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COMMONS DISCUSSION PAGES Commons Help desk Village pump (general discussion) Copyright Proposals Technical Graphics and photography discussion Photography critiques Image improvement Illustration workshop Map workshop Photography workshop Video and sound workshop Categories for discussion Undeletion requests Deletion requests Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard Translators' noticeboard Work requests for bots Contact administrators Vandalism User problems (Dispute resolution) Blocks and protections Bureaucrats' noticeboard CheckUser requests Oversight requests Telegram IRC webchat Commons mailing list (archive) Commons' bugs on Phabricator Welcome to the Village pump This page is used for discussions of the operations and policies of Wikimedia Commons. Recent sections with no replies for 7 days and sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=--~~~~}} may be archived; for old discussions, see the archives; the latest archive is Commons:Village pump/Archive/2025/11. Please note: If you want to ask why unfree/non-commercial material is not allowed at Wikimedia Commons or if you want to suggest that allowing it would be a good thing, please do not comment here. It is probably pointless. One of Wikimedia Commons’ core principles is: "Only free content is allowed." This is a basic rule of the place, as inherent as the NPOV requirement on all Wikipedias. Have you read our FAQ? For changing the name of a file, see Commons:File renaming. Any answers you receive here are not legal advice and the responder cannot be held liable for them. If you have legal questions, we can try to help but our answers cannot replace those of a qualified professional (i.e. a lawyer). Your question will be answered here; please check back regularly. Please do not leave your email address or other contact information, as this page is widely visible across the internet and you are liable to receive spam. Purposes which do not meet the scope of this page: Please do not make deletion requests here: use the relevant process for it instead. For technical support and graphics talks (PNG, SVG, GIF, etc.), please post on the Graphics village pump. To ask for image improvement, see: Graphic Lab/Photography workshop for photographs. Graphic Lab/Map workshop for maps. Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop for other illustrations. To ask for video or audio improvement, see Commons:Graphic Lab/Video and sound workshop. For translation requests, please post at Commons:Requests for translation. For media requests, please post at Commons:File requests. For questions about copyright, technical matters, or help that does not relate to the general Commons community as well as proposals, please see the other discussion boards linked in the blue panel at the top. Search archives:     Start a new discussion

#	💭 Title	💬	👥	🙋 Last editor	🕒 (UTC)
1	Data graphic resources?	5	1	Prototyperspective	2025-12-02 00:22
2	Warning for users	40	16	RoyZuo	2025-12-02 21:32
3	The Commons brochure needs an update	4	2	Jmabel	2025-11-30 06:42
4	Category:Line art without P180	20	5	ReneeWrites	2025-12-02 18:43
5	Does this photo violate Commons:Photographs of identifiable people?	12	6	Jmabel	2025-11-30 06:50
6	Italian-language help pages	3	2	Jmabel	2025-11-30 06:51
7	YouTubeBot	19	7	Omphalographer	2025-12-01 03:06
8	Video and audio plays	5	2	Doc James	2025-12-03 20:51
9	Is there a bot that adds old style interwikis to wikidata?	3	1	Immanuelle	2025-12-04 09:58
10	Straighten tool	10	5	Jmabel	2025-12-02 00:46
11	"The production, editing or release of this file was supported by the Community-Budget of Wikimedia Deutschland"	3	2	Trade	2025-11-30 06:59
12	Long political essays in file descriptions	10	3	Jmabel	2025-12-02 01:53
13	CC license with no version specified	6	4	Prototyperspective	2025-12-02 00:05
14	Ali Tur	5	4	Grand-Duc	2025-12-01 01:58
15	Flag of Nevada and an inconsistency	5	2	Jmabel	2025-12-01 00:16
16	Freedom of panorama, Norway	5	4	Jmabel	2025-12-02 00:54
17	MP3s are allowed.	7	5	Bawolff	2025-12-04 22:53
18	DEMO.MID	1	1	DanielParoliere	2025-12-04 12:32
19	Files with no machine-readable source	3	2	Schwede66	2025-12-05 00:35
20	Community Wishlist – Voting open for Commons-related Wishes!	4	2	Bawolff	2025-12-05 17:28
21	favicon.ico too dark at night	2	2	Mod creator	2025-12-05 23:17
22	Do we have a category for text files that need OCR run on them?	2	2	Samwilson	2025-12-05 23:27
23	Lat/Lon: DD vs. DMS	1	1	Jidanni	2025-12-06 01:32

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Broadwick St, Soho, London: a water pump with its handle removed commemorates Dr. John Snow's tracing of an 1854 cholera epidemic to the pump. [add]

Centralized discussion See also: Village pump/Proposals   ■ Archive Commons:Village pump/Proposals#Temporary account IP viewer policy (6 September 2025) User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands#Replace images with .svg version (5 August 2025) Category talk:Heroes' Cemetery in the Philippines#RfC: Cemetery name (18 July 2025) Discussion on Copyright law of North Korea (16 March 2025) Hosting of free fonts in Commons (18 July 2024) Template: View   ■ Discuss    ■ Edit   ■ Watch

	SpBot archives all sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=~~~~}} after 1 day and sections whose most recent comment is older than 7 days.

November 06

Data graphic resources?

Commons:Free media resources/Datagraphics is a relatively new page for databases with free data graphics like charts that could be uploaded to Commons.

It still only has few sites – do you know of any further ones?
-
Recently added this resource but it's mostly just German-language data graphics. It would be great if somebody could upload the graphics from there that aren't yet on Commons. Until now, doing so was just in my private todos but I may never get to uploading more of these. For an example, see Category:Meat Atlas which contains charts and maps about meat consumption (not just in Germany but also worldwide; translatable).

--Prototyperspective (talk) 23:22, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Seems like Eurostat could be added: according to this page The copyright for the editorial content of this website, which is owned by the EU, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. There probably are more sites like it and maybe somebody here knows of or can find more.

There also are a few files in Category:Data visualization by Statista – is there a way to search for the subset of files in Statista that are CCBY/CCBYSA?

May be good to create a Commons:Batch uploading request for these if that's anyhow possible (and it's probably possible to scrape the sites in structured ways even if they don't have APIs). For Our World in Data, the batch uploading is done semi-manually/automatically via the OWIDImporter which is linked on that page. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:03, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

I've heard NOAA is another resource for charts but I could not find a page on their site for finding and/or searching these – does somebody know? There probably are quite a few more government agencies with lots of data graphics. Prototyperspective (talk) 21:25, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

• I just added CDC Data Dashboards, Visualizations, and Query Systems – it contains lots of useful visualizations not yet on Commons; maybe somebody can upload some of them
• See also Commons:Village pump/Copyright#Are World Inequality Database data graphics in the public domain? I think it has to be removed again.
• I'm sure there must be at least some more pages of US agencies who publish data visualizations and probably also some of other countries.

Prototyperspective (talk) 15:52, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Well, I can't find and don't know of all the major resources myself. So far the page only has resources I found myself. Is there maybe a tool to scan top sources/websites of files in Category:Data graphics (especially of used files in it)? And I removed the World Inequality Database for the list and made it a permission request to ask for their data graphics to be put under a free license. Prototyperspective (talk) 00:22, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

November 08

Warning for users

Time and time again we see users trying to delete their own uploads, only to find out that they cannot do that themselves, and they can rarely convince sysops to delete for them (as the current practices show).

But this reality, the lack of utility to delete one's own content, is not communicated to the users at all. If you go through registration and every step in Special:UploadWizard, this rule is not mentioned at any point. This is a very different rule from what people can expect on any other major file hosting sites such as flickr, youtube... where users can always delete their own uploads anytime for any reason or no reason at all.

So I suggest, that this rule be clearly communicated to the users, and that there should be a write-up documenting this rule as well as its origin and rationale.--RoyZuo (talk) 20:50, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

written as i am fed up with mistreatment of fellow users as recently as Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard#c-Olga_Rithme-20251107145500-Appealing_decisions_that_contravene_a_set_of_rules.--RoyZuo (talk) 20:50, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

It is hidden in the license conditions shown on the "Learn" page at the UploadWizard and at the linked license texts. And of course it is also in the Terms of Use. We could make this more clear if we would have a definitely needed rework of this info graphic. GPSLeo (talk) 21:13, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

it is not explicitly spelled out that "you cannot delete your user-generated content" in https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy:Terms_of_Use .

when all other major websites, which also support certain "free licences" fit under wikimedia commons definitions, allow users delete their uploads, most users dont realise they cannot do the same on wikimedia commons until they want to delete something, and that this surprise is because wikimedia commons prioritises irrevocability of the licence over user experience. RoyZuo (talk) 21:34, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

I find this very clear: "e. No revocation of license: Except as consistent with your license, you agree that you will not unilaterally revoke or seek invalidation of any license that you have granted under these Terms of Use for text content or non-text media contributed to the Projects or features, even if you terminate use of our services." This in theory event forbids making a deletion request. GPSLeo (talk) 22:24, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Something this vital shouldnt be hidden in the first place at all Trade (talk) 20:23, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

This rule was clearly communicated to this user multiple times. Maybe not at the upload stage but certainly once they started filing deletion requests and had those requests denied. ReneeWrites (talk) 10:12, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

I actually broadly agree with RoyZuo on this. I've always found it weird that there is no warning in plain language in the upload process about the lack of simple deletion procedures for users uploading their own works to Commons. "License irrevocability" is quite a niche topic if you don't spend a lot of time on this and other Wiki project or work professionally in the realm of IP; many if not most people have no idea what that means or just assume it's a technical requirement akin to allowing cookies on a website. I think that's evidenced by the steady stream of users over the years who have tried at the help desk, village pump, and other forums to get their content deleted and were baffled by the idea that they had no recourse to delete their own work. There should be clear, plain language in the upload process that explains how, barring copyright questions or another legal issue and following a 7-day courtesy window, works uploaded to Commons will not be deleted at the uploader's/author's request.

And to be clear, I'm not saying it's good that so many people don't understand free licensing or the preexisting written warnings/caveats in the upload process; it just seems to be a fact. I believe we could avoid a lot of headaches by adding plainer language. But that would also probably lower the rate at which users complete the upload process, as a warning like that might scare some people off, which, if I were being cynical, I would assume is why the language has never been added (after all, who wants to be responsible for on average less content being added to Commons?). But the ethical choice appears to be better informing uploaders about the long-term deletion policies in the clearest, most non-technical language possible. 19h00s (talk) 13:26, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

I agree with this. Ymblanter (talk) 16:50, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

"works uploaded to Commons will not be deleted at the uploader's/author's request." But we already do delete works uploaded to Commons at the uploader's request. It's just not consistently Trade (talk) 20:30, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Provided the deletion is requested within 7 days after upload and the work is not currently in use on a Wikimedia-project. --Túrelio (talk) 20:53, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

We have deleted files long after 7 days several times Trade (talk) 14:30, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Sure, but that is not the rule. In such cases often the file is also out of scope and there may be further aspects. But the uploader should be communicated the valid rule, because they have a right to it. --Túrelio (talk) 15:43, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

I disagree. A lot of the files i see deleted after a week would not have survived a typical "out of scope" deletion request Trade (talk) 22:23, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

@Trade: We are allowed, but not required, to extend a courtesy. Lying to us and/or threatening legal action certainly both decrease the chance of us extending a courtesy. - Jmabel ! talk 23:03, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Can you expand on this? I believe you're hinting at a perceived double standard or deference on the part of Commons or WMF to certain users or rightsholders (or types of users/rightsholders) when they request their content be deleted, but I don't want to incorrectly assume. I think that's an important separate conversation in that we shouldn't, for example, allow large corporations to remove validly licensed content while not allowing individual authors/uploaders to do the same simply because one has more structural and financial power. But this conversation seems to be specifically about the average, or very new, user, who does not fully grasp the ramifications of their choices when freely licensing and uploading their work to Commons. Again though, I could be misinterpreting you. 19h00s (talk) 16:50, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Where do we allow large corporations to revoke their licenses? We hand mass deletions because an employee published something without the corporation having the permission from the rights holders to do so. But this is something totally different. GPSLeo (talk) 19:06, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

I was responding to Trade, asking about what they were implying with their comment about policy not being applied "consistently". I gave theoretical examples of what I believed they were implying (e.g., that there may have been deference or double standard in the way certain rightsholders' requests were handled). I never said Commons in fact does these things. 19h00s (talk) 19:32, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

I am moreso implying that some users lean heavily towards courtesy and others towards keep. Whether or not the deletion goes through is mostly dependent on which group of users decided to stumble upon the DR at the given time

At this point dealing with courtesy deletion requests is little different than using a random number generator to determine the outcome Trade (talk) 22:27, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

@19h00s while i dont know what User:Trade might actually mean, here's a separate answer to your question:

Commons:Village pump/Archive/2025/03#March 2025 update from WMF Legal on "Vogue Taiwan and possible Copyright Washing" discussion, not that long ago.

the unfortunate thing here, is that these good hearted contributors dont have money to lawyer up.

Conde Nast can get away by merely saying they made an error.

meanwhile, the absolutists here and there (Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard#c-Olga_Rithme-20251107145500-Appealing_decisions_that_contravene_a_set_of_rules) dont realise that commons users are at the most only given t&c in "browsewrap manner via hyperlinks alone" which is void as per Nguyen v. Barnes & Noble, Inc.

also, when users are never displayed the full t&c, it's probably invalid as per Specht v. Netscape Communications Corp.

and clearly, the t&c linked in the uploadwizard doesnt refer to the file uploaded, because in a single sentence it says "By clicking "publish", you agree to the terms of use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the Creative Commons CC0 License." even if you are releasing your photo in any licence other than cc0. the only logical understanding is this only explicit mention of "terms of use" here covers "your contribution" related to "captions and other additional information such as main subjects and location (NOT the file)".

so if they have a lot of money, they could quite possibly do something to have the same treatment as corporations.--RoyZuo (talk) 22:30, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm not a very sympathetic ear on the Vogue Taiwan case, as I vocally approved of deletion and still agree it was the correct decision; corporate structures are opaque for a reason, they give companies plausible deniability and legal/ownership "air-gaps" for situations just like that one, meaning our obligation to protect the project and reusers from possible (and possibly valid) litigation or damages must necessarily trump our desire to retain the content. Indeed though, Vogue Taiwan is what I thought Trade was referring to (clearly I was wrong), and I do believe we generally shouldn't let corporations with capital or power dictate our decision-making purely because they have the means to fight a legal battle. But that is a complex calculation that involves different levels of risk for WMF, Commons, and the Wiki community broadly.

On the whole though, I still completely agree that clearer language in the upload process about the slim prospects of courtesy deletion and lack of long-term deletion procedures would solve a lot of issues and prevent a lot of stress for both uploaders and Commons. 19h00s (talk) 23:34, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

and i'll end off my comments by this. what disgusts me the most, is certain users' hostility against other users and indifference to other users' needs. they choose to needlessly antagonise and bash other users instead of seeing and understanding people's needs and working kindly and gently with them.

i see this problem, i come up with this solution of a warning. those users see this problem, they bully the users in need and drive them away. technical solutions cant solve attitude problems. RoyZuo (talk) 22:30, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

 Support for the proposal to very clearly explain/state our current rules for the deletion of own uploads in the basic tutorial for new users and also during the upload-procedure. --Túrelio (talk) 20:58, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

The Commons:Upload page does have a warning (in bold even!) that licenses cannot be revoked. If people overread that part of the formular, it is their own loss.

However, I am surprised that the much-advertised Upload Wizard does not have a warning (I could find): The licensing part says currently: All media uploaded to Wikimedia Commons are free for anyone to use and share anywhere on internet or off internet. To ensure the work you upload is copyright-free, please provide the following information. (...)
That means I  Support the suggestion: Between these two sentences in the Wizard, we should add another sentence, that could read like this: "Please note that you can usually not revoke your permission later."(en), "Bitte beachte, dass du die hier gegebene Einwilligung später nur in Ausnahmefällen wiederrufen kannst." (de), "Veuillez noter que vous ne pouvez pas révoquer votre autorisation ultérieurement, que dans des cas exceptionnels." (fr) and so on. In the spirit of making the sentence less legalese, I exchanged "licence" with "permission", and kept it short. If someone is alarmed by this statement, they should stop uploading and find the relevant rules. --Enyavar (talk) 14:35, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

Concur, though "usually can not" is better English than "can usually not". - Jmabel ! talk 19:44, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

Support.✅️

I'm not sure if this is still under discussion, but I agree with @RoyZuo and others who say that this should be stated clearly in plain English on the upload page (prior to uploading). Also, deleting from the website doesn't unilaterally equate to revoking the license, contrary to what someone suggested earlier. BetsyRogers (talk) 07:53, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

Very important point. Deleting a file here does in no way whatsoever "revoke" the licence granted by the author. It simply means that the file/the work is no longer publicly available on this website - the "deleted" work itself is still under the licence originally given. ~TheImaCow (talk) 20:31, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

 Support -- Ooligan (talk) 08:55, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

I share the same view, that a user's deletion of his/her files on a website doesnt mean that s/he is revoking the licence granted to any other user re-using that file.

Suppose I upload the same photo here and on flickr under the same licence. I then want to delete only one of them, but the current situation is such that I can only delete the flickr one and keep the one here, but not the other way around. RoyZuo (talk) 08:34, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

• Haven't read all the above, sorry, but what I would like to see is a facility for contributors to be able to delete their own content for a short window (exact duration TBD) after upload. Surely this is reasonable so that mistakes can be quickly corrected. ITookSomePhotos (talk) 19:29, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
  • In practice, something quite like that that exists with {{SD|G7}}, but requiring an admin to have a chance to look at the file; I'm a bit skeptical about a feature that would make it easier for someone to pass below notice if they were doing this excessively; also, in particular, it would provide a way for someone to sneak CSAM onto our servers and possibly not get spotted doing so (not that the CSAM would be publicly visible, but that it could imaginably get WMF or others in trouble).

If it could be done with good safeguards, then I'm not opposed. - Jmabel ! talk 06:41, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Isn't this the kind of situation that Section 230 protects the foundation from? Trade (talk) 07:05, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Section 230 might or might not protect them, depending on whether it was determined that they were doing due diligence. This is exactly why we currently have a different reporting mechanism for CSAM material, and it actually gets hard-deleted, unlike other deleted content. It looks to me like the proposal would bypass that. - Jmabel ! talk 00:21, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

If this is an issue then "soft" user deletions could be reviewed by admins for hard deletion. ITookSomePhotos (talk) 10:15, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

•  Strong support: I agree that Commons' general limitation on deletion, different than any other media sharing site, is in no way sufficiently explained in the Upload Wizard or in our policies in general. But walking through the Upload Wizard today, I don't even think the CC licenses are explained sufficiently. Our license tags like {{Cc-by-sa-4.0}} have very high-level summaries of the license that are as clear and succinct as possible. The Upload Wizard seems to summarize this even further, all the way to requires the person using this media to give appropriate credit, which in no way explains to the user what they're getting into, including irrevocability. IMO the Upload Wizard should display the full text from our license tags while the user selects their license, so that they can make a fully informed decision. Consigned (talk) 13:49, 30 November 2025 (UTC)
• I  Support a clearer warning that 1. most users cannot delete their own uploads; 2. barring the first week, we do not accept deletion of files with a clear educational use and a proper license. Yann (talk) 14:10, 30 November 2025 (UTC)
  • +1 to that. - Jmabel ! talk 00:22, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
•  Support also to including a clearer warning regarding the limits/barring on deletion of uploads in the uploading process itself. - Theriocephalus ! talk 10:35, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
• I chimed in earlier but just to formalize it:  Support for a clearer/less technical warning in the upload process explicitly spelling out that most users do not have the power to delete their own uploads and that user-authored uploads will not be deleted after seven days barring copyright or scope concerns. --19h00s (talk) 22:57, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

i wrote a draft for a brief guide for newbies: Commons:Must-read for uploaders. feel free to improve. RoyZuo (talk) 21:32, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

November 11

The Commons brochure needs an update

File:Illustrating Wikipedia brochure.pdf is very outdated. Things look very different now. Maybe parts of the text need updates too but the images would be very confusing if anybody reads this.

That file is used on many pages, including en:Help:Pictures, en:Help:Files and meta:Commons brochure.

Alternatively, the document could be replaced by an entirely new up-to-date document. Note that in that case, most file-uses should probably also be changed.

See also Commons:Simple media reuse guide and Commons:Welcome. The file is of course relevant to the entire global Commons project.

Also posted this to Commons:File requests#Updated version of the Commons brochure and I suggest discussion continues there once this thread here is archived. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:25, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

The file is outdated by over a decade – it was uploaded and last revised in 2014 which in 1 week is 11 years ago. Despite of this it is and remains heavily used across Wikimedia projects, including English Wikipedia and metawiki. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:50, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

In the last 30 days, the file got 81,282 views but it shows totally outdated screenshots of Commons. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:29, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

I'll admit that, like Prototyperspective (correct me if I am wrong and you are volunteering), I am entirely in favor of someone else doing this. - Jmabel ! talk 06:42, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

November 22

Category:Line art without P180

What is the purpose of this category? And why is this category full of art that is not line art? --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:10, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

@Jerimee: this appears to be your handiwork. What's going on here? And why are thousands of images categorized as lineart that aren't? ReneeWrites (talk) 16:33, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

Hello @ReneeWrites! I appreciate your help. This hidden category houses some of the images that have SDC with instance of (P31)→line art (Q365552) and lack depicts (P180)

The category has documentation on the talk page and I'm happy to improve that documentation.

One would need a narrow definition of "line" to access hundreds of images as miscategorized in this category. I find a more broad definition to be useful, considering that there 79,327,945 files without any P31 value. Broad categories are useful; categories are as unique and numerous as the items themselves have limited utility.

That said, I did immediately find one image that was miscategorized, and I'm sure there are others. The documentation on the category talk page has a few saved queries to help in that endeavor. -- Jerimee (talk) 18:09, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

@Jerimee: it looks to me like you have also applied instance of (P31) -> line art (Q365552) very arbitrarily to etchings, few of which are line art. - Jmabel ! talk 23:42, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

@Jerimee: "I find a more broad definition to be useful". It's not about applying a broad or narrow definition, but one that is accurate. Categories exist to catalogue specific types of images so that other people have an easier time finding what they're looking for. Categories that are bloated with content that doesn't belong in them are not more useful as a result, that's why they're not used in this manner. What definition of lineart have you been applying? ReneeWrites (talk) 11:19, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

You can turn off the visibility of hidden categories. And, yes, the goal is to make the images easier to find Jerimee (talk) 15:03, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

The question was "What definition of lineart have you been applying?". I, too, would like your answer. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:04, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Do you all not remember the conversation about this nearly a year ago? Each person on this thread was also on that thread.

The category itself can't be the problem, right? There are tons of this sort of maintenance category, typically without any sort of documentation at all.

I'm at a loss as to how to help. Can you tell me what problem you're trying to solve?

As far as what I consider line art:

• Art with distinct lines
  • Typically I try to consider what the specific digital representation looks like in and of itself, and not put too much emphasis on intent or the original. The file Jmabel mentioned is a useful example because it is of low enough resolution that the lines are hopelessly blurred. So I agree it is a poor example of line work.
  • Color washes applied over line art do not typically detract from line work
  • I'm happy to explain further if it would genuinely be useful - just let me know how much detail you actually want
  • I'm not wedded to the label; I'd be happy to use anything else sufficiently broad
• Here are a number of examples: Category:Line_art_without_P180
• I've bookmarked queries here, which I consider documentation: Category_talk:Line_art_without_P180
• My motivation is to make it easier to find images, especially via SDC.
  • Commons:Structured_data
  • Commons:Structured_data/Modeling/Depiction#Level_of_detail
  • ...structured data makes it possible to use Commons' media in new ways, and makes the files on Commons much easier to view, search, edit, curate or organize, use and reuse... Commons:Structured_data/About
  • {{Search instances|Q365552}} → find instances of line art (Q365552)
• A taxonomy only works by approximating; if it were perfectly accurate it would tell you nothing. A useful system of organization requires some degree of generalization.
  • w:On_Exactitude_in_Science
  • Which, to answer User:Jmabel, is why I tend to categorize etchings as line art. Applying both values to P31 would be even better IMHO, but of course this is debated. And I'm sure there are people that would say "this is not an etching, it is an Aquatint, Sugar Lift, Spit Bite, Mezzotint, intaglio etc"
    • find instances of etching print (Q18218093) returns 14 results
    • Etchings are typically considered coincident with line art.

I don't claim the authority to define these things with perfect certainty - I'm glad we have a variety of viewpoints. Jerimee (talk) 03:47, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

I remember User talk:Jerimee#Line art, where I objected to your categorisations (I still do), and Commons:Village pump/Archive/2025/01#Line art, where you did not contribute, and which remains unresolved.

User:EncycloPetey was the only other person to comment. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:24, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

@Jerimee: I noticed that you're still adding metadata and categories to non-lineart images despite this conversation being ongoing, could you please pause your activity until this issue is resolved? ReneeWrites (talk) 14:44, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

It should have stopped in January. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:58, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

While I appreciate the thoughtful and generous nature of this proposal, I have some reservations. Rather than list all my questions out here, perhaps you could point me to some past issues you have successfully resolved? Jerimee (talk) 17:43, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Feel free to list any questions you have, that's what discussions like these are for. ReneeWrites (talk) 18:13, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

1. Can you tell me what problem you're trying to solve?
2. Perhaps you could point me to some past issues you have successfully resolved, so I can better understand how and if to participate
3. Are you speaking for yourself, or do you represent a group of editors, or do you have a special role that I should know about?
4. Am I interfering with your work in some way? I value your contributions

Jerimee (talk) 19:04, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

1: Categories exist to catalogue specific types of images so that other people have an easier time finding what they're looking for. Categories that are bloated with content that doesn't belong in them are not more useful as a result, that's why they're not used in this manner.

2: I'm a bit unsure why you're asking me specifically, since a Commons admin with long-standing experience in this area is also participating in this discussion.

3: Several other editors in this thread have also expressed frustration with your work, so it isn't just a one-to-one disagreement.

4: Does it matter? ReneeWrites (talk) 10:58, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

So should we just delete the category then? I don't really mind doing that. Jerimee (talk) 17:06, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

@Jerimee: The problem is the too-broad application of the term line art, the category is only a byproduct of that. I don't understand why "line art" became such a fixation when you yourself admit to not really knowing what it is. I saw that you're also applying other kinds of metadata where their contents are not as ambiguous, such as subject matter or the number of people it depicts. Why not continue in that area instead? Your efforts are more likely to be appreciated there. ReneeWrites (talk) 18:43, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

You don't appear to be taking this seriously.

If you don't stop voluntarily, until consensus is demonstrated, the next step will be to ask for administrative action to prevent you from continuing until it is. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:37, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Re: "I tend to categorize etchings as line art". Is there a reason for this tend? You've made assertions with no reason or authority or citations. I've looked at the relevant article on English Wikipedia, which, as a general article, is devoid of references and most of the gallery examples were added by a single individual last year without documentation. Most Wikipedias do not even have an article on "line art", and I own no good authoritative book on the taxonomies of art, but it the above reply I see no source for the taxonomy being applied, merely an appeal to inexactitude. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:49, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Certainly "line art" is a common enough term in graphics especially and in art more generally. Certainly the category makes sense in principle; the problem is that, at a quick assay, it looks to me like roughly half of what is here isn't line art. If these all have instance of (P31)→line art (Q365552), then that assertion is being made incorrectly as often as not. And while an etching can be line art, most etchings are not; they have solid areas, areas that have been etched with a wire brush where the individual lines are not under the artist's conscious control, etc. - Jmabel ! talk 16:26, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

November 25

Does this photo violate Commons:Photographs of identifiable people?

• File:Trump Is On the Epstein List (54673829027).jpg

Context: On ENWP i was told we were not allowed to use this particular photograph in any articles because it violated their BLP (specifically that of Donald Trump)

Do the Commons community share the same opinion? Keep in mind that while the photographs does not actually depict Trump per say Commons:Photographs of identifiable people still mandates that Commons are required to "consider the legal and moral rights of the subject" --Trade (talk) 03:24, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

I think it's fine to host. The image documents a protest of a very public figure, and that falls in our educational scope. It'd be a different situation if the sign targeted a relatively unknown private individual, which could violate reasonable privacy expectations and would have little to no educational value. But this is the case of a protest directed at a U.S. president (and there are little to no legal concerns here, as the right to protest is strong in the US). ~Kevin Payravi (talk) 03:58, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

I agree with Kevin. Trump is a public figure and American rights in this case are strong. This is in scope as a photograph of a protest and public reaction to the Epstein files. BLP is a Wikipedia policy, it doesn't apply as much here since Commons doesn't write biographies. Abzeronow (talk) 02:01, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

I put in the "personality rights"-template, because I thought somebody was concerned about the rights of the protesters. Wether "Trump is on the Epstein List" is a fact or an opinion can be debated, but it amuses me that in the Country of the First Amendment and where News and Entertainment are readily intermixed, anybody would make a BLP-issue, regarding Trump out of this. --Wuselig (talk) 14:34, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

No but when ENWP starts making BLP issues out of it, it's useful to figure out if Commons is going to follow in suit Trade (talk) 21:32, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

@Trade: I am sure we have many photos here on Commons that one or another wiki would not consider appropriate to use. - Jmabel ! talk 22:43, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

@Trade, Can you provide the English Wikipedia link to which you refer? -- Ooligan (talk) 16:42, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

what link Trade (talk) 16:44, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

@Trade: presumably for your statements "On ENWP i was told…" and "when ENWP starts making BLP issues out of it…", but neither links to anything specific. - Jmabel ! talk 07:35, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Thanks Jmabel. @Trade, Please, provide a link(s) to what you wrote at the beginning of this thread above:

• "Context: On ENWP i was told we were not allowed to use this particular photograph in any articles because it violated their BLP (specifically that of Donald Trump) Do the Commons community share the same opinion?"

-- Ooligan (talk) 07:47, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Jeffrey Epstein client list Scrolls down and you can see the context the file was being used--Trade (talk) 22:28, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

@Trade: I don't see anything there about whether having the photo on en-wiki (let alone on Commons) is a BLP violation. The discussion seems to be about what photos do and do not belong in a particular article, Jeffrey Epstein client list. Most of the discussion seems to be about political balance. If you see something in the discussion that suggests that hosting the image would be a problem, could you please quote it directly? - Jmabel ! talk 06:50, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

November 26

Italian-language help pages

Very confusing that Commons:Primi passi is completely different from Commons:First steps/it, which has the title "Primi passi". - Jmabel ! talk 00:38, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Same as your question from June regarding the Czech version. I think that it should be corrected globally. — Draceane ^talk_contrib. 12:53, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

And the global correction would consist of…? - Jmabel ! talk 06:51, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

November 27

YouTubeBot

Per Trade's report above (mistakenly about Schlurcherbot): for File:Lil bitch (Markiplier video).webm, YouTubeBot appears to have added a value for published in (P1433) that creates a constraint error. - Jmabel ! talk 07:03, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

The error constraint was introduced through this edit from @Trade: [1]. So first we should clarify if this is needed or rater be removed again. I think the restrictions should be removed, as YouTubeBot additions seem fully valid. Nothing that SchlurcherBot is not doing this, but as I got pinged, I share my opinion. --Schlurcher (talk) 08:44, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

@Trade Is the idea of the constraint that YouTube is considered a hosting platform instead of a publisher ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:05, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Did anyone actually consulted with the Wikidata community to find out if it's correct to treat YouTube treated as a publisher? If not, then changing the property just to fit the whims of Commons is hardly appropriate

Almost all properties exist to facilitate the modeling of items on Wikidata as the community have decided. Their usage on other Commons is completely secondary to that Trade (talk) 11:11, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Was this constaint needed on Wikidata and where was this discussed on Wikidata? --Schlurcher (talk) 11:15, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Considering people keep insisting that social media websites are actually the publisher of every media users post on their website apparently so

4.150 days ago. Trade (talk) 11:22, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Looking at the sequence of events, YouTubeBot inserted the "published in" claim on 2 June 2025 (at the time this was a valid edit). Trade added a new constraint for "YouTube" on 29 August 2025 (thus retroactively making YouTubeBot's edit a constraint violation). The suggestion that YouTubeBot's editor failed to communicate with the "Wikidata community" to ensure the original edit was valid is unrealistic. Expecting an editor to predict that a valid edit will become invalid at some point in the future and requiring them to consult with an unspecified person before making an edit will never work. YouTubeBot and its operator have done nothing wrong here, though it may be worth engaging with the operator now so they can decide what to do about this new constraint (either to abide by it or engage in discussion if they think the constraint should change). Courtesy ping to @DaxServer as YouTubeBot's operator.

As Trade is the one to change the property, I am not sure what they mean by "Did anyone actually consulted with the Wikidata community to find out if it's correct to treat YouTube treated as a publisher? If not, then changing the property just to fit the whims of Commons is hardly appropriate" - who on Commons has made this change without consulting the "Wikidata community"? Schlurcher commented on Trade's edit and Trade was pinged to engage in discussion about it. That appears to be the Commons community "consulting" with the relevant parts of the "Wikidata community." From Hill To Shore (talk) 17:43, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping @From Hill To Shore. I've just stopped the bot. I haven't read the conversation yet, but will do over the weekend. -- DaxServer (talk) 17:48, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

@DaxServer: As I understood from below, I think the suggestion is to use published in (P1433) → YouTube website (Q110227693) (an instance of website) instead of published in (P1433) → YouTube (Q866) (an instance of video streaming service). --Schlurcher (talk) 20:08, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

No; the suggestion is that P1433 should not be used on YouTube videos at all. YouTube website (Q110227693) denotes the web interface to YouTube (e.g. its user interface, help pages, etc), not a conceptual collective work consisting of every video which has ever been uploaded to the service. Omphalographer (talk) 07:27, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

In that case, some are incorrectly used (sparql query). Flickr should also not be a valid claim? -- DaxServer (talk) 10:00, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

True. Flickr is closer to one of the photo-sharing subreddits on Reddit than it is to an actual work in of itself. The issue arises when we keep trying to pretend there is no difference between a book publisher and a social media website, despite things like Section 230 being explicitly based around the existence of that differentiation. Of course as some might point out there's nothing grammatically wrong with saying that a video was published on YouTube or Flickr but if i were a photographer and told people that "Flickr is my publisher" or "i am being published by Flickr" you can see how weird that would sound Trade (talk) 21:46, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

And P1433 wouldn't even be used for the publisher of a book. It's intended for situations like a short story or poem being published in a collection or a song being published in a record album, where a specific work is published as part of a larger but well-defined work. A web site like YouTube or Flickr isn't such a work; it's a diffuse and unfathomably large collection which changes from minute to minute. Omphalographer (talk) 03:06, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

I mentioned that file because Jmabel explicitly asked me for an example. At no point did i claimed that Schlurcher failed to communicate with the Commons community about edits solely to that file specifically Trade (talk) 21:42, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Have you read the description of the property or the property proposal? I can try and elaborate if you are still confused what the issue is Trade (talk) 10:58, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

I did (highlight by me): larger work that a given work was published in, like a journal, a website, a collection, a book or a music album. --Schlurcher (talk) 11:11, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

A change to the description which was added by a WMF banned user without any discussion and which has only existed half a year out of the 8 years the property have existed Trade (talk) 11:23, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

This is also completely disingenuous from you. The constraint doesn't prevent websites from being publishers at all. It only stops YouTube and Twitch. Both the name, the description and the property proposal itself explicitly talks about larger works that a given work was published in. YouTube is not a work and they do not the videos on their website (unless we are talking about YouTube of course but none of that is freely licenses anyways) Trade (talk) 12:02, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Got it, thanks. --Schlurcher (talk) 20:09, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

November 28

Video and audio plays

Hey All, we at Wiki Med funded software to record how many times a video or audio file has been played and how much of the file gets played. It is live for all users on EU WP currently.[2] Is this something the Commons community would be interested in?

To activate one needs to add to this MediaWiki:Common.js this script[3]. The code itself being here User:Yaron Koren/tmh-engagement.js

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:15, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Interesting! How does this compare to the mediaviews tool? Example

Also see the wishes Analytics missing on Wikimedia Commons and Add view count to videos in the Community Wishlist. Which stats MVC displays seems to be a topic on the talk pages. m:Wiki Loves Broadcast about Category:Videos by Terra X for example claims Over 90% of [the more than 350 videos] have found their way into Wikipedia articles, raking in more than 3 million views a month – is this statement false? Prototyperspective (talk) 00:17, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

User:Prototyperspective So the mediaviewer tool is simply listing the number of times the page with the video on it has been loaded. Please note that with lazy load this can be lower than the actual views of the page as on mobile the entire page may not be loaded and thus the video may not be loaded. It is not the number of times the video has had the play button hit. What we have built is the ACTUAL plays and than how much of the video is watched. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:59, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

I suspected this and also user(s) claimed this was the case, if I remember correctly, on the talk pages of the two linked wishes. However, I could never find any confirmation of this.

It would be better if the media views tool explained this and I wonder why it doesn't. On the information page of file pages, it's linked to as "Mediaviews Analysis on Toolforge" and that title and the tool name suggest it's plays when it comes to audio & video files. Maybe the subheader at the tools page is supposed to explain it – it says "Comparison of media requests across multiple files".

Thanks a lot for your involvement in getting this tool developed; I think the two wishes should get the status changed to 'In progress' and then once the tool shows play from all the projects and can be accessed from the info page from all or all big projects to 'Delivered'. I was slightly alienated by seeing various claims about x number of views of the public broadcast videos I mentioned (such as in the Q&A in this video and the WLB pages) as I suspected these numbers are inaccurate and would soon edit the pages to clarify that these are just the views of the articles and that we don't know the number of plays.

If the tool only shows the plays originating from a few Wikipedias, it's not yet very useful – it really needs to show all or nearly all plays regardless of where the play originated.

By the way, I hope that low view-counts for high-quality and educationally useful videos and audios (an example for the latter are spoken Wikipedia audios) will hopefully raise understanding of the importance of good indexing in Web search engines (e.g. until recently Google, didn't show videos in the Videos tab even when searching for the exact title of a video on Commons) as well as having a good modern audio player, better visibility of audio files like audio versions of Wikipedia articles, better linking to Commons on Wikipedia (category link and further media and direct linking to Commons file page), and other things like that. Seeing media playcounts can be motivating to contributors (note: I doubt many contributors and visitors will find the link if it will again only be on the Tools page). Prototyperspective (talk) 18:43, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Yup the tool is still under development. Activating it here on Commons would be useful. Will start an RFC eventually. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:51, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

November 29

Is there a bot that adds old style interwikis to wikidata?

I made a lot of categories with interwikis with the intention of them being linked on wikidata. However I am concerned this might not actually work this way. Is there a bot like EmausBot that does the thing? Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 10:00, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Specifically it is subcategories of Category:Toki Pona logograms by word which all have interwikis to toki pona wikipedia. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 11:06, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

It is not working if it does exist Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 09:58, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Straighten tool

Hello, is there a rotate/straighten tool for images somewhere? If not, can I request one please! ITookSomePhotos (talk) 19:26, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

There is a tool. There should be a "Request rotation" link underneath the image. If not, you might need to activate the Gadget in your settings. Nakonana (talk) 19:51, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Or it might work via inserting {{Rotate}}. Nakonana (talk) 19:53, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, unfortunately it isn't what I'm looking for. Rotate through 90, 180, 270 degrees, fine, but otherwise no, it's impossible (or impractical) to know exactly how many degrees (probably not even a whole number) to e.g. get the horizon level. It needs something interactive. I have a photo editor on my PC that does this fine, but this involves downloading and then re-uploading, which is a disincentive to fixing e.g. sloping horizons when I encounter them. An interactive tool in-Wiki would be highly useful. ITookSomePhotos (talk) 20:15, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

@ITookSomePhotos: CropTool can do arbitrary rotation without having to download. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:42, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! May I strongly recommend that this feature is renamed "Crop/Straighten tool" or "Crop/Rotate tool", at least in the "Tools" menu. I looked through the options on that menu, but there is no indication that it includes this capability. ITookSomePhotos (talk) 10:44, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

"Straighten" seems to me like a poor choice if this were to be renamed; in graphics editing tools that tends to be the name of a tool for fixing warped images, not for doing small (or large) rotations. What in "rotate" for the name of a tool implies that is only does multiples of 90 degrees? - Jmabel ! talk 00:27, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

"rotate" isn't in the name of the tool. It's simply labelled "CropTool", with no indication that it can do rotate, or straighten, or whatever we want to call it. ITookSomePhotos (talk) 10:06, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

 Support Good point and I agree. It wouldn't be an issue imo if that info was in the gadget description but currently it only says A tool for cropping images at Wikimedia Commons. Runs at Toolforge and uses OAuth for authorization to upload the cropped image under your username.. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:59, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Agree that adding "rotate" to the description would be great; oppose adding "straighten". - Jmabel ! talk 00:46, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

November 30

"The production, editing or release of this file was supported by the Community-Budget of Wikimedia Deutschland"

{{Offene Kurzbahnmeisterschaften des Landesschwimmverbandes Brandenburg 2018}}

Is there a way we can most these Wikimedia Deutschland templates to a different category?

I'm not a fan of how much these type of templates are currently cluttering Category:Non-copyright restriction templates making actual restriction templates harder to find. These are not actual restriction templates like {{Islamic terrorism symbol}} is. They are just a collection of already existing templates with some flavor text for context Trade (talk) 03:21, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

I think embedding the personality rights template into a photo project template should generally never be done. They need to be separate templates. GPSLeo (talk) 06:33, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Generally speaking do we really want templates that contain no original content and are just two other templates combined? Trade (talk) 06:59, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Long political essays in file descriptions

This is something I came across, looking for an example when I was answering at Special:PermanentLink/1123210716#NPOV. I was expecting to find examples of where long political essays in file descriptions were removed; in fact, they were sitting there, not removed from numerous (maybe all?) photos in the following categories:

• Category:Solidarity protest for Palestine in London (11 November 2023)
• Category:Solidarity protest for Palestine in London (14 October 2023)
• Category:Solidarity protest for Palestine in London (21 October 2023)
• Category:Solidarity protest for Palestine in London (28 October 2023)
• Category:Solidarity protest for Palestine in London (4 November 2023)
• Category:Solidarity protest for Palestine in London (9 October 2023)
• (and doubtless in many other similar categories)

At least the bulk of this was uploaded from Flickr, and features the excellent photography of Alisdare Hickson, but also his lengthy political essays that are only tangentially connected to the individual photos. We've been through this before: a mass DR a few years back led to removing or radically truncating the texts on over 50 of his images. (Further followup to that at Commons:Village pump/Archive/2023/05#Category:Photographs by Alisdare Hickson.) I believe we should do the same for all of these. I'm not volunteering to take it on, though, I put several hours into this last time, and that was more than my share. When I did it last time, I tried to actually write descriptions of what the photos showed, and add useful categories, but I don't necessarily think that removing these essays has to be accompanied by all of that. - Jmabel ! talk 07:11, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

You worried people might treat the descriptions as endorsements by Wikimedia? Trade (talk) 21:28, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

In part, and also that we set a precedent for hosting political essays in general. While COM:What Commons is not does not spell that out in so many words, it would seem to be part of the intent there. More pointedly, in Commons:Project scope/Neutral point of view: "neutrality of description should be aimed at wherever possible": political essays that fail to actually describe the content of the file seem quite far from that. - Jmabel ! talk 00:33, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Seems very implicit that it's referring to descriptions created and written by Commons editors Trade (talk) 13:50, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

References to "author" can refer to people on Commons or original file/description authors off-site. There might be an assumption that the author is someone on Commons, but it's not implied by the text itself. ReneeWrites (talk) 16:34, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

@Trade: so are you saying that if I upload a photo to Flickr, write a political essay there tangentially related to the photo, and then copy that to Commons (or another editor copies that to Commons) that would be fine? Seems to me like a loophole big enough to drive a truck through. - Jmabel ! talk 00:49, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

What i am saying is that the file description can be used for more than one purpose Trade (talk) 01:28, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

@Trade: Certainly it can be used for more than one purpose. Are you saying that including a political essay is a valid purpose? - Jmabel ! talk 01:35, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Do you believe that was A1Cafel's intention?Trade (talk) 01:36, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

This was not a criticism of A1Cafel's (or anyone else's) conduct, which is why I made no mention of who uploaded these, but now that you've mentioned them it seems only decent to link so that they may weigh in. This is about Commons' content, not about a user's behavior. - Jmabel ! talk 01:53, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

CC license with no version specified

What should I do when a CC BY-SA license has no version specified? For example, here it really is freely licensed, but there's no version indicated. The {{Cc-by-sa}} template isn't very... let's say, encouraging. Yacàwotçã (talk) 08:16, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

@Yacàwotçã: have you considered contacting the author of the image to resolve it? —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 11:30, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

This source[4] links to the cc-by-sa-4.0 license. I'll update it. -Nard (Hablemonos) (Let's talk) 17:36, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! Yacàwotçã (talk) 20:37, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Yes, it was an option, but I'd say it would be the last one if the answers here weren't good. Fortunately a valid source was found, so it's no longer necessary. I prefer not to rely on academics' willingness to reply to emails, based on personal experience, although his father was very helpful. Yacàwotçã (talk) 20:37, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

I think in such cases, it's simply whatever is the latest version of the license at the point the file was released. However, I couldn't find a source that answers your question right now – I think I read that somewhere. There is not much of a difference I think. This question should definitely be answered in the FAQ but doesn't seem to be. Prototyperspective (talk) 00:05, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Ali Tur

Hello everybody! Just one question; if the arts of architect Ali Tur are panorama free or not? I already asked for this on french wikipedia, but without reply... Thanks for your help. Tournasol7 (talk) 21:42, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Read COM:FOP France. Nemoralis (talk) 22:11, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

It also depends on the country they are in. In France, they are not free. Ymblanter (talk) 22:56, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I know that in France is not freedom panorama, but on Commons we have a lot of photos of Ali Tur buildings. So mayb it was some agreement? Tournasol7 (talk) 01:50, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Well, the architect died in 1977, long before any thoughts about and development of free licenses. I would be really surprised if there are some licensing agreements between his heirs and any entity affiliated with the Wikimedia movement. Rather, I tend to think that the Guadeloupe imagery for instance was either uploaded in disregard to architectural IP rights or under reliance on the assumption that the buildings aren't above any relevant COM:TOO. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 01:58, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

December 01

Flag of Nevada and an inconsistency

Recently, it has come to my attention that the Flag of Nevada uploaded here contain the incorrect colors in its field, scroll, sagebrush, flowers, and most importantly: the star. Per the NRS Chapter 235, the design of the flag "must be of solid cobalt blue." It also specifies the color of the star to be silver (per the state's official nickname, "The Silver State"). In addition to how the colors should be interpreted (even though there's no official enforcement, however I believe it was always wrong), The design of "The scroll and the word “Nevada” must be golden-yellow. The lettering on the scroll must be black-colored sans serif gothic capital letters." According to various different versions, those scrolls have the font "Samdan", per this page on DaFont. However, according to the current version hosted here, it uses "Helvetica Neue" (which is also what the first iteration of the Clark County flag used, per a low quality image found on the CRW flags website.)

Now, my question I'd like to ask is: Should we replace the long, outstanding file with the iteration I uploaded, or do a delete move instance for moving my said file to the "Flag of Nevada" destination and move that file to a different name? This is something that had been recently bothering me, and as a Nevadan, it upsets me that the flag uploaded on here was never really the actual state flag. It was always wrong in color. ₘₒd cᵣₑₐₜₒᵣ ✰ ʜᴀʙʟᴀ ⍟ コントリビューション 00:21, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Update: The Samdan font style is actually not considered to be part of the flag code, it's just how some flag manufacturers interpret that. It's always Helvetica Neue for both "BATTLE BORN" and "NEVADA", as that typeface does meet the "Gothic sans-serif" design. ₘₒd cᵣₑₐₜₒᵣ ✰ ʜᴀʙʟᴀ ⍟ コントリビューション 03:00, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

• Just an aside: I can't readily find the flag as such anywhere on the state's own site; I expect the image on page 10 of https://dhcfp.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/dhcfpnvgov/content/Providers/Informational%20Medicaid%20Managed%20Care%20Expansion%20Webinar%20Presentation.pdf has the same lineage as our old file.
• I'm sure you are correct about the star; less certain about the particular yellow, where did you get that?
• No opinion on how we should handle the file move. This sort of thing can be tricky, because if we do it by a pair of moves, we have to be careful not to do a "move and replace." - Jmabel ! talk 03:59, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

  The yellow actually comes from the second version of the Flag of Nevada file: [5], and while the CRW website does have the yellow on the flag, it's not that exact yellow. I hope that is clarified. ₘₒd cᵣₑₐₜₒᵣ ✰ ʜᴀʙʟᴀ ⍟ コントリビューション 23:40, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Un-archived because the question in the second paragraph was never resolved. - Jmabel ! talk 00:16, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Freedom of panorama, Norway

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Copyright_rules_by_territory/Norway#Freedom_of_panorama I believe this is wrong. According to the Norwegian Copyright Act (Åndsverkloven) § 23 (1), works of art that are permanently placed in or at a public space may be freely depicted, unless to be used commercially. This means that photographing and publishing such images is permitted without obtaining permission from the rights holder. Source: Åndsverkloven (Copyright Act) § 23 (1).

Because of how this has been interpreted, I've noticed that photos of a few public artworks/statues have been unnecessarily deleted. Birdesigns (talk) 13:34, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

"unless to be used commercially" exactly means that we can not host the images. Ymblanter (talk) 14:51, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Per Commons:Licensing: Wikimedia Commons only accepts free content, that is, images and other media files that are not subject to copyright restrictions which would prevent them being used by anyone, anytime, for any purpose. --Rosenzweig τ 15:04, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

I’m commenting on my own post to point out that Norwegian law / the Copyright Act distinguishes between commercial use (press, magazines, merchandise) – which is allowed – and advertising – which is not. I was not aware (as I should have been) that Commons doesn't make this exception/distinction. Birdesigns (talk) 17:18, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

@Birdesigns: Can you cite something that substantiates that distinction?

I'm not sure where that distinction, if valid, leaves us. We've accepted the equivalent for pictures in the U.S. as a personality rights issue (hence non-copyright); however, this seems to be more of a true copyright matter than that. - Jmabel ! talk 00:54, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

December 03

MP3s are allowed.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template_talk%3AAbusefilter-warning-mp3#mp3_format_is_allowed.

Please turn off the warning. Jidanni (talk) 11:50, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

@Jidanni: It's apparently restricted to users with autopatrol. -- Asclepias (talk) 12:45, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Maybe someone from the Mediawiki Foundation could turn it off? Jidanni (talk) 01:45, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

@Jidanni Per Commons:File types#MP3, MP3 are only allowed to be uploaded by users with the autopatrol (or higher) right. This restriction was introduced by a RFC on Commons, so this isn't something we can just "turn it off". So, please use another acceptable file type, such as ogg, or consider applying for autopatrol right at COM:RFR. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 02:12, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

@Jidanni: Can you discuss what kind of mp3s you wish to upload? Sound recordings can be tricky copyright-wise. Abzeronow (talk) 02:28, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

At least someone should fix the tiny box in Phab:T411579 so people can read the message! Jidanni (talk) 06:45, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I guess the issue is that MediaWiki:Abusefilter-warning-mp3 is using table based layout Bawolff (talk) 22:53, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

December 04

DEMO.MID

Good afternoon! I found this file titled DEMO.MID on the Olidata Recovery Disk for Windows ME, which I actually don't know what famous 90s MIDI software it came from... Could you help me? Thank you! DanielParoliere (talk) 12:32, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Files with no machine-readable source

I cannot see a difference in the source data between File:David Ogilvie 23.jpg and File:David Ogilvie 24.jpg. Yet, the #24 file pulls through a source in the information template, whilst the #23 file does not. Hence, the #23 file gets put into the Files with no machine-readable source category. Can anyone work out what's going on, please? Schwede66 22:57, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

@Schwede66: The one that works uses described at URL (P973) where the one that does not uses work available at URL (P953). - Jmabel ! talk 00:25, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting the difference, Jmabel. I thought I was going mad. Schwede66 00:35, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Community Wishlist – Voting open for Commons-related Wishes!

Recently, voting was enabled in the Community Wishlist. It's the successor to the prior Wishlist Surveys and unlike these runs indefinitely. It's a place for the global Wikimedia community/ies to submit feature proposals, ideas for innovations, and requests to get important bugs fixed.

There are many Commons-related wishes in the Wishlist so I'd like to call on you all to browse the wishes, read the ones you find interesting and vote on the ones you find important. Better to not postpone it. Here's some I'd like to highlight after having read all of the 410+ wishes:

• Show categories on mobile – categories on files are very useful but if you use a smartphone to access Commons like around half of users, you can't see them
• Open the Wikimedia Commons file page directly – when opening an image on Wikipedia, it doesn't open a Commons page (the file page) but shows a intermediary Wikipedia page that does not have the categories; this means we get far fewer visits and far fewer people learn about Commons
• A proper audio player – e.g. up-to-date audio versions of Wikipedia articles can be provided now for many articles and could probably double Wikipedia reads but only with a modern player & well-visible audio
• Do something about Google & DuckDuckGo search not indexing media files and categories on Commons – after some work on this videos on Commons are showing in Google's Videos tab but there's more

.

• Add machine translated category titles on WMC – titles are short and by translating them people searching the Web in their own language can also find the Commons cats
• Add a date range filter to Special:MediaSearch
• Suggest media set in Wikidata items for their Wikipedia articles – if you find good media on Commons, just add it once to the WD item and it can trickle down into the Wikipedias
• Video & audio chapters (jump to timestamp)
• When searching Commons, if there is a category with same or very similar title, show a hint/link
• In Commons category deepcategory view mode (wall of images), allow easily filtering offtopic subcats – basically what is needed for a wall-of-images view for categories including subcategory contents
• A way to see why a file is somewhere underneath a specific category (tool to show cat-path)
• Support full colour 3D models on Wikimedia projects – currently it's only STL files without textures
• When searching Commons, under "Categories and Pages" show the category for the search term – basically search results are bad if you look for category/ies, not galleries
• …

• 
  How the audio player could look (bottom panel) after clicking play (desktop)
• 
  audio player for a Spoken Wikipedia audio via audio-chapters (mobile)
• 
  Video on Commons now showing in Google (success)
• 
  Opening an image on Wikipedia in a new tab or with this button does not show the Commons page

If you have questions about any wishes there, ask on the wish talk pages or check if things have already been clarified there. Currently, software development by the WMF is rather low but maybe that changes in the future so voting can still have an impact. You could also name some wishes you find important but weren't mentioned here.

There also is a tag for wishes called 'Multimedia and Commons' by which you can filter the table. Alternatively, you could enable this script and use the category page. However, note that some wishes relevant to Commons don't have the tag because they relate to basically all projects.

The wishlist is based on a new MediaWiki extension. In this Wishlist, there are 'focus areas' which used to be the only things you could vote on until recently. You could additionally vote on these, especially the focus area most related to Commons:

• Focus area 8: Media formats, editing, and display

Prototyperspective (talk) 23:32, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I think people underestimate how many of these are political wishes not technical ones. Sometimes I feel like people feel they are powerless due to lack of technical know how, but so many of these are stuck on either getting everyone to agree or hammering out ambigious details, which is something anyone can in theory do. e.g. Show category on mobile - would take 10 seconds to change, the real issue is the mobile team came to the unfathomable conclusion that it would be a bad thing. Open image pages on commons. Also pretty easy, i think that one is stuck on most people not caring one way or another, of course the real question is how does this play with media viewer. Machine translation of titles sounds pretty spicy (My personal view is that this is the wrong solution to a real problem). Anyways, 90% of the battle is figuring out what you want and convincing everyone else to agree. Bawolff (talk) 06:53, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

how many of these are political wishes not technical ones. I don't know if you're referring to the wishes in this Wishlist in general or the wishes I linked or a mix – if the second, wishes that aren't about technical changes but about policy-changes get archived there. Some haven't yet been archived but I think by now all of these have comments on the talk page basically asking for it to be archived. It's relatively few that haven't yet been archived. political wishes not technical ones when you say that, you claim they're only "political" – but they rather have political/policy/group-decision-making aspects. Often, these aspects are already elaborated in the wish or on its talk page. If not, I suggest you add the info there. Ultimately, wishes are about getting certain things done / problems solved. If there's also political things that need addressing or be done, then wish creators and supporters are certainly interested in discussing these there and getting them done as well.

• so many of these are stuck on either getting everyone to agree or source? I think they're stuck because there's very little software development and apparently relatively little interest to do any of the many things that could be done to increase it. Only some are stuck on these as well but obviously things like that don't get solved by themselves but need the political aspects to be clarified and then addressed. If 30% of wishes were implemented, one finds another 40% to be infeasible or quite unimportant, then it would be much easier and flow naturally to narrow in on the remaining 30% to find which of these are stuck on political issues and then work on addressing these. This is how I'd imagine the impact of more software development: as WMF would solve more critical bugs, boring but important issues, and more issues in general, people get freed up to and can dive more into suggested innovations and extend Wikimedia. The first step is more development.
• …or hammering out ambigious details That's why I always tried to include potential solution(s) in the wishes and add ideas on how to solve it to the talk pages of wishes that don't have such technical info despite that the wishlist is/was intended to be problem-focused. More details can be hashed out on the talk pages in regards to how things could be done in practice. I also had one user mail me, saying they're developing a script that aims to solve one of the wishes. Details don't get hammered out by themselves, it needs people to think about them and discuss them – this is what the wishes and their talk pages are for too.
• would take 10 seconds to change, the real issue is the mobile team came to the unfathomable conclusion that it would be a bad thing Exactly! So they should do it. It has been asked for many times, the community certainly wants it – it has been the top #1 wish of the Commons Technical survey, is a heavily-followed code issue, and was the top #3 supported wish in the 2023 global Wikimedia Community Wishlist survey. The WMF just ignores it and doesn't even feel the need to give any explanation why they are doing so (they didn't even say that they concluded this). Afaik, they only said Unfortunately, our key partner, the Web team, will not tackle this wish now. The importance of categories to readers must be researched further to prioritize this wish instead of other pending wishes. I strongly disagree with that. Moreover, if they want to do further research before implementing this, then do it.
• Also pretty easy, All the better. So it should rank high on feasibility and ease of implementing. on most people not caring one way or another Hence the wish and the ability to support it. Wikimedia community often shoots itself in the foot. Here we're keeping Commons down for no reason. If you like Commons to be better known and used more + wikilink in file descriptions to not be redlinks + categories to show on file pages at least when on desktop, then I strongly suggest users support this wish. However, most users aren't much aware of this and haven't thought about it. I don't know why you say this as if it was a caveat or downside of the wish: that it may be easy to implement is an advantage and that people in your mind don't care about it, is basically the point of the wish. the real question is how does this play with media viewer No, that's not the real question. Why would it? If you think things like that, I always suggest you (also) raise it on the wish talk page where it potential issues can be addressed. The MediaViewer actually does link to the Commons file page directly – it works how it should. One clicks the "More details" button and it takes you to the Commons file page. It's just that the other file links haven't been adjusted.
• Anyways, 90% of the battle is figuring out what you want and convincing everyone else to agree If this hypothesis was true, then nearly all top 15 wishes of the past years' wishlists would have been implemented. It's far from that. Either way, the wishes – including the voting and the talk page discussions – are one part of that.

Thanks for your feedback; basically maybe the political aspects are underestimated (which imo would suggest that the impact of votes & discussions are also underestimated). Prototyperspective (talk) 13:12, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm just sad how it feels like things have devolved to the community begging WMF for tidbits. I guess that is the natural consequence of more and more development happening by WMF instead of being more community oriented. I do think (with the exception of the mobile category one) that the higher you get on the wishlist the more technical and less political things become, because to make it to the top of the vote list, you need more universal agreement to get everyone to vote for it. Bawolff (talk) 17:28, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

December 05

favicon.ico too dark at night

https://commons.wikimedia.org/favicon.ico is too dark on dark themed browsers. Possibly due to transparency. Jidanni (talk) 03:23, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

it just depends on which type of browser, like Opera, Brave, Firefox, Edge, etc. Because I use chrome, I have no problem with it. ₘₒd cᵣₑₐₜₒᵣ ✰ ʜᴀʙʟᴀ ⍟ コントリビューション 23:17, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Do we have a category for text files that need OCR run on them?

Do we have a category for text files that need OCR run on them? RAN (talk) 23:17, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): Yes, Category:Needing transcription is that, I think. It's added with {{Transcribe here}}. Sam Wilson 23:27, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

December 06

Lat/Lon: DD vs. DMS

Maybe there should be a preference setting, that shows every coordinate pair, in the format preferred by the user.

So if I write {{Location|24.17|120.72}} it will show up in DD, not DMS. Not just for Template:Location, but everywhere, and for all Wikimedia wikis too. Jidanni (talk) 01:32, 6 December 2025 (UTC)