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# 💭 Title 💬 👥 🙋 Last editor 🕒 (UTC)
1 Amateur drawings 46 18 Rhododendrites 2024-04-04 15:46
2 Guidance re possible copyleft trolling 130 27 Rhododendrites 2024-04-08 16:51
3 standard formatting to category disambiguation pages 16 5 Enhancing999 2024-04-06 19:15
4 Please replace the files. 8 6 Railwayfan2005 2024-04-07 21:21
5 Double categories 6 3 Railwayfan2005 2024-04-07 21:52
6 Statistics for files on Wikimedia Commons 11 6 IM3847 2024-04-06 12:32
7 Disambiguating two creators with the same name and profession 6 4 ReneeWrites 2024-04-06 20:54
8 Help locating photo origin 0 0
9 Numerical sorting in categories 16 10 ReneeWrites 2024-04-06 20:53
10 Category:Sweden Rock Festival 2023 8 6 Jeff G. 2024-04-06 02:19
11 Spoilers in categories and file titles 4 3 Trade 2024-04-07 07:24
12 OGG vs OGA 2 2 RZuo 2024-04-03 07:48
13 Minor TMH improvements 3 3 Jeff G. 2024-04-03 23:44
14 Making CC BY-SA 3.x/GFDL files available under CC BY-SA 4.0 6 3 Jeff G. 2024-04-09 09:42
15 POV image description 13 10 Stemoc 2024-04-10 00:43
16 File:Kratky, Frantisek - Rjeka, albanska matka (1897).jpg 5 4 Draceane 2024-04-08 21:11
17 Fix image 3 3 Mrmw 2024-04-05 07:29
18 Guidelines for who can create templates and under what circumstances 6 3 Jeff G. 2024-04-08 11:29
19 Proposal for NoFoP-Russia template 2 2 RP88 2024-04-07 18:10
20 Featured media candidates 3 2 Yann 2024-04-07 12:38
21 Request from OperationSakura6144 7 3 RZuo 2024-04-08 17:35
22 Depicts tags by campaign300@ISA 5 3 RZuo 2024-04-07 20:15
23 Christian religious art question 5 3 Jmabel 2024-04-09 14:54
24 Discussion about new tool for detecting logos 1 1 Sannita (WMF) 2024-04-09 10:20
25 Potential identification issue with photos from commanster.eu 9 4 Snowmanonahoe 2024-04-09 20:39
26 Proposal affecting FoP Chile 3 2 JWilz12345 2024-04-10 04:12
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March 16[edit]

Amateur drawings[edit]

Is it fine to upload amateur drawings like these?

File:Portrait Aissa Edon.jpg

In my opinion, the terrible quality of these works not only doesn't help illustrate the content, but in some cases may offend the person who is depicted in such a way. --Quick1984 (talk) 02:44, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Unless there is some reason the artist is notable (possibly not related to their art), these would seem to me to be out of scope. - Jmabel ! talk 10:14, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Jmabel, I'm afraid some would comment in use = in scope when nominated. --Quick1984 (talk) 10:50, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I looked into that and these are in use solely through edits by two people, User:Hibrideacus (uploader) and User:MHM55, adding the images to Wikidata. Wikidata has then automatically used them in multiple language Wikipedias through the use of Infobox templates. Yes, COM:INUSE is a valid argument but the apparent use on multiple projects is very misleading. If there was consensus to remove each image from a single Wikidata page, they would no longer be in use. Commons should not make that judgement on behalf of Wikidata, so I'll initiate a discussion at Wikidata to see if they can reach consensus separate to any considerations of deletion here. From Hill To Shore (talk) 11:04, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion started at d:Wikidata:Project chat#Check of consensus for use of amateur drawings on items about living people. From Hill To Shore (talk) 12:22, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(after edit conflict) While we can assume good faith by the uploader/creator, these are all amateur depictions of living people. As a bare minimum, we should be considering the moral issues presented in COM:DIGNITY, COM:PHOTOCONSENT (as far as these two sections can be applied to art rather than photography) and WMF resolution on biographies of living people. From Hill To Shore (talk) 10:54, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On my side, it is only a matter of emptying the Category:Les sans images, and harmonizing with the many other portraits made for other women. I understand your point and clearly there should be a kind of decision on the opportunity of sharing those works. I'm happy if other Wikipedians take on and make the necessary changes. For the future, I don't want to judge on the quality of images, therefore we need a kind of procedure... I may stop to add the portraits in Wikidata – but then it will be for all pictures. MHM (talk) 11:35, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@MHM55: At this point we have usage by two editors and concerns from three editors. I wouldn't say there is a clear consensus yet to rule either way on whether use of these images is right or wrong. Your choice of future editing is up to you, but I wouldn't let this single discussion influence you too much. From Hill To Shore (talk) 12:22, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My opinion is that if the drawings of famous people are made by not notable artist, then such stuff should be deleted. And if we have real images of such famous people (drawed by notable artist!), then drawings to be replaced by real images (e.g. in Wikidata or in enwiki). I also know that in etwiki there was a related project, see Category:Tartupedia images from Tartu Art School project. Also notifying @Kruusamägi Estopedist1 (talk) 18:52, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is unreasonable to demand that drawings of famous people have to be made by notable artists. One does not need to be a notable artist to produce excellent quality. Or should we also delete all photos from Commons, that are not made by people who themselves are not notable photographers?
We should expect that some quality standards are met to keep the images, let alone to use them in articles, but if a person is clearly recognizable from the image and the image does not have obvious problems, then it is perfectly fine.
It someone deletes those Tartupedia images or even removes them from articles, then that person should be permanently banned from editing. Kruusamägi (talk) 19:36, 16 March 2024 (UTC) [reply]
High enough quality drawings are welcome, regardless of who drew them. Drawings by famous people are welcome, regardless of our opinion of their quality. Bad drawings by non-notable people are not welcome. These are poor drawings by non-notable people. And, no, the people are basically not recognizable from these drawings. Compare the portrait of Sevidzem Ernestine Leikeki to any picture of her you can find online. The image is somewhere in the range from useless to insulting. - Jmabel ! talk 19:48, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the Leikeki is identifiably (if poorly) based on a pre-existing image, to the point that it might be considered copyvio. I'll file a DR. DS (talk) 15:45, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And the Edon is, I'm very confident, based on an image from a BBC interview. I would not be surprised if all of the uploader's handmade illustrations are identifiably based on specific pre-existing images (although I'm not confident enough of that to launch a blanket DR). DS (talk) 17:04, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just FWIW: I've done similar things myself (better, I hope), but would not put them on Commons. - Jmabel ! talk 17:44, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is where common sense would be invaluable. Yes, we need some amateur art examples. We probably have more than enough already. Unfortunately for every Picasso there are a trillion clueless idiots with no artistic skills whatever. IMO, unless there is a notable justification for amateur picture such as these, they should not be uploaded. I cant actually disagree with Jmabel's earlier comments.
Before uploading an image ask yourelf the question, who (other than your mother) would want to use this image to illustrate anything. -Broichmore (talk) 15:37, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If they are not in use, they should be deleted as out of scope. Undoubtedly. Many of these illustrations seem to be outrightly insulting to the biographed women, and actually a disservice to the cause they claim to serve. The ones that are found to be derived can be deleted independently of their use, as copyvios. Darwin Ahoy! 21:51, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As noted above, these images spread across WM projects after being added to Wikidata items by just two people - the uploader and another one who had already replied that they wouldn't do it again. Are there enough opponents of the use of these drawings here to simply undo these edits and thereby solve the 'in use' problem? Quick1984 (talk) 04:44, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Commons shall be no host for private drawings. Providing personal pieces of art is basically a good thing but Commons is the wrong place for it. Commons hosts only files that are realistically useful for educational purposes. — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 2A02:810D:4ABF:DBE4:A542:7EF5:7069:64F5 (talk) 15:29, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

These are not "private drawings", these are images drawn specifically for the purpose to illustrate Wikipedia BECAUSE overly strict regulations prohibit the illustration with actual photographs. So, photos of person X are under copyright. Photos of public statues of person X are under copyright. Photos of high-quality and photorealistic public graffiti about person X are under copyright. The article about person X cannot be illustrated in Wikipedia, but every blog and newspaper have hundreds of images in their archives, to illustrate their content. Only Wikipedia may not use any illustrations of people who lived in the 20th century.
unknown artist, rough sketch, but okay because it has a patina?
SURELY, an artistically skilled editor can be allowed to create a drawing of the person, and upload a copyright-free digital copy for the purpose of finally help out "Les sans images". The images were created for the educational purpose. ... But User:DragonflySixtyseven also states a valid concern: if an actual photograph (automatically under copyright) is identified as the possible original of the artist's drawing, this means that the artist must cede all rights of the image he drew, to the previous photographer - even if the artist claims that the photo was not even used! The face of a person, for some reason, just looks similar in art and on photos! May the artist look at six or sixty photos and make their own interpretation, not using either? Presumably also no (the law usually says 'yes' by the way, but after all, we're trying to create impossible standards for Commons, so PCP means no). So nobody DARE to provide a qualitative good or even semi-realistic artwork (like US court sketchers draw): any kind of quality must automatically be assumed to be AI-generated. Because AI-artwork? Big No for copyright reasons again: neither artist nor AI may illustrate WP.
Only real idealists still create artwork under this kind of conditions. Kudos to the creators of the example images: please DO refine your artistic skills, but also please continue.
User:Broichmore's rule-of-thumb advice to these idealists is reasonable though: Have a second (and a third) opinion, before uploading. --Enyavar (talk) 08:55, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Sure, as long as artistically skilled is taken seriously and that it is a type art that involves accurate representation. If you are non-notable, we don't want your cubist rendition.
  2. Go out and take some photos of notable people. Most notable people often appear in public. I don't even mostly photograph people, but I've done a fair share of this. - Jmabel ! talk 09:53, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Your first point is the problem! I totally agree with you! Also your second point is absolutely striking. There shall be certain rules for drawings! 2A02:810D:4ABF:DBE4:8597:CF9F:E1FB:A555 10:30, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
the go-out-approach" is a good idea, but only works for living people who are still in public. A huge bunch of those-without-images are dead or retired. --Enyavar (talk) 22:29, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why do articles need to be illustrated anyway? The last time I checked it's not a requirement, and where's the limit if not low quality, inaccurate drawings that look nothing like the people they are suppose to represent? Like should articles about historical towns be illustrated based child's drawings of buildings that look nothing like the place? "Hey, we don't have a photograph of a car model from the early 1900s that's in the public domain and I'm to lazy to take one, but we do have this drawing of a Hot Wheels from a 10 year old that has the same style of doors. So screw it!" Come on. It's pretty simple. Just don't illustrate an article if there isn't a good, legible picture of the subject. Period. There's no excuse for using amateur artwork just because someone can't be bothered to find a real image. Especially with articles about living people. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:00, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I couldn't agree more. I'm sure if someone were to write a wiki article about an alive person, or someone just passed, they to write to them or their estate for a donated PD selfie. Job done. Broichmore (talk) 10:23, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Adamant, (architecture and automotives are off-topic? Who has attempted what you describe?) you are right that biographical articles don't have to be illustrated - having an image is just a welcome addition. IF it depicts the person in a recognizable manner. What I dislike is the categorical stance of "the community must make rules against amateur artwork": That is the vibe of this whole thread, and that is what I argue against. Good-faith-bad-artwork must be dealt with on an individual basis: prove why each one is a copyvio or a bad rendition of the subject; argue against them with com:dignity and whatever; make them irrelevant by providing good artwork or a good photo, then replace and delete.
It sucks to say to one user: "sorry you're a bad artist, improve or stop", but that is still better than to proclaim to everyone: "sorry no art is acceptable because there has been bad art from others", with regards to user-created artworks. Hey, if a hypothetical "no-name" user-artist has a consistent style that recognizably captures the persons, and they make a series of hundreds of portraits, I would welcome that to be uploaded and used, even if there was 'too anime' or some other flaw. --Enyavar (talk) 09:14, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Enyavar: It's called an example. There have been instances of people trying to illustrate other types of articles besides biographies with AI generated artwork, which I'd put in the same category. It's also a slippery slope, where if we allow it for biographical articles then there's no reason people do the same for ones on other subjects. Although I agree with you in theory that it wouldn't be as much of a problem IF the image depicts the subject in a recognizable manner, but that's pretty subjective and out of project scope IMO. As we aren't here to be art critics. I don't think anyone is saying no art is acceptable though. I'm certainly not. Just confine it to a small subset of subjects and uses that don't include living people or the images being used in Wikipedia articles. There's nothing wrong with having basic standards and we shouldn't forgo them just because we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings or whatever. --Adamant1 (talk) 17:40, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Estopedist1 said so right above: Non-notable artist --> delete the artwork. Yet I see that you also want to exclude living people from being drawn? That is, again, unreasonable. Please see some more examples below; several of these drawings were each created because there was no other image available. --Enyavar (talk) 13:41, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Enyavar: No one cares about high quality drawings of living (or dead) people by notable artists. I certainly don't. That's not what the discussion about. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:06, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The NY Times artist in your example is notable in their own right. Usually, newspapers employ a gifted professional to do this kind of work on an ongoing salary basis, so that they become a part of a house style. the work we're discussing here is a million miles away from the indifferent work that we're talking about here.
At one point (earlier) much was made of filling in gaps in Wikipedia, I can tell you now that these pictures would be rejected in time, for lack of notability reasons, never mind that they are largely non-contemporaneous.
With the Foundation's funds, they could quite easily hire a professional to supply a coherent style of work to suffice, if required; which it isn't.
The artist discussed here, and the artwork discussed here, satisfies no notability criteria. Broichmore (talk) 12:14, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there were artists hired by WMF, please see Category:Wiki Unseen; the artists are however notable. I don't think the project has seen much progress, there are only very few files, but maybe we'll get treated to more portraits in the future. I'd say this is/was promising.
But back to the not-so-hypothetical freestyling artists (notable or not, professional or not), who upload their artwork to Commons on their own, without any hiring by WMF: are we rejecting that art on the principled basis of "you're not notable"?
I just found some nice examples: all of them were apparently made by non-notable artists-uploaders, and depict the subject in a satisfactory manner. Are we going to delete? I hope not. If Nayan j Nath draws more portraits in this manner to illustrate WP, we're shouldn't be picky, but lucky.
  • Khanzhivan: "Own work"
    Khanzhivan: "Own work"
  • Panicker1979: "made by me"
    Panicker1979: "made by me"
  • Sreedharantp; import from mlWP
    Sreedharantp; import from mlWP
  • Manu Vellaplakkal: "Own work"
    Manu Vellaplakkal: "Own work"
  • W.carter: "Own work"
    W.carter: "Own work"
  • Indrajit Das: "Own work"
    Indrajit Das: "Own work"
There is also plenty artwork made by long-gone unknown artists, check them out: John Sappington, Portrait from 1897; Gottfried Schloemer, Portrait from 1892. Are we going to delete? I hope not.
--Enyavar (talk) 13:41, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's a contemporary portrait in a published book, it's not a part of this discussion. Broichmore (talk) 18:35, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I will repeat verbatim what I said above: "High enough quality drawings are welcome, regardless of who drew them. Drawings by famous people are welcome, regardless of our opinion of their quality. Bad drawings by non-notable people are not welcome. These are poor drawings by non-notable people." The examples you just gave are fine, they are high enough quality, a totally different matter than what we were initially discussing. - Jmabel ! talk 18:55, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2022/03#Wiki Unseen drawings uploaded by WMF
old discussion that may be of interest. RZuo (talk) 07:04, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any efforts to clarify this matter with clear rules? "In use" or "better than no image" will certainly be arguments in possibly upcoming discussions. --Msb (talk) 21:32, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't this mostly a Wiki* editorial decision and not a Commons decision ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:02, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it seems that way. I don't think anything should be done here on Commons. No rule to prevent uploading, nor a rule to delete all "amateur" drawings, unless a case of Copyright infringement or Out-of-Scope can be made. If any Wiki (including WData) chooses to use them, it's the decision of the person who adds the artwork to the article or template. --Enyavar (talk) 20:08, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
here you go: duck by amateur
Aren't most, if not all, amateur drawings inherently Out-of-Scope though? Like if I upload an amateur drawing I made of a duck or whatever how is that inherently (or otherwise) "instructional or informative"? And how exactly would adding the image to a Wikipedia article change that requirement? (The reason I ask is because yes, there is the "in use on other projects" clause, but I wonder how or even if that can override the whole "instructional or informative" thing). --Adamant1 (talk) 20:19, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
what happened to "we aren't here to be art critics" and "I certainly don't care"? I will point again towards the other row of portraits I provided above, which are at the same time high-enough quality to be acceptable as an informative illustration, while being just as amateurish drawings as the duck to the right. --Enyavar (talk) 20:33, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Nawaal Akram
We've drifted too far away from the OP. The drawings first mentioned are nothing like their subjects, not even remotely.
They are a joke. commons is not a suitable repository for junk, and carelessly allowing it is setting a dangerous precedent.
The original OP has been indiscriminately uploading this stuff in profusion for nearly a year; unchecked, and without self-restraint. This picture of Nawaal Akram is their first effort.
There are around 60 like images already, all of the same abysmal standard. Broichmore (talk) 07:09, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
nitpick: The original post (OP) was by Quick1984, not by Hibrideacus; the latter who drew these pictures, has not participated in any debate about them (on wData and Commons). Also, nobody has contacted them on their Commons talk page on the matter. Nobody has contacted them on their page, either, also not before their "spring cleaning" last week. If Hibrideacus was unchecked, it was because nobody bothered to check them; and why should there have been 'self-restraint', as long as there is no negative feedback on their artwork. There may even have been encouragement to continue? This debate has been about them, not with them, and they also have not been active in Commons, at least since this debate has started. Going by their page utilisateur, they'd also be hard pressed to follow, as they only announce to speak French. Anyway, I just did added this topic to their debate.
Several participants of this whole debate tried to make it about every single amateur artist; I am sticking with the counter-opinion, that we have to assume good faith from all contributors. (I think, there is at least mostly consensus about this point? That self-created artwork is not a bad thing per se?)
And yes, my AGF also includes Hibrideacus, who has made their illustrations mainly for frWP, as I am led to believe. So as long as there is a consensus among editors of frWP (is there? je ne sais pas où on doit regarder?) who believe that Nawaal Akram is adequately illustrated like this: Yes, that portrait is within the scope of our image repository. The same goes for Wikidata: Commons doesn't decide WD policies, go over there and participate in the debate there, it is linked above. Meanwhile, I have not followed the debates on enWP on such matters. For deWP I can tell that amateur drawings of Hibrideacus' style would not be accepted in articles. Previous attempts to do so were shut down even when much higher quality drawings were in play. But again, deWP rules don't necessarily apply on Commons. --Enyavar (talk) 09:36, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Enyavar: Not that you answered my questions, but I don't think you have to be an art critic to have the opinion that amateur drawings of people that look nothing like them don't belong in a Wikipedia article or on Commons. Anymore then you have to be an author to say Wikipedia articles shouldn't be sourced to personal blogs, an educator to say what is within project scope, or a lawyer to deal with COPYVIO. There's a difference between that and having some standard where we debate the "amateurish" of a particular drawing in order to judge if it belongs here or not, which is what I was talking about.
It doesn't take an art critic to say "this image should be deleted because it looks nothing like the person" versus "this painting of Abraham Lincoln is inherently in scope because it was created by George P.A. Healy. Obviously we shouldn't accept any drawing what-so-ever of Abraham Lincoln as in scope just because he was a president though. --Adamant1 (talk) 07:29, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is no issue with these images. Our project goal is not to "create images to be used on Wikipedia or Wikidata", and these projects can have specific rules on what is useful for them, but our mission is to be a database of images (and sounds and videos) with educative purpose that is freely reusable. The "educative purpose" point is fullfilled since these drawings are of famous people, and each user (including other Wikimedia projects) is free to decide if it's qualitative enough or not for them. Léna (talk) 09:53, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Perfectly fine. An illustration of a notable person is in scope. The question of whether the quality is high enough to include in a Wikipedia article is not our concern. — Rhododendrites talk |  13:53, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites: if someone were to upload an illegible scrawl and declare it to be a picture of Thomas Pynchon, that would presumably not place it in scope. The question is not whether there is a threshold here, the question is what is the threshold. - Jmabel ! talk 07:32, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites: None of the pictures discussed here, could be used by security services to positively identify any of the subjects involved, right there is the very start of where any threshold might lie. Broichmore (talk) 15:26, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The question is not whether there is a threshold here, the question is what is the threshold - Sure, and that's a fair question. I guess I'd say I wouldn't support a threshold that would render the above images out of scope. Spitballing, maybe something like "Illustrations of notable people by non-notable artists are in scope as long as the following requirements are met: (1) The illustration must loosely resemble the subject when compared to extant images or, in the case of historical subjects, descriptions in historical texts; (2) the illustration must not depict the subject in an unrealistically unflattering way, whether or not the unflattering depiction was due to malice or poor execution, except in rare cases of commentary or critique of a public figure. High-quality illustrations of non-notable people by non-notable artists may be accepted on a case-by-case basis."
could be used by security services to positively identify any of the subjects involved Thankfully, we are not a security service. — Rhododendrites talk |  15:46, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

March 28[edit]

Guidance re possible copyleft trolling[edit]

This is a continuation of the discussion now on the archive at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Copyright/Archive/2024/03#Guidance_re_possible_copyleft_trolling

I'm unsure of the correct protocols, but I'd asked if this was an appropriate place to raise suspicion about a photographer who may be acting as a copyleft troll and was advised by user Nosferattus to post the details here.

The photographer I suspect of trolling is called David Iliff. As I said above, I can't be sure he's using this as a business model, but there's enough evidence to suspect it.

When Pixsy made a claim against me for one of Mr Iliff's photos, I found the following messages on https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Diliff and took the precaution of copying the text. However I now see that this page was edited on 7th March 2024 and all these items about Pixsy and permissions have been removed, including the Wikipedia links for the people who wrote them. So most of the evidence seems to have been removed, unless you have a way to backtrack?

1) Mary Finchley 6 Feb 2024 - Pixsy asking for £450 for CC image used on website. They ask Mr Iliff if Pixsy genuinely represents him. No reply

2) Mook200 (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Mook200&action=edit&redlink=1 ) Jan 2024. Mark Brierly for a musicians charity. Asked Mr Iliff to call Pixsy off. I emailed Mr Brierly. He replied 29th Jan that he hadn't had any reply from Mr Iliff and didn't expect to. (image: Westminster Cathedral)

3) Andrew (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Amgnholidays&action=edit&redlink=1) Jan 2024 demand from 'a company' (image: Hereford Cathedral) 

 Dear Mr Lliff, I have recieved a letter from a company demanding quite a substanial amount of money for using your image and not displaying your information clearly. In asking the company for more details they tend to respond with quite abrubt unhelpful information. It has meant we have removed the image from our website, which is a shame as it is a stunning image but the last thing we want to do is use an image without permission. As a small company we rely on artists like yourself who are kind enough to allow people to use their images and we are very careful to check licenses to make sure we are using them correctly and would of course correct anything if contacted. Would you be able to confirm if the company contacting us are indeed legitimate as the correspondence does come across a lot like spam. If you do not have any notification of this case and a company acting on your behalf, I would happily open up a discussion about putting the image back on our website in a way which would be of agreement to you.I am sorry to bother you with this and appreciate your time. (No reply)

4) Snbalaji2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Snbalaji2) Jan 2024 re Pixsy. Says Pixsy have not provided evidence they represent Iliff so asking him directly if they do (image: Thames Sunset Panorama) 

- We used an image of the London_Thames_Sunset_panorama_ _Feb_2008 for a brief period on our LinkedIn page as a banner, but inadvertently did not provide the correct attribution. We apologise for this oversight. I was not aware that the image is licensed to you and as soon as we became aware, we immediately removed the image. However, we have received an email from Pixy with an extremely large retroactive licensing fee for an image used on a web page which is now archived. We are a small advisory company who gets less than 100 visits per year on our LinkedIn page. Could you please first confirm that Pixy is acting on your behalf and that this is not a spam or phishing email? Pixsy have been unwilling to provide any evidence that they are acting for you in spite of repeated requests. No contracts with you have been shared and that leads me to believe that Pixsy are making a fraudulent claim using your name. The case reference that Pixsy has quoted is 002-203834.

5) Hazel (Hazeom) (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Hazeom ) 2023 being chased by Fossick for unauthorised use (Fossik is an Estonian company, now in liquidation, which Pixsy cite as being an agent of Mr Iliff) 

- Hi We have received a message from a company requesting that we pay a large sum of money for using your Wikimedia image of Joss bay in a post about dog friendly beaches in Broadstairs. We are a small veterinary practice in Broadstairs and were quite alarmed by the letter, as the image is available on Wikimedia which is copyright free. Can you confirm that Fossick pictures is acting on your behalf?

-6) Alan Foster approx 2021 asking if Fossick represent Iliff 

- Out of interest, are you associated with a company based in Estonia called fossick OU as they are claiming to be the license sellers of your images. I notice your images are on here under GNU so just clarifying the copywrite for a fiend
- No reply

7) Martinsimpson being chased by Fossick; image Tower Bridge 2006; Aug 2020; asks if Fossick represents him 

 >Hello David, i believe we used one of your images for a blog post back in 2015, the chap that did the blog is no longer working with us so we are not 100% sure where the image came from, but we assume it was from Wiki? The image was used in good faith with no intention of making money. The assumption was that all images on the Wiki commons files were free to use? To the point we are being taken to court by Fossick Picture for copyright infringement. The person taking us to court is a Mr Leopold Kamugyene the company Fossick is not registered in the uk so we dont know if they are fraudulent as they are registered in Estonia with an office in London. They are using your name to make the claim, if you could advise if the image does or does not have any copyright infringements on Wiki please. Sorry for this just we are a small company and we dont know if Fossick are just going around making scam claims on small vulnerable companies. My apologies if the image has copyrights, we assume the image was free to use, see our very basic blog:

The following are additional cases from outside Wikipedia:

8) My own case Jan 2024 - Pixsy claiming £900 for a Wikimedia image of Hammersmith Bridge by Mr Iliff which was CC3. I didn't provide the correct attribution. This is ongoing. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammersmith_Bridge#/media/File:Hammersmith_Bridge_1,_London,_UK_-_April_2012.jpg)

9) Reddit discussion (https://www.reddit.com/r/RBI/comments/n0bbam/copyright_infringement_claim_should_i_be_worried/) Claim for Mr Iliff by Fossik . From what I can gather Fossik, an Estonian company, carried out Mr Iliff's claims for CC2 and CC3 lack of attribution before he started using Pixsy. 10) Copyright Aid forum (https://copyrightaid.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3551) Website owner closed down his site after Pixsy demand on behalf of Mr Iliff.

All these instances relate to images available on Wikimedia under CC 2 or CC 3. Mr Iliff has an extensive presence on Flickr with most photos available by CC2 or CC3. His photos are also available on Dreamstime but not the same ones. So it seems the photos in question were only available under CC, not in any 'paid' sites. While I respect the right of photographers to follow up copyright issues, I am aware of the distress caused by companies who act on this way on behalf of photographers and having read plenty about what is called 'copyleft trolling' it seems that these cases fit the description. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Normanlamont (talk • contribs) 16:13, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Normanlamont: It seems that Diliff irregularly archives their user talk page. The last archiving was in this edit 22:39, 19 October 2017 (UTC). All of the archives are listed in the "Archive:" area of the top, as follows:[reply]
Archive 1 - (13th August 2005 to 5th of July 2009)
Archive 2 - (5th of July 2009 to 2nd of July 2014)
Archive 3 - (3nd of July 2014 to 6th of January 2015)
Archive 4 - (6th of January 2015 to 12th of July 2015)
Archive 5 - (12th of July 2015 to 20th of October 2017)
  — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 16:39, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note that the existence of Archive 3 appeared to defy the timeline.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 16:42, 28 March 2024 (UTC) *until I changed the dates on archives 3 and 4 from 2014 to 2015.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 13:45, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Normanlamont: A quick note: all the messages that you quote are on Diliff's user talk page on English Wikipedia, en:User talk:Diliff, which is why you can't find them on his user talk page here on Commons. --bjh21 (talk) 17:13, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - that explains it. Normanlamont (talk) 19:38, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It would be a pity to have to propose removing such excellent images from Commons, but if User:Diliff is repeatedly threatening lawsuits rather than giving people a reasonable opportunity to correct lack of appropriate credits, and has no interest in changing that approach, that is exactly what I would propose. - Jmabel ! talk 22:30, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jmabel: I would then concur.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 13:46, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm unfamiliar with how this works. Whose decision is it to take action or not? Normanlamont (talk) 19:44, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Normanlamont: to take what action? If you are referring to my comment above, it would be like any other deletion requests. - Jmabel ! talk 20:04, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How "incorrect" are the credits? Are the users just omitting any credit (as if they were PD?). Enhancing999 (talk) 07:27, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know. In all the cases the image has been taken down as soon as the demand was made,so we have only what people have posted to go on. In my case, after using four images that were public domain, I didn't scroll down on the Iliff image to see that it wasn't, and used it uncredited. My fault, but it doesn't matter to Pixsy whether you didn't attribute it or didn't attribute it exactly as demanded - they invent an amount, in my case £900, for breach of licence. It's the way they operate. The argument is that you have breached the CC rules, so there is no contract, so you should pay what a newspaper or magazine would pay for exclusive use of the image. People always ask them for a breakdown of how they arrive at the amount they demand, and they never provide it. Normanlamont (talk) 17:49, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The 9 cases mentioned above seem to just be the tip of the iceberg: [1][2][3][4]. Nosferattus (talk) 17:07, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've requested that Diliff's account be blocked at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems#User:Diliff. Nosferattus (talk) 17:32, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is certainly a sad case. Before we ban/block him and delete all his imagery - can we first read about the case from David Iliff himself? When I check the user page, he says he "responded privately" or "responded offwiki". What is his version of the story; how did he actually resolve these various queries? (If I were in his place, by the third or so query on my talk page, I'd have added an FAQ section to my user (or talk) page, in which I clearly outline the general answer to these questions!) --Enyavar (talk) 17:47, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Diliff is certainly welcome to comment here or anywhere else to defend his actions, but I'm pretty sure he won't. Nosferattus (talk) 18:20, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Very difficult issue. First of all, there is some recent precedent with the Marco Verch case here: Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2022/01#Cory_Doctorow_post_on_"copyleft_trolls"_mentions_Commons and here Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive_88#Proposal_to_ban_uploads_from_client_of_copyleft-troll_company_Pixsy_from_Commons, which resulted in all of a user's uploads being deleted for copyleft trolling.
Diliff, however, has been involved with the Wikimedia movement for quite a long time and it cannot be said that he is here solely in order to grift money from unsuspecting media users.
He hasn't been active in a few years, but I suspect he'd be horrified to learn about someone shutting down their small travel website because of one missing attribution. Of course, I don't know Diliff, but like anyone who's been active at FPC, of course I know of Diliff.
Diliff is a much better photographer than me, but even I've been in that frustrating situation of seeing one of my images in use with improper attribution. Even in high-profile publications like Psychology Today and Business Insider, I've seen my images used with just "Wikimedia Commons" in the credit line. If I were a professional photographer who donated photos to Commons under the impression I still retained the copyright, and I saw that a bunch of big for-profit companies kept using my photos without attribution, I might be inclined to reach out to one of those services which track those companies down, too. The problem is, those companies aren't typically very flexible. They don't gain anything if I say "only enforce this against big for-profit companies and give them a chance to fix the issue first" so they go after everyone. As someone who became a photographer in order to improve free knowledge resources rather than a pro, that would be a non-starter for me. But at the end of the day, we do want people to donate their professionally taken photos, right? We do want to be able to say to them "you retain the copyright, and people who use it have to credit you", right? So what happens when someone doesn't? None of us have the tools or time to watch the whole web for violations, and none of the companies that do so take an ethical approach. So what are we to do? I don't know, but except in egregious circumstances like the Marco Verch case, I don't think we should rush to delete.
Some things to think about: should there be a popup for users who aren't logged in when they click through to the full-sized image? Should there otherwise be a bigger, more obvious notice about how to use this image? Should the Wikimedia Foundation provide legal guidance to protect the interests of its volunteer contributors on matters of copyright? Maybe it's within the WMF's resources to purchase software like Pixsy uses and then pass through a filter to apply it only to big for-profit uses or something? Thoughts... — Rhododendrites talk |  18:14, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can't believe that you all want to bend over backwards to make excuses for someone who is clearly apparently exploiting Commons for their own financial gain to the detriment of the project. There is no evidence whatsoever that this copyleft trolling was just a mistake. It's been going on for years and Diliff clearly had many opportunities to see that it was causing problems and to discontinue the use of these services, but he didn't. If Diliff wants to defend himself, he is certainly welcome to, but a duck is a duck and the more we keep facilitating copyleft trolling, the sooner Commons is relegated to the dustbin of internet history, if it isn't already. Do you ever wonder why people pay hundreds of dollars to license public domain images from Alamy and Getty Images? This is why. Nosferattus (talk) 18:36, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I find your comments inappropriate and suggest that you revise or withdraw them. Enhancing999 (talk) 18:41, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What do you find inappropriate? Nosferattus (talk) 18:45, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Professionals can contribute to WMF sites and photographers are not required to abandon all rights to their images. Accusing them of trolling when not doing so isn't appropriate. Enhancing999 (talk) 18:57, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you. No one has to abandon the rights to their images. Demanding large sums of money for attribution mistakes, even when those mistakes have been corrected, however, is copyleft trolling, and while it is completely legal it is also unethical and harms our project. Nosferattus (talk) 19:05, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not attributing the photographer is not a minor mistake. I find your conduct harmful as it may discourage professional photographers who have participated to continue to do so. Accordingly, I suggest you revise or withdraw your comments. Enhancing999 (talk) 19:11, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed the part of my comments about David wanting to make money from Commons as I think this is being misinterpreted. Making money off your Commons photos is fine and that part isn't unethical. I was pointing it out, however, as evidence that David was monetizing his images and thus that it was not implausible that he had taken this to the next level by copyleft trolling. Nosferattus (talk) 19:26, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The term "trolling" is not appropriate for photographers making a living of their art. Please remove. Enhancing999 (talk) 21:46, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for saying so. I feel like this argument wouldn't be made if, say, an author allowed their book (which was for sale in print) to be released to the public in electronic form for free, as long as the author was credited to generate interest in their work, and it wasn't republished by someone else claiming it to be in the public domain or written by the hosting website. There is an equivalence in this to my situation as a professional photographer. It's certainly bad faith and a little offensive that Nosferattus views my actions to protect my work and my source of income as copyleft trolling. Diliff (talk) 23:40, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Um. Making a living? This here left me stunned: Diliff is not the type of superpredator that the author described, he didn't mass-create stock images for a big operation. Yet, the article points out that this is really trolling and nothing else. Trolls lurk under the bridge, and as soon as they hear someone make a misstep, they appear to demand money. The author points out: "If you put a CC license on your work, the message is 'I want you to reuse this', and not 'I am a pedantic stickler for attribution strings and hoping to cash in'". He describes how the business model of the very company that Diliff used for invoices, Pixsy, is predetermined to generate false positives; which does harm; and says that 'you set landmines, so you share responsability'. In general, I have NOT met many users who are involved in Wikimedia projects to generate money, so I do think this is not "fine". However, Diliff, if your interest is in sharing your work AND get the name recognition, you might consider re-licensing under CC4 (instead of CC3, as the linked article points out). Once you do that, I don't see a problem anymore, since the updated license would give everyone involved a 30 days grace period to fix the issue after getting the first notice. Those who don't, are fair game. --Enyavar (talk) 17:06, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I completely agree with Enyavar here. - Jmabel ! talk 20:26, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's not possible to re-license images already submitted (only to place CC4 in addition to CC3 etc.), and it looks like Diliff is not going to upload any further images to Commons. --A.Savin 21:16, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I assume that is due to a technical limitation and not a legal one? Cory Doctorow's article linked above [5], proposes it: "Upgrade in Place: Every repository that hosts CC works that carry pre-4.0 licenses should send an email to every account holder urging them to opt into a process to upgrade them" immediately to the latest license. Julesvernex2 (talk) 21:30, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@A.Savin: typically the case is that the reusers have not mentioned a license, and possibly not even attributed the photo. Since the issue being raised here is to allow reusers time to "cure" a defect in the notice, offering a CC-4 license as an additional license means they have that opportunity. (If they already had used one of the other licneses and conformed to its terms, then Pixsy presumably would not have a case to bring.) - Jmabel ! talk 00:54, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've casually seen all this affair. I think it's urgent to have an automatic Google (or other search engine) image search for each image uploaded as "own work" that records the results somewhere. It wouldn't be useful for already uploaded files such as these, but it would prevent that the problem will recur in the future. MGeog2022 (talk) 18:53, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Template:Diliff/Licensing is a normal CC BY-SA license agreement, I'm not sure how it indicates that he is 'interested in making money off of Commons'? It's his own proprietary version of the template but the language of it is entirely compatible with a Creative Commons license. I think what has been happening has surely been distressing for the people on the receiving end of bogus copyright claims, but I see no evidence presented that these companies (one of which appears to have been registered in Estonia) are actually connected with him. Diliff has not been active on this site for years and is not here to defend himself, so when you say he 'had many opportunities to see that it was causing problems and to discontinue the use of these services', I think you need to present some evidence that these actions are actually being taken on his behalf at all. I'm not sure what legal recourse Commons users could possibly have against companies presenting bogus claims on their behalf. Cmao20 (talk) 18:56, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Diliff is still active on English Wikipedia which is where all these inquires about Pixsy and Fossick were posted, going back many years. So yes, he has had many opportunities to deny that these companies were acting on his behalf. Nosferattus (talk) 19:13, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, according to one of Fossick's complaint letters:[6] "Fossick OU trading as Fossick Pictures is a rights holder and has the right to act as the authorized agent of David Iliff, including licensing and resolving matters of copyright infringement." Nosferattus (talk) 19:35, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not so. He has edited only twice in the last year, and not since 2023, when he made a tiny edit to a single sentence of an article on the Fall of Singapore. All these reports from Pixsy came from January 2024, except for one in September 2023, so, since there is no evidence he is regularly checking his user page (he has made one tiny edit since the first of these claims, and before that nothing since May 2023), he has surely had few or no opportunities to do so.
As for the claims from Fossick, these were in 2021 and he removed them claiming that they had been responded to offsite. We don't know what the contents of his response were, but given that it appears this company was registered in Estonia and no longer exists, it is quite plausible that his response was indeed to deny that these companies were acting on his behalf.
Btw, I just tried to set up an account on Pixsy and it asks for no proof that you are indeed the author of the images you claim to have taken. So I think we should assume good faith from a respected member of our community and regard these copyright claims as bogus. It would be very easy for a scammer who wants to make a quick buck to claim to be Mr Iliff, upload his pictures and generate profits from scaring people, seeing that this company seems to be rather unscrupulous and to have a business model that involves sending as many claims as possible and hoping some of them stick. Mr Iliff is one of the most prolific and widely-known photographers on Commons, and has also not been active on the site beyond two tiny edits in the past year and none since September, so his work would seem a prime target for such an activity.Cmao20 (talk) 19:40, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can offer whatever evidence you want for my case; I can't speak for others. However for mine I was given two PDFs by Pixsy when I first heard from them. They both named Mr Iliff as the photographer, but one called 'Evidence Report' began by saying it was a case between me and David Iliff, but below that said 'Copyright Owner: Owrek Ltd, London, UK'; the other, entitled 'Unauthorised use of image' says 'Pixsy acts on behalf of David Iliff as their authorised licensing and copyright agent. We have been notified by Mr. Iliff that Norman Lamont has been using their imagery without permission or a valid license. Details of the unauthorised use are set out in this letter and the attached Evidence Report.' It gave me a couple of weeks to pay and said 'In the event that resolution with a license fee is not possible, our next steps are to forward this matter to a legal partner in your local area to secure the highest fees recoverable for copyright infringement. These fees include actual damages or statutory damages, and can include legal costs, expenses, costs affiliated with filing a lawsuit, and ensuing litigation. Fees recoverable in the event of copyright infringement typically far exceed the cost of an initial license. Pixsy has a strong history and success in the United Kingdom of bringing cases to the IPEC (Intellectual Property Enterprise Court) small claims court in matters where licensing of unauthorised use was not possible.'
I asked for evidence that Pixsy represented Mr Iliff and what the connection was with Owrek, a company registered in the UK. Mr Iliff is not named in the company documents so it's not obviously his company. Pixsy replied with a PDF document stating that Mr Iliff authorises them as his agent, signed in 2022, not by him but by Fossik OU on his behalf. This is an Estonian company now in liquidation. It was named in some of the other cases on his Wiki page as making similar demands to Pixsy. Their only reply to my point was that 'David Illif is out client and the photographer who took this image, as he works with the agency Fossick OU and Owerk LTD the copyright was signed by them on his behalf.' (They mis-spelled Owrek).
I wanted to believe that they were acting rogue and he was maybe unaware, wanting them only to chase up egregious acts like taking his photos and trying to sell them. But having spoken to someone who has a Pixsy account, I believe any action they take is actively authorised by the photographer, including declining the option to issue a takedown notice. Normanlamont (talk) 19:43, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I cannot help feeling that I want to find out he hasn't authorised this action and is not a copyright troll. I'd love to find out there's another explanation, but I'm motivated by trying to spare others (and myself) the fear of receiving huge demands and legal threats. Normanlamont (talk) 19:45, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I posted links to several inquiries on Diliff's talk page going back to 2020, all of which he removed without on-wiki responses. The Reddit thread is from 3 years ago. This activity definitely overlapped with when David was active onwiki. If these companies were rampantly engaging in fraud in David's name, it seems like he would have mentioned that on-wiki at some point. Nosferattus (talk) 19:49, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, he must be aware of these two(?) companies sending large invoices to "naive" re-users. But there is still some possibility that he settles these cases depending on the cases, giving small businesses or private people the opportunity to just fix their publications while he calls off the invoices; yet still milking larger corporations. He can't do the latter, if he's also making public statements about the former, which may be the reason for him to do it all hush-hush. Ethically, I'd see less of a problem with that, although it is still a predatory behaviour. But this is all speculative: We don't know. So here's the question:
Has he even been made aware about this debate? Neither on his User talk page here, nor in en-WP, can I spot a notification about it; only a single time is his user name linked here (does that still act as a ping?); and he has also not been active in en-WP at all this year; which may well lead to him not noticing this particular debate even if he logs on, say, next week. Have we sent him an old-fashioned email about our concerns? --Enyavar (talk) 19:57, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't try to contact Mr Iliff directly but one of the other people hit with a Pixsy claim on the user page did. I emailed that person privately to ask if he'd had a reply; he hadn't and said he'd tell me if he did get one. He hasn't so far (three months later). Normanlamont (talk) 20:03, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Come to think of it, I also indicated to Pixsy that I was willing to go to the IPO Mediation Service with Mr Iliff to resolve the matter. I would hope that they would have made him aware of that offer. Pixsy ignored it in correspondence with me, not saying they had or hadn't notified him. But you'd think he'd have been made aware. Normanlamont (talk) 20:06, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Mr Iliff has not been regularly active in discussions on Commons since 2017/2018. His edits since then on Wikipedia and Commons appear to have been very sporadic and involve minor edits to articles and uploading/categorising a handful of images, plus removing the copyright claims associated with Fossik on the basis that they had already been answered offsite (we don't know the contents of this answer but they could easily have been a denial that he had anything to do with them. There is no evidence that he is regularly checking his talk pages - the last time he responded to anyone there was in 2019, which was a polite note of thanks.
Normanlamont, it again seems telling that the PDF document is signed by Fossik OU - a company now in liquidation - on his behalf, rather than by him; and that their only claims of authorisation to act on Mr Iliff's behalf include a badly-spelled single sentence in which they spell his own surname incorrectly ('David Illif is out client').
I would also like to draw your attention to this. 'Fossick Pictures' is mentioned as 'an account has spammed a number of Commons photographers offering to act as an agent pursuing copyright claims against commercial users' and has been banned and blocked from Commons. This adds evidence to the idea that Fossick Pictures is the guilty party here, and that they have a familiarity with who the most active Commons photographers are, since they were messaging numerous Commons photographers to harass them (and probably which of them are no longer regularly active and can easily be exploited).
I believe the evidence strongly suggests that this is a scam, rather than that a respected and long-standing user with no record of bans, blocks or uncivil behaviour has suddenly become a copyright troll. Pixsy appears to have a very dubious business model and to accept very low or no standards of identity verification, and it seems to me that if they are willing to accept a PDF document signed by a third-party company in liquidation as proof of standing to act on someone's behalf, then any Commons photographer using his/her real name is likely vulnerable to similar frivolous use of their creative property.
This has surely been very distressing for the people harassed with copyright claims, but I also think the 'ban/delete now, ask questions later' attitude has gone way too far. Cmao20 (talk) 20:10, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that, it's really interesting. So it's possible that someone using the Fossik name has set up the Pixsy account and could be raking it in, and Mr Iliff doesn't even know? Normanlamont (talk) 20:16, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I left an inquiry on David's English Wikipedia talk page just now asking him to respond on-wiki. Nosferattus (talk) 20:18, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Looking further up his page there's this:
Diliff is no longer active here, and generally does not respond to requests. Attribution is a licensing requirement for all of Diliff's photographs that you can find here, and if you re-use an image without attribution you will be in breach of the licence and will be infringing the photographer's copyright. MichaelMaggs (talk) 10:53, 20 April 2023 (UTC) Normanlamont (talk) 19:22, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever people pay a Pixsy claim, whether out of immediate fear or after months of grinding down, or after court procedures, Pixsy, I believe get 50%. Normanlamont (talk) 20:29, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If this is as dubious as described above there will be no court cases. They just ask for the money but if they do not get it they will do nothing because they would likely loose the process or even get trouble because of false legal threats. GPSLeo (talk) 20:44, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not dubious: https://imgur.com/DTqdbjB. The most likely explanation is that when Fossick/Tom Corser was active on Commons, they contacted David and offered to pursue copyright claims on David's behalf for a cut of the money. If this was all a scam, David would have said so in response to the numerous inquiries about this on his English Wikipedia talk page, some of which are still sitting their unanswered after several years and offer no means of contact off-wiki. Nosferattus (talk) 21:00, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You probably know this already but there's a Wikipedia 'email this user' page for him. He's also on Flickr and Facebook.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:EmailUser/Diliff Normanlamont (talk) 21:09, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Here's the document in which Pixsy say Mr Iliff authorise them. It gives part of his address, but is signed by Fossik. https://imgur.com/a/sXRlbbK Normanlamont (talk) 21:17, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify, Tom Corser isn't the director of Fossik, he's the director of Owrek about whom I know nothing except Pixsy says they're the copyright holder for this particular image. Normanlamont (talk) 21:19, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder if this information will help you ascertain more about the authorisation (or not) of Pixsy by Mr Iliff. My Pixsy document as I said above listed the copyright owner as being 'Owrek Ltd'
Owrek has one director, a Mr Tom Corser. When I googled his name, it came up with a Tom Corser who's a Wikimedia contributing photographer. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photos_by_Tom_Corser
If this is just muddying the water I apologise, but it does suggest some connection. Normanlamont (talk) 20:47, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like Tom Corser was likely also a copyleft troll: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Cyr~commonswiki/TomCorserCredit&oldid=98158664. Notice the absurd restriction "This photo may be reproduced at up to 1024 x 768" and the extremely lengthy attribution requirement. According to [7] Tom Corser is the only shareholder of Fossick OÜ. Nosferattus (talk) 22:41, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ah - I never made the Corser-Fossick connection! Normanlamont (talk) 09:58, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Cmao20, Yann, Jmabel, and Enyavar: I just heard back from YOTI Sign support and they confirmed that the digital signature on https://imgur.com/DTqdbjB is legitimate. If you want to ask them yourself, it's Document ID: ffc8a8af-55f3-4460-8c5b-d5aea8fd8906, Signing Request ID: 94fd9793-51fe-4c17-9892-4f51465ffe80. So this is not a scam. Diliff is, in fact, responsible for all the incidents of copyleft trolling documented by Normanlamont. And according to Normanlamont's research, Diliff appears to be ignoring people who complain about it rather than actually responding to them off-wiki. Has anyone here tried to reach Diliff off-wiki? He has not responded to my inquiries on his talk page. Nosferattus (talk) 15:07, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  •  Question Could somebody with technical knowledge on digital signing please explain what exactly this confirmation means? I mean, how does YOTI Sign know that the person who made the signing request is identical with the David Iliff who has created the photographs? Did they see him in person and checked his passport or at least some kind of digital ID issued by some government? Just asking … – Aristeas (talk) 16:25, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • In my experience digital signing companies typically require sending a photograph of a government-issued ID. Regardless, if anyone still doubts that Diliff is responsible, please email him or contact him on Facebook and just ask him to respond here. I've already been accused of acting inappropriately regarding Diliff at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems#User:Nosferattus, so I will not be contacting him off-wiki, lest it be regarded as harassment. But I encourage others to reach out to him for comment. Maybe he can just jump in here and say "Sorry, it won't happen again." in which case we can put it all behind us and move on. Without such assurance from Diliff, however, I think we need to assume that this is going to continue and take appropriate actions. Nosferattus (talk) 17:25, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • If YOTI and Co. sign a document just on the base of a photograph of a government-issued ID, this is a very weak proof. Faking a real passport etc. is very difficult, but faking a photograph of it is easy; even I could fake a photo of a German passport with an arbitray name and photo in about an hour. If signing companies work on such a weak base, we cannot take them serious and nobody should do that. I would happily take the case to court if a company sues me just on base of such a weak ID proof and does not readily provide more serious documents … And even if a real David Iliff gave them their passport, how should we know that this David Iliff is the one who took the photographs? I have a rather rare first name, nevertheless I know that there are at least 3 persons in Germany who share my first name and surname; there are probably more. If signing relies just on passports etc., even worse: on photos of such documents, every single one of us could claim to be the author of every work of every other one. – Aristeas (talk) 06:36, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • David Iliff, the one with an account here, has had plenty of time to complain if someone is suing on his supposed behalf without authority to do so, and has been communicated with enough here that it is unimaginable that he is unaware of the situation. - Jmabel ! talk 08:31, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Thing is, if David’s identity was forged, he would have dealt with it by now!
      I’m someone who believes that re-users need to correctly attribute and when they don’t (after contacting them in forming how CC licenses works), sure take further steps but don’t change excessive amounts! Bidgee (talk) 08:44, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I think that YOTI's security standards may deserve more credit, since the platform is used across the UK (e.g. to pick-up Post Office parcels and to buy cigarettes at convenience stores, [8]). While it's certainly conceivable that David has nothing to do with this situation, for that to be true all of these things would also need to be true: YOTI's digital signature is false; and despite the multiple contact attempts, David is not yet aware of this situation; and the deleted inquiries Bidgee mentioned above were in fact addressed off-wiki. Julesvernex2 (talk) 08:53, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Nosferattus: Please see Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Diliff.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 15:43, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why so hasty, friends? We are still discussing here and far from a consensus. Right now we have to understand and evaluate the newest piece of evidence provided by Nosferattus above. Why do you already start a deletion request? This only means a useless duplication of the discussion. – Aristeas (talk) 16:36, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Aristeas: I was convinced.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 21:45, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jeff G. And just because you were convinced you rush to open a deletion request, slapping all participants of this dicussion in the face, telling us that this discussion and our opinions are not important anymore, just because you were convinced? You know that this could be perceived as a very egocentric and impolite behaviour, don’t you? Best, – Aristeas (talk) 06:25, 3 April 2024 (UTC) — Sorry if my previous comment is impolite, too. It was not my intention to insult you and I apologize if the comment had that effect. But I was really astonished at this behaviour which would be comprehensible from a newbie but is astonishing from a very experienced contributor and administrator. – Aristeas (talk) 06:45, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On the DR, several of us have said that the DR needs to be kept open at least a month to allow David time to come forward and to allow sufficient time for evidence and discussion. I see nothing at all wrong with a DR moving forward simultaneously with this discussion as long as we allow enough time as not to cut short this discussion. And deletion is never truly permanent. If it were somehow to reach a wrong conclusion, it would still be reversible. - Jmabel ! talk 08:34, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The DR notice on each of the uploads is a warning to any potential re-users, who would’ve otherwise not have known. Bidgee (talk) 08:45, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Aristeas I answered your question. I personally was convinced after reading this section that creation of the DR needed to happen to protect our reusers, as the problem had been going on for months (if not years), and Diliff has done nothing about the claims but delete them from his user talk page and profit. I checked that creating the DR hadn't happened already. I had the VFC tool in my tool box, and I knew how to use it to create the DR. So I took the initiative to be bold and created the DR 15:38, 2 April 2024 (UTC), posting above five minutes later when I was sure the process had finished. I'm sorry if you were offended by the timing.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 10:28, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that this DR is a bit premature, and there are other solutions that deleting these. I would support 1. Blocking Diliff unless he provides evidence that this inacceptable behaviour stopped. 2. Add a big red warning on each file description page informing reusers of the potential issues. Yann (talk) 10:38, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jeff G. Thank you! @Yann: Yes, that would be a simple, effective and fair solution; I would be happy to help with adding the warnings on the file description pages, if necessary. @All: Could we please discuss solutions like this one first before going right to deletion requests? – Aristeas (talk) 11:35, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Aristeas: You're welcome!   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 08:29, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Yann: blocking will accomplish nothing. It will make it more difficult to communicate with him, and will still leave these files out there as a honeypot: he can sue just as easily if he is blocked. If he does not address the matter, I would support a topic ban from uploading photos, but would oppose a block.
Again, the desired outcome is for him to stop bringing aggressive legal action against naive reusers.
I don't think the "big red warning" would help. What is currently on the pages in question is actually pretty clear, but some people just don't look, or they fail to notice that one image they are using has a different license from another. - Jmabel ! talk 12:21, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Two observations from my point of view as a user:
- if nine people apart from myself actually reported the problems they had and tried to contact Mr Iliff, how many more people may have paid up out of fear, or just be living in fear of being taken to court? It's only because I investigated a lot that I became reassured I'm not likely to be bankrupted by this, but lots of other users will have been affected. Not that you have any responsibility for that or Pixsy, but the wider context is important when approaching the photographer
- so I'd much rather Mr Iliff agreed to call off Pixsy's existing cases being chased on his behalf and kept his excellent photos on Wikipedia than lose them; I don't know if I'm the right one to try to contact him but let's hope someone can persuade him on behalf of Pixsy's victims. Normanlamont (talk) 18:05, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are more than nine if you look at the talk page history. I imagine this has affected hundreds of reusers, but only Diliff knows for sure. I also hope someone will successfully contact him and convince him to join the discussion. Nosferattus (talk) 18:29, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Has anyone tried and managed to make contact with David Iliff? Normanlamont (talk) 09:45, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

BTW. It seems that some of Diliffs pictures were made with support by Wikimedia UK, meaning that the movement sponsored the production of these images. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:59, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This adds a layer of complexity to this issue. Wilfredor (talk) 23:29, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions to make license obligations clearer[edit]

I hope nobody minds me separating this content to its own section. Feel free to revert if so. — Rhododendrites talk |  14:34, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would be surprised if the company were acting without Diliff's consent. More likely is Diliff said "ok" not realizing the implications (that the company would target not just large and/or for-profit businesses but absolutely anyone). The problem, as I alluded to above, is that the only options for a Commons photographer who cares about proper attribution/usage/licensing are (a) give up all hope, (b) spend all your time looking for violations and pleading with them to follow the terms of the license, or (c) hire an attack dog company like these. There is no such thing as (d) have a company send out letters pleading with people who violate the terms of the license to make a correction and only then take action if they fail to address the issue. This is why I was saying the best fix is perhaps on our end, to improve the interface to make it harder to download anything bigger than a thumbnail without being aware of the license terms. To those who have received letters demanding money, what sort of thing would've made it clearer to understand the terms of using such an image? — Rhododendrites talk |  21:25, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you only target the large reusers and clear license violations by sending a first friendly message and then if they do not act by sending a bill is not that complicated or time consuming (if they are in the same juristiction as you are). Automated crawlers and companies like these are only needed if you want to abuse this. GPSLeo (talk) 21:52, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I totally agree with Rhododendrites on this one. I tried it the friendly way, but about half of the people did not even bother to respond and, of course, many of these are not within my jurisdiction. Someone whom I told about a site that just copied a lot of my images without attribution and which also infringed their copyright told me to go with option (c), which worked for them. I decided against this, mostly because I did not want them to accidentally harass someone who used my photos with my permission, but with a somewhat different attribution which I had allowed. At the moment, I am pretty close to option (a). But my photos are not even closely as good as Diliff's. --Robert Flogaus-Faust (talk) 14:48, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
is not that complicated or time consuming - searching the web every day, finding all of the reusers, determining which are large, determining which are clear violations, figuring out who to contact, sending a message, engaging with replies, and then hiring a lawyer to initiate a case ... is complicated. That's the point. Either you spend your life doing this in order to see it done in an ethical way, ignore all violations completely, or have an agent that does all the legwork but probably won't act ethically. Those are the practical options. When I've stumbled upon violations with my work, I usually don't bother doing anything. Sometimes I'll tweet or email, but then either they comply or ignore me and there's no next step. Part of that is because my motivations for being here are different, but part of it is because there's no easy + ethical way to do anything. — Rhododendrites talk |  15:33, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You hit the nail on the head. I have no time or resources to dedicate to this personally, and there is no mechanism to enforce copyright on the internet without resorting to enlisting the help of companies who do have the resources but perhaps not the nuance to fairly differentiate various categories of misuse. And then there is the argument that even if a misuse, after thorough investigation, falls into the 'minor' category, how do you recoup the money spent to reach that conclusion? There is a reasonable argument IMO that you should be able to at least recover those costs, particularly given it has only occurred because of a lack of attention/respect for the licensing and for the copyright holder. It's certainly not my wish to hound minor misusers or extract disproportional fees from them, but I simply don't have the ability to solve the problem better in a way that still protects my rights as a professional photographer. Diliff (talk) 00:01, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
'To those who have received letters demanding money, what sort of thing would've made it clearer to understand the terms of using such an image?' I think that's a really good question; as an 'offender' who had always attributed photos before but was careless this time, I wonder whether just being asked to give your email address and the name of the site you were using the photo on, and being told that you may be contacted if you haven't given attribution, may help? Also I see now that in Google Search if you search for images and filter by Creative Commons there's a flash on mousing over the image that says 'licensable'. I'm fairly sure that wasn't there when I used that image, although I could be wrong. I think asking Google to offer two filters - public domain and attribution required might help as many people think Creative Commons just means free.
IMO the problem with the likes of Pixsy isn't that they tell you you've used an image without attribution, it's that they demand a huge fee, out of proportion to the offence, based on a guess at what the image would cost if privately purchased, and that they actively discourage you from simply adding the attribution by saying you have to pay for the period during which you've infringed the copyright. But even if Pixsy were to reform its practices, which is unlikely, there are dozens of similar outfits operating the same way. Normanlamont (talk) 16:45, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is complicated and time consuming, even with people who are responsive. I once opened an aviation magazine to discover a three-page spread of my images, none correctly attributed, and most attributed to someone else altogether. I emailed the publisher, emphasizing that I was delighted that they found my work useful, that I was not shaking them down, and that I uploaded them because I wanted other people to be able to use the images. But I emphasized that correct attribution was obligatory, and that the next person might not be so understanding. They were very nice about it (albeit worried), but I felt like they still weren't very clear on the concept. I was also concerned that someone else might have been passing off my images as theirs, but the haphazard attribution (some were attributed to me, but not per CC) didn't make it clear whether that was a valid concern. Acroterion (talk) 12:16, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And in the early days of my image misuse, that was my initial approach and reaction too. But then I saw it happening all-too-often and in far more egregious situations, and pursuing the cases personally was a waste of time (Apple once used one of my photos in a marketing video for a new feature in MacOS, and ignored all of my communication), as most commercial users simply ignore requests from individuals because they take the view that if it were serious threat, it would be coming via litigation from a legal agent. Unfortunately, just as it is in many other aspects of law, the only time many of us come anywhere close to legal justice is when there are serious threats made. I wish it wasn't that way. Diliff (talk) 00:01, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What I've experienced is nothing close to that, but then I haven't made my living from photography. I've been approached by ethical publishers who have asked if they can use my images. The most I've received for that is a book with correctly attributed images, but I wasn't expecting it to help pay the mortgage. I'm not comfortable with the idea of monetizing images that I'd previously released under a CC license, but I'd not be indifferent to Apple scraping images for their own use either. I think the issues involve scale and intent - Apple versus a naive reuse. That doesn't make a difference for an agent who is going after a cut of settlements, but I think it argues for care in choosing an agent who appropriately sifts such use.
All that said, what do you suggest to prevent continued incidents going forward? I've suggested a very obvious notice on all images you've uploaded that amounts to "use at your peril." Acroterion (talk) 01:16, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you @Diliff for giving your perspective. Could I ask you please how your involvement with Pixsy works? How much information do you get about the infringements and claims, whether the site actually is commercial, whether a takedown order was given, any negotiation offered? Normanlamont (talk) 10:02, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, and I realise this would probably be a massive project for Wikimedia, to tell photographers that CC2 and CC3 are being phased out and everyone should use CC4; after the transition date any not 'converted' would be removed or labeled public domain. I don't know if this is feasible, but just seems like an option. Normanlamont (talk) 16:50, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Change the ToS so anyone who uploads a file after some date agrees to give users a chance to cure.
Put black box warnings on non-CC4 file pages.
Add license metadata to all files that do not have it. It won't help print publishers, but the metadata may satisfy CC license requirements for web publishers.
Glrx (talk) 18:07, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
CC2 and CC3 are not being phased out, CC just strongly recommends the use of CC4. There is also no way CC2 and CC3 can be converted to CC4 or PD.
I do like the ToS idea. Bidgee (talk) 19:32, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
CC2 and 3 are not being phased out - that was my point. As a naive user I wondered why they couldn't be phased out if CC strongly recommends CC4. Quite prepared to be told it's impossible but just asking! Normanlamont (talk) 20:18, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
IMO, you could add a ToS but it would have no effect on the Creative Commons licensing, and a copyright owner could still legally and rightfully pursue misusers for license breaches regardless of what they agreed to in the ToS, as the ToS would not be legally binding. To have any real effect, the Creative Commons license terms would need to be amended and as has been discussed above, would not be retrospective on any existing images already published on other CC versions. Diliff (talk) 00:25, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The ToU already says how contributed text may be attributed [9]. It's my understanding that this was added based on the WMF's lawyers views that it most likely binds anyone who contributes their own text to these terms and so they could not pursue action if some re-user complies with the attribution specified by the ToU that the contributor agreed to when they contributed. Although I doubt it's ever been tested in court so we likely do not know for sure if a court would rule this way. Also even if court doesn't agree, potentially the WMF could pursue action against anyone who agreed to the terms but then violate it given the harms their actions are causing the the good name of the Wikimedia Movement etc, although I'm fairly sure they never would. Still it is a risk anyone who does want to violate the ToU would need to consider. In any case, if some editor did put demand on their userpage or whatever for some other attribution terms which are beyond what the ToU says is acceptable, their would likely be site banned probably even eventually WMF banned because they're in violation of the ToU. So they could no longer make problematic contributions; and we might even delete their contributions made in violation of the ToU. So while this wouldn't affect any contributions before the ToU was made, if we did decide to add something the ToU we'd surely apply the same standard. Any contributor who violated the ToU by demanding some additional terms or attribution beyond what the ToU says on new uploads from the point the new ToU was implemented would be site banned and their new uploads deleted. We'd still need to consider how to handle imports, and older media uploaded before the new ToU. Most likely we'd generally allow them but perhaps with strong warnings. Nil Einne (talk) 09:47, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In cases like this one, I don't think it is outrageous to re-upload all images in question with a watermark. I am not talking about destructive watermarks that run across the picture, but an unobtrusive notice at the bottom of the image, in legible font that show the license text as required by the owner of the rights. A re-user who cuts away that notice or makes it unreadable in some way, then has no grounds to complain later. Given the size of the images here, such a notice will not be an entire box like here, just a rather small white line that includes the credit text, below the image proper. --Enyavar (talk) 14:09, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If Dillif is going to continue this pattern of behaviour, then there needs to be clear warnings on all his images that lack of/incorrect attribution could lead to legal action. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:11, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The subsection below asks the followup question to this: what pattern of behavior is it that is allowed/disallowed here? How is it defined? Lack of/incorrect attribution could lead to legal action for any copyrighted image. This subsection is about how to make those obligations clearer in general, not just for Diliff. He's not the first and won't be the last photographer to actually pursue damages for violations of licenses we have decided we will host. If we want to set limits on how/when photographers can actually enforce CC licenses we support, we need to be clearer about that up front. Diliff is a rare case for another reason -- being someone who is formerly active in our communities rather than someone simply using Commons as part of a business plan. As such, my hope is that we can find a workable solution: to upgrade his licenses to CC4, which has a built in 30-day window to fix attribution problems before legal action can be taken. Maybe it's just the older licenses we need to think about warnings for in general. — Rhododendrites talk |  16:58, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Rhododendrites, you shared that super helpful article by the creator of the CC license, and how CC4 is better than CC3. Thanks for that, it was an eyeopener. I agree on your suggestion: re-licensing seems the best option for everyone in the community, including reusers.
So in case that this is not already a project that people are working on: We first need a help page that explains the concept of "copyleft trolling" to unsuspecting users (who will most likely only find it after getting stung, but better than no landing page at all) and where people can also go to alert the community about those who do use trolling tactics. Those specific users we then need to convince of switching to CC4 (they may continue engaging with those firms, but with the 30 days grace period observed, I don't see dramatic moral/ethical issues). Those authors/users who we cannot convince of switching and who still file lawsuits, should in my opinion accept forced watermarks, so that people are given proper warning. Best, --Enyavar (talk) 17:28, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, upgrading to CC4 seems like a good balance between the needs of the reusers (who can benefit from the 30 day grace period), those of the photographer (who can pursue legal action after those 30 days), and those of other uploaders (who may perceive the lack of watermarks in their images as an implied invitation for unattributed usage). Diliff, do you see an issue with converting your Wiki Commons images to CC4? Julesvernex2 (talk) 17:50, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It can't really be "clearer" if reusers don't attribute images at all. The same pattern at uploads inevitably leads to blocks at Commons, so why should it be ok for reusers? Maybe we should limit hotlinking for such reusers and block them from Wikimedia sites. Enhancing999 (talk) 08:52, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What kind of copyright enforcement is allowed by Commons?[edit]

If we're going to have rules for how copyright owners can enforce the licenses that Commons supports, we should have that documented somewhere as an official policy/guideline. Based on this conversation, some users here have clear ideas about what is/isn't acceptable in trying to enforce the licenses we hold. If Commons is going to impose rules on uploaders that are stricter than the law and stricter than the CC licenses we allow, we need to say that somewhere. IMO this is very tricky business. If we act as though we have clear rules but they're not actually stated anywhere, we risk people misusing Commons, we risk people using images that will no longer be available in the future, and all sorts of other repercussions. This sort of "I know 'copyleft trolling' when I see it" doesn't make for particularly good policy. — Rhododendrites talk |  14:32, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A very good point. We need an official policy for this, or at least a best practice description. And it should be mentioned and linked on the upload page as soon/as long as the user has selected any CC license (we can hide it when the user has selected PD/CC-0). – Aristeas (talk) 15:25, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps state that CC4 is the default licence you should use, unless you have good reason not to. And a statement that in Commons view lack of correct attribution does not entitle one to claim financial penalties against the defaulter. Pixsy's rationale is that since you have breached the CC2 licence, the photographer is entitled to a fee which they are free to set as they like. Sorry for wading in among the experts here but I'm trying to present an ordinary user's viewpoint. This might not deter the hardcore trolls, but it would present a policy which most contributors would read. Normanlamont (talk) 15:37, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with "And a statement that in Commons view lack of correct attribution does not entitle one to claim financial penalties against the defaulter." If you want that position, then Commons should just host Public Domain materials. Commons hosts materials with free licenses, and some of those licenses require attribution. If someone does not follow the license, then they are violating the agreement. A creator should be able to enforce their copyright, and that can mean taking violators to court.
The problem is that many users are not sophisticated. I've seen many uses that fail to credit the creator or do an inadequate attribution (e.g., "Source: Wikimedia Commons" does not attribute the creator). The copyright troll exploits that lack of sophistication. We do not want unsophisticated people being hurt. The best that we can do is offer advice on attribution, provide prominent warnings, suggest users double check the licensing, add metadata, and try to obtain an opportunity to cure.
Glrx (talk) 18:10, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with all of this. — Rhododendrites talk |  03:42, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We should not ban copyright enforcement, we should only ban abuse of accidental license violations. We could simply make the guideline "Sending a bill to first time license violators is only allowed if they were notified on the violation and granted at least 14 days to correct the mistake." GPSLeo (talk) 19:13, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
“Perhaps state that CC4 is the default licence you should use, unless you have good reason not to.” Commons already has it defaulted but no policy is in place stating own works must be only uploaded as CC4 (something I would oppose).
“And a statement that in Commons view lack of correct attribution does not entitle one to claim financial penalties against the defaulter.” I oppose such, if the photographer has taken reasonable steps to cure and the violator hasn’t addressed it, further action should be allowed. Bidgee (talk) 23:02, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@GPSLeo Die cc-by-sa-4.0-Lizenz (die am meisten verwendete Lizenz, und die Lizenz unter der deutlich mehr als die Hälfte der nicht-gemeinfreien Medien auf Commons publiziert sind (und der Anteil wäre noch höher, wenn nicht importierte Flickr- und YouTube-Medien unter einer älteren cc-Lizenz stünden)) gewährt eine Grace-Period von 30 Tagen. Ich finde es nicht sinnvoll (und halte es auch rechtlich nicht für möglich) diese auf 14 Tage zu verkürzen. Davon abgesehen ist es aber angemessen und notwendig, gegen Leute, dich auch nach 30 Tagen hartnäckig die Lizenz eines Mediums verletzen, vorzugehen, insbesondere zum Schutz aller, die Medien unter freien Lizenzen veröffentlichen, und zwar mit finanziellen Sanktionen.
Weiterer Hinweis: Derzeit wird am Upload-Wizard gearbeitet. Ein wesentlicher Bestandteil daran ist die Präsentation der Lizenzauswahl. Wer am Thema interessiert ist, kann sich gerne Einbringen. Irgendwo hier gibt es dazu eine Seite, auf der dem Developer-Team Rückmeldung gegeben werden kann. C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm - p7.ee/p) (talk) 07:13, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ach ja: Wirklich sinnvoll wäre mal eine Aktion, Leute dazu zu motivieren, ihre alten Uploads auf die Version 4.0 der cc-Lizenzen upzudaten. C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm - p7.ee/p) (talk) 07:14, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is already a discussion about this happening at Commons:Village pump/Proposals#Prohibit copyleft trolling. Personally, I think it would behoove us to adopt guidelines similar to those used by Flickr. Let's continue the discussion there. Nosferattus (talk) 23:27, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me that Flickr's guidelines are entirely reasonable. And, yes, they call for judgement. Determining whether someone is a troll always calls for judgement. - Jmabel ! talk 07:35, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What are Flickr's guidelines on copyright enforcement like? --SHB2000 (talk) 12:37, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
https://www.flickr.com/help/guidelines Normanlamont (talk) 14:52, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And what part of Pixy's rationale is factually untrue? Wikimedia Commons cannot dictate how Creative Commons licenses are enforced as it is entirely outside their sphere of influence. If Wikimedia Commons and its community aren't happy with the terms of the Creative Commons licenses in use, they shouldn't have decided to support the licenses. I find this discussion about attempting to control copyright enforcement a little crazy to be honest. The community may express its preferences and its ethical worldview with respect to an approach on licensing and copyright but how courts and lawyers handle cases is entirely independent of Wikimedia Commons policy. Diliff (talk) 00:25, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We can not change the licenses and how they are enforced. But we can decide how community members have to act in relation to the Wikimedia Commons project. GPSLeo (talk) 06:10, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't it just a recipe for disaster to not attribute images by default? Doing that at Commons inevitably leads to a block. Why should we tell reusers that it's ok to do so? Enhancing999 (talk) 12:50, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody proposed that. — Rhododendrites talk |  13:28, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So what is the takeaway message for reusers who do that? Enhancing999 (talk) 13:31, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is CC4 actually a cure for the problem?[edit]

People keep talking about how CC 4.0 is a cure for the problem but is it? And what problem are we referring to? Because I've read both the licence [10] which says "For the avoidance of doubt, this Section 6(b) does not affect any right the Licensor may have to seek remedies for Your violations of this Public License." and the FAQ [11] which says "Note that you may still be liable for damages for copyright infringement for the period where you were not in compliance with the license.". All of these along with the What's New [12] and Enforcement Principles [13] seem to suggest to me CC4.0 does not in any way aim to stop enforcement over actual licence violations. Rather what it does is ensure that if someone has violated the licence, they can regain the licence if they correct the problem. This means their use from when they corrected the problem and regained the licence is now fine, but it doesn't make their historic misuse fine. It's still a violation which the copyright holder could pursue.

This seems significant here because as I understand it, in the Diliff example which lead to this, and earlier ones what normally happens is Pixsy or some other entity subcontracted by the copyright holder finds licence violations generally from incorrectly attributed content or maybe sometimes from failing to specify the licence (or provide the terms of hyperlink) and demands payment for the existing violation (retrospective licencing or whatever). Importantly, as I understand it most or all of the time, the payment isn't so that the the entity contacted can continue to use it. Perhaps sometimes that also arises but most of the time this is only significant for major company or whatever who've used the work in a way which makes it difficult for them to simply delete or update it. So isn't really our main concern here.

What we're mostly concerned about is when some poor shmuck who perhaps has a personal blog or website they're not making money from perhaps they're even losing money already due to hosting charges, made a mistake when attributing images or whatever and receives a demand for payment. They cannot get out of this by deleting or replacing the image not because they don't want to but because it doesn't help with the problem namely their earlier misuse which is what the fee is being demanded for. (I mean working out how remove the image could be a problem too, it's possible the person contacted could be a 70 year old now with dementia who made a mistake 10 years ago, who has major problems understanding what'd being demanded of them. It doesn't sound like the Pixsy etc care about such things. But that seems a rarer concern.)

So how does CC 4.0 help with the problem we're concerned about? Or have I misunderstood CC4 or what people are concerned about?

Nil Einne (talk) 10:55, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, I was a bit confused by the purpose of 30 day once I came to understood it only applied to regaining the licence rather than helping with the historic violation. But then it occured to me that the older system was quite problematic. For example, if I posted a CC image on my barely known but public website, made a typo in my hyper link or the attributed name or whatever realised it when checking the website, corrected the error in 5 minutes; as I understand the older CC I was actually SoL. I had lost the rights to reuse the CC content with my earlier mistake. So me contuining to reuse the content no matter that I seemed to be in full compliance with the licence was still a problem since I was using the materially without permission from the copyright owner.

Therefore if they ever found out I'd done something like this e.g. there was an archive somewhere, they could pursue me for using their material without permission. If I got lucky, perhaps the courts would decide my 5 minute mistake shouldn't matter, but perhaps not. I think few copyright holders are like this but it was still a problem since if someone made the mistake they'd either need to use some other work, risk being pursued in the future, or contact the copyright holder for a new licence which probably 99.9% of copyright holders would find annoying.

Even more seriously, under the old system potentially a copyright holder could email someone saying you're using my material without permission since you did not attribute properly, you needed to do XYZ as per the licence. Please pay up for your previous error, please note that this payment is exclusively to cover your earlier misuse and does not grant you any additional rights for future use.

Probably most people receiving this notice would just delete the image and move on, but some people may think, okay I've corrected that error. Except that in fact they lost the licence permanently and the copyright holder never granted them any new licence for continuing use. So the copyright holder could send an email a few years later, saying, I see you're still in violation of my copyright. Yes you might have attributed me as my licence said you should. But I DGAF, as you lost your licence from the earlier violation and I never granted you a new one. Please pay up again.

Nil Einne (talk) 10:55, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good questions. As it happens, the person we've been citing regarding CC4 and the cure provision has a wiki account we can ping. :)
@Doctorow: one of our most accomplished wiki-photographers is fielding accusations about using Pixsy and Fossik to demand money from people who fail to follow the terms of a license. Lots of complicated politics about "the spirit of wiki", the rights of professional photographers who share images here, etc. Following this blog post, some have argued that upgrading to CC4 may be a good compromise between the rights of the photographer and the resusers. User:Nil Einne points out above what the rest of us should've noticed sooner: that the cure provision seems more about restoring rights than preventing you from being sued for violating the terms. Curious to hear what you think. — Rhododendrites talk |  12:49, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I sent Cory an email at exactly the same time you posted this, hopefully at least one of the pings will go through :) Julesvernex2 (talk) 13:15, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Heard back from Cory, a lawyer from Creative Commons has been looped in and will get back to us. Julesvernex2 (talk) 13:42, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Creative Commons is proposing a call with their General Counsel. I can a) take the call and get back to this group with the answers; b) take the call together with others that wish to participate; or c) hand-over the call to a lawyer and/or someone that can represent Wikimedia in an institutional capacity? In any case, they have kindly offered to address any additional questions we may have besides the 30-day grace period. Julesvernex2 (talk) 13:24, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think I can take part, so let me just place additional questions to be on the safe side: let's say, I change my license like here (an upgrade from 3.0 to 4.0): 1.) Am I even allowed to do that? 2.) If yes to (1): What are the resulting changes for those who re-used the file previously (those with correct 3.0 attribution) and 3.) like (2), but for previous re-users without proper attribution? - That's it. I was pretty sure to find answers in the CC-FAQ, but didn't. Thanks for the organization, Julesvernex. --Enyavar (talk) 14:08, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This clarification is still worth pursuing, but if updating to CC4 is a fix, this post by Diliff seems to indicate he wouldn't be willing to do so. — Rhododendrites talk |  16:51, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

March 31[edit]

standard formatting to category disambiguation pages[edit]

It has been a while since the community has looked at category disambiguation pages holistically. And from undertaking a clean-up I can see that editors have taken have a variety of approaches. I also note that for guidance we have a very wordy essay at Commons:Category disambiguation which is probably less than helpful.

To me it looks as it is a time for a revamp

  1. move the essay out of the way and have an instructional page that is readily readable
  2. identify what are the common components expected on a disambiguation page, and preferably direction an order
  3. give guidance on the format of the links
  4. instruction on cleaning them up (fixing)

To start the conversation it would seem that the common components are:

Questions:

  1. Do we want to use {{Wikidata infobox}}? Does it give value?
  2. If all three (or two) components how would you prefer them ordered/displayed?
    (See six examples of these at special:Permalink/864489454 (templates top, templates bottom, split templates either side) and then think about these with either short or long lists of items to disambiguate. Also the varying length of the infobox, though disambig boxes should be shorter.

Other comment: The links presented often are piped so presented without the category: prefix, and also with all the informational aspects of the link hidden behind a label, so that makes the process of knowing where to link difficult and equally difficult to clean up. So for me it is imperative that guidance says show the raw category link, do not pipe it.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. Once we have some general agreement, I will move the conversation on the mechanics to the appropriate talk page. Thanks.  — billinghurst sDrewth 00:11, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The value of {{Wikidata Infobox}} will depend on whether there is an associated Wikidata item and if there are links to related disambiguation pages on other Wikis. As the Wikidata item for a disambiguation page is going to hold little information besides site links, the infobox's only role here is to aid navigation between Wikimedia sites. From Hill To Shore (talk) 08:53, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The advantage of having an infobox is that one is one sees directly the type of item a category is connected to. Enhancing999 (talk) 09:26, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is not a matter of advantage or lack of advantage. The problem is that d:Wikidata:Notability (item 4) says that there must be another site link for the Wikidata item to exist. If adding the infobox here is mandatory per this new guidance, we will just end up with lots of broken infoboxes with no associated Wikidata item. From Hill To Shore (talk) 10:03, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously, if it's not connected to an item, there is nothing to see. Enhancing999 (talk) 10:13, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think some flexibility is perfectly reasonable here. There's no reason to enforce a particular style. That said, having a standard style would make creating new disambiguation categories easier. My preference would be to put the {{Disambiguation}} template at the end of the page and to omit the infobox entirely. Any links to other projects should be automatically provided by the Wiki user interface (though it looks like we only get links to Wikipedia at the moment). If the infobox is to remain it should go at the top of the page as in example 6. I have a slight preference for not piping links, but I don't think it would be very wrong to write [[Category:Foo (bar)|Foo (bar)]] to suppress only the namespace prefix. --bjh21 (talk) 09:03, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The standard seems to have been to place the notice at the top.
Do we have some new MediaWiki features that could simplify it? Some pages still look like it's 2004. Enhancing999 (talk) 09:28, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Having recently cleaned up 500-1000 disambig categories there is no standard set out. The lack of guidance is the explanation, IMNSHO.
Re infobox and the interwiki links. Infobox will show English-language sisters, and sidebar will show interlanguage WPs. [I won't go into the long spiel about disambiguation interwikis x-language as it is a weird child how it morphs, and better had at WD anyway.]
@Enhancing999: Re looks like 2004? Do you mean the template's look? Probably yes, though the same can be said of lots of things not looking different. Things typically get changed where there is a problem/fix needed/lacking.When they suffice, they stay pretty static. Re MW, what are you expecting it to do?
@Bjh21: Re the pipe usage, it automatically really max shortens, and will just keep the component after the colon and before commas and parentheses, read more at w:Help:Pipe trick. I wasn't looking to enforce, more to give guidance based on a preferred look.
I am hoping to template the "PAGENAME may refer to:" so that it can be put into a range of languages, just like the disambig template, though that is later detail.  — billinghurst sDrewth 10:04, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Placing {{Disambig}} above really takes care of "PAGENAME may refer to:". It also avoids having any text that isn't about actual entries on the page.
About 2004, I meant, technology-wise MediaWiki has evolved, so there may not be a need to do much manually on these pages. Enhancing999 (talk) 10:16, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
{{Disambig}} is much too wordy to use as an introduction. It's mostly targeted at editors, not readers. I can see the sense in having an internationalised template for the intro, though. --bjh21 (talk) 11:29, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The layout is a bit odd, but can be fixed. BTW Readers should consider using the links there instead of the (manual outdated) list. Enhancing999 (talk) 11:39, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I revised the text and layout a bit (sample use). The previous wording wasn't at all made for categories. Text now varies based on namespace. Enhancing999 (talk) 08:51, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Enhancing999: Oh, that's actually quite good. I withdraw any objection I might have had to putting it at the top. --bjh21 (talk) 21:54, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
i always organise the pages this way:
{{Wikidata Infobox}} (because wdib stretches thru the page, placing it on top minimises page length.)
{{Disambiguation}} (this before everything else so users see it immediately.)
PAGENAME may refer to:
...
when the list is short, i order everything alphabetically like what you'd expect to see in a dictionary.
derivative concepts are listed under their source concept, e.g. *Hong Kong **Hong Kong Island.
only if the list is longer, will i separate them into groups of similar concepts (e.g. places, organisations, people). RZuo (talk) 20:39, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
ofc, place wdib only if there is already an existing wikidata item, i.e. there are the same pages for disambiguation in other wiki projects. RZuo (talk) 08:49, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Mittelstraße has an interesting feature: it transcludes {{Special:PrefixIndex/Category:Mittelstraße (}} . Works quite well there. Enhancing999 (talk) 19:15, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please replace the files.[edit]

If you're reading this, do me a favor. Please replace the old images with the new vector ones I've uploaded.

Here's what it follows:

Extended content

File:Flag of Ikeda Fukui chapter.JPG → File:Flag of Ikeda, Fukui.svg

File:Ikeda Fukui chapter.JPG → File:Emblem of Ikeda, Fukui.svg

File:Emblem of Sawara, Fukuoka.png → File:Emblem of Sawara, Fukuoka.svg

File:Flag of Yoshika Shimane.gif → File:Flag of Yoshika Shimane.svg

File:Flag of Gokase Miyazaki.JPG → File:Flag of Gokase, Miyazaki.svg

File:Flag of Morotsuka Miyazaki.JPG → File:Flag of Morotsuka, Miyazaki.svg

File:Flag of Shintomi Miyazaki.JPG → File:Flag of Shintomi, Miyazaki.svg

File:Ryuyo Shizuoka chapter.JPG → File:Emblem of Ryuyo, Shizuoka.svg

File:Okawa Kochi chapter.JPG → File:Emblem of Okawa, Kochi.svg

File:Flag of Aogaki Hyogo.png → File:Flag of Aogaki, Hyōgo (1956–2004).svg

File:Flag of Bandai Fukushima.JPG → File:Flag of Bandai, Fukushima.svg

File:Flag of Ishikawa Okinawa.JPG → File:Flag of Ishikawa, Okinawa (1969–2005).svg

File:Flag of Matsukawa Nagano.JPG → File:Flag of Matsukawa, Nagano.svg

File:Flag of Ryuyo Shizuoka.JPG → File:Flag of Ryuyo, Shizuoka.svg

File:Flag of Shinminato Toyama.JPG → File:Flag of Shimminato, Toyama (1951–2005).svg

File:Flag of Shimonita Gunma.JPG → File:Flag of Shimonita, Gunma.svg

File:Flag of Yoshinodani Isikawa.JPG → File:Flag of Yoshinodani, Ishikawa.svg — Preceding unsigned comment added by OperationSakura6144 (talk • contribs) 02:42, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

File:Flag of Mukaijima Hiroshima.JPG → File:Flag of Mukaishima, Hiroshima.svg

File:Flag of Kawano Fukui.gif → File:Flag of Kawano, Fukui.svg

File:Okuwa Nagano chapter.JPG → File:Emblem of Okuwa, Nagano.svg

Please do this quickly, it's a bit urgent for me. And, sorry to all WikiComms users for disturbing you all, I was desperate to get my work done. I've been rewarded with a 3-day block by User:Bedivere for that. I'm planning to not repeat that idiocy onwards. I'm sorry. OperationSakura6144 (talk) 08:13, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please write your file links like [[:File:Emblem of Okawa, Kochi.svg]] to avoid them showing up as images. While having a few images showing up on this page is fine (especially if looking at an image will aid discussion) posting large numbers of images can cause the page to load more slowly for some users or waste bandwidth on limited connections.
Also, why is the change urgent? Is there a reason the change has to happen now instead of in a few weeks or months? Users are free to help you or not but it may help to understand the reason for the time pressure. From Hill To Shore (talk) 08:43, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I need to replace the files, because my IP address is blocked on some Wikipedias (English, Spanish, Persian/Farsi, etc.). The articles on mentioned Wikipedias are still using old PNG/JPEG/GIF images that needs to be replaced by vector images. As my IP is blocked, I'm requesting to have the old images to be replaced. OperationSakura6144 (talk) 11:10, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@OperationSakura6144: You could apply for membership in the Global IP block exemptions group on m:sripbe.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 13:22, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Do you ask for a IPblock exemption? SpinnerLaserzthe2nd (talk) 15:55, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I did, but they got rejected by Wikipedia users Yamla and 331dot. I tried my best but to no avail. How am I supposed to do? OperationSakura6144 (talk) 02:08, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@OperationSakura6144: Firstly, nothing is ever that urgent. Secondly, the place to request bot-managed image replacements is User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands. Thirdly, please ask where you put a request rather than just dumping a request here and expecting other people to jump.  — billinghurst sDrewth 04:29, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The instructions for the bot state "No replacement of images in other formats with SVGs. To avoid World War III, CommonsDelinker will ignore a command to replace an image if the new image is in an SVG format and the original is not." so that won't help with OperationSakura6144 (talk · contribs)'s request. Railwayfan2005 (talk) 21:21, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Double categories[edit]

Category:British Rail Class 345s on the Elizabeth line and Category:British Rail Class 345s of the Elizabeth line.

There are many categories such as Category:British Rail Class 345s of TfL Rail, Category:British Rail Class 345s in Elizabeth line livery and Category:British Rail Class 345s on the Elizabeth line wich in practice are all similar.Smiley.toerist (talk) 17:26, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Category:British Rail Class 345 has an overview of the "by"-categories. Enhancing999 (talk) 22:12, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is confusion as Class 345 only runs by the operator Tfl (why it is called a BR class train type I dont understand) on the Elizabeth line wich includes the local service parts of the Great Eastern Main line and the Great Western Main line.

It would be more logical to split the Elizabeth line into 4 line categories:

I would start by renaming Category:British Rail Class 345s on the Elizabeth line to Category:British Rail Class 345s on the Elizabeth line (Abbey Wood branch), but I wait for comments first.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:24, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be part of a scheme for all UK. Maybe @Railwayfan2005: can help you. Enhancing999 (talk) 10:31, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I must admit I'm not a great fan of these sorts of composite category, but they seem to be where Commons is at right now. Checking my spotting book, I find that the operator of the trains running on the railway known as the Elizabeth Line is just "Elizabeth Line", so confusingly the only fault I can see is Category:British Rail Class 345s of the Elizabeth line should be Category:British Rail Class 345s of Elizabeth Line. In principle photos prior to 2023 should be in Category:British Rail Class 345s of TfL Rail; TfL Rail then became Elizabeth Line. Going up the tree Category:Trains of the Elizabeth line should become Category:Trains of Elizabeth Line and Category:Trains of the Elizabeth line by line Category:Trains of Elizabeth Line by line. I can request the renamings if it helps. (Historical Note: Physical train numbering in the UK still uses the systems inherited from British Rail, so where you see British Rail Class 345 the British Rail Class bit is just qualifying the numbering system and not refering to the owners, operators or anything else. There must be other examples where numbering systems have long outlived the originator of the numbers.) Railwayfan2005 (talk) 21:52, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

April 01[edit]

Statistics for files on Wikimedia Commons[edit]

Hi everyone! I came across a tool called Glamorgan on Toolforge. If Commons has stats showing how many times articles with images are viewed, why not show these stats on every file page? --iMahesh (talk) 03:17, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@IM3847: Why would we want to? Every additional piece of code added to a page makes it longer to load, and adds more cycles to the servers processing. There are plenty of scripts around that can through up stats for pages for those specifically interested in that aspect. For instance I can say that when I looked at this page its data is 172,899 revisions since 2004-09-07 (+5 minutes), 10,829 editors, 3,347 watchers, 30,651 pageviews (30 days), created by: Grunt~commonswiki (128) · See full page statistics plus from wikidata Wikidata: Project:Village pump (Q16503), central place for discussions about a wiki; page (usually with subpages) used to discuss technical issues, policies, and operations of a Wikimedia wiki Aliases: Travellers' pub, Simple talk, Travelers' pub, Wikipedia:Village pump, Wikiversity:Colloquium, Wikisource:Scriptorium, Wikiquote:Village pump, Wikibooks:Reading room, Wikinews:Water cooler, Wiktionary:Beer parlour, Wikidata:Project chat, Commons:Village pump, Project:Current issues, Meta:Babel, Wikispecies:Village Pump. Though all of that takes time to generate and comes after I load the page. These scripts I load that load that data I have run on every WMF page I view, or I can set them per wiki. Most others wouldn't give a toss about that information, and I only look at it some of the time. We all fall somewhere on spectrum.  — billinghurst sDrewth 04:41, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
GLAMs would probably appreciate stats for files they upload. As there's really no way of them knowing what impact their uploads have or where to put their focus. I have the same issue myself BTW. I much rather spend my time uploading images from a particular area that people are actually going to view and use, versus just wasting my time throwing darts at a board in the hopes someone somewhere is getting something out of my contributions. And yes, you can kind of do that with the "Page views for this category" template, but it's not really granular enough to be super helpful. --Adamant1 (talk) 08:51, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hello @Billinghurst, Thank you for the information about load time; I hadn't considered that aspect. When hosting outreach activities in our country, we found that the primary concern among photographers was the lack of analytics on Commons. They were keen to understand the impact of their images, particularly in terms of views received. During our sessions, we realized that it would be very helpful to display the number of views an image has received at the top of the file. If this slows down the page load, we could consider adding a button labeled "Page Analytics" at the top. This button would only load the analytics if clicked. Unlike page view statistics, which users must manually enable, these Page Analytics could be viewed by anyone. We believe that this feature could have a significant impact on new contributors in countries like India, where there's a large number of photographers but less quality content on Commons. -- iMahesh (talk) 09:43, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Adamant1 and IM3847: There are links to individual statistics for every page to look at views, etc. from each page's history. If there are suggested links to be added via those pages then we can look at those. We also have xtools through WMF cloud which does analysis on page level. For overarching statistics, that has predominantly been something coordinated by/thru WMF as they have access to the big number crunching. It is usually something holistic for WMF, rather than at the miniutiae. I would suggest looking at https://wikitech.wikimedia.org and https://stats.wikimedia.org and https://xtools.wmcloud.org/ for some of the opportunities to look/play with data. Your people have the full opportunity to do their own analyses.  — billinghurst sDrewth 02:04, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Adamant1 @Billinghurst There is specifically for GLAMs the BaGlama2 tool. It shows for a category - for example "Images from the Hogwarts historic wizardry archive" - how often each image was viewed in which articles on the different WM projects for every month. Only: the tool stopped working more than a year ago. I brought this up in german wikipedia "Reparatursommmer" and @Magnus Manske claimed the project to repair. He made some changes and now the tool is displaying info again but all new data is "zero". So there is a tool aimed at GLAMs to show them how their content is actually used - but is does not work for over a year now. Oh well, maybe i can bingewatch some old films at wikiflix instead - that seems to actually work. C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm - p7.ee/p) (talk) 13:21, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes @Billinghurst: We have tools for project views, but they didn't cover the views of images as good as this GLAMorgan. Having a tool that displays this data for an individual page directly at the top of the page would be preferable, similar to Xtools. Since Xtools adds load to the code running the page, this Image View Analytics could be implemented as a button. It would only activate if users click on it, ensuring that it doesn't impact page load unnecessarily (or) Xtools on Commons can display the number of views image got on Wikipedias and other sister projects. As of now it only shows views directly through Commons. This will also provide the user with his impact on Commons. Any thoughts on this? @C.Suthorn: & @Adamant1: --iMahesh (talk) 02:33, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@IM3847: If added to Xtools, please make it optional and off by default, as I fear a large performance hit if we use it on everything in filespace and categoryspace.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 02:38, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's no reason it couldn't be a user setting that has to be enabled and/or just display the stats in the list of their uploader. I don't think it needs to be displayed on every page or in every category though. Especially if people can't toggle it off if they want to. --Adamant1 (talk) 02:40, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Adamant1: I agree! Adding a toggle for upload statistics would give users more control over their experience on the platform. Placing it either on the file page or the user uploads page sounds like a great idea to ensure easy access without cluttering other areas of the interface. --iMahesh (talk) 12:32, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We already do indirectly. There is an "page information" link on file description pages. It leads you to a page that has a link to "Mediaviews Analysis" at the bottom. Enhancing999 (talk) 09:46, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguating two creators with the same name and profession[edit]

I want to set up a Creator page for Derrick Knight (Q82572767), a British filmmaker born in 1919. However, we also have Derrick Knight (Q116618831), a British filmmaker born in 1929. Thinking about how to avoid mixing these two up in the future, what is the best way to disambiguate them? For the 1919 one, I have set up Category:Derrick Knight (British Army filmmaker) as it is only his second world war work that is likely to be out of copyright for several decades. Should I follow the same logic and set Creator:Derrick Knight (British Army), use the birth year and set Creator:Derrick Knight (born 1919) or just keep it simple with Creator:Derrick Knight and worry about separating the two identities when we start gathering content made by the one born in 1929 (as he died in 2022, it could be 68 years before we obtain any of his work)? From Hill To Shore (talk) 12:05, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Creator:Hans-Rudolf Berner (1938-2013) uses years, though we don't have any other, but the name is not rare and the persons is mainly known for his works at Commons. Enhancing999 (talk) 12:11, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@From Hill To Shore: I recommend years of life. Too many father-son combinations and common names to try and use occupation. Lots of them from the Wikisources have been done that way. They are typically not front facing, and are aligned with categories so that is sufficient to identify them.  — billinghurst sDrewth 01:03, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@From Hill To Shore: Consisdering the above discussion, is it alright if I rename Category:Derrick Knight (British Army filmmaker) to Category:Derrick Knight (1919–1994)? ReneeWrites (talk) 12:35, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Feel free. From Hill To Shore (talk) 13:11, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
✓ Done ReneeWrites (talk) 20:54, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Help locating photo origin[edit]

I would like to upload this photo of Joe Clark which I found at ParlInfo. It states it is in the Public Domain, which is of value for the Commons. However, I have no idea when it was taken or by who. When I reached out to the Library of Parliament Canada, they told me they got the photo from an 'outside source'. Reverse searching gets me a full resolution copy, but still no author or date. Does anyone else out there by chance know anything about it or recognize this photo? Perhaps there is a better sleuth out there then me. Thanks.

Numerical sorting in categories[edit]

Numerical sorting in categories is currently not enabled on Commons. This means that categories sort 1 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 2 20 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 unless you specifically add leading zeroes to the filename or sortkey. Should we enable numerical sorting? --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 23:22, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes we should. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:39, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 09:54, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Do we know which categories it would impact?
Supposedly many categories have a workaround in place and would that break? Enhancing999 (talk) 10:22, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just noticed that @AnRo0002: changed mine at [14]. Supposedly workarounds would just keep working. Enhancing999 (talk) 10:24, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Presumably the two workarounds are overt cat sorting and numbering like "001", "002", … "009", "010", etc. Both of these would still be fine if we turn on numerical sorting. @Enhancing999: are you aware of something that would break? - Jmabel ! talk 14:41, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My question above. In the meta page it says that some wikis may have to rework all their (manual) sorting. @AntiCompositeNumber can you help? Enhancing999 (talk) 17:33, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Enhancing999 My understanding is that Commons has never made widespread use of dewiki-style sortkey hacks. Dewiki uses a number of :s in front of the number, such as #:::100 Coco and #:9 Tage wach to get 100 Coco to sort after 9 Tage wach. Commons typically has used leading zeroes for this, and leading zeroes don't need to be changed because they do not affect the sort order in numeric sort. It looks like there are some categories on Commons using dewiki-style sortkeys, but I don't expect it to be common. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 20:21, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of "Old maps of..."-categories include sortkeys by year (like "Category:19th-century maps of Silesia|1876"), but that's not something that will break if numerical sorting gets enabled. Another method of sort-key-ing that is often employed (not just by me) is to place a space before the key (like "Category:Book name| ") so that the file with a title page is displayed as the first one in a category of page scans. Some other people use ".", "+" or "*" for much the same effect. These sort-keys should be respected by the new setting, too. --Enyavar (talk) 20:39, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is an entire tree by number at Category:Categories by quantity. Enhancing999 (talk) 21:06, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
 Support. There have been (at least) two previous discussions of this, at Commons:Village pump/Archive/2016/05#Numerical sorting in categories and Commons:Village pump/Archive/2016/11#Numerical sorting. Neither of them reached a consensus in favour, but neither came up with any strong reasons not to do it. For me, not having to put leading zeroes in sort keys would be a definite improvement, so I'm in favour.
One thing to note is that this will change the format of the sortkey returned by mw:API:Categorymembers and the cl_sortkey field of the mw:Manual:categorylinks table. That will be a problem if any software is making (unwarranted) assumptions about the format of those rather than using the corresponding sortkeyprefix. Another possible downside is that items whose sort keys begin with digits will appear under a single 0–9 heading rather than under separate headings for each leading digit. I don't think either of those is a big enough problem not to make the change. --bjh21 (talk) 21:51, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

April 02[edit]

Category:Sweden Rock Festival 2023[edit]

Hello, I noticed that all the pics in this category are watermarked. Is it possible to mark them as watermarked by a bot?--Carnby (talk) 17:46, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've started doing batch edits, will take a bit of time to complete. PascalHD (talk) 20:53, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For the future, this is the kind of thing VFC does really well. - Jmabel ! talk 21:07, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a way to do the batch edits without clicking "more" at the button a million times? Trade (talk) 07:14, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
technically you change default settings Help:VisualFileChange.js#Custom settings. use a bigger "amount of files to be loaded..." RZuo (talk) 07:41, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Trade: If you have saved your work and keep clicking or tapping the "down to the end" icon in the top right corner of File:VisualFileChange-2-select-action-append-any-text.png and your browser doesn't die from lack of memory, you can get up to 100 files listed per click/tap. This is not for the faint of heart. I recommend unchecking the "Load thumbnails" checkbox in the "More options" dialog (visible closed in File:VisualFileChange-1-2-select-category-from-drop-down.png) after the red action in File:Perform batch task.png to maximize your results.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 10:09, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Could you be more precise where the down to the end button is? Trade (talk) 22:41, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Trade: Please see the bottom circle in File:VisualFileChange-2-select-action-append-any-text-end-icon-circles.jpg.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 02:19, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Spoilers in categories and file titles[edit]

Do i have to avoid those? What does the guidelines say? --Trade (talk) 22:02, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we need to propagate a bunch of formal rules, but obviously if you can avoid spoilers, avoid them. - Jmabel ! talk 08:35, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Could you give an example? ReneeWrites (talk) 12:44, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Eren Yeager is unknowingly the Category:Attack Titan but this is not revealed until several episodes later. The first category is currently a parent category of the second Trade (talk) 07:24, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OGG vs OGA[edit]

Are .ogg files no longer supported on Commons? I tried to rename an OGG file, and the interface forced an extension change to OGA as part of the move. I've tested the interface response to other attempted moves, and it auto-forces a change to the file's extension from OGG to OGA. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:48, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

the change is intentional, introduced by https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki%3AGadget-AjaxQuickDelete.js&diff=prev&oldid=79302108 .
as for why, i dont know exactly. RZuo (talk) 07:48, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

April 03[edit]

Minor TMH improvements[edit]

I finally got around to doing some work on the timed text page logic and some of the points brought forward by people like @RZuo and @Jidanni. I plan to do further work as time permits me. I figured it was a good time to share some of the improvements that have recently been made in TMH.

  • There is now a File tab on TimedText pages, pointing you back to the corresponding file.
  • The TimedText tab is now either red or blue depending on if there are any subtitles
  • Several issues with redirects of either the file and/or the timedtextpage have been clarified with additional warnings
  • Error/warnings are no longer in the title of the page (we stopped doing this in the rest of MediaWiki quite some time ago, but TT was lagging behind)
  • Subtitle pages that don't have a corresponding file now show an error on the page.
  • Adding/deleting subtitle pages now purges the cache on Commons, so that pages using the video should show up with the right list of subtitle languages faster (global usage purging still to follow)
  • Moving a file should now re-queue the transcoding for the new files (this still needs to be tested on Commons, in case anyone wants to volunteer).
  • When you open the player on the file page of the file in question, you no longer get the Info button in the toolbar (you are already there).
  • bvibber has run the script to generate the streaming variants of all files, which means that videos should now work natively on all (supported) iOS devices and no longer require the javascript decoder.
  • WMF is preparing to move all transcoding into a separate transcoding Kubernetes service. No one should notice anything about this, but it will make it easier in the future to update the software pipeline and add capacity.

There is a lot more work to do, and progress is slow, but I hope that sharing this motivates people to keep working with audio and video. I'm always willing to listen and to file tickets, just know that often it will take me considerable amount of time to get around to more complex issues. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:13, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

thx a lot for improving the outdated interface. RZuo (talk) 16:38, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@TheDJ: Yes, thanks!   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 23:44, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Making CC BY-SA 3.x/GFDL files available under CC BY-SA 4.0[edit]

Apropos of this discussion I ask myself what I can do to make it easier to (re)use my files and photographs correctly. Some of them are still licensed under GFDL + CC BY-SA-3.0 just because this combination was the suggested default licensing when I uploaded these files. I would like to allow people to use all/most of these files under CC BY-SA 4.0, too. What is the correct way to achieve this? I do not want to remove/replace the old licenses (a) because I guess that would be problematic from a legal point of view and (b) because this would confuse people who already use one of these files under such a license. Can I just add CC BY-SA 4.0 as an additional option, preferrably by using {{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-3.0|cc-by-sa-4.0|migration=redundant}}? Or is there a legal or technical problem when I add that additional license now? Thank you very much for your input! – Aristeas (talk) 15:42, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you are the owner of the copyright to a file you are free to add additional license choices, if you so choose. Your suggested wiki markup is fine. You're probably aware, but for clarity, the reverse is not true. The Creative Commons licenses are irrevocable, you can't, for example, tell a user who previously obtained your file under the terms of CC BY-SA-3.0 that if they want to continue using it they must use it under the terms of CC BY-SA 4.0. —RP88 (talk) 16:38, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That’s great. Thank you very much for your input, RP88! Yes, I am aware that CC licenses are irrevocable (this is what my loose wording “would be problematic from a legal point of view” wanted to say). – I posted the question here because it was stimulated by the aforementioned VP discussion and I thought that it would be of interest also for other contributors who still have GFDL + CC BY-SA-3.0 or even CC BY-SA-2.x files; sorry if my wording was too vague and personal. Best, – Aristeas (talk) 19:01, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Aristeas: I use the following: I agree to [[w:Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages (which are licensed under the [[w:GNU Free Documentation License|GFDL]] 1.2 only), as described below along with all future CC-BY-SA licenses: :::{{self|GFDL|Cc-by-sa-4.0,3.0,2.5,2.0,1.0|migration=redundant}}   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 23:42, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jeff G.: That’s another excellent solution, thank you very much! So people can choose which solution fits them better.
BTW, I have learned that it is even possible to write {{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-all}}. This is useful if somebody wants to publish a file explicitly under any CC BY-SA license. Personally I feel a bit uncomfortable about this because it seems a bit odd to me to allow the use even of not-yet-existing licenses; therefore I would prefer Jeff’s code which explicitly mentions the versions of the license. But if one really wants any CC BY-SA license, cc-by-sa-all is the shortest and most general solution.
As a sidenote, Jeff’s code example shows that my lengthy {{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-3.0|cc-by-sa-4.0|migration=redundant}} can be abbreviated to {{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-4.0,3.0|migration=redundant}}. This also results in a more compact display: instead of creating a separate box for every version of CC BY-SA, the template geneates a single box which mentions all versions. Best, – Aristeas (talk) 09:34, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Aristeas: You're welcome!   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 09:42, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

April 04[edit]

POV image description[edit]

A talk page entry at Wikipedia here brings up an issue with a POV image description. Any ideas what to do about this would be appreciated, thank you. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 07:31, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just passing through at the moment, but at the very least add {{Fact disputed}}. I believe that the word "terrorists" and its Hebrew equivalent should be removed from that page entirely. I have rarely seen a less appropriate description anywhere. (Probably more to be done than that, but I'm on my way out a door.) - Jmabel ! talk 07:40, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've now added a "fact disputed" tag with the note, "It should be needless to say that the IDF's characterization of the hospital as a "terror headquarters" is contentious at best, and the notion that everyone killed or arrested was terrorist is absurd." - Jmabel ! talk 08:53, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
remove that bullshit completely and replace it with the description of whats in the image which in this case is the name of the said Hospital and if they persist, then we no longer accept images from them at all. Just because the image is released freely doesn't mean we should use it if its used for their own personal propaganda...we now need to check every images uploaded from that site to see if the description for every image uploaded isn't more propaganda. Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral (even though we aren't but we need to continue with that "facade" or we will no longer be recognized as a neutral and reliable source).... Stemoc 12:58, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for looking into this. The issue extends to the rest of the files in Category:Operation Local Surgery, with the same phrasing used on those twelve files. Richard Nevell (talk) 17:23, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is once more a case showing why we should make "original description/title" like it is used in {{BArch-image}} a standard value of the general {{Information}} template. GPSLeo (talk) 17:48, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
yes. i just wanted to raise this problem.
{{Information}} and com:sdc should have dedicated fields for original accompanying texts provided by the creators of the files.
all texts should be preserved as is. RZuo (talk) 19:10, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Commons does have a NPOV policy, which includes neutrality of description should be aimed at wherever possible. There are a few ways to do so: remove the contentious claims or attribute the claims to the IDF. In this case, I'd be inclined to remove the claims, since they are only there for context and do not actually describe anything in the image itself. In fact, nothing in the description describes the actual image. I see what looks like a tank and a damaged medical building. Oddly, I can't find an image oF Shifa Hospital that looks like that (the curved facade, etc.) -- are we certain that's what's in the frame? There's no caption in the source document. Also, we should probably ping the uploader, MathKnight. — Rhododendrites talk |  19:31, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
noticed he has been pushing this propaganda (for a better word) for a while now even making such claims on other wikis including enwiki and i can see he is a sysop on the Hebrew wiki thus his bias. I remember we banned a few Russian posters last year when they were doing the exact same thing during the Ukraine-Russia conflict by pushing the Russian agenda and yes a lot of those images added by him have the same biased description. This needs to be fixed ASAP IMO and i generally don't care what the VRT ticket allows because we need to uphold our own NPOV policy first. I'm in favour of blacklisting that website if every description listed on their images is blatant propaganda and bullshit... Stemoc 22:06, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
since the user is still actively editing hebrew wiki and made edits to enwiki even after this discussion was brought up and hasn't posted here, one can assume he doesn't care...I propose we delete the description of every image related to this current war, english and hebrew and maybe start a discussion on blacklisting the IDF website and removing all their images from commons. We can't have 2 standards for when russian editors do this and another set for Israeli ones and also ban MathKnight from commons. We cannot have propaganda pushing people actively promoting disinformation on commons as images here get used across wikimedia wikis... Stemoc 00:43, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
File:Operation-Local-Surgery 2024-03-30 at 18-11-25.jpg also - and several others. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:15, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like COM:AN is a more suitable avenue to discuss this than the Village Pump. ReneeWrites (talk) 12:29, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, we have many descriptions with the Russian propaganda e.g. here. I remember that there were some discussions but I cannot recall the outcome. — Draceane talkcontrib. 21:08, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

File:Kratky, Frantisek - Rjeka, albanska matka (1897).jpg[edit]

Hi, From which country is this picture? Categories seem contradictory: Albanians in Croatia taken by a Czech photographer. Yann (talk) 20:27, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

With the current details it will be difficult to say. Modern day Czech Republic and Croatia were part of Austria-Hungary in 1900. Modern day Albania was in the Ottoman Empire at the time. Ethnic groups with no national boundaries were likely spread around the region. It could be an ethnic Albanian family that was living in Austria-Hungary or a photographer from Austria Hungary may have been travelling in Ottoman lands. A Google translation of the source page isn't much help; it says the photographer travelled a lot and took pictures in multiple countries around Europe until he married and settled down in 1898. From Hill To Shore (talk) 21:06, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't the title mean it was taken in en:Rijeka? --Joostik (talk) 11:53, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My comment was from the perspective of what is visible in the image and stated in the source. Beyond the file name chosen by the uploader, there is nothing to say that these are Albanians in a specific location. The uploader may have had access to additional source information to choose that name. On the other hand, there is nothing to support Yann's suspicions of a contradiction. It is entirely plausible for the three factors of an ethnic Albanian family living in the vicinity of modern Croatia and being photographed by an ethnic Czech photographer (who the source says was known to travel around the region) to have occurred. From Hill To Shore (talk) 12:36, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jedudedek: at first? (Probably the image was taken by the Czech photographer, there is an Albanian mother and it was taken in a vicinity of a place called Rjeka. – I doesn't have to be Rijeka, Rjeka means "river" in Southern Slavic languages, so it can mean many places.) — Draceane talkcontrib. 21:11, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

April 05[edit]

Fix image[edit]

I noticed while browsing the English Wikipedia that this image is the wrong way around: life should be the broadest category and species the narrowest. Looking closer, the image was made to be the wrong way around about two or three days ago. Can someone fix this? 76.212.74.243 04:20, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Mrmw: You overwrote the file here. Was there a reason for reversing the order of the labels? From Hill To Shore (talk) 06:43, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@From Hill To Shore: sry, fixed it, thx for telling --Mrmw (talk) 07:29, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

April 06[edit]

Guidelines for who can create templates and under what circumstances[edit]

Hi. I was wondering, are there any kind of guideline or guidance on who can templates and under circumstances they can be created for? I ask because there's an editor with only 60 edits who created a template recently for a fairly niche subject area. Which seems like an extremely low amounts of edits to be creating templates at this point. Especially considering the oddly specific thing they are creating it for. Thanks. Adamant1 (talk) 00:03, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is no hard and fast rule, and there shouldn't be. A template expert from Wikipedia could easily and appropriately have the creation of a template be their first edit on Commons.
Without specifics, there is no way to comment on whether the specific template is appropriate. - Jmabel ! talk 00:58, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel: Yeah well, I was trying to keep it as a general question since I already have a couple of other rather personal discussions going on. That said, it's Template:Four stamps block (type 1). I asked the user who created it what the purpose of it is but they haven't replied. I can't image a template being necessary or useful for something that niche though. Mostly it just seems like a way for the user to push their own personal, preferred way of doing things on everyone else since it appears to be very German specific, but can still be used on other images of "Four stamps block (type 1)"s. Whatever those are. One of the issues I have with the template is that there are no hard and fast standards for stamp classifications and they can be different depending on the country or culture. So having a template for "Four stamps block (type 1)"s seems kind of pointless to begin with whatever the user's motivation for creating it was. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:21, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel: I have already had issue with Mwbas attempting to delete their redirect, badly.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 02:29, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jeff G.: my remark was entirely addressed to the general question, not the specific case. If there is a problem with a particular template, that is a completely different matter than whether you should need a particular number of edits to make a template. - Jmabel ! talk 17:25, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel: Fine, I've created Commons:Deletion requests/Template:Stamp of default country to address the specific case. @Adamant1: FYI.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 11:29, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal for NoFoP-Russia template[edit]

I am proposing to change {{NoFoP-Russia}} template into a category-exclusive template only, to be placed on top of categories like Category:Bust of Jean Sibelius in Pskov. This is to pattern after {{NoFoP-Japan}}, which is a category-only template from the beginning, as well as the more-recent category-only templates like {{NoFoP-US}}, {{NoFoP-Denmark}}, and {{NoFoP-Finland}}.

This may need some discussion as it involves removal of the template from hundreds of tagged files once it is converted to becoming a category-exclusive template. A suggested replacement may be {{De minimis}} but it is too general and also includes uses in images that may incidentally or trivially show album covers, book covers et cetera. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 04:00, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is a pretty big change. You should probably should post a note on the talk page for {{NoFoP-Russia}} pointing to this discussion. In principle I think your proposal is fine. If you switch it to category use only, the template should definitely be modified to show a red usage error note in file namespace, as it will probably take some time before users familiar with the current template behavior adapt to your change. In addition, if you want to do this you should commit to going through the existing uses of the template in file namespace and either: (1) nominating for deletion cases depictions of copyrighted artwork and sculptures that are not de minimis, (2) replacing {{NoFoP-Russia}} with {{De minimis}} where the depictions of copyrighted artwork and sculptures are de minimis, or (3) removing {{NoFoP-Russia}} where any depiction of copyrighted works is entirely trivial. —RP88 (talk) 18:10, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Featured media candidates[edit]

Hi, Commons:Featured media candidates/candidate list‎ needs more eyes. Please have a look. Yann (talk) 14:23, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There are 48 entries, but 43 have "Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes." Enhancing999 (talk) 14:30, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The bot is down. The entries have to be sorted out manually, and it is a pain. Yann (talk) 12:38, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

April 07[edit]

Request from OperationSakura6144[edit]

I'm User:OperationSakura6144. I need to replace File:Flag of Gyoda Saitama.JPG with File:Flag of Gyoda, Saitama.svg in the English Wikipedia. Please help me in that. I would like you to succeed in that. I count in you all.

Edit: Why did you archive my topic? Let me know why? OperationSakura6144 (talk) 12:34, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK, but File:Flag of Gyoda Saitama.JPG is not replaced with File:Flag of Gyoda, Saitama.svg yet. Why is this so? Is the process taking late or are users not interested in replacing old images with vector ones? I need an answer now. OperationSakura6144 (talk) 14:51, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have checked back through the archives and the only topic of yours that was flagged for archiving manually (by me in that instance) was where you had posted duplicate messages. The duplicate was prioritised for archiving while the other would remain open. However, all topics get archived automatically if there are no new comments for a period of time. So, most of your topics were archived automatically because the conversations ended. From Hill To Shore (talk)`
@OperationSakura6144: I've been traveling for 5 weeks, so I'm only just getting back ere but it looks to me like you've singlehandedly decided there is a problem and that you have the solution, and repeatedly hectored people to get on it immediately, without any step of building any consensus beyond yourself that it is even important. It does not surprise me that no one is jumping to drop what they are doing to help you. - Jmabel ! talk 20:00, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have tried COM:DL, but it didn't help me because it states: "No replacement of images in other formats with SVGs. To avoid World War III, CommonsDelinker will ignore a command to replace an image if the new image is in an SVG format and the original is not." which is absurd. Why would WWIII happen just because by replacing images of old format with vector images?! OperationSakura6144 (talk) 01:06, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Special:CentralAuth/OperationSakura6144 is rather strange. it seems this user has successfully avoided opening enwp pages while logged in, so there's no account on enwp. or...? RZuo (talk) 20:19, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Let me explain. I couldn't edit the English Wikipedia because my IP address got blocked there, because they thought me as a proxy/VPN user. I've made appeals to unblock but all failed, because the people in the English Wikipedia still think me as a proxy/VPN user. Now, I'm expecting you to do this thing for me. Do it if you can or ignore it. OperationSakura6144 (talk) 01:02, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IP_block_exemption#Used_for_anonymous_proxy_editing
do this yourself or stop complaining. RZuo (talk) 17:35, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Depicts tags by campaign300@ISA[edit]

For a few weeks I've noticed a bombing of pretty crappy tag-depicts on hundreds of files in my watchlist. [15], [16]. How does this benefit the project? ¿Hay alguien a los mandos? Is this "campaign" completely machine-guided? Is structured data intended for generic tags? Strakhov (talk) 14:27, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Commons:ISA Tool seems decent. i think it's more of a problem of the user. RZuo (talk) 17:13, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Depictor edits are usually pretty good, in my experience. On the contrary, ISA Tool edits are almost always crap like this (not only this user). Strakhov (talk) 17:25, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
they go by different design. isa is more like a tool for tagging depicts for related files consecutively. its depicts interface looks just like the one on commons pages, so it depends on the user to find the suitable item.
depictor is asking whether files in a category depict the topic of that category. RZuo (talk) 20:15, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(1) Revert the bad edits. (2) If you are inclined, add appropriate "depicts," but don't feel obligated. (3) Report this crap at Commons talk:ISA Tool. - Jmabel ! talk 20:02, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

April 08[edit]

Christian religious art question[edit]

Can anyone work out what scenes are represented by the two panels here? The full predella might provide useful context, though I doubt it. - Jmabel ! talk 14:54, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also (tangentially related) I'm sure someone could do a better job than I of adding additional categories to the images in Category:Altarpiece of the Corpus Christi (Vallbona de les Monges), related to what is represented in each panel. - Jmabel ! talk 20:27, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

These are two Eucharistic miracles for which there are numerous versions from the Middle Ages. In both cases, an individual steals a consecrated host to enhance their honey production/fishing. Each time, a miracle occurs: the bees build a church of wax around the host/the fish bring back the host to the priest. Identifying the saint depicted would provide further information. Ayack (talk) 22:02, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Page 84-86 of this document and this website provide some more background. Category:Host desecration or its subcategories seem appropriate. --HyperGaruda (talk) 09:27, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@HyperGaruda: thank you, Category:Host desecration is exactly what I was not finding. It is buried so far from Category:Eucharist that I didn't turn it up. - Jmabel ! talk 14:54, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

April 09[edit]

Discussion about new tool for detecting logos[edit]

We're having a discussion at the Technical Village Pump about a new tool for detecting logos. Our intention is for you to discuss if it could be of use for the community and then, if consensus is reached, to integrate the tool in UploadWizard, in a way that would be beneficial for moderation workflow. If you're interested in the topic, please have your say! Sannita (WMF) (talk) 10:20, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Potential identification issue with photos from commanster.eu[edit]

From what I'm aware, many pictures of species from James Lindsey's Ecology of Commanster website were uploaded to Commons way back in 2007-2009 or so. These are all listed in the category Category:Pictures by James Lindsey (as well as Category:Nature of Commanster and its subcategories). However, I've been discovering over the last few months that with regards to insects at least, at least some of them in Lindsey's photos have been misidentified: it turns out that Lindsey's website now gives different identifications for these insects, but for the most part they have not been updated on Commons correspondingly. So far that I've seen, some of the new IDs for Lindsey's photos are consistent with other photos ID'd as the same species on external websites and other photos uploaded to Commons, so they seem to be correct as far as I can tell.

Here are some examples of what I'm talking about:

In each case, I found the website's current ID for each insect by simply reverse-searching the images on Google, clicking "Find image source", and looking for a commanster.eu web page that has the same image if its available.

A few other notes I should make here:

  • Because these images are so old, they not only may be the oldest images available on Commons for many species, but they have also often been used as representative images for these species in Wikipedia (regardless of language), Wikidata and Wikispecies. They also may be representative images for genera, subfamilies, families, etc.
  • I believe this issue probably applies to far more than just the dozen or so insects I've spotted misidentifications in so far: the commanster.eu website has a Caveat page warning about identification errors, particularly for arthropods and fungi. This means that the IDs given by Lindsey for some groups of organisms are not reliable, and therefore many of his images of those groups uploaded to Commons could have wrong IDs and need renaming.
  • The Category:Pictures by James Lindsey category includes 5,805 images total, which is far too much for one user alone to sift through.

So, I need other users to help double check photos from commanster.eu uploaded to Commons, correct them if needed, and also fix references to them across Wikimedia. Like Lindsey himself, I don't have any expertise in any field of biology either, not even in insects particularly (despite how often I edit pages to do with them). Monster Iestyn (talk) 16:11, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Monster Iestyn: You might want to cross-post at en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Insects. - Jmabel ! talk 17:57, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel: Thanks for the suggestion. While I did originally make this with insects in mind, half way into writing the start of this discussion I started wondering if this issue goes beyond insects to other arthropods and maybe even plants/fungi, since the photos from Lindsey's site also includes those. Monster Iestyn (talk) 18:26, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Monster Iestyn: I imagine that for each, there is some relevant WikiProject. - Jmabel ! talk 18:30, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel: There, cross-posted at both en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Insects and en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life. Monster Iestyn (talk) 18:39, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Do we have a bot that could fix it? It would be easier if the images had an image number and would link directly to the source. Enhancing999 (talk) 19:34, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Enhancing999 Doesn't look like they have numbers, at least on the website. Unfortunately all of these just sourced the website's main page to my knowledge (standards for sourcing may have been different 15 years ago, I have no idea). Additionally, some of the insect photos at least don't seem to exist on the website anymore, or at least Google's reverse-search for images doesn't work as expected for them, e.g.: File:Rhaphium.elegantulum9.-.lindsey.jpg, File:Rhaphium.riparium.-.lindsey.jpg and File:Rhaphium.riparium9.-.lindsey.jpg. Monster Iestyn (talk) 19:43, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The bot would have to load each file and try to to a comparison to the ones here. Enhancing999 (talk) 19:57, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Quite a few of these photos appear as the main image on Wikidata or Wikipedia pages. Those should be our first priority. I'll see if I can throw together a script. Snowmanonahoe (talk) 20:39, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

April 10[edit]

Proposal affecting FoP Chile[edit]

The proposal, though not yet passed and is still being discussed heavily, may affect Commons' ability to host Chilean monuments (unsure if it would be retroactive or not). Right now, Wikimedia Chile chapter is rigorous in opposing one part of this proposal. (source1, source2)

Informally known as "Balmes law", the proposal has one part (Article 5 according to source2) which makes it mandatory the need for remuneration to artists for images of artistic works found in public spaces that have been used for profit-making or lucrative purposes. Wikimedia Chile opposes this as this will hinder Spanish Wikipedia's ability to illustrate articles of contemporary monuments of Chile. It is uncertain if this could affect architecture too, since the proposal is relatively vague.

Note that I have mentioned this in meta:Freedom of Panorama which I created. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 03:20, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We should really just revolt at this point and allow for non-commercial licenses since that seems to be the direction a lot of countries are going in with freedom of panorama laws recently. Otherwise we are needlessly screwing ourselves out of hosting images from a large part of the world. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:35, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Adamant1 unsure if that will sit well with many of the peeps within Wikimedia Foundation (I'll ping here @Sannita (WMF): who started major FoP discourse recently, for their inputs). It will be a major overhaul of the policies of both Wikimedia Commons and Wikimedia Foundation. The policies are anchored on the Definition of Free Cultural Works (which essentially prohibits non-commercial content).
Unless, WMF will make a statement about the purported failure of free culture and finally embrace non-commercial licenses like CC-BY-NC-ND and CC-BY-NC. One more far-reaching consequence of this overhaul is to finally force Creative Commons organization that both CC-BY and CC-BY-SA should be invalid in images of all modern architecture and public monuments of no-FoP countries, and that only the NC-type licenses must be used for that. This means, CC licenses can be revoked for images that show these public landmarks of these countries. All of these is assuming we will start embracing non-commercial content. Sounds convincing to stop deletion requests, but may be detrimental to free culture missions by both Wikimedia Foundation and Creative Commons organization. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 04:12, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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