to in order to back up the free license claim, other than CFCF's statement. Thus it is up to CFCF to dispute the DMCA take-down. It would be dangerous folly for the WMF to risk its DMCA safe-harbor status by blindly defending every challenged upload. The best way to prevent this from occurring in the future is to simply link to the YouTube video from the file page, as this will cause the YouTube page to be archived in the Internet Archive by IABot. Nosferattus (talk) 18:49, 17 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Nosferattus - Please take a look at the discussion started by bjh21 on the copyright VP - people have managed to dig up some evidence of CC-licence.
What I think is important to note here, is that this is a DMCA complaint that is bogus, but not clearly so - because the ability to dig up evidence is limited because it was so long since the files were uploaded. I think this is an important issue, as it is not isolated to this case. The fact that the DMCA led to a takedown, and a legal threat is indicative of a broader problem - something that we as as community should strive to solve sooner rather than later. CFCF (talk) 08:03, 23 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
I doubt it will ever happen, but I've been arguing for a while now that they should allow for fair use on here. That seems to be the only way to deal with these types of things to any meaningful degree outside of just taking down the file regardless of if the license was changed at some point. Expecting people to create mirrors of licenses on archive.org as fall back doesn't seem like a sustainable solution though. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:27, 23 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
How would that help here? Fair use is pretty limited and wouldn't apply to videos like these. Someone's photo of a castle or a mountain is unlikely to be fair use. The whole of 1984 (deleted last year) couldn't possibly be fair use.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:24, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
As far as I know fair use still applies to movies and other videos. With something like this it would be more about giving the WMF a reason to not take down the video so they can see if the people who gave them the DMCA notice to will actually challenge it. 99% of the time no one wants to spend the time or energy actually taking someone to court. Especially with something that was already PD to begin with. There's no reason the WMF couldn't use fair use as a reason to keep the video up in the short term and then say the license was changed "but fair use anyway Your Honor!" if it ever actually goes to court though. But I certainly wouldn't advocate for something like that with a full movie being hosted on here. Fair use obviously isn't a valid reason to host the video in that case. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:31, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
No, "fair use" wouldn't work here. English-language Wikipedia is quite strict in its application of fair use, as you certainly know: There needs to be a specific rationale for each file kept, it needs to be in use; and for images, the size is limited to what is necessary for display in the article (so, no full resolution). That's because for "fair use", there needs to be a particular "use" indeed for it to apply, it's not applicable for just hosting files that might be educationally useful, whether actually in use or not (which is what Comnmos does). Gestumblindi (talk) 12:06, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
December 19
Syrian flag
Latest comment: 6 hours ago34 comments7 people in discussion
Abzeronow originally proposed one solution for Commons, but Rudolph Buch has suggested several alternatives, and I have a different idea of my own, and I want to make sure we have at least a strong consensus before moving files. Proposals C, D, and E all come from Rudolph Buch; I've done my best not to alter any of his meaning but you can check [2] to verify that. Keep in mind that due to templating, there are many templates on various wikis that will necessarily use File:Flag of Syria.svg.
C) Do nothing and to trust the wiki editors in updating their pages.
D) Rename File:Flag of Syria.svg to File:Flag of Syria (1980).svg without leaving a redirect. This will lead to a huge amount of broken image links (which is bad) but prompt the editors to check what flag is right for the respective page (which is good).
E) let a bot replace File:Flag of Syria.svg by File:Flag of the Syrian revolution.svg at all wiki pages. [If I understand correctly, this means to bot-edit all of the sister projects, rather than change anything at Commons. @Rudolph Buch, please let me know if that is not what you meant.]
I believe the following remark from Rudolph Buch sums up his objection to proposal A (and presumably to proposal B): "Would that automatically feed the new flag into ~500 Wikipedia pages regardless of context and caption? Like when File:Flag of Syria.svg is now used to illustrate that this is the flag that was adopted in 1980 and after the move it shows the 2024 flag without hint in the page history or any other warning to the Wikipedia editors?" User:The Squirrel Conspiracy replied to that (in part), "Correct. However the projects have backed themselves into a weird corner because there's also templates that - instead of asking for an image - automatically pull the file with the name "Flag of [country name].svg" - and those would have the wrong image if we don't move it."
Further thought: in both proposal A and proposal B, if we allow "Move and replace" to take place when we move File:Flag of Syria.svg to Flag of the United Arab Republic (1958–1971), Flag of Syria (1980–2024).svg, that will change all explicit uses of File:Flag of Syria.svg in sister projects to use the new name, which will show up in the relevant page histories, watchlists, etc. It will not affect those pages where a template generates "[[:File:Flag of Syria.svg]]. In contrast, proposal E is likely to change exactly the uses that specifically meant this particular flag, while not solving the issue for template uses, and proposal D will break all the template usages. So 'my own "ranked choices" would be B, A, C, while definitely opposing D or E. - Jmabel ! talk01:28, 19 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
I'd be fine with B if we know it won't break any templates so for me I'd favor A or B* (*providing it doesn't break templates) over C. I also would oppose D because it breaks pages and would be out of harmony with variants (which is why I proposed the name I did, it stays in harmony with variants). I also would oppose E since it could break templates. Abzeronow (talk) 17:15, 19 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
I am going with "B". Abzeronow, the original proposer says he is fine with it. I think it works best. No one else seems to be saying Rudolph Buch's approaches are better. - Jmabel ! talk18:23, 22 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Made the moves, but the "replaces" apparently did not work as I wished. It looks like there were a lot of uses of things like {{Flag entry|Width=200|Image=Flag of Syria.svg|Caption=Syria}} even for things that were about a specific year. Not a great choice. I think there is a ton of hand work to do, no matter what.
I'll do my best to take this on, starting with Commons itself, then en-wiki. If someone wants to help on some other wiki, please say so here and have at it. - Jmabel ! talk18:39, 22 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Abzeronow: are you sure about that Commons Delinker command you just gave? I'm going through these by hand, and seeing some I don't think should be changed, although admittedly the bulk of them should. - Jmabel ! talk20:03, 22 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
I think it probably should be removed. I'm finding it runs about 60% should change, 20% certainly shouldn't, and an awful lot of tricky judgment calls where I am trying to leave messages for more appropriate people to decide. - Jmabel ! talk20:19, 22 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Abzeronow: I'm finding more and more that should not change. Yes, we should definitely remove the command. In fact, since you said you are OK with that, I'll do it. - Jmabel ! talk20:23, 22 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Now that I have a larger sample: at the early time of my remark above, I just happened to hit a bunch that should change. I've looked at maybe 1500 pages now, and less than a hundred specifically wanted the Assad-era flag. So (1) this is overwhelmingly correct as it is and (2) there is still going to be a lot of hand-correction in a lot of wikis, way more than I personally can do. - Jmabel ! talk22:37, 22 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
I'm not opposed to the proposal itself (in fact I do support it!), but the point is we should first clean up old usage of the flag, and then change the redirects, since this is a national flag widely used on all wikis. The issue was brought to me by members of the local community finding lots of articles showing historically erroneous Syria flags, which could not be instantly changed at once, and need time or outside assistance (e.g. global replace tool) for doing so. —— Eric Liu（Talk）05:07, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Ericliu1912: Based on my experience so far in cleaning up several hundred of these in en-wiki, it is going to be very hard to identify what needs to be cleaned up if we don't make the change first. How do you propose to identify the places that are affected? - Jmabel ! talk05:11, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
And is it possible to have a one-time global replace done, replacing all non-Country data usage of "File:Flag_of_Syria.svg" with "File:Flag_of_Syria_(1980–2024).svg"? I guess that would ultimately do the job. —— Eric Liu（Talk）05:18, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Ericliu1912: No, that would definitely not do the job. It's a long story, some of which is above. I want to give you this quick reply now, because explaining in detail will take 15+ minutes. I'll write out the more complicated picture and then post that. - Jmabel ! talk05:27, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
I guess it is appropriate that we leave notes to the communities using Country data Syria templates on their Village Pump respectly. —— Eric Liu（Talk）05:39, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
But I wonder why it'd not work? As all direct (non-Country data) global usage of "File:Flag_of_Syria.svg" currently were indeed just "File:Flag_of_Syria_(1980–2024).svg", the replacement should mostly be smooth and sufficient. Even is it not enough in some cases like certain template wrap usage, we could still go ahead and replace most of the current links first, that should also decrease the burden for the remaining manual changes. —— Eric Liu（Talk）05:41, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Ericliu1912: Why a global search-and-replace is a bad idea here (and also almost impossible to do in an effective manner):
Many—I strongly suspect most—of the places where the Syrian flag is used should switch to the new flag. The following is a representative set of examples, though certainly not exhaustive.
All geographical articles should be using the current flag, not the flag of a prior regime.
There are presumably a lot of templates in Category:Templates related to Syria that use a flag. Those should all use the current flag, not the flag of a prior regime.
Any infoboxes related to geography that contain a flag should all use the current flag, not the flag of a prior regime.
As far as I'm aware, the new government of Syria, presuming it is widely recognized, which appears to be happening, will inherit (or already has inherited) all of Syria's positions in international organizations, e.g. the UN and its various affliates, the organization of non-aligned states, status as a signatory of various treaties unless the new government were to renounce those. All of those should update to the current flag.
If you think about how flag files are used, search-and-replace is very tricky. They are almost never used in a syntax that writes out File:Flag of Syria.svg in the wikitext. For example, there are templates that effectively do File:Flag of [COUNTRY].svg, or that get at these other ways. If that's not clear, I'll elaborate; I'm trying to get you a response quickly, so I'm not approaching this at essay length.
Also: when the template is updated, if there is anything that should permanently use the current revolutionary flag regardless of future regime changes, there should be a way to specify that, too. Let's not get caught in the same thing again! (en-wiki has already done this.) - Jmabel ! talk05:50, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
I understand the difficulties, so I suggest that we at least (1) replace direct file links and update about ~110 Country data Syria templates (which is the most obvious and widely-used template), adding a "1980" alias for them (and maybe an "opposition/revolution" alias too, just in cases which do "permanently use the current revolutionary flag"); (2) list the rest of the templates that indeed embed File:Flag of Syria.svg (in a historical context) and try to do the replacement; (3) regretfully ignore the rest like File:Flag of [COUNTRY].svg you mentioned above and change the redirect to the opposition flag, at the same time also notifying the communites, reminding them to finish rest of the work. —— Eric Liu（Talk）06:05, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Ericliu1912: In my experience (mainly Commons and en-wiki) there is very little correlation between how the file was used (in a technical sense) and why it was used (to refer to a regime or a country). I think each wiki is going to have to work out for itself what is right for how usage is shaped on that wiki. No matter how we do this, there is going to be a LOT of hand-work, because neither case ("it meant the country" or "it meant the regime") is clearly dominant. This isn't going to be an 80-20 case, it's more in the range of 60-40. My personal guess is that more cases mean country than regime, but (on en-wiki, at least, which I'm guessing is typical of the Wikipedias in this respect) it's not dramatically more.
The more a given Wikipedia covers events relative to how much it covers geography, the more often it will mean a regime. But right now it is totally jumbled together.
This suggests a large area in which we have not at all future-proofed (for the hundreds of other countries in the world). Wikipedia wasn't around in 1989-1992, or we would have recognized this as a potentially major issue up front when we designed flag-related templates. - Jmabel ! talk06:16, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
I believe I've successfully gotten the word out to the English, Spanish and Romanian Wikipedias, and I presume Ericliu1912 is driving this on the Chinese Wikipedia, but does anyone have a way to spread the word more broadly? - Jmabel ! talk02:32, 25 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 day ago6 comments4 people in discussion
Hello
I recently created a SVG file of a PNG logo with Inkscape, I used the colour picker tool and everything seemed fine. I then save as optimised SVG and uploaded the SVG file to Commons, but the red square seems darker than on the original PNG (the blue and yellow also seem a bit different).
I then uploaded this original PNG, but its colours are the same as the SVG.
I then took a screen capture of the original, compared it to the Commons files, and the colours are definitely not the same (3rd image in the gallery below).
SVG
PNG
Compared screenshots
Is it a known issue, or am I missing something ?
Regards, Şÿℵדαχ₮ɘɼɾ๏ʁ 19:43, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
Hello ReneeWrites. I've done more tests and the problem seems to be linked to the web browser used (see the new version of the screenshots compared above, CTRL+F5 to clear the page cache).
So Firefox seems to display different colours on linguistlist.org and Commons whereas Chrome and Edge don't, but all three browsers seem to display slightly different colours to the PNG/SVG files.
I'm a bit confused and can't figure out where the problem really lies...
Regards, Şÿℵדαχ₮ɘɼɾ๏ʁ 15:56, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
I don't think it's a browser issue necessarily. I notice that the color picker is sometimes slightly off when I'm working on a file in Illustrator, at which point I eyeball the process. ReneeWrites (talk) 23:54, 21 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
As someone who is not an expert, that doesn't track to me: the SVG defines these colors with hex codes, which are at a re-encoding of RGB values. My eye doesn't see a difference between the SVG and PNG logos and an online color picker calls the PNG's red #800000, the PNG thumbnail of the SVG #810000 (!!!), and the code of the actual SVG itself defines it as #800000. The codes fro the blue and yellow squares have the same values in all three files.@SyntaxTerror: , this warrants a ticket at phab:. Are you willing to make one? If not, I will. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯19:51, 22 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hello Koavf and thank you for your reply. I was also thinking of making a ticket on Phabricator, but I still don't know if this problem is related to MediaWiki or browsers (or maybe my computer?).
If you'd like to make a ticket, it's no problem with me as I'm not a native English speaker, and technical terms can sometimes be difficult for me. Mention me anyway so I can answer any questions. Regards, Şÿℵדαχ₮ɘɼɾ๏ʁ 00:43, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
SVG uses the sRGB colorspace. librsvg turns SVG into a PNG bitmap. By default, PNG does not have a default sRGB colorspace, but its colorspace can be set to sRBG. Last time I checked, librsvg or the libraries it uses do not set the PNG colorspace to sRGB. Consequently, we should not expect the colors to match. There are also questions about screen grabs and color pickers. Are the colors before or after the system color correction? Glrx (talk) 01:17, 23 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Afaik Adobe has CMYK as standard color space for software focused on printing, like InDesign. This could also apply to Illustrator in some way. Another topic is (which I found out accidentally), that the color/RGB code can change when you're using the HDR function in OSes like Windows 11 (I measured it with the color picker). Another reason could be a secret color aberration while processing/converting. I have this when I trace a PNG image to have it as SVG. The used colors are not identical. Sometimes Adobe applies a narrow color palette, that is affected by anti alised pixels that have colors between to edge colors --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 16:16, 26 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Photography as a verb
Latest comment: 4 days ago7 comments4 people in discussion
Normaly photografers respect each other and move away so you can take a picture. The probably professional photografer did not care and was buzy with his two subjects. The lighting created a surprising effect with shadows. Is there a category for a working photografer. I wanted to use photoshoot, but this category does not seem to exist.Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:08, 20 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 17 hours ago9 comments7 people in discussion
At Commons:Questionable Flickr images, there is a list of blacklisted users. Sometimes I think, "Hmmm. This image from that account looks good. I wonder why it is blacklisted?"
Looking at the list, the reason in most cases is "Flickrwashing." Personally, I do not think that it is very helpful. So, I wonder if we could agree that for new requests, it would be good if a link to a discussion is included?
Next is when do we blacklist? What if a user has 99 good images and 1 bad? Or 50 good and 50 bad? Or 1 good and 99 bad? I think in some cases the reason to blacklist has been derivative works and the lack of Freedom of panorama. Personally, I do not think we can set up a general rule, but if a Flickr user is in bad faith and tries to push files to Commons, we should always blacklist. If most of the uploads are bad, we should also blacklist. But if it is only a smaller part of the photos or if the reason is derivative works, we should not blacklist.
You could say, "If you think it's a problem, then just watch the damn page and fix the requests." You would be right. But I also think that it would be good if we had some guidelines about what to add as a blacklist reason and when to add or remove. For example, I have sometimes thought about going rogue and just removing all requests without a link to a discussion. But the result would probably be a lot of bad images and angry users.
So, even if we can't set up a rule saying that if the bad ratio is > 40%, then blacklist, perhaps we can set up a few "rules of thumb"?
"Flickrwashing" is a fairly specific term. It doesn't mean "uploading images with copyright issues". It specifically means "uploading and taking credit for other people's copyrighted photos". Taking a photo of a painting or a non-FOP architectural work isn't Flickrwashing; copying a photo from a stock photo web site or a newspaper and reposting it is.
QFI listings should generally be reserved for instances of true Flickrwashing, not other rights issues. If we blocklisted accounts just because they took a few photos of paintings or toys or whatever, we'd be here all day (and we'd probably be rejecting a lot of perfectly good photos in the process). Commons users importing content from Flickr need to evaluate it for DW/FOP concerns themselves; QFI should be reserved for sneaky copyright violations which aren't apparent from the image itself or its subject matter. Omphalographer (talk) 22:17, 21 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
I agree 100% with that. So far the accounts I have added to QFI is because they were specifically created for license washing. Yann (talk) 22:56, 21 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Some good points above. Two points: 1)Keep in mind that Flickr is in some ways social media, and allows derivative works of copyrighted material (eg photos of posters or book covers, etc) which Commons cannot allow. So Wikimedians copying images from Flickr should keep this in mind as something to consider before uploading a given image to Commons, knowing that while some may be tagged as free licensed on Flickr they are still not properly free for Commons. 2)"Blacklists" are not simply for Flickr accounts that don't live up to Commons standards, nor for accounts that are generally good but the users are sometimes careless with with license claims. It is for accounts that generally or deliberately make false license claims, usually with intent to deceive as to actual license status. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 23:06, 21 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for the input. I agree that the user that import files to Commons is the one responsible for the files. So to me that indicates that a blacklist is not the right thing to use if a Flickr user have uploaded derivative works etc. Unless of course it is done to push files to Commons.
I think the idea of allowing some users to upload files from a blacklisted account sounds interessting. But it may require too much coding. An alternative could be to request a temporary removal and then upload the good files and categorize them in "Files from Flickr user Foo" and then add the blacklist again. If User:Donald Trung finds another case that could be used as a test. --MGA73 (talk) 15:37, 27 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 5 days ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Hello. I have a running debate with User:Eurohunter on my talkpage about whether we should use the term "of" or "in" with the example of police automobiles. This category should contain files of police automobiles in Germany. So it can be a file of a german police automobile in Berlin, but also a file of a Polish automobile somewhere in Germany. However, this category should contain files of automobiles of the german police no matter whether this was made in Germany or an other country. At least thats my opinion. Is there an other interpretation and should we use both terms simultaneously? Regards Lukas Beck (talk) 11:45, 22 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
For me in this case it is very clear. All police cars located in Berlin at the moment the photo was taken are "Police cars in Berlin". These cars can also be "Police cars of the Berlin state police" or of other state police of federal police. Of is for the ownership and In is for the location. When categorizing for the manufacturer I would always explicitly state that the of refers the the manufacturer "Policy cars of German manufacturer". GPSLeo (talk) 13:27, 22 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
+1. I was just in the process of writing a message to the similar effect. There's only 1587 categories with "of" to begin with and most, if not all, of them have to do with the ownership or manufacturer. --Adamant1 (talk) 13:39, 22 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Categories combining city and photographer
Latest comment: 14 hours ago10 comments6 people in discussion
Hello fellows, we have three categories which (together with their subcategories) sort photos by a combination of the criteria by city and by photographer:
The former category is for categories for photos of specific cities by specific photographers. The latter is for photos of unspecific cities by specific photographers. Ruslik (talk) 19:56, 22 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
What's the use case for the latter? Surely all of those files would already be categorized as photographs of cities and photographs by that photographer; the added value of a category specifically for photographs of cities which aren't identifiable as any specific city seems minimal. Omphalographer (talk) 23:23, 22 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Aristeas: If it were me I'd up merge whatever subcategories overlap between the two into whichever one makes more sense and then go from there. It be that a lot of the parent categories end up being empty and/or otherwise pointless once the overlap is fixed though. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:25, 22 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
It's probably a lost cause at this point but there's a ton of problems and whatnot with how user categories are organized. This being one of them because some users want to be associated with professional photographs by way of putting their images in the normal category tree. I spent some time trying to organizing it a few years ago but it just led to drama. So I stopped. It would make things a lot easier though if user categories explicitly had to start with "User:" and weren't being randomly mixed in with normal ones. But I really don't see that changing with how much uploaders are coddled to on here. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:02, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Sure. I don't really care if a professional photographer or notable person who also happens to be a user wants to use normal categories for their files. They aren't who I was refering to. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:09, 27 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
December 23
Photographic process versus technique
Latest comment: 1 day ago10 comments5 people in discussion
I doubt there is a useful distinction. Possibly there are techniques that are not "processes" (e.g. the use of a polarizing filter), but every process is a technique. - Jmabel ! talk19:07, 23 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
I think the intended distinction is that a photographic technique is something that the photographer does when taking a photograph, whereas a photographic process involves film chemistry and the processes used to turn it into a print in a darkroom. This isn't really borne out by the current contents of the categories, though. (And, of course, this distinction completely breaks down when dealing with digital photography.) Omphalographer (talk) 22:35, 23 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Maybe it's of some help to look at how other projects deal with this distinction. This is what the category descriptions on enwiki have to say:
Category:Photographic processes - "This category groups together articles that describe procedures by which light-sensitive materials are made to produce an image. The category should not be confused with Category:Photographic techniques, which comprises articles describing procedures related to how a photograph is taken or composed, or is manipulated during or after processing."
Category:Photographic techniques - "This category contains categories and articles relating to the theory and methodology of composing and/or taking photographs, or to their manipulation during or after processing. It should not be confused with Category:Photographic processes, which comprises articles relating to the production of images using light-sensitive materials."
The descriptions are very similar to the ones Omphalographer stated. "Photographic technique" is defined slightly more broadly so it's inclusive of digital photography, while "Photographic process" describes an explicitly analog process. I like these descriptions, they seem clear to me, leave very little room for ambiguity, and solve the issue being discussed above, with maybe one exception: The page for "Post-processing" is a disambiguation page, of which the one relevant to photography is titled "Image editing". This page is categorized as a technique, not a process. ReneeWrites (talk) 14:25, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Genre seems to concern itself with subject matter - what a photograph depicts, so that's not really an issue. Style seems to be a bit more problematic. ReneeWrites (talk) 14:58, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Is the "Style" category something we want to discuss here further, or should I open a CfD for it? The other three categories seem well-defined enough for me. ReneeWrites (talk) 17:40, 26 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
I had it speedy deleted before you asked because everything in it seemed better off in other categories. Thanks for the thought though. --Adamant1 (talk) 23:32, 26 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 3 days ago7 comments4 people in discussion
I got an e-mail ping waking me up, apparently it was this edit, which I found was odd. The page blanking was done on 24 December 2024, but the admin tagged it on 18 November 2022 meaning that more than 2 (two) years went by without anyone finding it problematic that a user page existed unblanked.
I have long noticed that some users treat the unblanked user pages of blocked users as "some sort of backlog" even when the blocking admin didn't decide to perform this form of damnatio memoriæ. What I find interesting is the edit summary "I really can't see any policy-based reason to blank this,m and at the moment the content of this page is relevant to an arbcom case. This is literally an admission by an Enwiki ArbCom member that the blanking of user pages isn't rooted in any policy. In fact, the blanking of a user page would be considered a form of vandalism in any other context.
Hmmm… usually the sockpuppeteer tag is added when the user is blocked. I assumed they were blocked and someone added the tag for it, but didn’t remove the rest, which is usually the status quo around here. Not sure about enwiki, and why it’s even relevant to bring up. Are you proposing something here? 1989 (talk) 19:22, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Just for clarity, the edit I made there was less than one month after I made this account. I was not an admin and didn't even have autopatroller when I made that edit. I don't exactly now why I made that edit (probably random browsing and just seeing it wasn't tagged). —Matrix(!)ping onewhen replying {user - talk? - uselesscontributions} 19:39, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
To answer the original question: I'm not aware of any particular policy here, but in this case the removal seems so trivial that it is hard to care. - Jmabel ! talk19:33, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
No, I just wondered if there is a policy which states that such pages must be blanked and why it didn't happen back in 2022, or why it would happen so late after it (implying that there is some sort of backlog). Still, usually user pages are blanked by the tagger, I haven't seen that many people explicitly search them out to blank them, especially since this is a highly visible user who has participated in many discussions and whose user page is linked to quite extensively, so I wonder what the value of such blanking is. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 19:34, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Historic England aerial photos
Latest comment: 3 days ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Historic England have put a number of PD aerial images (example - one of many taken by the RAF prior to 30 June 1957, so now expired Crown Copyright) behind software that makes it difficult, but not impossible to download the high-res versions. They do not assert copyright, but charge for making copies available to download, under what purport to be restrictive terms.
Various methods for downloading high res copies have been described online (see sources at w:SmartFrame).
A claim has reached me that they will launch a new system in the new year, to prevent such downloads.
I just want to say: that is so tacky, posting PD materials (which means you have no special legal claim to them) and hiding them behind a deliberate technical barrier to prevent others from acquiring them. - Jmabel ! talk19:02, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Its tangential, but I got in a little tiff a while ago with the lady who runs the local historical society where I live because the images on their website are super low quality and watermarked to the point of not even being viewable. Let alone downloadable. Her excuse was that it didn't matter becauae they sell people copies of everything on their site. I really don't get the mentality. Local history shouldn't be pay walled or otherwise controlled like that. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:34, 24 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
December 25
Merry Christmas - A year in Wikimedia
Latest comment: 1 day ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to the good people of Wikimedia who have helped me learn the ropes and supported me. Obvious flagrant exceptions, especially from veteran editors who don't respect the Wiki policy of not biting newbies -- still worth it though, to contribute to the project and be a volunteer. It's year one for me, and I've focused on ordering the category of Category:Nuevo Laredo. When I came it was barely there but I've managed to structure it. Being a newbie, I took as a basis how the categories of other cities such as Berlin, Dallas or Phoenix where structured. Additionally, I've populated and/or organized the Category:People of Nuevo Laredo with notable persons as well as images of public places or public events. This has attracted some of you to help me organize or twitch things that I may have missed, which I thank. Other categories I have heavily organized are those related with People of Mesoamerica, People of Mexico, images from Montreal, images of Mexican people or places. Recently I started to upload my videos, which I will continue. And finally, it is amazing that websites, media and news outlets use these contributions -- which I have listed on my personal user page, an idea I took from an experienced contributor who does the same thing. Some of you may have my differences with me, but I'm not going anywhere since I am not only learning but also it is imperative for the Wiki project to have a diverse of insights and way of thinking. To new Wiki editors, do not be discouraged! For many upsetting experiences you may have (and will have) with other user, there are others who will be not only friendly but also will teach you and guide you. And if you want to team up in the topics of my interest, I'll be more than delighted. Cheers! Miguel Angel Omaña Rojas (talk) 00:32, 25 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Question pinging @Yann:any opinion?? (google translator). AbchyZa22 (talk) 21:02, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
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