I've been going through the requests for people to become license reviewers and noticed how extremely stringent people are about ensuring that a person understands every nuance of copyright law before they can be a license reviewer. Sometimes presenting massive lists for prospective reviewers to go through and show they understand copyright violations, and then still failing them anyway when they get them all right because people are skeptical that they "really" get copyright law.

The point of being a license reviewer is not supposed to be that you certify that an item is 100% free of copyright violations. It is supposed to be that you have confirmed it was uploaded under another license elsewhere, as a record to prove that it was available in case the item is later deleted or the license is changed.

For more evidenced rationale, consider that we created the FlickrReviewerBot to do this with Flickr uploads. Basically create an instant record of proof in case the item is later modified or deleted. It has no ability to evaluate if the upload is a copyright violation. Similarly, we don't require every upload to be reviewed. Someone could just as easily upload the same copyright violation here under a creative commons license, and it would never need a license review at all.

I think we should really reconsider what we expect of license reviewers. Considering we have such a massive backlog of items needing a review, our current system clearly isn't working. This isn't saying we allow copyright violations, others can still nominate an item for deletion (including the license reviewer themself), but rather that we should expect a license reviewer to do what their name says: just review that it was uploaded under the correct license, not catch every copyvio. Aplucas0703 (talk) 17:25, 22 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

As one of the people who is engaged in inventing test questions for prospective license reviewers: You, Aplucas0703 rightly noticed a huge lack of manpower. But I steadfastly think that moving on to reduce the expectations about LR work is a wrong move, simply shifting the issues downstream.

We must be lucky in that a small amount of files get a human review at all, so, when a reviewer actually touches a file, nobody can think that that file will get looked at again after them. So, this unique check has to be thorough, encompassing observances of COM:FOP, COM:TOO, legitimate derivatives, AI slop and Commons' scope. Especially the first 2 points, being copyright-related, entail the need for sufficiently deep knowledge about the subjects.

Making human reviewers do the same thing as the Flickr review bot, mechanically confirming licenses and disregarding other circumstances, is factually advocating for deliberately neglecting copyvios. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 18:37, 22 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

I partly agree that this somewhat advocates for neglecting copyvios, but only in the if we were already reviewing all of the files needing a license review. The fact that they aren't being reviewed right now essentially means that we've decided to both neglect copyvios and neglect license reviews. I think this argument is fine in an ideal situation where the license reviews have a very small backlog and are easily maintained by current reviewers.

If these license reviews are so incredibly valuable for checking for copyvios, then we should deactivate the Flickr reviewer bot by the same logic.

Your argument really only works if we're maintaining our current backlog, which we aren't. We're neglecting copyvios either way, it's just that now we've decided to also neglect license reviewing. I tagged an image I uploaded for a license review almost 2 years ago. No review yet. Aplucas0703 (talk) 20:26, 22 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

There was an incomplete template in File:Kalen Allen in 2017.png, it somehow lacked the video ID. I fixed that while making the review, Special:Diff/1129644856/1135218179; but such incomplete review templates may deter some reviewers.

We're IMO not neglecting copyvios by letting a backlog grow, as the marking of an outstanding review signalises that a check is assumed necessary but not done yet. So, any copyvio hidden in that backlog is not neglected, but simply unknown (that is an important caveat, as any hosting provider privilege or DMCA-style laws usually requires previous knowledge of violations to make someone liable for them). Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 21:51, 22 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

No wonder that the backlogs grew... I just spend nearly half an hour while reviewing only 3 files from assumed problematic queues (tasks and reasons in parentheses):

• File:1969 - làng tị nạn người Thượng (9680602234).jpg (translating the file name, thinking, wording a DR)
• File:17th Field Ambulance with horse drawn ambulances World War I (48114647937).jpg (trying to identify the unit with Google, thinking about the case, deciding that it's likely a British unit based upon my googling, researching the correct Crown Copyright tag)
• File:(V-2) rocket engines in an assembly workshop at the Mittelwerke underground secret factory in a mountain range near Nordhause 1944. (48479649481).jpg (looking up potentially relevant tags, in that case, the {{PD-US-alien property}} of which I knew the existence but not the exact spelling. In fact, Google was faster than going through the tag categories by myself... Still, sent it to DR for quality assurance)

Then, there's a huge backlog of audio and video files that you just can't review everywhere, as you need to actually hear the audio. And it's time consuming too, you can't make a sound check (pun not intended...) without going to several positions in the multimedia file (to catch possibly protected background or stage decorations or protected audio not perceptible at the file's beginning).

These examples may serve why license reviewers must have a good understanding of these reviewing tasks and copyrights. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 23:02, 22 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think these are perhaps good reasons to rethink it. The fact that we basically expect license reviewers to sit down and listen to hour long audio clips before doing what they're actually supposed to -- check that it was uploaded under the correct license -- is contributing to this insane backlog that is inhibiting the purpose of license reviews: to verify that it was uploaded under that license as a record for if the file is later deleted or changed at the external site.

So far, there has been nothing to address the main concern, which is that we are neglecting the core purpose of license reviews by creating such an intense process. Aplucas0703 (talk) 23:39, 22 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

So, what is constituting a correct license to you, Aplucas0703? In my opinion, that is one where the licensor did not ignore foreign copyrights, as otherwise, that license would be null and void for (parts of) the uploaded media. And with that, we're back to the expectation of listening to longer audio excerpts while doing reviews... And yes, bots like the one for Flickr or iNaturalist don't do that (and that's both not good and unavoidable), but it's absolutely no reason to make humans, who HAVE the technical ability to do deeper checks, behave like bots. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 23:55, 22 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

There is a reason to allow humans to act more like these bots. From my comment you replied to: So far, there has been nothing to address the main concern, which is that we are neglecting the core purpose of license reviews by creating such an intense process. Aplucas0703 (talk) 00:06, 23 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

It would really help if the YouTubereview bot were to be fixed--Trade (talk) 00:51, 23 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

The license review is most often the single moment when a file gets actually seen by a human. It's a totally bad idea to remove mostly every chance at copyvio checks for the sake of reducing backlogs, as the "core purpose" of reviewing licenses is to guarantee valid licensing terms. Reducing backlogs may rather be undertaken by reducing the amount of uploads in need of license reviews, that could be done e.g. by throttling the uploads, either by a fixed amount per day (the site unlocks X token at 00:00 UTC, whenever that amount of token is used up on a first come, first served principle, no new uploads to be reviewed will be possible until next midnight) or by a relationship to the actual backlog (similar to what some torrent sites do with a need of having a positive upload ratio to continue downloading) and/or by restricting the use of automated tools and imports. Don't tackle the symptoms (backlogs) by introducing measures designed to reduce the work quality, tackle the causes (lack of manpower, too large amounts of uploads for the available crew). Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 01:04, 23 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Wondering if we can try to establish some consensus on this proposal in some way or reach some mid-way agreement, probably by fully splitting patroller/image-reviewer rights (and then adding current members into both automatically). It's worth noting that admins, who also have this permission, aren't even expected to have a perfect understanding of copyright either, per our advice pages to them. Aplucas0703 (talk) 03:27, 31 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

For what it's worth, I agree with Aplucas0703. A more in-depth review is always welcome and often necessary, but the license review process should be straightforward and not require more than checking whether a work is actually licensed under the given license at the source. Whether the licensor has actually licensed the work correctly; whether they had the right to do so etc. - that can be a complex question, but shouldn't be part of the basic license review. The license review is a first step, an important step. But if it were meant to encompass a full review of the copyright situation of any given file, we certainly wouldn't have the manpower to prevent an ever-growing backlog. Gestumblindi (talk) 00:56, 23 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

The license reviewed template also doesn't say anything other than "X has checked that file was available at source website under the stated license". Nakonana (talk) 22:09, 23 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

And I think that's really the crux of the issue too! It just seems like we're expecting way too much. I did the math on this, given the large size of our backlog, it would take a collective 43 working years to review all files, if each license review took just 3 minutes. We're making this worse by restricting the license reviewer right and by making the job of current license reviewers more intense. I think maybe we should codify in policy for the user right that it is NOT a "copyright reviewer" and should only be expected to review the actual license, given the following:

• User still shows a basic understanding of copyright law by not showing unreformed uploading of copyright violations (early mistakes considered but not disqualifying if reformed).
• User understands the process of searching for license and that they should ensure the listed license is the exact license which it is available under.
• User understands the deletion process and how to nominate for deletion a file they believe failed a license review.
• User shows trustworthiness and general experience. Aplucas0703 (talk) 22:53, 23 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Nakonana: But if any license was fraudulently applied at any source, then a file affixed with such a license was never rightfully available with that license. So checking the availability means always a copyright check. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 23:09, 23 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Of course, but the community can always check that by nominating for deletion. Many licenses are fraudulently applied on Wikimedia Commons all the time, but we have editors patrol random and new files for that purpose. Aplucas0703 (talk) 23:54, 23 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Might there be a "happy spot" somewhere between? Nakonana and Aplucas0703 certainly have a point, but I'd still like to see human reviewers be people we would trust to do better than a bot here. I would hope they would at least be capable over time of spotting "bad" sources we should not trust and help build up a blacklist of these. (Also: license reviewers have all the rights of patrollers, so unless we are going to change that, they need to be at least qualified as patrollers.) - Jmabel ! talk 02:28, 24 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think this is pretty balanced. Maybe just that we don't expect literal perfection in copyright knowledge (like someone being expected to know every Freedom of Panorama law), and ideally knowing also how to spot very obvious copyright violations and add them to the list (like understanding that a random upload of a clip from CNN is not eligible, but not expecting them to know that light shows of the Eiffel Tower filmed at night aren't eligible).

Or maybe we should restrict the rights of license reviewers to be more tailored to this task. Is there a technical reason they need the rights of patrollers rather than just assigning the patroller right individually? In that case we could enroll all current license reviewers in with the patroller right and then restrict the actual license review rights for new requesters. Just some ideas because I'm not the most aware person of how all these things work. Aplucas0703 (talk) 02:38, 24 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

The other issue is that by the time a license reviewer finally gets to a file that needs license review the source link may be dead without an archive link being available. In such a case we are forced to delete a file just because the potentially valid license has not been reviewed in time. Nakonana (talk) 19:58, 25 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

I also agree with Aplucas0703. We have a huge backlog of files needing license review. We should grant this privilege to anyone with half a brain, and kick the harder cases downstream if necessary. Nosferattus (talk) 23:12, 24 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

+1. In short, I support having more license reviewers. Yann (talk) 13:04, 7 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

My official proposal would probably be that we separate the user rights for license reviewer, patroller, and autopatrolled. Each one serves a different purpose and it makes sense that individuals with different levels of trust in different areas may be trusted differently with each right. Those with license reviewer rights currently will be given patroller and autopatroller rights, and current patrollers will be given autopatroller rights.

This means that the rights are separated and can be granted individually instead of bundling the rights, as this is often why it is so hard for people to get the license reviewer right (because users do not yet trust them with the other sets of rights with being a patroller).

We can also then change official policy to be more lenient with who gets to be a license reviewer, adding that a user "should show basic competency around copyright, especially as it relates to what types of licenses are valid on Wikimedia Commons, but should not be expected to have an in-depth knowledge of copyright law." Aplucas0703 (talk) 07:18, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Don't expect to convince me to support a proposal that does contain a lower threshold of showing a "basic competency around copyright, especially as it relates to what types of licenses are valid on Wikimedia Commons", if no further details are given. The knowledge about permissible licenses is basic, yes, but actually rather the basic prerequisite to be able to contribute here at all and far below anything in regard to license checks. Furthermore, any propective license reviewer should be at least aware about the plethora of different law systems and statutes and unfazed by contradictions and incompatibilities within them, occurring e.g. when looking at FOP and PD-Old statute differences all over the world. While that may still be seen as "basic knowledge" within any group of laypersons interested about copy- and intellectual property rights, I doubt that it's that what you meant with "basic competency" about copyrights (but, please, prove me wrong!).

Last but not least, I doubt that the issue is within the rights bundling. No patroller can do as much harm to the integrity of our collections as a faulty license review can. As far as I'm aware, the single tidbit that having the patrol rights entail is an access to a somewhat faster edit reverting tool. It's handy, sure, but you can't do much harm with it.

On the other hand, when doing license reviews, you're actually signing a quality check with your name. So, it by any bad luck you're making a mistake and failing to spot a IP rights violation, you're exposing yourself to a (surely quite small) risk of being treated as... [is there an English legal term for de:Störer? In the context of civil law, it means any individual disturbing the rightful exploitation of things, "disturber" or "interferer" would be a literal translation. Convictions as "Störer" happened against DNS resolvers like Quad9 and CDN like Cloudflare as they were seen as kind of accessories to IP rights violations].

So, my guess that the lack of candidates is due because anyone interested is likely deterred by their imagination of being in front of a wall hiding an unknown amount of needed knowledge and an unknown amount of risks, despite that amount in fact not being as large as some people may see it and that imagined wall is rather only a little stepladder, regularly climbable with only a bit of reading in Wikipedia and the pages COM:CRT and COM:CSM themselves...

@Aplucas0703: I don't know if you looked through archives of LR candidate requests, at least from 2024 and 2025. If yes, you surely came across my "questionaries" proffered to some candidates. I think that it's possible that you had such things in mind while writing [...]how extremely stringent people are about ensuring that a person understands every nuance of copyright law before they can be a license reviewer. Sometimes presenting massive lists for prospective reviewers to go through and show they understand copyright violations[...] in your opener. But if you could review such postings again, like Commons:License review/Requests/Archive/2024#Di (they-them) or Commons:License review/Requests/Archive/2025#Randompersonediting 2, you'll certainly see than each and every of my questions is answerable simply by perusing either COM:CRT oder COM:CSM and sometimes a relevant English Wikipedia page (e.g. for an explanation of FOP or post mortem auctionis) - in fact, I built them in this way, just flavouring them with a bit of backstory to avoid dullness. I doubt that it's unreasonable to expect a knowledge about the content of our very own help pages. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 08:22, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

A discussion was started at Village Pump Proposals with the input of this discussion. Aplucas0703 (talk) 17:39, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

We are currently categorizing all media needing categories as of 2020. Progress is good so far, as shown on Category talk:All media needing categories as of 2020, but the task is getting increasingly more difficult, because the 'low hanging fruit' have been harvested by now. Do you want to help us? If so, please leave a comment about your approach or your achievement either here or on the discussion page.--NearEMPTiness (talk) 08:21, 30 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

One way is to categorize the trees in the pictures. Example File:954I8789 نمایی از زن و مرد گردشگر در درکه - تهران.jpg and File:954I8790 زن و مرد گردشگر در درکه - تهران.jpg. However I cannot read Arabic, so I dare not place it in a country category.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:44, 30 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

But, please, if all you can do with an image that is clearly supposed to depict a place is to categorize a tree, don't remove it from Category:All media needing categories as of 2020! - Jmabel ! talk 19:22, 30 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

A few months ago I went there, categorized a few images (spent quite some time geolocating them), provided some ideas at the talk page which were fully, totally ignored by that community as if I do not exist. Not going to do it again. Ymblanter (talk) 19:33, 30 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't think that you should feel ignored, keeping in mind that "no criticism is praise enough." Implementing procedures to fight the backlog will take some time. It's a task for unsung heroes, who are sufficiently self-motivated to categorise files or to motivate uploaders to to it themselves. --NearEMPTiness (talk) 20:15, 30 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Jmabel: I completely agree with the comment “don't remove it from Category:All media needing categories as of 2020!“, but the problem is that when using Cat-a-lot it automatically removes it. Wouter (talk) 07:54, 31 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

This is false – in the preferences there is the setting "Remove {{Check categories}} and other minor cleanup" which one could uncheck. Prototyperspective (talk) 18:33, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Cat-a-lot makes it easy to add the category Unidentified people to all photos of people, for example. The user can be proud because now so many images have a category added. Another user has then to solve the problem with "Unidentified people" with over 31,000 images. I've personally noticed that there are images with the person's full name in the description and that also have a Wikipedia article. Wouter (talk) 10:10, 31 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

This is a very good comment, indeed. I have subsequently categorized some of these people and found that this is easier than categorizing those grouped by dates. Thus, I think it is helpful, to put them temporarily into this category. You may skip the mass uploads starting with a number, if you want to categorize them manually. --NearEMPTiness (talk) 03:50, 5 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

You can combine the research of several people and get a result: File:Bakkikayam.jpg The description is in the Malayalam language. This limits the picture to the Indian state of Kerala, or the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district). This is a dam on some river. But I dont want to speculate.Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:58, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Sometime the research is incomplete. File:Bernard Becker & wife Janet.jpg, There is an Wikipedia article about Bernard Becker. One problem is that he died in 2013, so this picture cannot have been taken in 2017.Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:20, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Based on the metadata and image quality, I have the impression that the photo was not taken in 2017, but that a scan of a photo was made in 2017. Wouter (talk) 19:25, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I have added a before date.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:54, 11 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for this effort. However, I think it's not nearly as useful and needed as for example categorizing files in Category:2020s maps of the world in unidentified languages (complete) or Category:Renewable energy charts with unspecified year of latest data (under construction) or Category:Diagrams in unspecified languages (under construction) or Category:Renewable energy charts in unspecified languages (complete) for example or any of the requested tasks in Commons:Categorization requests.

There also is the issue that most of the files in these needing-categories cats are of low quality and/or low usefulness/relevance so what categorizing them does is

• cluttering categories
• creating work for those contributors who keep these categories clean and well-subcategorized

Prototyperspective (talk) 18:41, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

We are making good progress: 28,000 media needing categories as of 2020, but we need more volunteers, to clean the backlog by reviewing these files one-by-one or by semi-automated procedures. NearEMPTiness (talk) 10:04, 11 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Does someone know what the Italian phrase 'Coletti Gino' means? I categorized the first one, but maybe better if some Italian works on this.Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:46, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

It seems to be some Italian person: it:Gino Coletti Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:50, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Warning: These four images are modern pictures taken with an i-phone, so the actual location is incorrect and all of the same place.Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:45, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hi, I would like to discuss the description in all categories of the scheme "Maps of <country> in the <x>th century" (see for example Italy, Belgium, Spain, Poland). There are three different points about the current system I would like to invite comments on:

• the wording of the definition in the first paragraph of the hatnote
• whether or not to include "you may also be looking for similar maps" (second and third paragraph) of the description
• whether or not to re-include a distinction between history maps (in this category group) vs. old maps (not in this category group)

For the first point, there are two proposals, the first is the current "Maps showing all or most of the territory (geographic area) of modern-day <country> - as the lands were in the 8th century (701-800 CE)" which I would prefer to replace with a simple "This category is about maps of the history of <country> in the 8th century (701-800 CE)", given that "modern-day territories" are not always the same as they were in the respective century. Another critism of mine is that "all or most" excludes history maps that only cover smaller parts of the country in question.

For the second point, my argument is that these paragraphs are not necessary, since the links to the Atlas project should be included in the respective parent category (i.e. "Maps of the history of <country>"), which is also linked via template.

For the third point, I find it essential to point out that Commons has always distinguished "current", "history" and "old" maps, formulated in Template:TFOMC: "history" maps include this map of Poland in the 16th century (created recently, depicting the past) but "old" maps include this 16th-century map of Poland (created to depict the present, back then). There are certain grey areas where these categories DO overlap, especially "old history maps", but in quite many cases they don't. The respective category names are quite similar and can be confused, so I would suggest to mention this right in the category description.

I've put my own opinion in italics to explain why I think this requires debate, but I would like for people to check out the scheme examples for themselves, and judge on their own. Peace, --Enyavar (talk) 08:11, 2 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Enyavar: I'm trying to understand the first point. A couple of questions that may help me understand:

• Would there be no such thing as "maps of Germany" for any date before 1866? Or would we take "Germany" before that date to mean the German-speaking world (and, if so, would that include areas where the rulers spoke German, but most of their subject did not)? or what? (Similarly for Italy.)
• Similarly: would there be no such thing as maps of Poland or Lithuania between 1795 and 1918? If so, what would we call maps of that area in that period?

I could easily provide a dozen similar examples, but answers to those two will at least give me a clue where this proposes to head. - Jmabel ! talk 18:49, 2 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for that question, our categories about "history of" do not really care for nation states existing. Germany's history begins quite some time before it became a nation in the 19th century, and Polish history did not stop during the times of division: Poland in the 19th century is unquestionably a valid category. Our history categories generally imply that people know the limits of a subject without exact definitions.

Your question is getting to the reason why I am uncomfortable with the current hatnote/definition of these categories. I have not checked for all countries in Europe, but I'm quite confident: We do not define the subject of "Maps of the history of Poland" with a hatnote. We do not define "Poland in the 16th century" either. So why would we define the combination subcategory of the two so narrowly and rigidly, that only 6 out of 26 files currently in the category even match that (unreasonable) definition? (And of course, Poland/16th is just a stand-in here, I would argue the same for Spain/12th and Italy/8th and all others)

I would even be okay with no definition at all, besides a template notice (my third point) that "maps of <country> in Xth century" is about history maps, and old maps have to be found in "Xth-century maps of <country>". --Enyavar (talk) 04:53, 3 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Categories denoted as old, or historic, are not terribly useful. Much better to put dates on them. Rathfelder (talk) 17:05, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Please read the original post, that is not a comment on the actual questions of this topic. Old maps are not the topic here, this is about history maps (i.e. Maps showing history of specific countries/centuries) regardless of when they were produced.

The term "historic maps" that can denote both, has rightfully fallen (mostly) into disuse. --Enyavar (talk) 16:23, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hello everyone and happy new year 2026,

Following Stewart Xaosflux's guidance and request, allow me to inform the Commons community that I requested a one month extension for my temporary importer rights to finish Lingualibre.org/wiki/'s selected imports toward Commons:Lingua Libre. See the previous discussions and votes there :

• Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2025/10#Migration_of_Lingua_Libre_project_pages_to_Commons - scope and initial approval
• meta:Steward_requests/Permissions/2025-11#User:Yug@commonswiki_(importer)
• meta:Steward_requests/Permissions#Yug@commonswiki_(2)
• Commons:Lingua Libre#Current status

Best regards. Yug (talk) 19:14, 3 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm adding 10 days temporarily while this is open. @Yug: when this closes please drop a new request at SRP. If 2 months is what you need, please express that here. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:06, 3 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hello User:Xaosflux,

As discussed here, I'm depending on other users collaboration for Translations pages, we will see if 10 days will be enough. Yug (talk) 20:57, 3 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

What I meant was that it would be at least long enough for this discussion to come up with a consensus. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:44, 4 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

[EDIT] Please express your position on this userrights extension. Yug (talk) 21:31, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

•  Support I seem another extension would be warranted given that Yug has already been able to do much of the task. ─ Aafī on Mobile ^(talk) 18:41, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Support Given that the project has already been approved and seems to be going smoothly. Chrs (talk) 21:51, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Support per others above, the migration project seems to be going well and the user seems to be using their rights responsibly. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 22:07, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

• Steward note: this has been extended for 3 months. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:07, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

i think it'd be a good idea to copy cat names (if english) to en label (if empty) or en alias of the wd item it's linked to, if it's not already present in any language on the wd item.

for years i'm annoyed by this problem. now it's especially irritating when the same thing has different names for depicts and category. RoyZuo (talk) 00:47, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

There is no clear priority among Wikipedia, Commons, and Wikidata for naming an article/category/item. I don't see how we can say Commons dictates to Wikidata any more than vice versa. - Jmabel ! talk 02:10, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

In the absence of any English name for an entity in Wikidata, using one from the Commons category seems like a reasonable starting point. Omphalographer (talk) 03:05, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Bot has been doing this for years. Multichill (talk) 18:43, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

1. it didnt seem to do that for these 5000 recent edits spanning over 4 days https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Pi_bot&target=Pi+bot&offset=20260107122856&limit=5000
2. it didnt add the commons cat name back as an alias since 2015 for https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q7452846&action=history

so either it needs to do that a lot more frequently, or it needs to be restarted. RoyZuo (talk) 21:52, 11 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Agree that this would be good to do. I think this thread about a technical subject should be moved to the Commons general discussion forum about technical subjects, COM:Village pump/Technical. Prototyperspective (talk) 00:36, 13 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Or d:Wikidata:Project chat as this concerns edits on Wikidata. Samoasambia ✎ 01:49, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hello, hundreds of my files have been modified like 1 or 2, making my watchlist giant to reset. User:MB-one, as the performer, do you have a solution? The problem has been evoked at COM:ANU and participants said the edits were tagged "QuickCategories", however now the tags are different ("AC/DC" or "openrefine"). My mail box is full of unread notifications, and I don't know how to reset each file without patiently clicking on all links. Help much welcome! -- Basile Morin (talk) 02:14, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Your files have not been modified, their description pages have. That is what we do here, collaboratively edit a wiki. You choose to have every edit create an email notification for you it seems, so then this one of the risks. Luckily email filtering is easy, and selecting a bunch of notifications and deleting them all at once is also pretty easy. And you can of course choose to disable the notifications. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:12, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Their description pages have... The sound of wisdom 💫 :-)

User:TheDJ, "That is what we do here": thanks, but after 14 years on this project, this is the first time I have so many notifications on the same day.

Question about your recommendation: "deleting them all at once is also pretty easy", then do you think the notifications will be maintained by the system, for example in case of vandalism, wrong edit, or just basic update? In my opinion, no. -- Basile Morin (talk) 12:32, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

The notifications will not be saved, but the underlying edit history is always kept. Even for deleted files, it is still available to admins. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:44, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hello @Basile Morin,

yes, some of these edits are created with AC/DC or Openrefine as well as QuickCategories. I am using a combination of these tools for efficiency reasons. You can filter filter out these edits on your watchlist and opt-out of e-mail notifications. If you spot errors in these edits, you can reach out to me on my watchlist and I will correct them.

Cheers, MB-one (talk) 11:20, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

MB-one you used "QuickCategories" at the beginning, then "AC/DC" and "Openrefine", maybe tomorrow "Nirvana" and "Whatever". Is there a full list of all the tags likely to produce the same hurricane, to filter them in advance? -- Basile Morin (talk) 12:32, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Basile Morin, Besides these three I'm currently working also with QuickStatements and Hotcat. All these tools tag their edits accordingly. However, I can not guarantee that I will never use any other mass edit tool. And I certainly not speak for other users. I'm not aware of there's any possibility to group all "mass edit" tools together and filter all of them at once. But maybe that's a good feature request.

Cheers, MB-one (talk) 13:50, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Aren't camera characteristics structured data usually added by bots? Bot edits are easy to filter. Nakonana (talk) 21:23, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

It could technically be done by bots. However, since there's no bot doing this work currently, I decided to do what I can. MB-one (talk) 21:17, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Makes sense. Probably it would be good to request the development of a bot for this or the addition of a task to an existing bot at Commons:Bots/Work requests if you haven't done so.

Another thing I forgot to mention below is that one could also hide all structured data edits, this seems to be what m:Community Wishlist/W5 is about. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:00, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@MB-one i think you should use a bot account if you make thousands of edits like this batch https://editgroups-commons.toolforge.org/b/OR/c3d78ad5204/ . RoyZuo (talk) 19:08, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

See also en:User:Nardog/RCMuter – This script allows you to "mute" users you specify, i.e. stop seeing their edits, on watchlist and recent changes. To mute a user, click "Edit muted" below the top heading on watchlist or recent changes and enter their name, or click "Show toggle buttons" and click "mute" in the list. The list of muted users is stored in your account's preferences, so it is not public and is shared across devices.. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:14, 13 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Why does Wikimedia Commons have categories for "Photographs of Israel" for any date before the declaration of that state in 15 May 1948? I imagine that this question has been debated and decided in the past, and perhaps not amicably. However, I would be grateful for an explanation of why there are categories for "Photographs of Israel" from the 1840s up to 15 May 1948.

By contrast, there are almost no categories for photographs of Palestine before 15 May 1948. There is one photo in "Black and white photographs of Palestine in the 1890s", one in "Black and white photographs of Palestine in the 1940s", and that is all. Given that the entire territory was called Palestine under British rule from 1918 to 1948, Commons' practice seems ahistorical. And even before British rule, English Wikipedia says that "Palestine" was the name of the entire area "In common usage from 1840 onward".

Please make it make sense? Motacilla (talk) 16:01, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Photos are usually grouped by country and administrative subunits thereof. However there was no such country as Palestine before 1948. There was Mandatory Palestine from 1918 to 1948 and several Ottoman provinces before. Ruslik (talk) 20:04, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

We have Category:Ottoman Palestine by year and Category:British Mandate of Palestine by year. The "Photographs of" category is usually added by templates like {{Taken in}} and {{Taken on}} by setting the "location" parameter. However, the addition of the templates and the setting of the location parameter have to be done manually. People are probably just not adding them to the files they upload, or they set the location parameter to "Israel" for whatever reason. Nakonana (talk) 21:33, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Somewhat analogous to having Category:1860 in Washington (state) (and see the note on that page), though of course a lot more politically fraught.

There are a ton of places in the world where our system of basing geographic categories largely on present-day nation states becomes problematic, but I'm not sure there is a tremendously better solution. Would we want to say there is no such thing as "in Poland" between 1795 and 1918? On another front, there was recently a big fight over whether people born in the Baltic States between 1945 and 1991 were or were not born in the Soviet Union. There is no solution to questions like this that will make everyone happy. - Jmabel ! talk 01:53, 11 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

This issue seems easier than the Eastern Europe issues. They should be in Mandatory Palestine, or, before that, in the Ottoman Empire. Rathfelder (talk) 15:09, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Are there any RfCs and/or CfDs about this also about other geographic regions and polities (such as countries)? Prototyperspective (talk) 13:13, 13 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I would like to draw attention to the Category:YouTube review needed, which is overloaded with 8,000 files. I often check this category, but I cannot review all these files by myself. These files need to be fully reviewed to prevent a large number of non-licensed files from accumulating. Incall ^talk 18:32, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I thought there is a bit which proves the license automatically :( --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 20:10, 11 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

We have something like that for Flickr, where the bot can look at the Flickr file and make sure it's the same, but the bot can't confirm that a video or screenshot actually came from a specific YouTube video. Omphalographer (talk) 05:49, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I guess a tool that makes license reviewing easy would be of great help in terms of speeding things up. It could load the license section (maybe also the file description) in one panel (e.g. left side) and the YouTube video's description in another panel (e.g. the right side) with a button "Confirm" (e..g below) one just needs to click if the license is fine. Additionally, there would be a "Skip" button and if the YouTube video is down or set to private it would automatically load the archived version (if available) in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. To check if the video is the same either also the two videos could be embedded at the top or the tool automatically check if both the duration and the YouTube video ID in the structured data are matching.

I estimate this could speed up the review by 300–600% and thereby motivate more users to spend any or more time on the license reviews which could be enough to get this fully done. Thus, imo this is yet another issue largely inhibited from being solved due too little software development by WMF or facilitation thereof (eg via campaigns). A wish for such a tool could be submitted to the m:Community Wishlist.

An open question or issue with this is whether license review is just about confirming whether the license set at the source is actually the one stated on the file page or whether it's more comprehensive where the reviewer is expected to check whether the source video actually is CCBY (many CCBY-tagged videos on YT aren't really CCBY because they're largely composed of nonCCBY clips made by other people for example). It seems like currently only the former is done. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:11, 13 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

A couple of image files of US buildings in this category are wrongly tagged {{FoP-US}}. Some images show buildings that were completed before 1990, hence {{PD-US-architecture}}. Calling for assistance as there are more than 1K files under this category. Regards, JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 07:49, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Either way, the file is fine to keep. Why is this a task worth recruiting people into? Most photos of buildings in the U.S. will have neither tag, and that's fine, too. - Jmabel ! talk 00:44, 13 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Jmabel using wrong tags risks disinformation to image reusers and readers, considering that no copyright exists for all pre-1990 US buildings. Tagged templates concerning subject status should give accurate information to non-Wikimedians, not to mislead them into thinking that copyright protection exists to pre-1990 US buildings. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 06:37, 13 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

See this for example. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 06:43, 13 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@JWilz12345: What advantage is their even to having two separate templates here, rather than a single template with bullet points for each of two cases? It is OK to publish photographs of architectural works in the U.S. regardless of when the building was built; the only thing that changes is the rationale. - Jmabel ! talk 06:56, 13 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Jmabel see Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2012/11#US buildings completed before 12/1/90. I agree to what cmadler said: "No, FoP is an exception to the normal rights of copyright owners. If there's no copyright, there's no FoP (and no need for it). For example, both the Trump Tower Chicago and the Willis Tower (nee Sears Tower) can be freely photographed, but for different reasons (the Trump is under FoP while the Willis is PD) which have different implications for potential reusers." PD buildings like Willis Tower can be freely exploited and even reproduced in 3D, but reusers' exploitation of Trump Tower Chicago is only limited to photography of it or making a drawing/painting of it, consistent with COM:FOP US. FoP is just an exception to copyright; it does not make the underlying work 100% freely exploitable by reusers. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 07:09, 13 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Understood, but we don't store buildings on Commons. My solution could be implemented by one person in under an hour (reword one of the templates, redirect the other to it), and covers all related media that we store. Yours needs a team of people and constant ongoing vigilance. - Jmabel ! talk 07:48, 13 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Jmabel I'll wait for cmadler's response (they last became active on enWiki in 2023), if they finally agree to merge the template for uncopyrighted US buildings with the template for copyrighted US buildings. Per their 2013 insight, though, they were firm in having two separate templates. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 09:45, 13 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

An international payment in my family archives. This is certainly PD but wich license? There must be other categories (stamps etc). Is this august 10th?

Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:28, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Since it is from 1889 I think you could use {{Pd-1923}}. Ruslik (talk) 19:23, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

As this is unpublished (except for the banklogo with the building), I think {{PD-US-unpublished}} is the better option.Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:42, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

The license issue is resolved, but not the stamps classifications. Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:50, 13 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for clarifying – removed the section solved template. I suppose you're referring to There must be other categories (stamps etc). Is this august 10th? – it's entirely unclear to me what you're asking about there. Maybe other users understand what you meant but it may be good to make the remaining question(s) clearer. --Prototyperspective (talk) 12:57, 13 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

On the front there are two eliptical stamps. It is unclear what they are. (mention New York and Leipzig). On the back there are other stamps. It would be interesting to know how these transfers where administratively processed in 1889. There was a telegraph, but how did the banks verify and prevent fraud? Smiley.toerist (talk) 14:22, 13 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Are edits like [1] and [2] in accord with policy or against it? I'll say it straight out: I'm against this. "Photographs" is the default and we do not need to introduce an extra layer of categories all over the place. But we certainly should go one way or the other on this, and do it consistently.

Pinging @GT1976. - Jmabel ! talk 00:17, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm against it as well. We don't need the extra layer of useless categorization. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 00:27, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hello! This structure with photographs has been standard for years, and millions of photos are categorized within it. However, I have no problem with this intermediate level being omitted. Best regards, --GT1976 (talk) 02:06, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

This is in accordance with policy according to COM:CAT, specifically the modularity principle. "October 2007 United States photographs" is a subcategory of "October 2007 in the United States" and it's part of a long-standing and broadly-utilized category structure, at the bottom of which you find (for the first photo) Category:United States photographs taken on 2007-10-26.

We have had similar discussions before recently, and I feel like a lot of the issues people have with photos being moved from a visible category to the hidden "country photos by day" categories would be solved if we just unhid those categories.

I also disagree that "photographs" are an unneeded layer of abstraction; the content and structure of Category:October 2007 in the United States is very different from Category:October 2007 United States photographs. ReneeWrites (talk) 09:39, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

It's reasonable to say the default is the media format images which is e.g. why Category:Images by subject was turned into a redirect (it's a subcat of the Category:Images which is linked at the very top of the very front page). However, that doesn't go for photographs vs other images. Nevertheless, in various categories photographs may be the default – probably fewer than you assume or think and imo not in this case: it makes sense to distinguish videos (and other files?) from photographs at Category:October 2007 in the United States. The issue I think comes down to what I asked about at COM:CAT – it would be better to not subcategorize things like that / create subcategories like that unless the categories are populated by the subcat-creator quite comprehensively so don't give users a wrong impression of what is there and are useful and not extremely incomplete.

The caveat here however is that with the MediaSearch one can already separate videos from images dynamically so there isn't necessarily much use of this subcategorization if the user knows that this is possible and how it is possible. It can still be useful but due to this caveat I haven't formed any personal conclusion yet on this and maybe you're right that this subcategorization shouldn't be done where I would just object to your claim "Photographs" is the default which sounds like bias from somebody who happens to be involved with lots of photographs-categories and photo-uploads but which isn't the case for other types of users, contributors, files, and categories (e.g. there is nearly no photo in the large Category:Our World in Data). For now, I'd just leave things as they are and maybe considering creating a comprehensive carefully-thought-out CfD at the relevant large-order cat and/or RfC including some ideas for changes. GT1976 and ReneeWrites make good points.

The previously mentioned way to browse or search or filter files via MediaSearch works like this (note: does not work for some categories with long chains of subcats): deepcategory:"October 2007 in the United States". Prototyperspective (talk) 12:09, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I had this issue, too in my categorization. The photographs cat is actually my category I prefer. The "October 2018 in the United States" is probably for things like events or so, but not so much needed as photographs. --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 15:23, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hi, does anyone know why I (or maybe more users) get logged out, even when I place a √ at 'keep me logged in' while login in? - Inertia6084 (talk) (talk) 22:48, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Did this happen only recently? I was wondering why sometimes I get logged out. It seems to be a technical issue (and maybe it would be good to move this to Commons:Village pump/Technical). However, for me it's very far from every ten minutes or so. Did this never happen before and now very often? Prototyperspective (talk) 23:17, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hi all. I've stumbled upon a photograph that was uploaded from geograph.org.uk File:Side of the Angel, Midhurst - geograph.org.uk - 3891742.jpg - the problem with this photo is that it is not as described in the title or description due to an error on the part of the photographer - it is actually the side of the next building along. The description etc. is pulled from a template (Template:Geograph from structured data), so can't be changed - I've added a correct summary of the subject below, so there are now two conflicting descriptions, also the title of the file remains incorrect - what would normally happen in cases like this? Is there an established way to correct photo descriptions of files imported via the geograph.org.uk project? Many thanks, Simon Burchell (talk) 09:53, 16 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Change the structured data. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:43, 16 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

If the file name needs to be changed, use the template {{Rename}}. Nakonana (talk) 17:32, 16 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

And if you want to preserve the old name for reference, you can use {{Original caption}}. - Jmabel ! talk 21:52, 16 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I've recently created {{Corrected metadata}} with the intent to better document factual problems in the original metadata, and document why we corrected it. I think we should be clearer about what we change from the sourced metadata than we do now, and provide links to our reasoning for doing so. Hadn't completely finished it yet, but it's out there. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:38, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thanks! Simon Burchell (talk) 10:02, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Chagnon contains {{Wikidata Infobox}}, but the infobox isn't visible. I see a hidden Category:Uses of Wikidata Infobox for deleted Wikidata items. I don't understand what this means, but how can I make the infobox visible? Wouter (talk) 10:39, 16 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I see the same issue. The related Wikidata item is d:Q673388. This Wikidata edit may be relevant.

Purging the cache did not resolve the issue. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:41, 16 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

This appears to be solved on my end? The infobox shows up both on desktop and mobile for me. ReneeWrites (talk) 14:00, 16 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Like Pigsonthewing, I also purged the cache without success, but now I see the infobox. Could it be a cache problem after all? Wouter (talk) 15:12, 16 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I have now the same problem with Category:Ménétréol-sous-Sancerre. Purging the cache does not help. In Wikidata a similar change by @Samoasambia: . Probably again waiting a day may solve a cache problem. Wouter (talk) 15:35, 16 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

The same problem with Category:Vouzon. Wouter (talk) 15:40, 16 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I did a small edit on the category and it solved the issue. I guess time will fix all the infoboxes. Samoasambia ✎ 16:20, 16 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Indeed a zero edit does the job. Wouter (talk) 16:25, 16 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hi, thanks for the ping. I deleted a batch of ~21k Wikidata category items created around a year ago about French communes that contained only a Commons category sitelink while the main items didn't have Commons galleries (which makes the category items unnotable under #1.4 of d:WD:N) and placed the sitelinks back to the main items. I'm not sure why the infobox isn't functioning correctly. Probably some kind of cache issue? Samoasambia ✎ 15:47, 16 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

if this is not resolved (infoboxes getting fixed over time), then please move this or create a new thread at Commons:Village pump/Technical. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:15, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

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User:JWilz12345 has nominated a number of photos of Korean buildings for deletion (see Category:South Korean FOP cases/pending) on the basis that "There is no commercial Freedom of Panorama in South Korea." So on that basis, won't most photos in Category:Museums in South Korea and Category:Buildings in South Korea by location be deleted? Is that policy even correct and being properly applied? How do South Korean media organisations publish or broadcast anything in public then? Is it useful that we would have almost no photos of buildings in Korea? Mztourist (talk) 06:39, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Mztourist South Korean media and broadcasters are allowed to publish buildings without architects' permissions due to Article 26 of their copyright law: In cases of reporting current events by means of broadcasts or newspapers, or by other means, it shall be permissible to reproduce, distribute, perform publicly, transmit publicly a work seen or heard in the relevant courses, to the extent justified by the reporting purpose.

Wikimedia Commons, however, is not a broadcasting organization or an information service provider. It is a media repository and archive where all content must be free for commercial reuses, in accordance with Commons:Licensing. The Korean copyright law's FoP rule is simply against this freedom. To quote in full Article 35(1 and 2), with underlined parts for emphasis of FoP rule:

Article 35 (Exhibition or Reproduction of Works of Art, etc.
(1) The holder of the original of a work of art, etc., or a person who has obtained the holder’s consent, may exhibit the work in its original form: Provided, That where the work of art is to be permanently exhibited on the street, in the park, on the exterior of a building, or other places open to the public, the same shall not apply.
(2) Works of art, etc. exhibited at all times at an open place as referred to in the proviso to paragraph (1) may be reproduced and used by any means: Provided, That in any of the following cases, the same shall not apply:
1. Where a building is reproduced into another building;
2. Where a sculpture or painting is reproduced into another sculpture or painting;
3. Where the reproduction is made in order to exhibit permanently at an open place under the proviso to paragraph (1);
4. Where the reproduction is made for the purpose of selling its copies.

Many of the permitted licenses on Wikimedia Commons do not allow restrictions to commercial reuses, such as {{Cc-by-sa-4.0}} and {{Cc-zero}}. Due to the prohibition of commercial Freedom of Panorama in South Korea, Wikimedia Commons cannot host images of recent art and architecture (whose designers have not yet died for more than 70 years) from that country. Simply put, South Korean FoP under their law is not compatible with COM:Licensing. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 07:31, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Mztourist additionally, thousands of images from South Korea have been deleted in the past. You can see the closed deletion requests at Category:South Korean FOP cases/deleted. So for your final question, "is it useful that we would have almost no photos of buildings in Korea?" Yes and no:

No, because there will still be a couple of images of very old Korean buildings (temples and ancient Korean gates for example), even if it will inevitably misrepresent our coverage of that supposedly-democratic country. Furthermore, cityscape images where buildings and statues/monuments are incidental (de minimis, in accordance with COM:DM South Korea) are fine and can stay here. No contemporary South Korean landmark must be the main focus.

Yes, because Wikimedia Commons should only host media that does not infringe copyrights of architects (and also, sculptors and street artists or muralists). COM:PCP policy means we must aim to reduce takedown notices and cease-and-desist letters from the artwork designers, if not totally eliminate. Proactive vs. reactive. Commons has tolerated (since late 2000s) having no high quality images of Louvre Pyramid from France, Burj Khalifa from U.A.E., and Malacañan Palace (the Presidential Palace) from the Philippines.

Note that I intentionally added "supposedly-democratic", because the Korean democracy – as far as my hunch as a WikiCommoner is concerned – does not extend to the rights of content creators, consumers, and professionals. This can be inferred from Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2025/09#South Korean state media may be free content now but login required, concerning the "public" release of alleged freely-usable media from their state media but login is still required for access, with one commenter in that Village pump forum remarking, "Do not take their so-called 'open' policy as genuine openness." JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 07:51, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

So you are saying that a building is a "work of art"? In that case Art 35(2) clearly applies and any building "exhibited at all times at an open place... may be reproduced and used by any means." Mztourist (talk) 08:38, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Mztourist you forgot the fourth restriction. The free use "by any means" no longer applies if "the reproduction is made for the purpose of selling its copies." Photography is a method of reproducing buildings and artworks. The law is clear that there is no exception for commercial exploitations of images. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 10:52, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Posting images on Commons is not "for the purpose of selling its copies" If someone takes a Commons image and tries to commercially exploit it then sure they're probably breaching copyright. Mztourist (talk) 06:13, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Mztourist and you've said it: "If someone takes a Commons image and tries to commercially exploit it then sure they're probably breaching copyright." Allowing images for non-commercial use only is against COM:Licensing policy. Non-commercial licenses are perpetually forbidden here. In fact, {{Cc-by-sa-4.0}} and many others are commercial-type licenses. Restrictions on commercial reuses are not allowed under CCBYSA, CCBY, CCzero, and PD terms. South Korean FoP is simply incompatible with COM:L, so modern buildings and monuments from that country are not allowed here. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 09:03, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

So we can't have pictures of modern Korean buildings solely because Wikimedia users aren't able to exploit them commercially? That seems to be completely opposed to the foundational policy of usefulness of images. Why can't we create non-commercial licenses? There is nothing stopping us from doing so. Mztourist (talk) 05:31, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Because non-commercial licences do not meet the definition of free content, and per the official description of the project, Wikimedia Commons is a repository of free content, not a repository of useful content. Allowing non-commercial licences would go against the intention of the project, even if such a change is well-intentioned and has merit on the basis of being helpful for Commons' users. Greviances are better placed on South Korean law, rather than Commons, because Commons hasn't done anything wrong, it is South Korea that is the problem here. --benlisquare_{Talk•Contribs} 06:12, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

because Wikimedia users aren't able to exploit them commercially? @Mztourist: with due respect, I believe you are confused. This is not about what "Wikimedia users" may do.

Commons has a specific role assigned to it by the Wikimedia Foundation. We specifically host content that, with regard to copyright, may be freely used by anyone (including commercially), in any manner (including derivative works), as long as they conform to an available license. (Aside: this is specifically about copyright: many images may have their use limited in one or another country by personality rights, trademarks, etc.). Unlike any other WMF project, Commons is not free to establish an meta:Exemption Doctrine Policy that would allow exceptions to this. We simply are not allowed, as part of our charter, to host such images. This policy is not a matter of law (we could legally host such images) but, on the other hand, it is not an internal Commons policy that we could change: it is part of the basis on which Commons is funded and hosted by the WMF. Pictures of recent buildings in Korea (or France, or Romania) can conform to this criterion only by getting an additional "free license" from the architect. - Jmabel ! talk 06:54, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Looking at the Wikimedia Project Scope, its states: "The aim of Wikimedia Commons is to provide a media file repository: that makes available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content to all, and that acts as a common repository for the various projects of the Wikimedia Foundation. The expression "educational" is to be understood according to its broad meaning of "providing knowledge; instructional or informative"." I don't see any mention of commercial there. Further down is a section "Must be realistically useful for an educational purpose". So given the educational purpose it seems contradictory that under the Non-allowable license terms it states "The following licensing terms are not allowed: Non-commercial or educational use only." How is that in compliance with the main aim? Mztourist (talk) 07:28, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

These photos are not freely-licensed even if the photographer gives a free license to their creative work, there is still the copyright of the architect, who also needs to release the work under a free license to make the photo really free. GPSLeo (talk) 07:41, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Mztourist don't look at just one aspect of COM:SCOPE. Another aspect (which is one section higher than "educational purpose", therefore more important to consider) is Commons:Project scope#Must be freely licensed or public domain, specifically (with underlined passages for emphases):

Required licensing terms
To be considered freely licensed, the copyright owner has to release the file under an irrevocable licence which:
- Permits free reuse for any purpose, including commercial.
- Permits the creation of derivative works.
Non-allowable licence terms
The following licensing terms are not allowed:
- Non-commercial or educational use only.
- Restrictions on the creation of derivative works, except for copyleft.
- A requirement for payment or for notification of use; these can be requested but not required.
- Restrictions on where the work may be used, e.g. use allowed on Wikipedia only.
Licences with these restrictions are allowed as long as the work is dual-licensed or multi-licensed with at least one licensing option that does not include such a restriction.
"Licences" which purport to allow fair use only are not allowed. Fair use is not a right that can be licensed by a copyright owner, and is in any event never accepted on Commons.

That's why the South Korean rule on free use of public landmarks is against both COM:Licensing and COM:SCOPE. This Commons perspective will remain unchanged until South Korean government changes their mind and become more open to digital, I.T., and new media era where everyone can exploit public landmarks even for commercial purposes. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 08:36, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Still falls under Aims which refers to education, with no reference to commercial use. Its educational to have photos of modern Korean buildings for use on WP pages, other Foundation projects and just for public knowledge. Instead by requiring that images must be commercially exploitable, we are, by our own policies, undermining education. Mztourist (talk) 09:15, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Mztourist read again Commons:Project scope#Must be freely licensed or public domain. A file should not only be usable for educational purpose; it must also be usable for commercial purpose. How many times will I repeat that "non-commercial or educational use only" (as listed among non-allowable license terms under "COM:SCOPE#Must be freely licensed or public domain") content is not allowed here? JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 09:31, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

You don't need to repeat it. I am raising a bigger question of why if this is an educational project we impose policies that limit education because commerce isn't served? Mztourist (talk) 10:57, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

We are not even save that no court would consider our project an commercially as we ask for donations and sell merchandise. There are interpretations of non commercial they reduce non commercial basically to personal use only. GPSLeo (talk) 09:33, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Not really relevant unless the merchandise incorporates picture(s) of modern Korean buildings. Mztourist (talk) 10:57, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Mztourist: Four experienced users here, two of us admins, have now told you essentially the same thing, but you keep telling us that the mandate of our site is not the mandate of our site. At some point, you either have to abide by a clear consensus, or decide that this is not the site for your work. - Jmabel ! talk 18:42, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Neither you, nor anyone else has explained why the policy contradicts the stated educational Aim of this site, just that the policy must be obeyed. How am I not abiding by consensus in raising this? Mztourist (talk) 04:34, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

There are many educational things that are not included in the scope of Commons. Among them are original, previously unpublished academic papers; academic classes; user-written encyclopedia articles of the sort found in Wikipedia; and works that are neither in the public domain nor free-licensed (where the latter is defined to include allowing for commercial re-use) either in their country of origin or in the United States. The fact that something has educational value is not sufficient to place it in Commons's scope.

Some aspects of Commons' scope are negotiable: the degree to which we allow AI-generated or AI-enhanced works, the degree to which we host previously published text articles, the degree to which we host archives of websites that fall within our requirements for free-licensing. Other parts are basically not, and you are hitting upon one of the least negotiable, mainly because, as I wrote above, Commons charter from the WMF does not allow Commons to have an Exemption Doctrine Policy. The norm for WMF sites is to host only public-domain and free-licensed materials. Other sites are allowed to make certain limited exceptions under an approved policy. Commons literally does not have that option. What you are asking is like asking why the vegan restaurant won't serve cow's milk, or eggs, or maybe some fish. - Jmabel ! talk 06:25, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Allowing NonCommercial was discussed in 2019 at Commons:Village pump/Proposals/Archive/2019/08#Proposal to introduce Non-Commercial media on Wikimedia Commons, you can see the community strongly opposed it; the reasons why and the links provided (e.g. https://freedomdefined.org/Licenses/NC) might help to further explain why why Commons doesn't allow NC. Like any policy, though, if you don't agree with it, you can propose changing it at COM:Village pump/Proposals. -Consigned (talk) 10:11, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Mztourist: Have you had a chance to review COM:LJ?   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 23:36, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

for such countries, ultimately as photographers we have only 2 options:

1. upload here; let them be deleted, and then in future be undeleted and rediscovered (when the photographed objects' copyrights no longer apply).
2. upload to websites like flickr.com .

RoyZuo (talk) 14:03, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Alternatively, once battery technology becomes sufficiently advanced enough, as Commons contributors we can travel to North Korea, fly a drone over the DMZ, and photograph buildings in South Korea that way. Because you are physically standing in North Korea while you are controlling the drone, North Korean law applies, and North Korean FOP is more liberal than South Korea. Seoul is only 60 kilometres from the DMZ, and I have flown my DJI Mavic 4 in a straight line for 8 kilometres without any problems, so we're nearly there. --benlisquare_{Talk•Contribs} 14:49, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Honestly, I don't think this strategy will fly very far (pun intended). The FoP laws were designed without thinking of drones, and may have to be updated. But the copyright should be decided by where is the camera, not where is the drone controller. For Mztourist defense, I think that that law is weirdly worded. Yann (talk) 15:26, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hello. Today, for the third day in row, I find out that the 'deepcategory' parameter does not work anymore. A query like this one (or the alternative) doesn't return one single hit, while before it would. Has something changed in the search functions? I didn't notice. Regards, Apdency (talk) 12:40, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Comment, please see related discussion at Commons:Village pump/Technical#Special search partially down?. Apparently a patch for this problem has been submitted. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 17:03, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

No. I have taken a look there now, but how could it be helpful in respect to the problem I mentioned? It's just that a search parameter that for years used to work, suddenly ceased to work. There's not much more that I know. Apdency (talk) 18:01, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Apdency The search parameter "deepcategory" is supposed to work, but due to some problem it stopped working. A fix has been proposed and submitted, but it is still currently waiting to be implemented, which should happen within a couple days. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 19:59, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Ah, I see. Thank you. We'll await ... Apdency (talk) 20:36, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

technical issues are for Commons:Village pump/Technical and there's a thread already Prototyperspective (talk) 23:12, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hello, in Category:Paintings in the National Gallery, London by inventory number I intend to list the paintings by inventory number. There are a few thousand. How do I structure this so that a table of contents allows one to navigate without clicking next umpteen times? Thank you, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 16:30, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Have you checked Category:TOC templates or Category:Navigational templates for a suitable template? Nakonana (talk) 16:38, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Certainly, but I couldn't anything suitable/intelligible. It looks like it's easy to sort by the start of the category name, eg Category:800 births, Category:801 births, but what if the categories are named as in Category:Paintings in the National Gallery, London by inventory number? How does one apply a ?sortkey? so that the (inventory) numbers in Category:xxxxNG101 Category:xxxxNG5203 etc can be picked up by a category's table of contents? Or can one at least have a navigator to eg page 8 or page 20 of subcategories within a category? Thank you, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 18:48, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

We don't normally use categories this way. This would be a much better case for one or more gallery pages. - Jmabel ! talk 20:25, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

That would have its advantages... (Category:Objects in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens by inventory number is a similar case.) Thanks, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 01:43, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

(from COM:FORUM) I might be picky, but I noticed something. Let's pick Category:21st-century photographs of Berlin. The 21st-century ranges from 2001-01-01 to 2100-12-31. If we pick the subcat Category:2000s photographs of Berlin, we get the years 2000 to 2009. Yes, the year 2000 is within the 2000s, but not within the 21st-century. So we have a correct categorization of 2000 in the 2000s, but not the 21st-century. Since Category:2000s photographs of Berlin is not completely contained in set Category:21st-century photographs of Berlin, it should also be categorized in Category:20th-century photographs of Berlin, because of the last 20th-century year 2000. What do you think? :D --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 19:56, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Strong oppose. The purpose of categories is to help people find things, not to express ontology.

While this may be technically correct from a prescriptive point of view, it goes against common usage.

Further, this would have the additional problem that every category pertaining to the first decade of a century would no longer fit neatly in a century category. - Jmabel ! talk 20:29, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Oppose per Jmabel. ReneeWrites (talk) 21:01, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Oppose per above. This feels particularly unnecessary given that, in practical terms, it only affects the year 2000. (There's orders of magnitude less media categorized as 1900, 1800, etc.) Hopefully we'll have better ways of representing this data before 2100 rolls around. :) Omphalographer (talk) 01:11, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your responses :). Yes, a new structure would be more complicated :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 10:25, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

we could just ditch all these intersections of time and place. instead have simplest cats like 2000-11-11 and paris. when people want to search a time period, the search automatically helps them to find files from a well defined range, e.g. 2000-01-01 to 2009-12-31 for 2000s, 2001-01-01 to 2100-12-31 for 21st century...

or people should just learn to count from 0 and use a Holocene calendar that starts from year 00000. then 0th century for year 00000 to 00099, 1st century for 00100 to 00199... 120th century for 12000 to 12099... then decades 12000s to 12090s are all well contained in the 120th century. RoyZuo (talk) 15:15, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Maybe it would be better if eg the 21st century started at 1st January 2000. I think many people and probably most think it does start at that point. Moreover, en:Category:21st century also includes 2000-related categories. Valid point and good it's raised but currently this can't really be dealt with anyway. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:10, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I suspect all stations are within the AB tarif zone on the Helsinki Central - Puistola line.

Smiley.toerist (talk) 00:23, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I think the first three are indeed Puistola. The last one might be Jokela railway station, though it is not in that interval. The red building left of the locomotive might be visible in the left edge of this photo. Antti T. Leppänen (talk) 12:47, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I agree, it would match the three elektrified tracks.Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:01, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

  DoneSmiley.toerist (talk) 19:23, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Where is this? It was made travelling from Joensuu to Vaasa. There is an museum? Museo.Smiley.toerist (talk) 19:23, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Pieksämäki railway station. MKFI (talk) 08:11, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

✝iѵɛɳ२२४०^{†ลℓк †๏ мэ} 13:34, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

i'm looking for a category for the kind of tourist activity where a group of individual people book and join a multi day trip organised by an agency guided by a tour guide.

it could correspond to en:Package_tour en:Escorted_tour de:Gruppenreise, which exist as 3 different wikidata items now. i'm confused about which of these fits the popular kind of activity i describe, and whether some of these wd items should/could merge. RoyZuo (talk) 14:52, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I would to only use a group category if there is a clear group interaction in the picture. If you fotograph a group of travellers, these can be connected or not. For example travellers with a Flixbus. These could be individual travellers. I would the principle: wat you see in the picture, you can categorise.Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:05, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Seconding this. Media from a tourist activity, such as photos or videos, is probably best categorized based on the specific activity occurring or places depicted in the media. The fact that the photographer was there on a package tour probably isn't all that important. Omphalographer (talk) 20:28, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

"Package tour" seems to be a separate subject. Group tours can be part of a package tour but not all packages are for groups. Escorted tour and "Gruppenreise" (Group travel) seem to be synonymous. I also think Smiley.toerist has the right idea that you should only categorize what you see in the image, to keep things simple. ReneeWrites (talk) 17:56, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Seconding that package tour appears to be different. It's more about organizing/selling a bundle consisting of accommodation and transport, and doesn't seem to be linked to groups or guided tours.

We have Category:Groups of tourists, but that is not particularly for fixed groups that travel together. However, it could be a parent category for group travel. Nakonana (talk) 00:38, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I came across File:Carlos Lacerda 80 anos com IA.jpg, showing him at the age of 80. Actually he died when he was 63. Should we have images like this? Rathfelder (talk) 17:05, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Carlos Lacerda 80 anos com IA.jpg. --Túrelio (talk) 17:27, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

https://archive.org/details/a-history-of-the-university-in-europe-volume-1-universities-in-the-middle-ages

Check the usage section. Does this mean this file is released under the CC-Zero license? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingsacrificer (talk • contribs) 20:40, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

No. The Internet Archive metadata is incorrect; page 4 of the book states clearly that the authors reserve their rights:

© Cambridge University Press 1992

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the
written permission of Cambridge University Press.

Omphalographer (talk) 20:46, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Please see Commons:Village pump/Copyright. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:02, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I have added a new file to Category:Unidentified train stations in Sweden (116 items). This is on a travel from Umeå centralstation to Stockholm.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:38, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I am writing to you to let you know the annual review period for the Universal Code of Conduct and Enforcement Guidelines is open now. You can make suggestions for changes through 9 February 2026. This is the first step of several to be taken for the annual review. Read more information and find a conversation to join on the UCoC page on Meta.

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. This annual review was planned and implemented by the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, you may review the U4C Charter.

Please share this information with other members in your community wherever else might be appropriate.

-- In cooperation with the U4C, Keegan (WMF) (talk)

21:01, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

(This message was sent to Commons:Txokoa and is being posted here due to a redirect.)

Hi all,

I often see titles such as "DSCF1234" or "qwerthjkl" on Commons.

I also happen to develop an upload tool for Commons.

What do you think about the opt-in experiment below? - Detect such titles using a local-only (thus privacy-friendly) small LLM. - If it is such a title, show a tooltip such as "Make sure to write descriptive names, see Commons:File_naming". - This would be a separate version of the app, that only people who really want to try this experiment would download. - If the experiment goes well, I would consult the community again and possibly let more people use it.

I know the community feels strongly about AI, which is why I am consulting here. To be clear, the LLM resides on the local device, and never uses the Internet, nor reports query content to anywhere.

Any feedback welcome, thanks! :-) Syced (talk) 08:36, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I like the idea, but wouldn't a local LLM (or a SLM/small language model) use up significant amount of RAM/CPU? Leaderboard (talk) 08:46, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

i think people who care enough to use such apps dont write gibberish captions in the first place? RoyZuo (talk) 13:13, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

The Upload Wizard is actually already catching some of those generic filenames, especially the "DSC_" or similarly styled ones, and warns about their use. That may only be a reminder, not a prohibition, which could explain that some uploads still sport such names. The other, more probable, reason is found in imports from Flickr et al., where the names aren't really filtered. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 13:56, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Sounds like sth for Commons talk:WMF support for Commons/Upload Wizard Improvements. I don't know if your proposal is about file titles or captions or both (the latter would probably make most sense). Prototyperspective (talk) 17:11, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

something's wrong with Commons:File requests/header such that it makes the reply function fail on pages transcluding it, but i cant figure out why. could someone more skilled take a look please? this problem has been bugging Commons:File requests for years. RoyZuo (talk) 11:09, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I don't know what the cause is but it's one of the things I requested to be fixed at m:Community Wishlist/Wishes/Fix the issues breaking the Reply tool (voting open!) where I will add your example.

Either way, please do not post more threads about technical issues/subjects to general VP but to the board about technical issues, Commons:Village pump/Technical. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:14, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Do we have a category for Murder suicides? I see the individual categories but no intersecting one. RAN (talk) 23:23, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

For File:Anchors and displays of model ships, A-Y-P, 1909.jpg, I see {{|watermark}}, presumably because of the photographer's mark at lower right. Is this really desired? While there would be no legal ramifications in overwriting such an image and removing the photographer's mark, is that really desirable? It seem to me more like removing an artist's signature from an oil painting.

Pinging @HerrAdams who added the template here. - Jmabel ! talk 00:53, 21 January 2026 (UTC)Reply