Commons:Village pump/Archive/2025/01

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Commons Gazette 2025-01

Happy New Year! Happy Public Domain Day!

Volunteer staff changes

In December 2024, 2 sysops were elected; 1 sysop was removed. Currently, there are 181 sysops.

Election:

Removal:

  1. ↑ en:Wikipedia:Deceased_Wikipedians/2024#JarrahTree

Edited by Abzeronow and RoyZuo.

Commons Gazette is a monthly newsletter of the latest important news about Wikimedia Commons, edited by volunteers. You can also help with editing!

--RoyZuo (talk) 23:35, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

How can Category:Gallery pages with a wrong format be removed from Help:Biology wikidata glossary?

How can Category:Gallery pages with a wrong format be removed from Help:Biology wikidata glossary as a parent? The format is OK now (User:Prototyperspective have moved it to the Help format) and he already removed this parent category, but it still is popping up. JopkeB (talk) 12:41, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

@JopkeB: it is presumably on one or more of the pages that are included there in their entirety, all of which are still in gallery space. - Jmabel ! talk 18:32, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Thanks @Jmabel: . I renamed Biology wikidata glossary/Double Taxonomic Wikidata Items, and gave a Hard purge to Help:Biology wikidata glossary and now it is gone. Problem solved. JopkeB (talk) 05:50, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --JopkeB (talk) 05:51, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Mirroring request

See the billboard behind the U and the BBVA building to the right

Hi, where can I post a mirroring request for File:3D bUENOS aIRES - jUL 2019.jpg?

RotationBot offers no mirroring and I cant't find anything in Category:Gadget scripts → bertux 15:14, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

As the image is in use by two Wikipedias that might prefer the current version I´d rather recommend to keep it unmirrored and to upload a new version under a different file name. --Rudolph Buch (talk) 15:19, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
Thanks! The question is still: where can I get the mirroring done? We are discouraged from rotating with a photo editor; is mirroring always lossless? → bertux 16:25, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
I'd just flip it with GIMP. It's not like this was some gem of high-res photography. - Jmabel ! talk 18:39, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
Isn't this what {{Flopped}} is for? Thuresson (talk) 12:14, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
Thanks! Applied. Also removed the photo from article space in eswiki and nlwiki as there are plenty of better alternatives available for es:Letrero gigante de ciudad and nl:Lettermonument → bertux 22:11, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

I want to upload this photo of Dap Chhoun to Commons. It was taken at the Geneva Conventions in 1954, seems to be PD in Switzerland and Cambodia. I still don't really understand URAA, so a simple explanation won't hurt. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TansoShoshen (talk • contribs) 12:40, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

It is not clear where the image was published first. Ruslik (talk) 13:16, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
Not sure what you meant here, if you meant where the image was sourced, reverse image search points to this image being used on this website and this random Facebook post.
If you meant the country where the image was first released to the public, then yeah, it's unclear. However, it's probably either France or Switzerland, but I can't find a definite answer. TansoShoshen (talk) 17:05, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
Most likely, the URAA makes in unfree until 2050. Ymblanter (talk) 18:40, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

No thumbnail

Any idea why File:Vittore Carpaccio - la vie et l'uvre du peintre (1910) (14596474918).jpg won't generate a thumbnail? Underlying file looks fine. - Jmabel ! talk 00:41, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

File:Art Safari 2024 at the Dacia Building, Bucharest - 05.jpg, too, and I know that used to work. - Jmabel ! talk 02:11, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

@Jmabel: Both files work for me. I think there's currently a bug with thumbnail generation on Commons, though. I ran into a similar problem with a number of files I've uploaded which I requested a speedy deletion for. I suspect the files looked fine to The Squirrel Conspiracy, who left a message on my talk page about it. ReneeWrites (talk) 02:14, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Category:Deletion requests/pending

Is there a reason why we dont use a bot to automate the categorizing of the subcategories? Trade (talk) 03:47, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Probably as much as anything, no one having defined the rules by which a bot would know what is needed. If it can be simply described, and you can describe it, then a bot might be in order. - Jmabel ! talk 06:33, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Something as simple as "If the images in the category are deleted after the discussion have been closed, move the page to the /deleted category and remove it from the pending category. Trade (talk) 08:25, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
As everything in the deletion request is only in Wikitext a bot needs to parse the Wikitext and needs check for the deletion status of the linked pages. It is not that simple to build such a bot that does this without many errors. GPSLeo (talk) 10:12, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

License change at source

I've incidentally found this image (File:Mendebaldeko Sahararen aldeko Iruñeko elkarretaratzea 2020 2.jpg) with a license-review template. It was uploaded on 1 December 2020. I've checked the source and it says "CC BY-NC-SA 4.0". In Wayback-Machine, as of 3 December 2020 license was CC BY-SA 3.0 though (but I can not see every image there, only 2 of them). Is it reasonable assuming good practice, this image being properly uploaded? Do we have a templates in order to register this license incidents? Strakhov (talk) 12:38, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

If it's OK in Wayback Machine, you can approve it and link the Internet Archive page in the permissions and/or the edit summary. I'm not sure what to do about the pages that don't show up there, though. - Jmabel ! talk 18:30, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Magic word for SDC date of creation

Isn't there a magic word for SDC date of creation? If such thing exists, I don't have to input the date manually in an edit like this. In this case, I had to copy 2011-04 of the date field and paste it in {{Japanc|so|2011-04}}, which is quite tiresome. --トトト (talk) 13:42, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

@トトト: If "inception" property is present in SDC, and you leave the date blank, then {{Information}} will use the value in the "inception" property. However, that won't give you any Japan-related date category. - Jmabel ! talk 18:40, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Upcoming Commons conversation about tool investment priority on January 15

Hello everyone! The Wikimedia Foundation will be hosting the third round of a series of community calls to help prioritize support efforts from Wikimedia Foundation for the 2025-2026 Fiscal Year.

The purpose of these calls is to support community members in hearing more from one another - across uploaders, moderators, GLAM enthusiasts, tool and bot makers, etc. - about the future of Commons. There is so much to discuss about the general direction of the project, and we hope that people from different perspectives can think through some of the tradeoffs that will shape Commons going forward.

Our third call will focus on tool investment priority. There are constant calls from the community for the Foundation to adopt community-made tools in order to maintain workflows for the contributors that depend on them. The range of these tools varies widely, and includes media upload (e.g. Video2Commons), editing (e.g. CropTool), curation (e.g. Cat-a-lot) and metrics (e.g. BaGLAMa) tools. Batch upload and metrics tools are said to be critical for the affiliates and Wikimedians in Residence who partner with libraries and other cultural institutions to illustrate Wikipedia. They need to be able to contribute files efficiently at scale, and report on the impact of these contributions. However, community surveys have identified more than 30 different tools that are used for content partnerships.

More specifically the questions will be:

  1. Does it make sense for the Foundation to invest in supporting the wide range of community-developed tools that don’t have active maintainers, or should a smaller set of critical workflows be enabled through new or improved features in core products?
  2. Which tool would you recommend to prioritise? Something community-facing or GLAM-facing or video-related or something else?

The call will take place at two different time slots:

If you cannot attend the meeting, you are invited to express your point of view at any time you want on the Commons community calls talk page. We will also post the notes of the meeting on the project page, to give the possibility to read what was discussed also to those who couldn’t attend it.

If you want, you are invited to share this invitation with all the people you think might be interested in this call.

We hope to see you and/or read you very soon! Sannita (WMF) (talk) 14:56, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Until recently the logo used in the infobox of FIDE was en:File:Fidelogo.svg. This file has a lengthy discussion of licensing, the outcome of which is that it can be used at FIDE but nowhere else in Wikipedia.

With this edit an editor, Bildersindtoll, changed FIDE to use instead Logo FIDE International Chess Federation.svg. The new logo is/was apparently identical except that the silhouette is reversed, i.e. blue replaced by white and white replaced by blue. I do not know why the logo was replaced (no edit summary), but I note that the FIDE website, FIDE.com, is currently using the logo that Wikipedia changed to, rather than the logo that was changed from.

However, the new logo must not have had the same lengthy discussion of licensing as the old. As a result it was deleted from Commons, see Commons:Deletion requests/File:Logo FIDE International Chess Federation.svg. This doesn't seem right. I think licensing of both logs should have been identical.

As a temporary measure, I have restored FIDE to use the old logo. What I would like to see, however, is for the new logo to be undeleted, and the same licensing text added to it as is used in the old. Bruce leverett (talk) 20:37, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

The old logo was hosted on en.Wiki under fair use. The new logo was hosted on Commons which does not allow fair use. The new logo could be hosted on en.Wiki under fair use.
The only way the logos could be hosted on Commons is if they have a free license. The crux of that DR was whether the silhouette of the knight is public domain. That argument did not carry the day but it could be revisited.
Glrx (talk) 21:24, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Wikidata Infobox

Is there any way to control which statements shows up? On some categories the statements in the infobox are largely useless while excluding actual useful ones Trade (talk) 08:24, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

@Trade: Please see Template:Wikidata Infobox and be more specific on the talk page there.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 11:01, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Need of pictures

Dear all, is it possible for someone to take free pictures of the new building 7 Hudson Square building, aka Robert A. Iger Building in Manhattan ? I would illustrate the article i've created on french wikipedia. One of the adress is 310 Hudson St, New York, NY 10013. If possible it would be fine. For your information, the buidling is opened since December 4th 2024 accoridng to this article --GdGourou - °o° - Talk to me 10:31, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

@Gdgourou: You can request pictures at COM:PR. You can also leave a message at WikiProject New York City as NYC has a sizeable and highly active Wiki community. I did notice that on the Wikidata page for the building Q111600151 the address is listed as 137 Varick Street, and there is an image of that: File:137 Varick Street.jpg. ReneeWrites (talk) 11:29, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
Dear Renee, This one is a previous building shamelessly razed in 2018. Thanks I will post on PR and NYC project page. --GdGourou - °o° - Talk to me 11:52, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:37, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Importing files from de-wikipedia

On the German-language Wikipedia there arfe two files (de:Datei:Boskop-Schädel.jpg and de:Datei:Boskop-Schädel (2).jpg) which the German page says should be checked before transfer. However, they were published in the US before 1918 and should therefore be free. But commons file importer does not want to do this, saying "This file cannot be imported to Wikimedia Commons because it is marked as Vorlage:NoCommons." Joostik (talk) 11:44, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

@Joostik: Good to know that the file importer works as designed. Why are you stating that here? Or do you have a question? Questions usually end with a question mark.
Oh great, a grammar nazi ... Joostik (talk) 13:40, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
The date of publication is 1918 so well before the URAA date (1930 now) and author died more than 70 years ago so should be ok to transfer. Multichill (talk) 12:32, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
@Gerbil: You tagged each file {{Bild-PD-alt}} using de:Vorlage:Bild-PD-alt, which indicates (translated from German): "Due to URAA problem(disk.) for the time being:", "This file may not with the policies of Wikimedia Commons.", "It should be checked individually whether it may be moved to Wikimedia Commons.", and "Do not transfer this file to Wikimedia Commons without an individual review!". Is there a more appropriate tag?   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 13:14, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

The license I used is specified in the rules of the German-language Wikipedia for “old works”, see: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bildrechte#Alte_Werke According to German law, both drawings are in the public domain 70 years after the death of the artist. However, I am not familiar with image licenses and will therefore not make any changes. Sorry. Gerbil (talk) 15:08, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

@Gerbil: Thanks. Perhaps other users of German Wikipedia will weigh in.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 23:01, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
I have transferred both files to Wikimedia Commons, same file names. You have to tweak the license tag at de.wp first (using the parameter Commons=Ja) to be able to do this. --Rosenzweig τ 04:55, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Thank you for that! I actually tried to modify the license tag, but could not because it did not show up when clicking on "modify". Joostik (talk) 13:39, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

help needed from Spanish speaker

Hi, Recently {{PD-AR-Photo}} was changed and the old translations are no longer valid. Can a Spanish speaker go to Template:PD-AR-Photo/i18n and help translate this template. Previous version which likely can be altered to match the current English text can be found at Template:PD-AR-Photo/es. Thanks in advance. Jarekt (talk) 18:34, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

To-do list created

Per a comment at phab:, I have created Commons:Very large files to upload (COM:2UPLOAD, COM:VLF) to keep a running list of files that could be uploaded here were it not for technical limitations on file sizes. I did search ahead of time but did not see any other such list. Pardon me if I duplicated efforts. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:02, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't think storing such large files for mundane things where resolution is not important even if it wasn't mundane makes much sense. Thus, I already oppose the large file-size of those videos without being merged and think their size should be reduced and people asked to upload smaller-sized videos for such things where the current file-size limit now seems more reasonable seeing what people would upload if the limit was larger. I'm not referring to the "The Black Watch" film but the other files linked on that page. Prototyperspective (talk) 09:58, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
Agreed. Especially for files like File:CSD Hamburg 2022 001 part 1 of 26.webm - the solution for these video files is to downscale them to a more reasonable resolution and upload that. Hardware which can play back and display 8k (at ~140 Mbps!) video is essentially nonexistent, and Wikimedia's video transcoding services would probably choke on a single file of that size. (As it stands, some of these segments consumed over 24 hours of CPU time to transcode to other formats - for less than five minutes of video which isn't even referenced from any content pages.) Omphalographer (talk) 23:32, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
140 Mbps for 8K is actually rather low (Video cameras can take 8K with 400 Mbps, 600 Mbps or more), and there are many hardware products which are able to play files with these bitrates (I tested back in 2019 with an RTX 2080; the bitrate alone is not enough; it also plays a role what type of chroma subsampling, bit-depth, frame rate, color space and more it uses (4:0:0 or 4:4:4)). Furthermore, I assume that the device that captured in 8K is not able to catch that much details 8K would be able to --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 19:25, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
What I mean is that almost nobody has an 8K display to watch it on - even if you have a 4K monitor and you're viewing this video full screen (which, realistically, most users won't do), it's still being scaled down by 50%. Omphalographer (talk) 21:52, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
Not necessarily. The internal resolution can be set to be 8K, and an original 8K video is played as such (so the whole bitstream must be decoded), but only screen output itself would be in 4K. The rendering process is not smaller --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 13:01, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
I don't see the point of uploading 8K for news type videos. I could find it useful for content where we can zoom in (i.e. scientific, etc.), but a street parade? Yann (talk) 17:35, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
It has the same utility as uncompressed TIFF images or WAV audio that has frequencies that literally can't be heard. 8K video is not really useful for my purposes, but if someone is projecting a video on the side of a building, that's handy. If we think the content of a piece of media is valid, then the highest quality of that file seems obviously useful to me, particularly since the servers create downgraded versions of thumbnails and videos that can be used in cases where extremely high quality is not needed. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:52, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
I think using modern codecs like AV01 could reduce 8K videos a lot in filesize and preserving the higher quality, but it could take some time until this is mainstream procedure --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 16:27, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
There aren't that many TIFF images on here to begin with. It would be interesting to see how many of those files are even being used anywhere, or at least how many are being used in a way that can't be done just as well with a JPEG image. If I we're to guess TIFF is a fairly niche format that's hardly utilized by anyone looking for images on Commons. I can't even get them to load properly half the time myself. But I don't really see the point in having 8k videos on here if TIFF files aren't even loadable or being used by anyone at this point. There should at least be support of, and valid uses for, basic image formats on here before supporting high definition videos. Otherwise it's just putting the horse before the cart. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:28, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Steps to getting three images undeleted

Hello, I was looking at the page User_talk:Xeroporcellio, and I noticed three images they uploaded have been deleted. I noticed this after believing that File:Armadillidium atticum mating.jpg was a copyright violation, because it's marked as 'Own work' by Xeroporcellio but in fact is also on iNaturalist by the user agapakisgeorgios under a CC BY-NC license. However, I got in touch with agapakisgeorgios, who confirmed: "Xeroporcellio is the username I have in various forums. As a result, all these photos are uploaded by myself and there is no need for flagging." They further elaborated that I could link them to this account on their user page (I have done so) and that "I had in mind that they are both by default CC BY 4.0, but now I see that iNaturalist uses CC BY-NC 4.0." Thus, while 100% understandable, I believe these removals were done in error and that, if possible, these three images should be reinstated. These are truly this user's own work and were only licensed off-site under a noncommercial license by accident. A link to a screenshot of our conversation (this image will expire after three days) can be found here as verification. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 05:44, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

@TheTechnician27: Commons:Undeletion requests. Otherwise you can ask a random admin. Doing an undeletion request is probably the better way to go about it though. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:31, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
And I would recommend that you copy that PNG to somewhere it won't disappear after three days. - Jmabel ! talk 18:08, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Problems with Double MetaCat template

I started a deletion request for Template:Double MetaCat a while ago at Commons:Deletion requests/Template:Double MetaCat and there seemed to be enough support to delete it at the time. @Bastique: subsequently decided to close the DR as keep because the template is involved in so many things and I supposedly didn't layout a clear enough way to deal with it.

There's many reasons why the template is clearly problematic though. Just to a name a few, it's placing a bunch of categories in Category:Countries by city by country that have nothing to do with "countries by city by country" for unclear reasons. Not to mention the whole idea of a category system based on "countries by country" is totally nonsensical to begin with. The same goes for similar categories that it's using like Category:Countries by color by country. There's also Category:Countries by city by year, which it seems to be populating with subcategories for states by year for some reason. It also populates non-exiting categories like Category:Buildings by function by condition for reasons that don't really make sense either.

Anyway, the template is clearly a problem. But I guess it can't be deleted without a clear way to do so and I'm not seeing a way to do it without a lot of work and creating a bunch of red links. The template is extremely complicated and the original creator doesn't seem to know how to fix it themselves. So I'm wondering what other options exist for dealing with it outside of just letting it continue causing issues. So is there someone on here who can rewrite the template to fix things or does anyone have another idea about how to deal with it? Adamant1 (talk) 07:34, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that template certainly looks more complicated than it needs to be. If we're going to keep it, it would be good to remove some of the functionality.
If we want to eliminate the template, maybe the effort could start by identifying the categories where the template causes problems and replacing the template with hardcoded things. Some of these cases might use {{AutoDMC}}. Category:AutoDMC double meta categories even has a note that says that template might give "wrong or garbage parameters to" to {{DMC}}. To me, that says that the template isn't ready to be used. Maybe we could start cleanup efforts with use of the auto template. -- Auntof6 (talk) 10:59, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
Stepping back a bit, I think part of the problem here isn't just {{DMC}} itself, but also that most of the categories it's used in tend to fall into a couple of common, frequently overlapping, patterns:
This all feels like we're slicing the same files into dozens of different categories based on different combinations of properties it has. There's got to be some better way to handle this without this explosion of categories - the fact that DMC is needed at all is a symptom. Omphalographer (talk) 00:01, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
I don't disagree with that. From what can tell all of these categories are multiple subcats deep before you get to anything meaningful. So at the end of the day most, if not all, of the top level categories as well as the subcats are meaningless trivia that aren't actually useful beyond being created by the template for whatever reason. Its questionable a lot of these categories would be created or retained to begin with if not for the template. I'm not sure how to deal with it outside of getting rid of template though. Since I think it will just recreate the categories. There's really no consensus to not have an explosion of categories either. People seem to be perfectly fine with this this type obtuse nonsense in general. So I'm not really sure how to deal with it outside of getting rid of the template and then fixing whatever issues that might cause afterwords. Its a screwed up situation without a simple solution either way though. I thought about doing a couple of thousand CfDs for every subcat but that's clearly a non-starter lol. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:32, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Is it possible to change/remove information in metadata?

Hi, I noticed by chance that some files I uploaded some years ago accidentally has my personal name in their meta data. I'm not very comfortable with that, and I cannot see that it actually adds anything of importance to the file, so I am wondering if it is possible to somehow change or remove this information? I've been trying to find the answer already by searching on my own but couldn't find an answer, but apologies beforehand if I am cluttering this forum with already well-known issues. Thanks beforehand anyway, Yakikaki (talk) 16:42, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

upload it to imgur and download and then upload here. very easy to do it and higher resolution compared to other solutions. @Yakikaki modern_primat ඞඞඞ ----TALK 17:06, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
☝️that was about removing, if you just remove your name or camera model you can do it on your OS. for example win 10. just check specifications and do it. i dont know too much about that so i suggest you to research about this solution. + with this way no loss for resolution. modern_primat ඞඞඞ ----TALK 17:08, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
@Yakikaki: Assuming it's a JPEG file and you're looking at the "Metadata" section on the image page, what you need to do is to upload a new version of the file with the Exif data suitably modified. See Commons:Exif for a list of potentially useful editing tools. Once you've uploaded the new version, you can ask for the old one to be deleted. Commons:Revision deletion might be relevant, but I'd just go for sticking a speedy deletion template at the top with a clear note that you only want the old version deleted. Something like {{SD|G7|Please delete ONLY the oldest version, which has inappropriate personal information in the metadata}}. If the data are so private that you don't want to draw attention like that, you might want to contact the Commons:Oversighters instead. --bjh21 (talk) 17:20, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
Or if you have anything like a working relationship with some admin, provide that admin with a list of the files that need this.
You give no indication here whether this is, like, a dozen files or hundreds. If it's only a dozen or so, feel free to email me the list once you've uploaded the versions without the problematic metadata. - Jmabel ! talk 18:18, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
Thanks a lot, I'll do that. It's just a few files. Yakikaki (talk) 20:38, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Discussion about "cast members" categories

I started a CfD on this topic here. Considering the scope of the discussion (it would affect more than 300 subcats), and the fact that previous discussions on this topic went stale, I'd like to draw a bit more attention to it. ReneeWrites (talk) 21:00, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

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