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Centralized discussion See also: Village pump/Proposals   ■ Archive Category talk:Israel–Hamas war (10 July 2025) Commons talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Explicitly expand F10 to include AI? (1 May 2025) Discussion on Copyright law of North Korea (16 March 2025) Categorization of SVG files (13 February 2025) Costumed character files (14 October 2024) Commons:Requests for comment/Hosting of free fonts in Commons (18 July 2024) Template: View   ■ Discuss    ■ Edit   ■ Watch

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what's the community's view on audio files (such as pronunciation) contributed by users who are not native or even not fluent at all in a language? RoyZuo (talk) 12:51, 19 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

In my opinion, this isn’t great. At the very least, a person should be able to pronounce words correctly. For major languages, mispronunciation isn’t such a big deal — they can handle it without much harm. But for smaller languages spoken by fewer than 50,000 people, it can be a serious issue. In those cases, incorrect pronunciation can actually distort the language and harm its preservation. Incall ^talk 18:46, 19 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

They can serve as a demonstration of accents IF they are clearly marked as audio files of non-native speakers. Nakonana (talk) 19:27, 19 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

"Not native" isn't inherently bad; there is in fact potential value in recordings of people speaking a language with a foreign accent. But those recordings should be tagged clearly to make it clear that they're atypical and shouldn't be used as pronunciation audio (e.g. on Wiktionary). That being said, "not fluent" is a more serious problem. Outside of special cases like recordings of language instruction, users should probably not be contributing audio recordings in languages that they cannot speak well. Omphalographer (talk) 19:29, 19 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

It's complicated. There are no "native speakers" of Latin: all we have is a variety of non-natives. And fluency is less the issue than good pronunciation: I've known trained opera singers whose pronunciation is impeccable in a language in which they could not order a drink or carry on chit-chat. Also, for world languages like English, Spanish or French, it is less important that someone is "native" than it is clear where they are from. Québécois French is a very different thing than Metropolitan French; Rioplatense, Mexican Spanish, and Castillian are sometimes barely mutually comprehensible; "correct" English in Mumbai is a very different thing from "correct" English in Nashville, Tennessee. And surely the fluent or near-fluent non-native English of an immigrant to the U.S. from Shanghai or from Oaxaca is a thing well worth documenting, as long as it is clear what the recording represents. - Jmabel ! talk 20:19, 19 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'd say "it depends", very much. A selection of files containing examples like "German with a French accent" or "Italian as spoken by an American" certainly has its potential educational use. And for major languages, if the aim is for example just to have a Wikipedia article spoken by a human, some accent will not be an issue as long as it's spoken clearly enough. On the other hand, we certainly don't want audio files of small languages where native speakers exist - like Romansh or Greenlandic - with bad non-native pronunciation or grammar as examples for that language (and not as examples of "Greenlandic mispronounced by someone from Japan"). For the latter case, I think deletion could be in order. Gestumblindi (talk) 20:14, 24 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Special:ListFiles/AndroidDevelopment101 User:AndroidDevelopment101 uploaded pronunciations in several languages. i'm sceptical of these pronunciations' accuracy, but i speak none of these languages. can someone native please check?--RoyZuo (talk) 21:31, 19 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

The French one in File:Fr-mourir2.ogg is garbage, I nominated it for deletion. Addendum: I'm not a native from France, but sufficiently fluent in the language nevertheless, having lived in the Département Moselle between 1993 and 2001. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 22:31, 19 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don’t speak French, but based on the sound, I can tell it’s definitely not proper French, no one speaks it with such a terrible accent. Incall ^talk 22:39, 19 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes. This person is less qualified to provide French pronunciation than I am, and I am unqualified to provide French pronunciation. - Jmabel ! talk 00:53, 20 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

still, recordings supposedly in many languages need to be checked. RoyZuo (talk) 07:37, 1 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

File:Vampire laugh.oga, how about this "vampire laugh"? The low quality reduced the professional nature of the supposed sound effect. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 07:53, 1 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

On a second thought, I'll nominate it. The audio file is of mediocre quality, that only adds to many poor quality and mediocre files that exist on Commons. Ymblanter already mentioned something about a stereotype from some Wiki users in other projects that we tend to host assorted media files of low quality and dubious usability. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 09:08, 1 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Note: the same user (AndroidDevelopment101 (talk · contribs) made a spam comment here before self reverting. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 04:00, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't know as I'd necessarily call that "spam", as there's no commercial or promotional intent, but it's certainly unhelpful and inappropriate. Omphalographer (talk) 05:32, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I see that there are double categories such as Category:Male people wearing hats and Category:Men wearing hats. Is there a policy to replace al men en woman categories with male people and female people? For conservatives this looks very woke and may cause problems in political climate in the US.Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:20, 28 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Here’s some links to the relevant discussions:

• Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/08/Category:Male humans
• Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/08/Category:People performing sexual activity
• Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/10/Category:Female humans' health
• User:Sbb1413/Men and women

Tvpuppy (talk) 09:50, 28 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

"Male people" includes male people of all ages (men and boys), while "men" is only for adult males. Nakonana (talk) 14:46, 28 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

If we want a consistent naming across all age classes we should adult male person instead of men. As there are many age classes without gender specific terms. But it is also possible to define that for Commons categories men is a synonym for male people independent of their age. GPSLeo (talk) 15:06, 28 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

We have Category:Young men, Category:Middle-aged men , etc., but I guess Category:Young adult male people might work, too. I'd prefer "male people" for an age independent category over "men". Nakonana (talk) 20:31, 28 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

The problem is "men" is the simple intuitive term and "male people" is the more exact term, so we will always have people using both and it will always be confusing. My advice is to delete all gender categories as they are mostly useless anyway except for sports. Nosferattus (talk) 05:38, 30 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

That's my opinion also. Gender based categories are totally pointless in most, if not all, instances anyway and "male people" just sounds needlessly clunky. Know one looks for images of men that way. The same goes for most of the age based categories. --Adamant1 (talk) 05:46, 30 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

"woke" my goodness, I am over half a century old, and male and female are very accurate labels ever since I walk around this planet. One can disagree with certain synonymical choices without making it about "woke" as an argument against something (to obfuscate it is actually about personal preference). Labrang (talk) 09:47, 2 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

They are useful for those who are looking for specific stock photos, just to name one example. Nakonana (talk) 13:27, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Krd @The Squirrel Conspiracy @Lymantria:

Please be notified that there is a request for comment on Meta that you may be involved with, at m:Requests for comment/Should paid editing as a CU be allowed. You can voice your concerns regarding the topic.

Please do not reply to this message. 〈興華街〉📅❓ 04:58, 29 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I kindly invite the following to join the discussion:

@Achim55, @Pi.1415926535, @Yann, @Taivo, @RoyZuo, @PantheraLeo1359531, @Bedivere, @CptViraj, @Jameslwoodward and @Jeff G.. 〈興華街〉📅❓ 05:13, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Do we have a category for this? I am specifically talking about this icon--Trade (talk) 00:21, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps Category:Video game icons? Tvpuppy (talk) 00:44, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Problem is that the category is not limited to files that were ripped from games Trade (talk) 01:27, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

If we were to have a distinct cat for that (and I'm not at all sure we should), surely it would be a subcat of Category:Video game icons, no? - Jmabel ! talk 01:49, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Icons ripped from video games is a thing now. Trade (talk) 02:19, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps I’m not understanding, what’s the difference between an icon ripped from video games and a regular video game icon? Tvpuppy (talk) 02:28, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Purpose it to indicate the source of the files Trade (talk) 02:34, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I understand now, so isn’t simply “Icons from video games” a more suitable name for the category? Tvpuppy (talk) 02:46, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

No, that's ambiguous Trade (talk) 02:55, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Trade: what exactly is the definition for "ripped from"? Directly copied from game assets, taken from marketing resources, screenshots, something else? MKFI (talk) 06:49, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

1 Trade (talk) 07:15, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Trade: I suspect you typo'd here, or something. That is not in any way a reply to the question asked. - Jmabel ! talk 18:47, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

He asked me which definition. I said the first one? Trade (talk) 21:00, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Which makes them likely copyright violations. Indeed, both of the contents of that new category are almost certainly copyright violations. The James Bond "007 and gun" logo is copyrighted. - The Bushranger (talk) 01:20, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

That's called a trademark Trade (talk) 02:43, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm aware of the difference, thanks. - The Bushranger (talk) 03:19, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I've had times where i perfectly remember a category being full on images only to later discover it has been nominated (and deleted) for Speedy Deletion for being empty

Common sense would suggest to bring the issue up with the deleting admin and whoever moved the files out of the category. But as far as i can tell there is no way of seeing who moved the images out of the category unless you have memorized the name of the images in the category

So it seems like anyone can just empty categories whenever they please with little risk of anyone being able to find out they did it? Trade (talk) 00:39, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

You can still search for the images that used to be in that deleted category, and you will be able to see who removed the category in the file history. It is possible that all the images within the category were deleted, hence the category was empty and subsequently also deleted. Tvpuppy (talk) 00:59, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

And if i dont remember what the files were named? Trade (talk) 01:28, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

It's not the best solution but I follow a couple of main categories just so I can keep track of whats added or removed from them. That's the only way I can think of to do it though and there should be a better alternative if there isn't one I'm not aware of. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:37, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would encourage you to request a solution on https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/

I dont feel too confident navigating the UI myself Trade (talk) 02:13, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would but I think they require a new account and that your email address be publicly viewable to create one. Totally agree about the UI to. It's not super user friendly to say the least. --Adamant1 (talk) 02:22, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

A lot of MediaWiki tools suffer from the same issue unfortunately Trade (talk) 02:37, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, it's close to untraceable. Certainly it is usually good practice to build some sort of consensus or at least to make some sort of comment (e.g. on the category talk) that gives people a chance to work out who was doing this. Also, leave edit summaries that let people concerned with certain files see readily that categories are being removed. Also, when deleting a category because you've merged it's content elsewhere, it's a really good idea for the deletion comment to explain where the content has been moved.

Still: sometimes a category is so obviously bad that I couldn't blame anyone for skipping the usual processes. - Jmabel ! talk 01:56, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Do you believe there is any responsibility on the deleting admin to check if the category is actually empty? Or just emptied? Before any deletion Trade (talk) 02:11, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

The deleting admin should evaluate before deleting. Otherwise, we'd just let everyone make deletions themselves. But everybody is going to make occasional mistakes, because sometimes the diligence required is disproportionate to the effect. For example, there are certainly users who I trust enough to follow through on their requests without much checking of my own. If one of them screws up despite a long, good track record, I might not spot it. And I would have to guess that the admins who do the most deletions are most likely to fail to notice one that isn't correct, because they would not have time for as much diligence per deletion as those of us who are less confident of knowing what is likely to be abuse. - Jmabel ! talk 03:36, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Fully agreed. Trade, you may be encountering this because of your habit of creating excessively intricate category trees that are not useful. I just deleted a dozen categories you created which collectively contained exactly one file. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:40, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Try and avoid stating false reasons for deletion in the logs next time then Trade (talk) 23:12, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Try and avoid creating massive collections of near-useless categories. - Jmabel ! talk 01:07, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

We have been keeping video game screenshots seperate from the games they came from for more than a decade now. Lashing out at me for following the decade long precedent does little to change that Trade (talk) 19:34, 10 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I read "Commons:Rename a category" and not sure how to accomplish this myself so here I am... I previously posted a query about this issue at ”Commons:Village pump/Technical“. To me the Commons "Category:Wilmington insurrection of 1898" is mis-named, it should be "Category:Wilmington massacre". There isn't more than one event of this type on more than one date that happened in Wilmington, NC and to call it an insurrection mischaracterizes the mass murders and toppling of a municipal government that happened there on November 10, 1898. See the Wikipedia article "Wilmington massacre". (And I really would do the linking thing but cannot figure out how to do it over here on Commons...) – Shearonink (talk) 14:32, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

For a potentially controversial rename like this, the right way to approach it is to start a CfD. - Jmabel ! talk 18:50, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Can someone add File:Marcellus Hartley Dodge Jr. (1908-1930) portrait.png to his wikidata entry at Q6756466? I'm blocked at Wikidata and I find at least one a day where an image is missing from data but available at Commons, is there any way to flag an image so a bot can add it if none is at data? --RAN (talk) 16:26, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): you were recently warned by a Wikidata admin that you may not make proxy requests for edits to Wikidata, and that anyone who edits Wikidata on your behalf there is subject to having their account blocked. Please do not put other people at that risk.

I would truly hate to have to block you here for importing problems from another wiki and placing others at risk, but if you continue to use Commons as a forum to request proxy edits against the policy of a sister wiki, you would put us (Commons admins) in a position where we have no other reasonable choice. - Jmabel ! talk 19:03, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

• Just saw that now, that is why a bot should do it. Just as we have bots perform other routine maintenance. --RAN (talk) 20:34, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
  • @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): , bots are "other users". You may not request that other users proxy edit for you on Wikimedia projects on which you are blocked or banned, full stop. - The Bushranger (talk) 01:17, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

    Maybe he is suggesting that a bot should automatically add images to Wikidata items when an image has depicts set to that Wikidata item.

    Anyway, this is a truly brilliant situation where no one can add this image now. So if someone wants something to not ever be done on Wikidata all they have to do is get blocked and then ask other people to do it, then no one can ever do it.  ${\displaystyle 999}$REAL 💬 ⬆   02:02, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

    • There's no need to make such a hyperbolic reducio ad absurdium. People can absolutely do it. RAN cannot ask them to do it. - The Bushranger (talk) 03:17, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I've added the image (applying the spirit of en.Wikipedia's "ignore all rules"), since Wikidata, the wider Wikimedia movement, and the open web at large are all better with it there than without.

In future since RAN still has access to his Wikidata talk page, I suggest he posts there the QID and filename of any such "missing" images, without additional commentary. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:26, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/27/deepfakes-denmark-copyright-law-artificial-intelligence

"The Danish government is to clamp down on the creation and dissemination of AI-generated deepfakes by changing copyright law to ensure that everybody has the right to their own body, facial features and voice."

"The changes to Danish copyright law will, once approved, theoretically give people in Denmark the right to demand that online platforms remove such content if it is shared without consent."

"It will also cover “realistic, digitally generated imitations” of an artist’s performance without consent. Violation of the proposed rules could result in compensation for those affected."

What would the consequences for Commons be for AI files that were generated by individuals residing in Denmark? Trade (talk) 17:52, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't know, but it's odd if they are handling this through copyright law rather than personality rights. The article is very vague on exactly what rights this would grant or limit. - Jmabel ! talk 19:07, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

The original article in Danish explicitly mentions that this would affect ophavsretsloven ("the copyright law"). From my limited understanding copyright law and personality rights law is treated as being interchangable

https://www-dr-dk.translate.goog/nyheder/indland/minister-oensker-ny-lov-mod-deepfakes-saa-alle-har-ret-over-egen-krop-stemme-og?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US

In short if someone makes a deepfake (image, video or voice) of a Dane without their consent and said Dane demands for it to be taken down Commons will (supposedly) be legally obligated to do so or risk facing legal consequences (more likely Wikimedia Denmark will be the victims but still) Trade (talk) 21:07, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Personality rights is already a thing in Denmark but some politicians feel like it does not offer sufficient protection against deepfakes. Hence this law proposal Trade (talk) 21:08, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I assume they would have to prove its a deepfake in the first place. I wonder how they would do that, especially as AI images get more realistic or would it just apply to any image of a person that they don't like or want on the internet regardless? --Adamant1 (talk) 21:57, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

"Would a hypothetical person reasonable believe this photo to be a real photograph of X absence of any evidence to the contrary" It's not that complicated. Courts and lawyers have been doing hyphotheticals about how a reasonable person would act or believe for years.

"I assume they would have to prove its a deepfake in the first place." Deepfake is essentially just a synonym for the hypothetical i just described

"or would it just apply to any image of a person that they don't like or want on the internet regardless?" The whole point of the law is to make the personal rights of defendants equivalent to the way copyright works with audiovisual materials (my assumption). Trade (talk) 23:23, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

That's fair. I was thinking more about claims made to Commons then actual court cases but I guess it wouldn't be that different. It's at least hard for me to imagine anyone nominating a deep fake for deletion just because it depicts a celebrity or something. Like probably the project should wait until there's some actual court cases or the WMF takes a stance on it before nominating deepfakes for deletion based on copyright. Especially since they still aren't copyrighted in the United States anyway. That's all. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:35, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

It doesnt matter that they aren't copyrighted in the United States. All files have to be free in both the US AND the host country (Denmark)

"Like probably the project should wait until there's some actual court cases or the WMF takes a stance on it" The WMF likely wont take a stance unless the Commons community prompts them to do so. Hence this discussion Trade (talk) 01:50, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Flagging that I started a discussion over at the Talk page for Denmark's copyright rules (didn't notice this discussion at first as I only checked the copyright VP, apologies for starting an additional thread). There were a few comments over there in response. 19h00s (talk) 19:52, 10 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello! I found on Pixabay, this music that claims to be AI-generated. However, going to the artist's YouTube channel, it seems like the Roneat ek (which I would say is the main instrument in the music), is in fact not AI-generated.

If this is uploadable to Commons, what license would this go under? I know that {{Pixabay}} wouldn't be applicable since this was uploaded to Pixabay this year, way after Pixabay stopped licensing their media under CC0. COM:AI only mentions a case in which people modified AI work that was a visual work, which are treated differently than audio works in the US. TansoShoshen (talk) 19:13, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Probably avoid just to be safe Trade (talk) 21:10, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

There must be stricter monitoring of potential copyvios. Many still got slipped through, like File:Southern Uptown Area Cebu.jpg. We should not rely on EXIF metadata claims in some instances, since some may have been added by the erring uploaders, to avoid being suspected of. Ping PhiliptheNumber1, who also detected a copyvio image that contained fabricated metadata (see Commons:Deletion requests/File:Line 2 Marikina–Pasig station exterior 2.jpg).

I'm also proposing to limit FileEx/Importer tool to "autopatrolled" users based on Wikimedia Commons user rights (not local Wikipedias' user rights). I had encountered at least one case of English Wikipedia media content that turned out to be a copyright violation: Commons:Office actions/DMCA notices/2024#2010 Winter Olympics Canada clebrating hockey gold medal. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 00:56, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

What exactly is this tool? Trade (talk) 00:59, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

FileExporter/FileImporter is a tool that easily transfers local files not tagged with "do not move to Commons" templates from Wikipedias to Commons. I have been using this to transfer eligible enwiki images of Patrickroque01 (that don't show recent public buildings and monuments). However, there is a tendency for inappropriate local wiki files to be transferred to Commons using this tool, and there has been some cases of supposedly "safe" enwiki files becoming tagged as problematic once on Commons (like copyrighted artworks), and at least there's one instance of an enwiki file that was flagged for DMCA take down (though it was transferred to Commons using different tool). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 01:43, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

@JWilz12345: "false and erring metadata" and "We should not rely on EXIF metadata claims in some instances, since some may have been added by the erring uploaders, to avoid being suspected of."? Well, while it's technically possible to fake EXIF, you would need some not-so-easily accessible tools for that (like EXIFTool and possibly a GUI for it, too, cf. Commons:EXIF). Your example looks different: it's more likely a photograph from a screen or print, where the uploader may have used a software to remove privacy-relevant data (GPS or the like), only somehow keeping the model and make of a smartphone. But that's still enough to raise suspicion: you don't have ISO values, no focal length, no exposure duration, no aperture value, no camera software... So, it's clearly a malformed dataset, which makes for a stark reduced value as evidence for being a legitimate photo. It's rather becoming the opposite. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 01:59, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Grand-Duc no, it is a straight copyvio - a photo grabbed from the Facebook page of Pinoy content creator The Island Nomad, and the uploader purposely removed FB metadata and added bogus Huawei exif metadata to remove suspicions on copyright status. The Island Nomad post predates the upload here. I'm not convinced that Marmar0222 (talk · contribs) is the same person behind the Pinoy content creator. Marmar0222 also grabbed an image from a w:en:Rappler contributor's Facebook post and did the same fabrication of metadata (see Marmar0222's talk page). The Huawei metadata in these low-resolution images (that are post-2020) are bogus and fabricated. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 03:08, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Are we certain it was deliberately "purposely removed", or simply remvoed as an artifact of cutting and pasting the images? If they were lifted from FB, yeah, that's copyvio, but simply right-click-saving an image and then editing it in an editor can result in that editor's metadata overwriting any original ones. - The Bushranger (talk) 03:24, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

So, just noticed that whenever I'm on a "Template:" space page, the tabs at the top kind of...shift down when the page completely loads, so that they're half hidden by the bar at the top of the page. On Firefox, latest version, with Monobook. - The Bushranger (talk) 01:14, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I can confirm the same problem. Also Monobook + Firefox. MKFI (talk) 07:22, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I have cross-posted this also in en-wiki: en:Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#On_template_namespace_with_Monobook_skin_the_tabs_are_half-buried. MKFI (talk) 17:02, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I confirm too, the Monobook theme is quite underrated. (Firefox Nightly). Sev6nWiki (talk) 13:59, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Files from 500px.com with bad file names still has over 18,000 files, which means few people are working on the problem. A fair number of the files have enough information either in categories or descriptions that it should be fairly easy to propose reasonable file names. Obviously, help from people with filemover privileges would be especially useful, but even without that you can use {{Rename}} and someone else can follow up the actual move.

If moving:

• Please do not delete the redirect, these have been here for quite some time and someone may be relying on the link.
• If a file currently has a name like File:BLAH (41777424).jpeg, please leave the parenthesized number intact when you rename the file. - Jmabel ! talk 18:29, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I added the above bullet points to the category page description, since I think they are quite helpful for people to know. Tvpuppy (talk) 20:02, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Jmabel: Why should we retain a meaningless serial number from an external site? It holds no value whatsoever to Commons or reusers. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:48, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Pi.1415926535: As I understand it, there are people here who seem to find those useful for detecting duplicates. Not my issue, but I was chewed out for not doing so in the past. - Jmabel ! talk 00:30, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

That was always a silly excuse - no one was actually using them to detect duplicates when uploading - and it's completely irrelevant here because all the files are already uploaded. I've removed it from the category. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 01:28, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't know how it works with 500px.com but at least Flickr2Commons checks for duplicates during imports using the numbers. So they serve a purpose there. It might be different with 500px.com but they aren't totally pointless in general. Probably it depends on the site and how the images are being uploaded. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:46, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

The 500px import was a one-time affair - the site no longer allows users to tag their images as Creative Commons, and now primarily focuses on stock photo licensing. So there's no need to support future duplicate detection. Omphalographer (talk) 02:12, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

OK. It makes sense why the numbers wouldn't be necessary in this instance then. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:19, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Where can I bring up migrating the Wikipedia inflation calculator template to a WMF site so that it can be used universally by all projects? I tried migrating it to Commons but it was too difficult, it involved dozens of subroutines that have to be migrated for each currency. It would be awesome in Commons space so we can have a note where we know what $500 in 1880 is worth today from historical news articles. It would be helpful in Wikisource too. RAN (talk) 19:20, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Maybe it’s easier to do this in Wikifunctions. Tvpuppy (talk) 19:30, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks! Let me try there. --RAN (talk) 03:35, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

See mw:Global_templates and pages linked from there. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:49, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Most, but not all, of the images in https://www.istoria-artei.ro/resources/files/SCIAAP_2013_Art_01_Serbanescu.pdf are in the public domain and would be worth having; the Iosif Iser works are 3-1/2 years from being in the public domain (a good reminder, by the way, that some 120-year old work is still copyrighted). Ideally, extraction & upload should be done by someone who knows enough Romanian to provide decent descriptions, etc. I'd do this myself, but I have way too much else on my plate. - Jmabel ! talk 18:49, 6 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Extracting the images as such is pretty trivial, but the weird thing is that the images are cut apart into different files. E.g. that first image with soldiers walking is not a single image file but two: one that ends around their knees and a second that starts around the dogs' heads. Very bizarre. Plus, out of 139 images, almost all are JPEG, but a handful are PNG. Do you want me to reassemble the component files into a single image when they are split up like this? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:53, 6 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Additionally, my understanding of Romanian is extremely limited. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:08, 6 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sounds like it might be disproportionate to the effort involved.

There are early works of a few important artists there, though, and quite a few interesting commentaries on Romanian politics. It would almost certainly be worth capturing the works by Nicolae Petrescu-Găină, which all should be PD. Some of the others of importance are still in copyright in Romania: Iosif Iser, probably the most important artist represented here, in 1958, so as noted above his early work will soon be out of copyright; Ary Murnu and Iosef Franz Steurer, the latter also a pretty important artist, in 1971. Nicolae Mantu is probably one step down; he died in 1957, so his work will be OK in 2028.) So maybe other than Nicolae Petrescu-Găină it's not worth doing at this time, but certainly 3-1/2 years from now those early works by Iser would be very worth having. (For a "Western" comparison, it would be as if someone like Andrew Wyeth had early work as a political cartoonist.) - Jmabel ! talk 18:49, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sounds good. I'll just respond if you have some kind of action for me. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:28, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

http://www.leslarmesderos.com/

sell physical photographs and works of art whose copyright has expired and have digital images of them online

most of these are rare, and once sold, the images have succumbed to linkrot

some that have succumbed to linkrot have been archived at commons.wikimedia.org

is there a task force or project to save these ?

Piñanana (talk) 21:56, 6 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Biederer Studio refers to : w:Studio Biederer and w:Ostra Studio

can a Category be a redirect? such as:

Category:Ostra Studio

Category:Studio Biederer

Piñanana (talk) 22:13, 6 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Piñanana: are you just asking to create a redirect from Category:Ostra Studio to Category:Biederer Studio? Yes, that would be OK. Don't create a "hard" redirect, though, use {{Cat redirect}}. And, if you are doing this, you should expand the hat note of Category:Biederer Studio to mention Ostra Studio. - Jmabel ! talk 18:54, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't know... Ostra Studio and Studio Biederer and Biederer Studio refer to the same set since there seems to be no way to definitively separate them, but some items have metadata that claims one of the three. So now I wonder if there could be a superset that would contain all three. I don't comprehend the full consequences of { {Cat redirect} }

Piñanana (talk) 19:35, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

So I've noticed that both SVT-AV1 and libaom, encoders for the AV1 video codec, support lossless encoding.

I encoded the first 10 seconds of the Sintel Trailer with SVT-AV1 with the lossless option enabled, and uploaded it to Commons on File:Example.webm, just to test how well Commons handles these types of files.

The output video is, as expected, large, although not as large as the trailer's collection of frames stored as PNGs (~900 MB compared to ~300 MB) Fortunately, this is still under the Commons maximum file size limit, however I can imagine this being an issue on longer run times/FPS.

My laptop (Intel Core i3-6006U CPU, no hardware AV1 decoding available) struggles to play back the video with libdav1d, and combine that with the streaming of a very large file with bad internet download speeds, and it's pretty much unwatchable. However, Commons automatically re-encodes the video under more simpler to play formats, like VP9.

For such big file sizes, I don't think it's really that big of a deal, since I've seen extremely large in dimensions PNG files before, which Commons also automatically downscales them.

I couldn't do FLAC for audio since it isn't supported in WebM for some reason, so I chose 320Kbps Opus as the next best thing.

What does anyone here think? Should lossless AV1 be preferred if available? I wanted to ask this since I've found the uncompressed frames of the Sintel trailer, and I wonder if a lossless version of the trailer could supercede File:Sintel trailer-1080p.ogv, especially considering that MDN Web Docs considers Theora as deprecated. SergioFLS (talk) 06:16, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

No, Lossless AV1 should not be preferred. The Wikimedia eco system is not mature enough to handle people uploading a large amount of video data in lossless, and then having to software decode it and re-encode it to lossy version. Doing so at scale, would likely result in lossless being forbidden as an ingestion format. Use it where it makes sense, but not all the time. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:44, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Shouldn't we focus on solving that issue? Rather than forcing uploaders to limit themselves Trade (talk) 22:01, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Some may upload every PNG as single file, as alternative. But I don't know what the opinion of the community is about that --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 17:26, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Generally speaking .jpg is preferred for photographic work, and .png for graphics. See also the descriptions of these templates: {{BadJPEG}} and {{BadPNG}}. ReneeWrites (talk) 21:09, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

It would also be interesting to know how big the difference between lossless compressed AV1 and uncompressed AV1 is --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 19:53, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

This is to notify that I have nominated Lymantria for a merchandise giveaway (a T-shirt) at m:Merchandise giveaways/Nominations/Lymantria. Please give your support for a T-shirt for them. Thank you! 〈興華街〉📅❓ 15:46, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I tried three methods, is one preferred or are all three acceptable?

• 
  column 1
• 
  column 2
• 
  combined columns into one image
• 
  two page pdf version

RAN (talk) 18:00, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't know what's acceptable and what's not (though the license text says that one can edit files as one pleases, so do as you want?), but I can say that the last method (=pdf) is hardest to read on mobile. (I'm accessing Commons via a browser app on mobile.) Personally, I'd prefer the second method because all the info is in one place, but method one and three are truer to the source which might be relevant if someone wants to quote the newspaper, for example, in a research paper where you also have to mention the page from which you are citing. Nakonana (talk) 18:43, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

• Maybe I should create all three for important documents. --RAN (talk) 19:17, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

  My view, as a reader on desktop and phone, is that your example could have another format, the column 2 below column 1 for scrolling simplicity, clearly displaying that the image has two non-contiguous regions, so as to not obscure the documents provenance.

  Piñanana (talk) 20:08, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

  I agree, combined into one image but with space around each segment seems like a good layout. Sam Wilson 00:59, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

+1. PDF files aren't great for something like this. Probably having the section combined into one image but with space around each segment is the best way to go. That's how I've seen a couple of archives do it. Although you could just do all three formats but that seems like pointless overkill. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:13, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

PDF files aren't great, but the (correct) actual text can be embedded (eventually), w:djvu is an option... Piñanana (talk) 08:21, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

• I am not a fan of the pdf version, but it keeps the two files together. We have several halves of news articles, and I cannot tell if we once hosted the second half. It may have been deleted or a name change made it no longer findable, or it was never added to the category. So many things can cause separation. Sometimes "pointless overkill" is worth it, if the document is important enough. Is there an easy one step software package for converting files to the djvu format? I would love to start using it. --RAN (talk) 01:21, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

  read: w:djvu ... Piñanana (talk) 02:37, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

  DjVu is, quite frankly, a pain to work with. I wouldn't recommend using it over PDF if you have a choice in the matter. Omphalographer (talk) 20:45, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

  It's totally tangential but I'm always surprised that Commons supports either format. Neither one works great on here. There really isn't reallu any reason for using them over image files in most, if not all, instances I've seen either. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:57, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

  PDF is very well suited for use cases like scanned books (with or without text layers) - uploading these as collections of single-page images is much less convenient. DjVu was at one point considered a more Free alternative to PDF, but they're both open standards nowadays. Omphalographer (talk) 21:03, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

  What is the best layout for news articles with multiple clippings ? ... Piñanana (talk) 00:09, 10 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

  I don't think there are many reasons to recommend DjVu over PDF these days, other than some rarely-used features around text structure representation. And yeah, if all that's in a PDF is images, they could be uploaded separately (personally I more often do that, and then add a {{G}} in the |other versions= parameter to show all the parts if there are few, or add them all to a category if there are many). Sam Wilson 02:46, 10 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

As you might have noticed there are certain categories that are receives an disproportionate amount of selfie spam and self-advertisement. Would it be useful to list these categories somewhere? That way it could encourage other editors to take a look at them from time to time to clean them up

A couple of examples here:

• Category:Celebrities
• Category:Freelancers
• Category:Graphic designers
• Category:Entrepreneurs

Trade (talk) 21:04, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

At least with Category:Celebrities, there was a discussion and attempts to get rid of it last year but the category was never fully emptied. So it's still around. That's probably the best way to do deal with it though. "Celebrities" is to ambagious to be useful anyway. Hence why it gets turned into a dump for random selfie spam. The same goes for the other categories IMO. Although I'm not going to advocate for getting rid of them without proper discussion first. But all of them are ambagious to the point of being meaningless. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:19, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Clearly someone are teaching people to advertise in that particular category. Otherwise so many people wouldn't do it Trade (talk) 08:03, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

A wrinkle is that usually it's not the people posting the spam doing the categorization, it's people coming along after them. Gnomingstuff (talk) 03:22, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

It's the exact same problem I've pointed out repeatedly: editors go through uncategorized files, tack on some random, inconsequential category and walk away, all for the sake of being able to claim the file has now been "categorized". More often than not, it makes spam and copyvios harder to catch. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 03:54, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

One idea I've had is a technical solution where certain categories can be designed as not for files. That could be done with an edit filter, but it would be clunky - we'd have to edit the filter for each individual category, and it would only be able to warn or disallow the edit entirely. More elegant solutions are possible but might require software changes.

On the other hand, these categories do make it easy to detect a lot of spam. Perhaps its best to keep them as honeypots until something else (like automated upload filtering) reduces the amount we get. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 05:28, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Do we have a maintenance category specific to categories which frequently attract selfies and self-promotion? If not: should we? It could be useful for coordinating periodic cleanup of these categories. Omphalographer (talk) 20:52, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

We cant even have a filter that stops people from reuploading the same selfie biweekly from different accounts Trade (talk) 06:52, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

@RadioKAOS Ennnhhh I don't know if I agree with this. The people who make this stuff hard to find are the people who put a lot of effort into categorization and track down the really granular and deeply nested categories that no one is checking. The people who just tack on something like Category:Business are actually doing copyvio hunters a favor. (The main exception is people-related categories like Category:People, but the problem there isn't that spam is hard to find, it's that there's so much of it.)

As with every single maintenance backlog (and old spam is a backlog), the thing that will improve matters more than anything is just having more people do it. Gnomingstuff (talk) 13:00, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

The problem isn't just categories related to commerce; creative categories get a lot of self-promotional content as well: Category:Artists; Category:Authors; Category:Disc jockeys, Category:Musicians; Category:Vocalists Category:Writers. Omphalographer (talk) 07:52, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Let's not forget Category:Social media influencers and Category:YouTubers.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 12:46, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

• Hm, some good observations. However, alternatively, rather than label them "Categories that are vulnerable to selfie spam and self-advertisement", perhaps think of them as "Categories where much selfie spam and self-advertisement can be found and deleted". The project is going to get spam regardless of the existence of such categories; having places where the glurge tends to gather thus can more easily be found and cleaned out would seem to be of some use. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 22:48, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I have been categorizing and sorting images of the UK for about a year and a half now. The continuing influx of new images from Geograph makes it too hard to keep up. Also, since the talk pages of Category:Rail transport in Great Britain and Category:Rail transport in the United Kingdom are more-or-less dormant (and not followed), I thought it was best to make a request here.

The images mainly concern heritage and preserved railway vehicles, stations and events on the Severn Valley Railway from 2023 and 2024. Categories that are affected and should be checked are:

• Category:Upper Arley
• Category:Kidderminster Foreign
• Category:Kidderminster
• Category:Bewdley

I rather want to concentrate on current railway photography, heritage railways are not as interesting to me. --Btrs (talk) 16:49, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Btrs: you are not clear here on what task(s) you want people to do on those four categories. - Jmabel ! talk 17:41, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think I recognise the problem, areas with a nearby heritage railway receive many images of said heritage railway, what I usually do is cat-a-lot those images over to the local heritage railway station Oxyman (talk) 21:47, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Two different but important Vietnam-related issues have come to my attention recently.

The first is Vietnam's recent provincial reorganization which had 63 provinces reorganized so that there are now only 34 provinces. Obviously location maps will have to be moved so it's known that these are now historic maps. And the new location maps will have be organized in such a way that these reflect the provincial reorganization. And so I raise the issue here rather than at the thread in COM:OWR /wiki/Commons:Overwriting_existing_files/Requests#c-Chemistry(NuTech)-20250708060800-Abzeronow-20250707233500 because this should not be done on an ad hoc basis. Apparently Viwiki has been notified, but enwiki and other wikis should be notified of this as well.

The second matter is File:Flag of Vietnam.svg as there is apparently some debate about what the official color scheme of the flag is (and whether or not there is a standardization of the flag or not) File talk:Flag of Vietnam.svg. I have per consensus on Talk Page reverted to the previous version, but since there was a source raised in the discussion that points to a revision being "official", I thought bringing that up here might get more knowledgeable people about Vietnam to settle this matter or to at least provide more insight into the matter. Abzeronow (talk) 23:53, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Re: point 1. Not only provincial reorganization but a massive overhaul of all local government units. The entire district-level division has been nuked, but that also means majority of Vietnam's cities as well as all of their towns are officially no more (or at least, the likes of Nha Trang, Vinh, and Dienbienphua now exist as nominal, geographical features since they no longer have valid city governments). All of Vietnam's towns and provincial cities lie within this recently-abolished level. Additionally, massive mergers of Vietnam's communes (which I treat as equivalent to Philippine barangays or administrative villages that serve as divisions of Philippine cities and towns).

Some questions:

Should the categories of recently-abolished Vietnamese cities and towns continue to exist?

Should a massive recategorization of Vietnamese communes take place, too?

_ JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 00:06, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Categories for longstanding historical stuff should continue to exist, but should have parent cats that make it clear they are historical. - Jmabel ! talk 03:25, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps like, Category:Former cities in Vietnam, following the convention of the likes of Category:Former cities in New Zealand and Category:Former cities in Nova Scotia. The last cities of Nova Scotia province (Canada) – Dartmouth, Halifax, and Sydney – ended up the same fate as Vietnamese cities (except six "special" ones that are independent of any Vietnamese province), but in different ways. The three Canadian cities were abolished and replaced with higher-tier regional municipalities, making them permanently nominal and geographical. In the case of Vietnam's provincial cities, all were axed and their functions distributed to either the provinces or the enlarged communes (or Vietnam's version of Philippine administrative villages or w:en:Barangays). "Enlarged" in the sense, like Vietnam's provinces, mergers to reduce 10,000+ communes to slightly over 3,000+.

This may need opinions from Vietnamese Wikimedians, though, since according to w:en:Plan to arrange and merge administrative units in Vietnam 2024–2025 the reorganization (which I consider to be the most radical reorganization of local governments the recent world has witnessed, as of this comment of mine) has generated some controversy, both within Vietnam and outside the country. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 04:07, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I definitely want to have Vietnamese Wikimedians give us some input. I'd ask someone to post about these issues in Commons:Thảo luận but I don't know how effective that would be. Abzeronow (talk) 21:35, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Abzeronow I think we don't need the opinion of Vietnamese Wikimedians. This article by Vietnam.net clearly states that all provincial cities have been nuked and wiped off of the world map. No legacy titles will be retained too, because it "would lead to inconsistency in the administrative structure and cause public confusion - questioning why district names persist if the level is officially removed." We must treat the 85 cities of Vietnam in the same manner as we treat the three former cities of Canada's Nova Scotia province.

The likes of Category:Ba Ria and Category:Bien Hoa must be recategorized to Category:Former cities in Vietnam (same pattern as Category:Former cities in Nova Scotia), which in turn must be a subcategory of both Category:Cities in Vietnam and Category:Former subdivisions of Vietnam (as Sbb1413 suggested for category "Districts of Vietnam"). Only 6 of the main members of "Cities in Vietnam" category will remain: Category:Can Tho, Category:Da Nang, Category:Haiphong, Category:Hanoi, Category:Ho Chi Minh City, and Category:Huế. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 23:49, 10 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Back to the original questions re: Vietnam, I'd only comment on the first one.

 Support moving the impacted map files (of Vietnamese provinces) to their new file names that reflect on their historical statuses. Original names (base names) should reflect the maps that show the current provincial boundaries (since 2025). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 04:24, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Related CfD Commons:Categories for discussion/2025/07/Category:Districts of Vietnam. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:30, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Also related: Commons:Overwriting_existing_files/Requests#Allow_overwriting_for_the_following_files. Jmabel ! talk 20:02, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Good day.

Today, @Surayeproject3: tagged the following file as a duplicate. Unfortunately, that's not so easy in this case, as it must first be clarified what exactly the image depicts. According to File:Kurdere - fo30141712180016 27.jpg, it's Kurds, and it's also used as such in language versions. In File:Nestorian (Assyrian) Christian family making butter, Mawana, Persia.jpg, you can see Assyrians in Persia making butter. Image one is by Category:Bodil Biørn, while image 2 doesn't name an author in this sense; it comes from the collection Category:Images from the Library of Congress. The question now is which statement is correct, and in that sense, an image may need to be renamed, depending on which version is keept. Regards. זיו「Ziv」 • For love letters and other notes 20:08, 10 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for making the Village pump posting @Ziv. Like I mentioned on her talk page, I tagged a file as a duplicate of another depicting a group of people in Persia making butter. As an Assyrian, I typically categorize and upload Assyrian-related images here on Commons, so I'm familiar with the terminology and background of these topics. Based on the general use of the image, upload dates, and a version having the words "Christian family...", my instinct was to assume that the ethnic identity of these figures was Assyrian (in Persia and the Middle East, Assyrians are almost unanimously Christian while Kurds are Sunni Muslims). It's possible that as we move the discussion along, we could find many reliable sources pertaining to the image that prioritize a certain description over another, but this is just an idea. Surayeproject3 (talk) 20:24, 10 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I noticed this oddly named templates inside Category:Non-copyright restriction templates. Is there any consensus that we have to follow this law? Otherwise it should be deleted--Trade (talk) 22:29, 10 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Unused, and the creator's only edits were to create the template. Bizarre. I'd support deletion unless someone can confirm that these alleged laws exist and would apply to Commons. Omphalographer (talk) 00:19, 11 July 2025 (UTC)Reply