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

I'm a little surprised to see that we rarely seem to have Category:Group portraits, Category:Group photographs, and Category:Group portrait photographs (and other analogous group portrait categories by medium) broken down into categories by the nature of the group (which would be orthogonal to most existing subcategories). The following is how I'd want to organize it (incorporating some existing categories). For simplicity's sake, I'm just expressing this in terms of subcats of Category:Group portraits; the others would be analogous (with Category:Group portrait photographs inheriting from both Category:Group portraits and Category:Group photographs). I'm posting here in case anyone either would want to help or sees something wrong with this scheme. The following is intended to be illustrative rather than exhaustive:

Category:Group portraits

Category:Group portraits by nature type of group (renamed per discussion below)

Category:Class portraits See discussion below; there was enough in place that was decent enough that I just reworked it minimally instead of doing it the way I would have done from scratch - Jmabel ! talk 22:39, 31 December 2025 (UTC). Using existing Category:Class photographs.Reply

Category:Group portraits of clubs

Category:Group portraits of co-workers

We currently have Category:Group portraits of forestry workers in Europe, which appears to be implicitly group portrait photographs, and should be renamed accordingly. moved to Category:Group portrait photographs of forestry workers in Europe - Jmabel ! talk 06:51, 3 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Family portraits (currently directly under Category:Group portrait photographs)

Category:Group portraits of royal families (currently directly under Category:Group portrait photographs)

Category:Group portraits of military units and formations reworded, adding "and formations" to parallel existing parent cat - Jmabel ! talk 05:22, 6 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Portraits of musical groups (currently have Category:Portrait photographs of musical groups, but lack this level)

Category:Group portraits of politicians (currently have Category:Group portrait photographs of politicians but lack this level)

Category:Group portraits of governing bodies

Category:Regents group portraits (currently directly under Category:Group portrait photographs)

(somewhere under the photo side of this should be Category:Photos of the entire Seattle City Council currently not under Category:Group portraits at all)

• this might still be desired if there are enough such portraits, but I ended up handling these two categories differently for now. - Jmabel ! talk 22:13, 4 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Group portraits of sports teams

Category:Wedding party formal portraits (currently directly under Category:Group portrait photographs)

For what it's worth, what started me thinking of this was not finding anything like Category:Group portraits of co-workers. We have a lot of group portrait photos that would belong under that. - Jmabel ! talk 02:55, 28 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think Category:Group portraits by type is more in line with how we name categories (and sounds better), other than that I think this is a good idea. ReneeWrites (talk) 12:01, 28 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

@ReneeWrites: maybe "…by type of group"? Because just "Group portraits by type" sounds like it might mean paintings vs. photographs, etc. - Jmabel ! talk 21:51, 28 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Good point, "by type of group" works too! ReneeWrites (talk) 23:46, 28 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

How would Category:Class portraits be different from Category:Group portraits of students and/or Category:Class photographs? Nakonana (talk) 19:09, 29 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Nakonana: It would be a subcategory of Category:Class photographs (thanks for finding that), excluding things like File:Milady in Brown 1909 (1909) (14758164426).jpg which are not group portraits. Category:Class photographs is currenty a subcat of Category:Group portraits of students; that is a bit of a mess because (as in the example I just gave) not everything in the former is a group portrait. So probably Category:Class photographs should be moved up the hierarchy, and Category:Class portraits should be the intersection of the two. - Jmabel ! talk 22:54, 29 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Actually, better Category:Class group portraits than Category:Class portraits. - Jmabel ! talk 06:44, 31 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hmm. I just went through all the (categorized) class photographs. There are few enough montages that I think it is OK to treat Category:Class photographs in the hierarchy of group portraits, and just allow for the fact that a few are actually montages. Anyway, all the ones I found that are montages are now (also) in Category:Montages of classes and its one subclass. - Jmabel ! talk 07:58, 31 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

It seems pretty clear that there is agreement on the general idea here. I'll make this one of my work areas. If some details change later, that won't be unusual. - Jmabel ! talk 06:37, 31 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

I've done a fair amount of work here, integrating quite a few existing categories, creating about 30-40 new categories, and categorizing (I estimate) somewhere upwards of 1000 photos. But this is beyond any one person doing to anything like completion. I think the basic patterns are now established and that most categoris I introduced run reasonably parallel to each other, though I did not reorganize some existing categories that break the patterns, and I'm sure I've introduced at least a couple of inconsistencies of my own. Still, the area is much better structured than before, in a way that should reasonably let anyone continue the pattern I've established.

I'm traveling the next week or so, and while I will be on Commons a bit, I certainly will not be moving this particular task further forward at this time. If anyone wants to get in there, have at it! - Jmabel ! talk 08:14, 7 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

Happy New Year 2026 to everyone!

This is the year of Wikipedia/Wikimedia's 25th anniversary, and, so, a good moment to think about what can be done to help keeping, in addition to carry on building, this wonderful work that we are creating together.

In the year that has just ended, I wrote 3 essays related to this topic (1 in Commons and 2 in English Wikipedia), that you can read if you are interested:

• Digital preservation
• Past and future of Wikipedia
• The hidden encyclopedia that resides in the article histories

In the year we have just left behind, there was also very good news in this regard: for the first time (as far as I know), Internet Archive publicly confirmed that, unlike 10 years ago, it has copies around the world, so the many contents preserved there (including many Wikipedia articles and many Commons files, among many other WMF pages) are not exposed to the natural risks that a single location like San Francisco may face, so now there are far better preservation guarantees for legitimate files or wiki pages that, for one reason or another, may be removed from public view in WMF sites in the future (I think it's a good practice to also save in Wayback Machine those Commons files that are worth of special value). MGeog2022 (talk) 20:01, 1 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Wouldn't it be a much better policy to establish data centers for Wikimedia projects in additional and safe countries? That would also mitigate the risk. --Enyavar (talk) 08:06, 2 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I think that WMF backups in countries other than the USA would be fine, but probably they could only host offline backups, since US copyright law is always considered for Commons media, and US-only fair use law is considered for many media files hosted in Wikipedia itself. I'd like to see fair use and fixed-term (since publication) copyright expiration in the European Union and other countries, but, sadly, it isn't the case for now (the current interest in promoting AI in the EU could be a good reason to change the laws, but I fear they won't change, since it seems that, sadly, AI companies are given permission to ignore copyright laws where others wouldn't be allowed to do the same).

Here, I wasn't thinking about possible censorship or political issues. Fortunately, it doesn't happen often, and administrators make a great work, but, for one reason or another, a Wikipedia article or a Commons file (there are more than 130 million files in Commons, we need to be understanding) may be mistakenly deleted (false copyvio claim, controversial out of scope discussion, etc). I'm not saying it's something that usually happens, only that it is something that could happen with some files, and, if they are of special value, it's good to include them also in Wayback Machine, where, to ask for deletion of content, very strong evidence of the copyvio is needed. MGeog2022 (talk) 14:15, 2 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I think there is some confusion above:

• Besides three sets of servers in the U.S., Wikimedia already has servers in Amsterdam, Singapore, Marseille, and São Paulo.
• Not all WMF projects follow U.S. copyright law. For example, de-wiki as far as I know completely ignores U.S. copyright law, but follows the copyright laws of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, which are almost completely harmonized with one another.

Jmabel ! talk 18:37, 2 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the info in the second point, I wasn't aware of it.

WMF does have datacenters out of the USA, but they are caching ones only (source). As far as I know, only 2 of the 3 US datacenters store the full contents permanently. But good point also to talk about the non-US WMF datacenters: if there can be caching datacenters out of the USA, perhaps there would be no problem in having application datacenters also (I don't know enough about it, but I always thought that the reason for both application datacenters being US-based was WMF following USA copyright law). MGeog2022 (talk) 19:51, 2 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Having whole datasets outside the US (preferably in stable, democratic countries), would be good. We have to be prepared --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 20:33, 4 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yes. While having more than 2 production copies isn't probably needed, and would add technical complexity, if only the backups hosted in the 2 application datacenters were copied to, for example, each caching datacenter, it would add cross-country redundancy, at a cost that seems very affordable to WMF budget (several backups of less than 2 PB should not be a big problem for such a budget). MGeog2022 (talk) 11:21, 5 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Internet Archive doesn't have much of Commons. Re that & Commons:Digital preservation, see m:Community Wishlist/W213 (physical Wikimedia Commons media dumps). Prototyperspective (talk) 00:17, 13 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hi,

File:zh-zhī.ogg contains audio that's actually a pronunciation of "zhǐ", not "zhī" as the file name suggests (this is already confusing people: see wikt:Talk:之#Mandarin_audio). The file was nominated for deletion before, but was kept (Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Zh-zhī.ogg). There's already a perfectly valid file File:zh-zhǐ.ogg containing a correct pronunciation of "zhǐ". What do we do now?

• If we can't delete File:zh-zhī.ogg, can we upload a new version of it? I recorded a pronunciation of "zhī" and tried to upload it as a new version, but got hit with Commons:Overwriting existing files.
• If we can't upload a new version, can we at least rename File:zh-zhī.ogg (so that we can upload a correct file)? The problem is that File:zh-zhǐ.ogg is already taken (and it's a good file). Do we rename it to File:zh-zhǐ2.ogg?
• I *could* upload my recording as File:zh-zhī2.ogg and edit all the pages that use File:zh-zhī.ogg to use my version... But that seems like a waste of everyone's time (as it's so much more work than just fixing the wrong file), *and* File:zh-zhī.ogg would still remain erroneous and confusing.

Can an admin step in here? Wyverald (talk) 03:44, 2 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Stepping in, partly as admin. Unless someone else objects in the next 24 hours, here's what I propose.

• I will temporarily mark File:zh-zhī.ogg with {{Allow overwriting}} so you can overwrite it.
• When you overwrite it, please edit the file page to accurately reflect your replacement file.
• @Wyverald: may I presume that once I allow overwriting, you will get to it promptly and report back here so an admin can quickly lock it back down? Is there a time of day that works well for you (in UTC, please) to start this?

- Jmabel ! talk 06:14, 2 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. I can do it any time this weekend (from now until 8am Sunday UTC, or 8pm Sunday to 8am Monday). Wyverald (talk) 18:51, 3 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Wyverald: have at it! Let us know here when you are done, so I can remove that tag. - Jmabel ! talk 23:01, 3 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Done. I took the liberty to remove the tag myself when editing metadata -- hopefully that's not illegal :) Thanks for the help! Wyverald (talk) 02:15, 4 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

i think @Jmabel's solution is wrong. in case of error, the description should almost always be edited to describe the file, not the other way around.

changing the file and the description to fit the title causes way more confusion, as i just got confused by the discrepancies between the different versions. RoyZuo (talk) 14:28, 6 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I strong disagree that we should just edit the description here. That means File:zh-zhī.ogg will continue to have the wrong content forever; the correct file can at best be named File:zh-zhī2.ogg; it's a lot more immediate work to fix all the articles; and any future article wanting to link to a pronunciation of "zhī" will probably start out linking to the wrong one.

You said "changing the file and the description to fit the title causes way more confusion". Why is that? I can only see people getting confused if they look at the revision history of File:zh-zhī.ogg, which I can only assume to be very rare. Then again, I might be missing something here as I'm not a frequent user of Commons. Wyverald (talk) 20:57, 6 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@RoyZuo for many files I would agree with you, but this is one where its name is part of a pattern of harmonized names. One would expect it to contain a recording of a particular phoneme; apparently, it did not. - Jmabel ! talk 22:13, 6 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

now yall are leaving the histories of two completely different files by different creators at the same page. that is very confusing.

the version contributed by Shtooka Project could be deleted as a duplicate of File:Zh-zhǐ.ogg as they record the same thing by the same speaker. that's better than leaving a mess behind like this. RoyZuo (talk) 22:45, 6 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

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

I find very few group pictures of school classes. Most schools had end of the schoolyear pictures of the whole class. Nowadays this is very limited because of of privacy concerns, but in the past this was not a problem. Are there any specific categories for this? In this case the children where born around 1932. I find it very dificult to recognize any childern at this age even if you have a picture of the child at the same age to compare. I cannot recognize my mother with any certainty (two good posibilities) Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:38, 4 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Class photographs. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:51, 4 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I have been categorising/sorting school classes by country. However, this File:ACS School Uniform.jpg has no country info.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:41, 6 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Added to Category:Unidentified locations. Now we wait... Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:30, 6 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Google Image Search leads to [1]

ACS may be Anglo_Chinese school in Singapore, or en:Adi Cakobau School, in Fiji. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:47, 6 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Uniform matches the latter: [2]. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:53, 6 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

The pictures without a country is sorted with an X. These are: File:Elipsis Cole 28.jpg, File:Hala school pic.jpg, File:La promo del cole 28.jpg, File:PCB Batch 2015-16.jpg, File:Sofiemyr NM 2012.jpg, File:Thankyou55.JPG, File:Title005.JPG and File:WUL-i04 02090 0090 集合写真 1.pdf. (the last is probably Japanese, because of the Japanese language). Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:34, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

It is abuse of category sorting to use an opaque system like that. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:40, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

There is no country with the first letter X. All other files are sorted by category. Many files where placed in country subcategories. (Romania en Belgium categories where created) The number of files has been reduced from around 122 to 62. I want the unsorted files to be together. I want to limit the number of temporary work categories. Maybe using ' X' is better, this then goes to the front.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:01, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I don't refer merely to the use of "X", but to using countries as a sort key in that way.

Sort keys are meant to ensure that files or subcategories with names like like "Barack Obama" sort under "O", "042" under "42" and "The Silmarillion" under "S", not for strings that are not part of file names. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:15, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

If you want to classify by country, you can make subcategories ("School class pictures in Transylvania"). No need to use sorting keys as if they were categories. Pere prlpz (talk) 16:17, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Sort keys have many uses, but the example you mention is the exception rather than the main use. Most times sort keys are used to get the files in chronological order and the file names are very diverse. Example: Category:Trains at Amsterdam Central station. Train material types sometimes get sorted by number such as Category:Intercity Nieuwe Generatie in the Netherlands. There only the trains with visible number get sorted. Example: Category:Intercity Nieuwe Generatie in the Netherlands. This ia practical system as there are many contributors who usualy dont bother to research or mention the fleet number. When sufficient number of files are grouped together by sorting a subcategories can be created as in Category:ASEA Rc by fleet number. For ASEA Rc by livery the Category:ASEA Rc by livery is used. Personaly I find this overcategorisation, but if the contributors specializing in this area are happy so be it.

Back to school classes. I only want to create subcategories if there sufficient number of files. And you get to know how many files there are for each country? By sorting them. When there a sufficient number of pictures for a country a new subcategoryis created. In the meantime one can easily search for a specific country if the sorting is up to date. I wil now mention how the category is sorted.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:39, 11 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Using keys to sort chronologically is also an abuse. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:00, 11 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

There are many ways to sort, but sorting by year is less relevant in this case. Furthermore the dating of many pictures is imprecise.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:02, 11 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Additionally, in Commons there is no problem with creating categories with a single file or a few files. Specially, creating categories by country helps finding and organizing school photographs, while just ordering them is obscure and hard to understand to the point of uselessness.

There might be some places where ordering can be useful, but not as a replacement for categories. Pere prlpz (talk) 12:12, 11 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

There is no technical problem with creating categories with a single file or a few files, but is it desirable? It is very frustrating when you scan a main category for some element/aspect in the pictures and you have scan every subcategory individualy. Using SDC and Cat-a-lot scripts on many unnecessary subcategories, cost a lot of extra time. For example: adding SD (Q602767) to the files in Category:ASEA Rc with the SDC script, would be much easier if there where no subcategories. Now there are 200 subcategories of individual locomotives in (see Category:ASEA Rc by fleet number). I suspect most of the locomotives pictures have Q602767 in the SD. But the only way to check is to rescan all the relevant subcategories. And for what? Who is really interested in an individual locomotives? I urge restraint in trying to categorize everything (and types of combinations). There is certainly such a thing as overcategorisation. Luckily there is an alternative way of ordening/searching the files with Structured Data. (see https://commonswalkabout.org/) This is much more flexible with combinations and specific queries. Categories systems should only try to facilitate standard searches, not overspecific, niche ones.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:13, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

The upload wizard is still offering "First published in the United States before 1930" as a reason why a work might not be covered by copyright; that should now be "First published in the United States before 1931".

Is there a reason why the annual update cannot be automated? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:49, 4 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Possibly better asked at Commons:Upload Wizard feedback. - Jmabel ! talk 21:12, 4 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Someone needs to keep doing this every december. RoyZuo (talk) 14:15, 6 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

T271968 has been open for five years /sigh/ Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:46, 6 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

This sounds like an "aw, poor baby" thing. Someone can't be bothered to make such a simple change once per year? RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 15:44, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

As I understand it, only a WMF employee or contractor can touch the Upload Wizard code, and there is sometimes no such a person assigned to maintain the Upload Wizard. - Jmabel ! talk 02:06, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

This includes both newspapers and magazines, and many were categorised as both. Should we amalgamate them, and perhaps call them all periodicals? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rathfelder (talk • contribs)

I don't understand the problem: both magazines and newspapers are a subset of periodicals (alongside academic journals, etc.). If there are sufficient number of one subtype to break that out into a subcategory and categorize that along some kind of existing scheme, then I think it's a good idea to do that. If not, then not. For files that are categorized as being both a "magazine" and a "newspaper", I don't think that really makes any sense. Typically, a magazine that is about current affairs, politics, and general news is called a "newsmagazine" or "news weekly" and is generally considered a magazine and a newspaper is generally something else. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:49, 5 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

The problem is that most of these political publications claim to be newspapers, but they are really much more like magazines. They dont have actual news Rathfelder (talk) 19:12, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

If something here is still unsolved, please start a CfD (Commons:Categories for discussion). Prototyperspective (talk) 13:20, 13 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

My account has reset. My edit history has disappeared, and it now says I registered in November 2025, though I registered over a decade ago. What the fuck? TransOceanic (talk) 19:48, 5 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

This is not Wikipedia, look: en:Special:Contributions/TransOceanic. --Achim55 (talk) 19:59, 5 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. Don't even know how I wound up here. TransOceanic (talk) 20:02, 5 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

See: Category:Photographs by Haruo Katoh. I am not sure if I have the right name. RAN (talk) 20:21, 6 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Why Kato with h at the end? It looks more like Kato. H., or H. Kato. Nakonana (talk) 21:34, 6 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

And is it even a photographer in the classical sense? Because in one of the clippings it looks like they are also the author of the text. Nakonana (talk) 21:58, 6 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm curious about where "Haruo" has come from. I couldn't spot anything in the files to suggest "Haruo" or any other name beyond "H." Did you find some other clues or is it a wild guess? From Hill To Shore (talk) 22:21, 6 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

• From here: George Eastman Museum https://collections.eastman.org/objects/list;jsessionid=659BC629061614F963B87D46C18C6E3E?filter=department%3APhotography%3Bpeople%3AHaruo%20Katoh, but maybe wrong, that is why I asked for help. --RAN (talk) 15:29, 7 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I have just noticed that File:Robert Gillmor 2010-03-23.jpg (which is very widely used, both on and off Wikimedia projects) was deleted; and wrongly.

As I noted in The deletion discussion, the non-free painting that was depicted in part of the image was deliberately blurred, and thus de minimis. Others disagreed, as is their right, that the blurring was sufficiently hazy. Rather than deleting the image, the blurring of that part should have been increased (and by the minium necessary to satisfy the doubters). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:02, 7 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Pigsonthewing: Should be done now. If you want to do a less blurred version, that's up to you. (I'm in an airport right now, working with less at hand than usual.) If you no longer have the original to work from, I or another admin can get that to you. - Jmabel ! talk 20:15, 7 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thank you; as I said, it should use "the minium necessary to satisfy the doubters". I have previously declined to do so, since my view of what is acceptable (i.e. the image as uploaded) is clearly at odds with what those involved in the discussion believe. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:26, 8 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention. In particular, no prisoner of war may be subjected to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the prisoner concerned and carried out in his interest.

Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.

Measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited.

Should files that show prisoners of war in an insulting manner or for public curiosity be hosted on Commons? Some people on Commons:Deletion requests/File:Nicolas Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima (cropped).jpg think they shouldn't Trade (talk) 22:05, 7 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps the pictures should or should not have been released under the Third Geneva Convention, but they were; Commons is not a signatory to the Geneva Convention, and is not censored. - The Bushranger (talk) 03:04, 8 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Commons is hosted in the united states and generally has to comply with United States law. The United States is a signatory to the third Geneva convention. So i think the question is, is commons violating United States law by hosting these images. Bawolff (talk) 03:27, 8 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Article 13 of the Third Geneva Convention requires that prisoners of war be treated humanely and protected "against insults and public curiosity". This obligation applies to the Detaining Power, meaning the state holding POWs, with the aim of preventing humiliation, propaganda use, or exposure for public spectacle. It does not create a blanket prohibition on all images; context matters, and images used for encyclopedic, historical, or educational purposes without intent to degrade are generally not considered a violation.

Regarding Wikimedia Commons and the Wikimedia Foundation, GCIII binds states but not private organizations. As a US-based non-profit, WMF is not the Detaining Power, so hosting images does not create direct legal liability. (Section 230 further shields WMF from liability for user-uploaded content.) While the United States is a signatory to GCIII and has criminalized "grave breaches" under Article 130. such as killing or torture, exposing POWs to public curiosity is not itself a grave breach under US law. Any potential violation would lie with the original publisher or state actor, not a third-party host like us. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 03:35, 8 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

This SPARQL query shows >8K items with SDC "Inception" dates of between 1 and 1000 AD.

Many are modern photographs with clear errors. For example an image where the date was entered in the format "1-4-09"; but was "2009-01-04", in EXIF.

My request for a bot to address this was archived without being actioned.

How can we address the issue? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:23, 8 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

For starters, it has to be pretty easy to slap a maintenance category (or a template that adds a maintenance category) on the images found by the SPARQL query. - Jmabel ! talk 17:39, 8 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

See also Commons:Bots/Work requests#Changing values in the date field based on categorization. Date in categories <-> date field / SDC mismatches (contradictions) could also be listed and would include many of these and some other cases. Maybe the query can also be used to find more of these contradictions. Prototyperspective (talk) 00:31, 13 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hi everyone and happy new year. I noticed only now that a direct link to the 3D model category was added directly on the home page of Commons and, looking it up quickly because I was a little bit curious and excited, I noticed that there are indeed some real 3D model files (.stl files mainly)... together with a mass of ordinary and static png/jpg images of 3D models.

Shoundn't we create some category for those specific files, like we did for the image files theirselves (example: )? It's a little bit odd to see for example a real 3D model file like this (File:Aston Martin F1 AMR23 2023.stl) with only a generic "3D models" cat and nothing more.

I think that real 3D model files should be distinguished from others and should be easily discoverable.

Seeing how the Category:Media by file format is organized, I think we should add a super-category there named like "3D models by file format" (or should we add them to the Category:Images by file format? I don't know exactly) and then a "STL files" as a sub-cat one (and other cats. for other type of 3D model files of course, I'm not an expert still of which types are most used or permitted here on Commons) at first, and maybe even some other appropriate relative cat for those objects.

What's your opinion on this? :) --LucaLindholm (talk) 15:33, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Ah ok, I noticed that under the Video file formats there already is the Category:STL files... but is it a video file? It is confusing and quite no one expects it to be there, tbh.

I was only unlucky to have encountered only some file that wasn't tagged with that cat. XD LucaLindholm (talk) 20:37, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

There is nothing to stop you from adding other appropriate parent categories to Category:STL files. - Jmabel ! talk 02:08, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

An IP user had placed the STL files into Category:Videos by file format; I moved it into Category:Media by file format. MKFI (talk) 08:02, 10 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

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

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

Hi, I discovered that my personal name appears in the metadata of some files I've uploaded. Is there any way of removing it? Why would it appear in the first place? Many thanks. Yakikaki (talk) 10:16, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Yakikaki Because something (your camera or your software editing program) added it before uploading. Commons just shows what is already there before the upload. You can upload a new version without the name and then ask an admin to delete the old revisions. This is called EXIF data and there is lots of software that can edit and change it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:08, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

If you have a Windows PC, then once you download to your machine you can edit EXIF data via the file properties, then reupload. - Jmabel ! talk 01:45, 11 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

The normal way to delete an old revision is described at COM:REVDEL; in this case you may want to mail or ping an admin. There are various free software to remove exif data; after you did that you need to upload the new file as a new version to each of the files ("Upload a new version of this file" underneath "File history" on the file description page). Prototyperspective (talk) 00:40, 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

Вітаю пане користувач Didym, скажіть будь-ласка для чого ви видаляєте мої файли з Вікіпедії!? Чи можна це розглядати як вандалізм, ваші дії? Адже ніяких порушень в моїх фотографіях не було? Для чого ви видалили мої фотографії з вікіпедії? Адже я можу розглядати ваші дії як вандалізм. Дайте мені відповідь для чого ви видаляєте мої фотографії з вікіпедії? Ви є адміністратор? Severus777 (talk) 20:35, 11 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Severus777 Пожалуйста ознакомьтесь с

• Вікісховище:Ліцензування
• Вікісховище:Сфера проекту
• Вікісховище:Правила копірайту за темами
• Commons:Норми авторського права за територією/Україна

Nakonana (talk) 23:46, 11 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Отвечу на русском. Скорее всего ваши файлы нарушают авторское право, ведь вы не предоставили свободных лицензий на эти фотография как минимум. Лучше ознакомьтесь с правилами которые предоставил коллега Nakonana. Всего наилучшего Incall ^talk 07:36, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

If something here is still unclear, please make a new thread on the user's talk page or COM:Village pump/Copyright. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:00, 13 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hi. Some time ago I uploaded these files via Lingua Libre, which included my then-current username in the names:

• File:LL-Q7979-AlexGallon-preventive.wav
• File:LL-Q7979-AlexGallon-bivalve.wav
• File:LL-Q7979-AlexGallon-bipartite.wav
• File:LL-Q7979-AlexGallon-biogenesis.wav
• File:LL-Q7979-AlexGallon-octant.wav
• File:LL-Q7979-AlexGallon-metallurgist.wav
• File:LL-Q7979-AlexGallon-fishbone.wav
• File:LL-Q7979-AlexGallon-spank.wav
• File:LL-Q1860 (eng)-AlexGallon-billy goat.wav
• File:LL-Q1860 (eng)-AlexGallon-concentration camp.wav
• File:LL-Q1860 (eng)-AlexGallon-sleepwalker.wav
• File:LL-Q1860 (eng)-AlexGallon-bouncy.wav
• File:LL-Q1860 (eng)-AlexGallon-numerically.wav

Please could someone replace "AlexGallon" with "Pink Bee" in these? I would prefer it if my old username was not immediately visible on my list of uploads. (I am aware and don't mind that it can be found easily elsewhere.)

Apologies if this is the wrong place to ask. I couldn't find any information on the correct way to request mass renaming. Thanks. Pink Bee (talk) 00:06, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Trying to do this (and related changes) but the files that are in Category:Lingua Libre pronunciation by AlexGallon seem to be there via some sort of implicit trick in a template, and while I hav been able to rename them, I cannot move them from that category to Category:Lingua Libre pronunciation by Pink Bee. - Jmabel ! talk 02:34, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for your help. I will sort the cat issue separately. Pink Bee (talk) 02:57, 12 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

Hi, File:Ouida_from_Cabinet_Card.jpg is globally misattributed. The person depicted is not Ouida, but Pauline Lucca (1841–1918), the Austrian opera singer.[1] Because the file is used on multiple Wikipedia language editions as Ouida’s portrait, the misidentification is being widely propagated. Could an administrator please assist with correcting the file’s subject attribution and updating its global usage accordingly? TheFairyTaleLover (talk) 13:59, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

This looks very plausible if you compare her face to the other portraits of Pauline Lucca on Commons. I am not an admin anywhere, but I just corrected the German Wikipedia page and the German Wikisource page of Ouida as well as the Ouida Wikidata item. I also made a rename request for the photo. Generally, there is no reason why you need an admin for the global corrections. So I do not fully understand your request. --Robert Flogaus-Faust (talk) 15:02, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. Sorry, I'm relatively new to Wikimedia Commons, and in any case, I was mainly referring to the photo's renaming. I'll do my best to replace the photo on all other Wikipedia pages as well. Have a good evening. TheFairyTaleLover (talk) 18:31, 12 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 [3] and [4] 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