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COMMONS DISCUSSION PAGES (index) Commons Help desk Village pump (general discussion) Copyright Proposals Technical Graphics and photography discussion Photography critiques Image improvement Illustration workshop Map workshop Photography workshop Video and sound workshop Categories for discussion Undeletion requests Deletion requests Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard Translators' noticeboard Work requests for bots Contact administrators Vandalism User problems (Dispute resolution) Blocks and protections Bureaucrats' noticeboard CheckUser requests Oversight requests Telegram IRC webchat Commons mailing list (archive) Commons' bugs on Phabricator Welcome to the Village pump This page is used for discussions of the operations, technical issues, and policies of Wikimedia Commons. Recent sections with no replies for 7 days and sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=--~~~~}} may be archived; for old discussions, see the archives; the latest archive is Commons:Village pump/Archive/2024/07. Please note: If you want to ask why unfree/non-commercial material is not allowed at Wikimedia Commons or if you want to suggest that allowing it would be a good thing, please do not comment here. It is probably pointless. One of Wikimedia Commons’ core principles is: "Only free content is allowed." This is a basic rule of the place, as inherent as the NPOV requirement on all Wikipedias. Have you read our FAQ? For changing the name of a file, see Commons:File renaming. Any answers you receive here are not legal advice and the responder cannot be held liable for them. If you have legal questions, we can try to help but our answers cannot replace those of a qualified professional (i.e. a lawyer). Your question will be answered here; please check back regularly. Please do not leave your email address or other contact information, as this page is widely visible across the internet and you are liable to receive spam. Purposes which do not meet the scope of this page: Please do not make deletion requests here: use the relevant process for it instead. For technical support and graphics talks (PNG, SVG, GIF, etc.), please post on the Graphics village pump. To ask for image improvement, see: Graphic Lab/Photography workshop for photographs. Graphic Lab/Map workshop for maps. Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop for other illustrations. To ask for video or audio improvement, see Commons:Graphic Lab/Video and sound workshop. For translation requests, please post at Commons:Requests for translation. For media requests, please post at Commons:File requests. Search archives:     Start a new discussion

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Old manual pump in Fetonte Place Crespino, province of Rovigo [add]

Centralized discussion See also: Village pump/Proposals   ■ Archive Commons:Requests for comment/Hosting of free fonts in Commons (18 July 2024) How do we organize categories by date (14 May 2024) Should PD-CQ Roll Call be used for recent images? (5 January 2024) Technical needs survey (17 December 2023) When does PDART apply to textile works? (15 November 2023) Does this image contain "love hearts"? (17 August 2023) Overhaul of categories by period (5 December 2022) Version of Saudi flag to use (11 July 2022) Concern regarding revocability of KOGL licenses (22 December 2021) Should deleting content from your own talk page be forbidden? (11 November 2021) Revise the COM:FOP Sweden section (1 February 2021) Change technical name of LRs to license-reviewer from image-reviewer(2 November 2023) Template: View   ■ Discuss    ■ Edit   ■ Watch

December 31

who can sure that this film is nasa's ?

File:ALIEN SPACESHIP ON THE MOON flyover before landing APOLLO 20.ogv I am looking at the url this file gives,but it is not nasa's website. I think theNasaTopsecret (talk · contribs) chooses the wrong copy License; --Mys 721tx (talk) 07:55, 31 December 2009 (UTC)-

Hoax. There was no Apollo 20 mission. See w:en:Canceled Apollo missions#Apollos 18–20, so this is definitely not NASA, a bogus license, and a speedy delete. -- Avi (talk) 08:51, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks,because this user is making up Apollo 20 on zh.wikipedia.--Mys 721tx (talk) 09:27, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest you delete it as a Hoax/Vandalism. The source is certainly unreliable (some private video webhosting site??). -- Avi (talk) 09:29, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Shizao helps to delete that,I will delete same thing next time--Mys 721tx (talk) 09:44, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.---Albert Einstein ” .I'm sorry to say that you might make a same mistake while judging the so called "HOAX" on Apollo 20 (leaked videos) that were originally uploaded by the former CDRs of Apollo 19 and Apollo 20 who are still alive.(Please see [1],[2],[3])And the videos that I quoted were put on a Chinese new index page of (

Apollo 20

)that I'm working on. So, literately, it is a new index to be edited by different language versions and I will be workig on the English version once I finish the Chinese one. So, please do enough research out of the current old "resources" before making any decision to either deny or confirm it. By the way, NASA did not make any announcement about the Leaked Apollo 19 and 20 Videos since 2007, so you can imagine what consequences would be in the very near future. Please respect and protect the TRUTH of the Apollo program that belongs to all mankind. --NasaTopsecret (talk) 14:47, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

1. These are not NASA files and so are a copyright violation of whomever created them and they may not be hosted here.
2. The images are out of scope per COM:PS#Must_be_realistically_useful_for_an_educational_purpose. Fostering conspiracy theories is not an educational purpose.

-- Avi (talk) 16:28, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

1.I fully respect the WIKI policy, and before making any decision by using WIKI policy, please do your own research to make sure whether NASA owned those videos before or not.

2.By the time you find the way to get to know a bigger picture of what's going on behind the Apollo Missions, you would define it as "conspiracy" which might be the best way to deny or confirm a point in order to conquer the fear by not denying an old world view. Anyway, you have the right and free will to do anything you think to be right, me too. But please remember this talk if the whole truth reveals in the coming 1 or 2 years. Do not stop thinking. That's all I can say about the files that I uploaded. --NasaTopsecret (talk) 17:11, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

"do your own research to make sure whether NASA owned those videos": That's not required per ☭:EVID.

That's why I put the following licence ({{PD-USGov-NASA}}) before files were deleted.--NasaTopsecret (talk) 17:40, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you've misunderstood COM:EVID. I'm assuming you were not the original uploader of the file, but merely added a licence to it. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) I do not know what licence the file had previously, but judging from the above discussion there is no evidence it was created by NASA, so {{PD-USGov-NASA}} is the wrong licence. If there was no other appropriate licence, then the file was correctly deleted. COM:EVID clearly states: "In all cases, the burden of proof lies on the uploader or other person arguing for the file to be retained to demonstrate that so far as can reasonably be ascertained ... the file is properly licensed (or is in the public domain)". Therefore, according to policy, the onus is on you as an editor arguing for retention of the file to show that it is properly licensed. So far, I've not seen sufficient evidence of this. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:28, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I think I fully understand the policy of COM:EVID. What I do not understand is the meaning of 'sufficient evidence' that you need to accept. That's why I quote “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.---Albert Einstein ” . I mean what kind of evidence is the evidence to make the decision to confirm or deny AN EVIDENCE itself ? If you know it, please tell me your point.--NasaTopsecret (talk) 20:11, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

What is your basis for claiming that the file was created by NASA? Can you point to some reliable, published third-party source that states this? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 20:21, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

If you can read Chinese, take a look at here

Apollo 20

which I am working on, or here:[4],[5],[6],[7]). That is lots of homework. By the way, what kind of "third party" can you accept except NASA itself.———NasaTopsecret (talk) 21:37, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

An organisation which qualifies as a reliable source - such as the major newspapers and TV networks. NASA itself would also count, if you could provide a link to a NASA website.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:54, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the introduction link about reliable source. I think I was doing well while editing on the (Chinese) new index

Apollo 20

. --NasaTopsecret (talk) 22:55, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Isn't that article up for deletion? Paradoctor (talk) 00:27, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

If you understand Chinese, you are welcome to join the discussion, otherwise you have to wait until the English version is done.--NasaTopsecret (talk) 00:48, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Good luck, but I have a very strong suspicion that the English version will be speedied just about as quickly as it is created. There is little tolerance for conspiracy theories unless those theories are widely published. I mean, it *is* supposed to be an encyclopedia. And Paradoctor, from my translation I gather that the Chinese version is headed towards redirection rather than outright deletion. — Huntster (t @ c) 02:01, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll take your word for it. It is all Chinese to me. ;) Paradoctor (talk) 03:40, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, truth is just truth, no matter how you deny it, you have to face it sooner or later. But I believe it is coming soon. Please do your own research and become a little more professional, then come back to discuss the details of Aopllo 20 event without a suppression tongue. Thanks and good luck. --NasaTopsecret (talk) 02:49, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

"truth is just truth": First, on Wikipedia, and by extension here, verifiability, not truth. You may not like it, but it is a fundamental principle, and will not be ignored. Second: "The term has no single definition about which a majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree, and various theories and views of truth continue to be debated." That's the reason Wikipedia insists on verifiability. Paradoctor (talk) 03:40, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

When I say "truth is truth", it has thousands of meanings to all kinds of responsers, and it depends on how you explain it according to what kind of policy, in what language, under what circumstance and culture background,etc. You have your own right and free will to discuss and understand what "truth is truth" means, I have mine, he has his, she has hers, etc. I think it is a very common or natural phenomenon for different human being to have different opinion or understanding on a certain "sentence" such as "truth is truth", I hope you agree with it as well.--NasaTopsecret (talk) 04:33, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid you hope in vain. Anyway, it is terribly simple: No credible license, no file. Paradoctor (talk) 04:44, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, I think it's terribly simple that you just came here too late to witness every detail. I hope this answer would help you out of the puzzle.--NasaTopsecret (talk) 14:32, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

NasaTopsecret strikes me as a single purpose account who may not be well aligned with the mission of Commons. ++Lar: t/c 02:59, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

NasaTopsecret, whether there are reliable sources for (1) the content of the article you are working on; and (2) the source of the file and whether it is licensed to the Commons under a free licence or in the public domain, are two completely different things. In this discussion, I am only concerned with whether the file is properly licensed. I do not know which was the file that was previously in the Commons but has been deleted, but just looking at the first website you mentioned, there are some images on the left side of the web page, and the first one has the caption "Source: picture from a video added by 'retiredafb' on YouTube (year 2007)". That is not a proper source – there is no indication of who created the video, and whether the copyright holder has properly licensed it or released it into the public domain. We do not accept such files in the Commons. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:51, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you do not need to get involved on the YouTube's uploading policy. Same idea. You want to know who created the video, right? So, it's all about who "created" the Video but not "uploaded" it. I think I have answered you with the permission {{PD-USGov-NASA}}. By the way, I don't know if you have checked this site [8], if you don't have time, just forget it.--NasaTopsecret (talk) 14:55, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

YouTube can never always be trusted! Most videos hosted are copyrighted and a high percentage are copyvios. Bidgee (talk) 15:05, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Nothing can be trusted unless you trust it. Try to do the research to connect the dots, then you can find the whole picture, that's the truth.--NasaTopsecret (talk) 15:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

We do not only want to know who created it, we also want to know how we can verify that. Is there a download page on a NASA website? Is there an email from NASA confirming the file's origin? Provide that, and everything's fine. Paradoctor (talk)

When you use the words "We do not", I would consider you might be a representative of an organization or a group. If so, please let me know with proper detail. Otherwise I do not like to deal with an unidentified representative in this area. If not, please be careful to avoid using "We" to represent yourself. By the way, can you give me a reason why I need to help you to give a link if NASA did not want to put it on the Internet, but chose another way to provide the information to the public domain?--NasaTopsecret (talk) 15:47, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

When I say "we", I mean that this is policy, which rests on broad community consensus. I do not "represent" Commons anymore than you do. We don't have that kind of hierarchy.

Sorry, I can not accept the reality of any human being who claims himself/herself as policy to appear in this world, because it is just unbelievable to me. --NasaTopsecret (talk) 16:33, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

"need to help you to give a link": As I said, it's policy here. If you don't like the rules, why play? Paradoctor (talk) 16:12, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I need you to help me give a link of the policy that describes NASA needs a link to prove its production.--NasaTopsecret (talk) 16:39, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Not NASA, you. Here is the link: COM:SCOPE#Evidence. Paradoctor (talk) 17:53, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

"We" means the editors who volunteer at the Commons and accept its policies that have been decided by consensus, such as "Commons:Licensing". You can't just claim that a video or some other file was created by some institution such as NASA without providing some published, reliable third-party evidence of this. Any editor who isn't convinced by such a claim is entitled to challenge it, and if an administrator agrees with him or her the file has to be removed. Anyway, we've been discussing this issue for a while now, and it's clear that you are not prepared to be convinced. If you want to upload the file to some other website which does not have a policy prohibiting it, you are welcome to do so. But you cannot upload it to the Commons because it doesn't comply with the policies here. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:20, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

When you say "We", it has thousands of meanings to all kinds of responsers, and it depends on how you explain it according to what kind of policy, in what language, under what circumstance and culture background,etc. You have your own right and free will to discuss and understand what "We" means, I have mine, he has his, she has hers, etc. I think it is a very common or natural phenomenon for different human being to have different opinion or understanding on a certain "word" such as "We", I hope you agree with me as well. I think your questions are just simply repeatings of the above discussion, and I think I've answered enough about the similiar issues. You like to use "reliable", but how reliable is reliable if you do not to prove it by yourself? --NasaTopsecret (talk) 16:50, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

By the way, I've had a look at the website you referred to ([9]). It is the user page of "retiredafb" on a video sharing website called the Revver Video Sharing Network. I note that the website's copyright information page states very clearly: "At Revver, we staunchly support copyright laws. Our mission and business is firmly rooted in the idea that artists deserve to control and be rewarded for their intellectual property. We screen every video that is submitted to our system in an effort to promote legality and to police obvious copyright infringement, and we respond promptly to Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) content takedown requests. ... By uploading your video to Revver ... [t]he default license attached to your video is the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 license, which basically means this: Viewers are free to copy and share your video as long as they attribute credit to you as the creator. Viewers may not make money off your video. ... Viewers may not edit or alter your video without your consent." There is no information on the website stating that any of the videos uploaded by "retiredafb" were created by NASA, and the default licence applicable to the videos (CC-BY-NC-ND-2.5) is not acceptable for the Commons (we only allow content tagged with CC-BY or CC-BY-SA). — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:48, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I have to copy my former similar reply and repeat "I think you do not need to get involved on the Revver's uploading policy. Same idea. You want to know who created the video, right? So, it's all about who "created" the Video but not "uploaded" it. I think I have answered you with the permission {{PD-USGov-NASA}}."The site [10] that I introduce to you is trying to help you get to know the "fact" of the Apollo 20 event, not the site policy. If you don't like it, just forget it.--NasaTopsecret (talk) 17:04, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

"I have answered you with the permission {{PD-USGov-NASA}}": No, you haven't. You have made a claim. Now prove that claim with COM:EVID. Paradoctor (talk) 17:56, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, "Apollo 20" was supposedly a joint US-Soviet mission. Given the Soviet involvement its not clear {{PD-NASA}} would apply anyway (why not Soviet copyright?)--Nilfanion (talk) 18:12, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Good point! But the Soviet Union(CCCP) is never the same as Russia as we have today. I think nobody would need a policy for a permission which might have been terminated since the year 1991.--NasaTopsecret (talk) 23:45, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Incorrect. There are several successor nations but copyright ownership remains; the Soviet Union and its successor nations were at the time, and still are, members of the Universal Copyright Convention, and have since joined the Berne Convention. Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:57, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

This whole thing was apparently a hoax started in 2007 -- there was briefly an en-wiki article on it named "Apollo 20 hoax" but it was deleted as the hoax itself was non-notable (though it looks like a version was archived here). Apparently someone claimed credit for the hoax, including these faked videos. The Chinese article referred to above, if Google translate is accurate, looks like it is on track to being redirected to an overview article on NASA hoaxes. I'm sure some segments are NASA footage from actual Apollo flights, but a lot would seem to be original authorship. There doesn't seem much point in arguing with someone who believes it lock, stock, and barrel; at any rate to host the video we need much, *much* better documentation that it is entirely a NASA creation, otherwise it is indistinguishable from any other faked video uploaded to youtube/wherever without any other documentation. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:11, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

If someone is trying to cover up the truth, he/she has to be very patient to wait and see how deep the truth is. Who is this guy "Thierry Speth, a French video artist" in the site here you quoted? Did he know the former Apollo 19 commander also has started uploading other LEAKED Apollo 20 mission videos since Sept. 14 in 2007 on the Internet? Take a look at another interview to find out the related links for it(Apollo 19 CDR interview). Please do your own research before you named anything hoax--NasaTopsecret (talk) 00:10, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Can't believe you didn't see that one coming... ^_^ Paradoctor (talk) 01:12, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I have seen nothing to change my view about NasaTopsecret being an SPA. Further he/she seems to be actively resisting engaging in constructive dialog. I think enough time has been wasted here for now. Blocked for 24 hours, with an admonishment that on return, this user needs to focus on answering the questions posed constructively. ++Lar: t/c 04:20, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

After viewing all of the above comments, to end up my discussion in here, I have to say that we are the prisoners and also the jailers who have been living in a huge prison that built by ourselves, in where we always call it "FREEDOM". I hope at least some of you guys will wake up in the coming 1-2 years, and good luck to all of you! -- A CHINESE --NasaTopsecret (talk) 22:44, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

January 2

Privacy concerns regarding photographs of car plates

We have many photographs of cars where the car plates can be read (see here for an example). This raises, at least in some European countries, privacy concerns (see, for example, the conflict regarding Google Street View). In case of my photographs, I followed the practice of making them unreadable before uploading them (see this example). I wonder, however, how we shall address these concerns at Commons in general:

• Shall we recommend or require that car plates become unreadable?
• Shall it depend on the context? A readable car plate in a public exhibition (see here for an example) is perhaps ok, a car plate in front of a brothel perhaps not (see here).
• Shall it depend on the legislation of the country where this photograph has been taken?

The point is that the educational value of these photographs is usually not touched when car plates are turned unreadable. Hence, it could be worthwile to consider a template comparable to {{Watermark}} to tag such images. --AFBorchert (talk) 10:34, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Personally I think its both polite and good practise to obscure the number plates of private vehicles in all cases, unless its your own vehicle and you really don't mind. For government and municipal vehicles, e.g. police vehicles, I think there might be a public interest argument for keeping the plates and other identifying markings legible.KTo288 (talk) 10:54, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I would not worry about it. If my car is parked in front of a church, it does not mean that I parked it there. It does not mean that the person using the car attended the church. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 11:01, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

(EC)While in Australia it is not mandatory to block number plates on vehicles, however I choose to block them on private and also unmarked police vehicles. Bidgee (talk) 11:04, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

To reduce the risk of any consequences for a car owner, all pictures showing parked vehicles and enough background to allow an exact conclusion about the location should be altered or erased. The commons community usually cant tell whether we see a harmless carpark in a shoppingmall or the garage of some "bordello" - but maybe somebody else can. So, in order to keep it simple, better erase the image or alter the license tags. But there is no legal obligation to do so (afaik). Alexpl (talk) 12:12, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

While I agree on moral sides of making plate numbers unreadable but I think it isn't just a moral issue, it's pretty same to different privacy laws in different countries, although finding all images of vehicles and censoring their plate numbers is not very easy but I think we should act based on the country or state law. however we can also say that someone who parked his/her car in a public place should have expected that it may get photographed, it's same to taking photographs from people in public places, in other side there is absolutely no harm in tagging images with visible plate numbers and also making them unreadable.   ■ MMXX  ^talk  21:33, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

At least we should allow any user to upload new versions of images with unreadable license tags - without asking for consensus first. Even if the original uploader opposes. That shall be limited to images with motives no older than a few years and must, naturally, include the permanent deletion of the original file, as it still contains the readable tags. Alexpl (talk) 07:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I think this should be done by Wikigraphist, because we don't want to lose quality, here is a proposed text to be used in template:
" This image contains visible private information such as vehicle plate number, using and exposing this kind of private information, in some jurisdictions, restricted by laws pertaining to Personality rights and Privacy laws , independent from their copyright status. before using this content, please ensure that you have the right to use it under the laws which apply in the circumstances of your intended use. it is highly recommended to protect people privacy by removing such information or by making (part of image) unreadable and/or unidentifiable. you are solely responsible for ensuring that you do not infringe someone else's privacy. "
IMO, the template should add images to a category that is subcategory of Category:Images for cleanup. btw, what are other photo sharing websites like Flickr do? I don't think that we need to urge users to blur all plate numbers and ruin their photographs, we should do it just on case by case basis.   ■ MMXX  ^talk  15:07, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

If we "Assume Good Faith" I agree with you. If not - well, there is no way to tell for us wether a photo has not been manipulated in order to do harm before beeing uploaded (false ID plates for example) or if the shown location itself does raise privacy concerns for an insider. At least instructions for a way, easy to follow, allowing even a noob to ask for a speedy deletion of such pictures, should be implemented. Alexpl (talk) 05:57, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Even now if someone (even an anonymous user) request for deletion of an image which may infringe someones privacy, we should consider removing that image or find alternative ways for keeping that like blurring part of image and permanently remove the original file from system. but we should not force the users to upload their images with censored plate numbers, all that I am saying is we should only act when it is needed, not on all the images, but just on the images which may make problem for someone or per requests.
I've also created this template {{Private information}}, of course it needs some addition and changes.   ■ MMXX  ^talk  23:10, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I would remove the "personality rights" part; that is about using someone's image or likeness in a "commercial" (i.e. advertising) manner, which I don't think has any ties to this situation. I'd also make the icon yellow, or something a bit less alarming, as it is only an issue in some jurisdictions. Otherwise though I think it is well worded and a good idea. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:31, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Nice work. Maybe the template should have a descriptive text including all major privacy concerns to allow a wide usage of it. Those are recognizeable faces in the first place and all information allowing a link between property and specific individuals (houses via adress/doorplate, cars via plates a.o.). Btw, what are the steps I would have to take to use that template on a file? Alexpl (talk) 08:55, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

This is a difficult problem in some cases - it is clear that, when it does not affect the educational purpose of the image or its overall quality, removing of personally identifying information in a subtle, low-key way is perfectly acceptable. On the other hand, obscuring (say) the face of a person who is the subject of the photo directly interferes with its educational depiction of the subject, and should be avoided. This is a subjective sort of test that needs to be carried out on a case-by-case basis. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:32, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

As I said before, we should act on a case by case basis; people in public places should expect being photographed but there are sometimes that people are not main subject, they are just passing by and blurring their faces dose not harm the image value or quality, that's when we can act, but it is not necessary to do this for all the images on Commons. same thing also applies to other elements such as vehicle plate number, ID card or any personal card scan ... or anything that my reveal some private information like someone's real identity, residence address, a place that he/she visited recently, jobs, beliefs ... of course these are not everything, IMO we should create a page containing all moral and legal privacy laws plus a list of everything that's may infringe someone's privacy and then link the template to that page, I also made few changes in the template's text.   ■ MMXX  ^talk  23:23, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

In the UK only the police can do identification from number plates. I think that there not really a privacy issue regarding number plates for almost all cars photographed in almost all places - very few people will happen to remember that a car had a certain number plate - probably only family members and friends of the car owner. Generally speaking car photographs are of cars parked or on roads, and there is nothing very remarkable about that, and no particular privacy issues I would have thought. I think that there may be very occasional special circumstances that need to be considered for individual cases. Snowmanradio (talk) 22:57, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

• Depending on the country pictures were taken, I think it's generally good practice to obscure car plates. If it's done only when there is a problem reported to us, this would actually increase the problem. If there is a template that allows others to request the removal of the license plat, I think it's a good idea. Besides, I don't think it should be possible to search for car license plat numbers on Commons. -- User:Docu at 03:42, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

While I agree with both of you (Snowmanradio and Docu) about plate number, but we have a real issue here that is not limited to vehicle's plate numbers, for example see this deletion request, currently there is no urge in Commons for speedy deleting such image.   ■ MMXX  ^talk  06:04, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

"removal" in my comments means suggest to a specialist to edit the image to obscure the license plate. -- User:Docu at 06:14, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I think that the sort of personal information on a passport is not the same as a car number plate and the two should not be confused. Snowmanradio (talk) 16:22, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I also think that the personal information on a passport or an ID card and etc. are completely different by pictures of plate numbers and any other photo which taken in public place, because the car owner should expect that his/her car may be photographed if it is parked in a public place, but I think it's possible to have a single template which can be used for any case. also about that deletion request, I withdrew my nomination because I didn't see the "specimen" word on the passport.   ■ MMXX  ^talk  06:50, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

The car owner you mention would be in the state of California? -- User:Docu at 10:10, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Me?! which car owner? why California? I meant in general, any car in any country or state.   ■ MMXX  ^talk  21:52, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

In general, most explanations at Commons apply to uploaders in the US of pictures taken in the US only. For those is other countries, this generally has to be sorted out first, e.g. for this it was done, but, e.g. that lacks any detail regarding other countries. -- User:Docu at 04:36, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Latuff categorization dispute

There is absolutely no agreement on what categories these things belong to, and beyond a doubt, including them in the categories belonging to the content of the images is unfair. Until we develop, on the Commons, a manner of tagging these cartoons that is more consistent with other image sites on the internet, we will continue to have wars on what sorts of categories these images belong to, including inappropriate, pointed categories such as the one I recently removed here.

I therefore suggest and propose the Latuff cartoons remain in strict categorization containing Latuff, cartoons, parodies, or any descriptor of the medium, and not in broad categories involving the subject matter or people's interpretation of the subject matter. Bastique ^demandez 19:49, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I do not agree. File:CocaColaIndia.gif belongs in category:Coca-Cola and File:LeiAzeredo.gif belongs in category:Copyright law as much as File:Chodowiecki Werke der Finsternis.jpg. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 19:57, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Pieter, you are able to spot the flaws so readily. I know you're an intelligent contributor. Why don't you help come up with a solution that will contain this problem? Bastique ^demandez 20:06, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The solution is to follow policy. As mentioned in COM:CAT, there are source categories. Creator categories like category:Carlos Latuff are a bit like source categories. But images should also be in topic (subject) categories. If many artist have depicted a topic, a "category:xxxx in art" can be created. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 20:19, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree there's no agreement, and I doubt there ever will be one. I would only like to pay tribute to Drork, who removed almost all categories I added to cartoon by Barry Hunau I uploaded, which means that he played it fair. IMO when we adding categories to the images we should mostly take into account our readers. When readers are searching category Category:Israeli West Bank barrier they expect to see images of West Bank barrier, and not highly offensive Holocaust denial cartoon, which has not a single strike of the brush that is saying the truth. I guess, if it is added to Category:Israeli West Bank barrier next move will be to add it to Category:The Holocaust--Mbz1 (talk) 20:27, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd say that Category:Israeli West Bank barrier should contain media related to the West Bank barrier regardless of the medium. That includes photos, maps, cartoons et.c. // Liftarn (talk) 00:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Pieter, Policy on Commons is not fixed, and is written to account for different situations. We take into account the fact that people have widely divergent opinions about certain subjects, like the incredibly huge leap of logic (see below) that equates a cartoon depicting a Palestinian in a death camp to Holocaust denialism to Anti-Semetism; and we acknowledge that some subjects are going to be highly inflammatory and divisive, like Latuff's cartoons. I think the fact that we've reached a consensus on allowing the cartoons says something. Let's reach a consensus on which category the cartoons appear so that we can get past this issue and move on to the next.

Latuff's cartoons are a special case and must be treated specially. Bastique ^demandez 20:42, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The only special thing about Latuff is that he released his cartoons about recent events in the public domain. If some Israeli contributors do not like the message, let them try to "balance" by getting Israeli newspaper cartoonists to release their work on a free license. Let thousand flowers bloom. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 22:56, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

It has been done with Category:Barry Hunau. // Liftarn (talk) 00:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

In my view the removal of valid categories is a violation against the principle that Commons is not censored. I think that such a dramatic change of policy should not be done in a big "mudfight" like this. I think that a lot of users do not want to spend time discussing Latuff. However if the heading was "Should we start censor on Commons in some areas?" then I'm sure a lot more would participate in the debate. --MGA73 (talk) 18:40, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Antisemitism

• I added the antisemitism category, with the reasoning that holocaust denial is classified as antisemitism. Holocaust denial itself is defined as the claim that the Holocaust did not occur at all, or that it did not happen in the manner or to the extent historically recognized. The cartoon, by depicting an equivalence between the Palestinian situation and the Jewish situation in Nazi death camps, falls into the latter. (That is not to say there is anything good about the Palestenian situation.) Catagory:antisemitism does not, moreover, say that Latuff is antisemitic, but that antisemitism is an issue in this cartoon. But: I urge all involved in this dispute to accept Bastique's suggestion as a good compromise that will end the dispute. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 20:31, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
  • No, w:Godwin's law is not about antisemitism. Also there is no antisemitism pictured, it is just the an opinion of an editor. So the inclusion of the image in the antisemitism category is both confusing and a disservice to the users of Commons. // Liftarn (talk) 00:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
    • This is the same issue as with terrorism: a category that defines no criteria, and doesn't make sure to distinguish between Commons claims, claims in the file, and claims about the file. I think Malcolm is wrong about inferring antisemitism from an image that makes a connection between West Bank Palestinians and concentration camp inmates, and "antisemitism" is too broad to carry files itself, but a subcategory "works considered antisemitic by X" makes perfect sense. Paradoctor (talk) 01:40, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
      • @Paradoctor you are wrong, it is not what Malcolm thinks. It comes clearly from by WORKING DEFINITION OF ANTISEMITISM Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis is antisemitism. Besides that particular cartoon attacks every single Jew around the world, and not only Israeli Jews. @Liftarn, Godwin's law has absolutely nothing to do with it. --Mbz1 (talk) 02:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

• • • • • I wasn't saying anything about what Malcolm thinks, but what I think. But you have brought up something else: This so-called "definition". Is this a hoax site? Because if it isn't, then something is horribly wrong with the EU. If you gave that piece of unmitigated crap any credence, you'd have to admit that there is no fundamental difference between Zionism and antisemitism, because Zionism fits this non-definition almost as well. That is repulsive. Paradoctor (talk) 03:37, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
          • It is not a hoax site. There's mostly nothing wrong with EU, I am not so sure about Commons. I do not know how from reading the document you came to conclusion about no differences between Antisemitism and Zionism, nor I want to know, because we have already established we speak different languages, and I do not like yours. "unmitigated Crap" , "repulsive" what the words! But of course how I could have expected something else from the one, who said he would have considered it a loss, if he had missed on those repulsive cartoons? --Mbz1 (talk) 04:52, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

It may not be a hoax site as such, but it is the site of European Forum on Antisemitism and they are "a resource for Jewish community representatives, public opinion leaders, and members of non-governmental organizations dedicated to combating antisemitism.".[11] So they are not an official EU body, but an interest organisation. Also note that it is only a working definition. // Liftarn (talk) 13:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

All wrong as usual. Here's how it really was "In 2004 the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) released its first comprehensive study of antisemitism in the EU. Although it relied heavily on its focal points in the then fifteen member countries for its information, a majority of those focal points had no working definition of antisemitism and of those that did, no two were the same.As a result the EUMC, in collaboration with key NGOs and representatives of the newly-formed Tolerance and Non-Discrimination section of the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) drafted a single, comprehensive definition for use in the field. It employs plain language to enable the definition to be easily accessible to a wide range of law enforcement, justice and government officials, as well as to NGOs and experts who assist in the monitoring process.This “working definition” was adopted in 2005 by the EUMC, now called the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) and disseminated on its website and to its national monitors. Units of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) concerned with combating antisemitism also employ the definition."--Mbz1 (talk) 14:43, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Have I finally crossed to the other side of the mirror? Are you seriously debating a rhetorical question?

Sure, this is not Wikipedia, but why should we hold ourselves to less than encyclopedic standards when it comes to our own research?

Did anyone bother to check the bottom of the page, where there is a nice big logo of the American Jewish Committee? Of course, the EFA is an advocacy group, and there is nothing wrong with that per se. But did anyone notice that they state[12] that this "working definition" was "adopted in 2005 by the" ... "European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights"? Further checking today revealed that claim is plain wrong, this "definition" is a draft which has been sent out for review.

To make it absolutely clear: The claim the the EUMC adopted this definition in 2005 is wrong. This is flat-out contradicted by the May, 2006 statement by EUMC director Beate Winkler that "The working definition, which is work in progress, is available through the homepage of the EUMC." (my emphasis). See page 19 of [13]. I cannot rule out the possibility that it has been adopted after May 2006, but my search has come up dry so far. There is no proof that this has ever been adopted by any official EU body, and it seems rather plausible that this draft has gone where it rightfully belongs: nowhere.

All this changes nothing about the draft itself. It is neither "operational" nor useful. Also note, that "the EUMC and OSCE/ODIHR consulted Jewish organisations" and "academics" only in formulating the draft.[14]

Paradoctor (talk) 15:36, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

You may be interested in the February 2009 update from the EU FRA, specifically pages 20–25. -- Avi (talk) 16:16, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Care to explain what your point is? I haven't seen anything relevant to the issue of adoption in the source. Paradoctor (talk) 16:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Nothing outside the fact that those pages discuss the current EU definitions/opinions on what is Antisemitism; no other point intended. You said you weren't sure if anything was ever adopted, and this is more recent data. -- Avi (talk) 16:57, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

"You said you weren't sure if anything was ever adopted": No I didn't. If you still think so, please quote me verbatim. Paradoctor (talk) 17:02, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Your verbatim quote: "I cannot rule out the possibility that it has been adopted after May 2006, but my search has come up dry so far. There is no proof that this has ever been adopted by any official EU body…" I paraphrased it. My apologies if the paraphrase was inaccurate. -- Avi (talk) 17:05, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Plain wrong, not inaccurate. No problem, I make my of share of mistakes. Accepted, settled, forgotten. Paradoctor (talk) 17:16, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

My definition of holocaust denial comes from the lead sentence of the WP article on Holocaust Denial[15], and I do not think the definition is controversial. For instance, in Belgium, where Holocaust Denial is a crime, the law reads (in part) Whoever, in the circumstances given in article 444 of the Penal Code denies, grossly minimises, attempts to justify, or approves the genocide committed by the German National Socialist Regime during the Second World War shall be punished by a prison sentence of eight days to one year, and by a fine of twenty six francs to five thousand francs.[16]. So the definition I used of Holocaust denial as antisemitism is correct. The remaining question is if the Latuff cartoon fits the description of Holocaust denial. Seeing that it was second prize winner in the International Holocaust Cartoon Competition which intended to promote "discussion about the realities of the Holocaust" [17], redefinition of the known historic realities seems likely. In any case, the fact is that the issue of antisemitism in relation to Latuff has been discussed in notable publications, and the existence of the issue requires the category.But the category does not judge the issues, just that they exist. I hope this clarifies my thinking, and why I added category:antisemitism to the image. Malcolm Schosha (talk · contribs) 17:24, 5 January 2010

Can't speak for anybody else, but I never objected to calling holocaust denial antisemitic. I do say that file:Latuff nazi camp2.gif is not evidence for holocaust denial. Exactly how does the cited definition apply? Paradoctor (talk) 17:16, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

The WP lead defines Holocaust denial as the claim that "the genocide of Jews during World War II — usually referred to as the Holocaust — did not occur at all, or that it did not happen in the manner or to the extent historically recognized." While the conditions of Palestinians is very grim, comparing that to the conditions faced by Jews in Nazi death camps amounts to a denial of the historically accepted reality of the Holocaust. The reason I gave the excerpt from Belgian law is that its "grossly minimizes" coincides with the WP definition. For some information on the nature of Nazi death camps, you can refer to this WP article, although there is plenty of other information available [18][19][20][21] etc. This equating things that are not alike is recognized form of Holocaust denial, and it is therefore also a form of antisemiticm. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 17:46, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Malcolm, while I always appreciate links, you really don't need to educate me about the Nazi horrors. Between my upbringing and my personal development over the decades, I'm informed and aware. One of my memories is a trip to Buchenwald, so there is an, admittedly ephemeral, personal connection. I still remember the circuit they used for testing shoes and boots.

You argue that the image constitutes holocaust denial because it implies that concentration camps were like West Bank, even though they were in reality far more horrible than anything in West Bank. Is that a correct formulation of your position? Paradoctor (talk) 18:56, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

1. The links are to information that you, or others who are following this discussion, can follow or not....as you (or they) choose.
2. You seem to be missing something. I have explained my reasoning for adding category:antisemitism, but I am not advocating for it because I prefer the compromise solution. If the compromise proposal fails, there will be plenty of opportunity to waste time arguing about it then. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 19:20, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

"explained": That is what my question is about, making sure I have understood your explanation. It's pretty easy to misread other people's words, and having a reformulation in one's own word confirmed goes a long way towards avoiding needless discussions.

"waste time arguing": It's a pity you see it that way. I tend to see discussion as only way towards building a solid consensus. And even if you disagree about that, I can say for myself that I learned a few things, and that the discussion at the very least led to an improvement of w:European Fundamental Rights Agency. Not a waste in my book.

"If the compromise proposal fails": Ok, we'll resume this strand as soon as the proposal has failed. Paradoctor (talk) 21:02, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Nazi camps were built to prevent innocent kids, women and elderly from getting out. West Bank security fence was built to prevent terrorists from entering in. --Mbz1 (talk) 19:07, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

(<-)The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights has, as its working definition for antisemitism:

“	Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.	”
—European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, [22]

This is the working definition of the EU, and calling it "crap" or a "hoax" does demonstrate an insensitivity to those who have suffered from the effects of antisemtism, directly or indirectly. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 15:43, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

You're completely missing the point of COM:PS#Censorship. And thank you, I already read that yesterday, why do believe I'm so horrified? Paradoctor (talk) 15:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

So now calling a definition crap is being insensitive, not to those who wrote the definition, but to random other people? The concept that definitions can be beyond criticism is ludicrous.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:57, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

You can do whatever you want. However, as this is supposed to be a collegial atmosphere, making comments that would be specifically insensitive or hurtful to other commons editors is, in my opinion, not a good idea. Your opinion of antisemitism, the EU, and their definition notwithstanding, do you disagree with my point? -- Avi (talk) 16:04, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

(I'll assume that this is addressed to me) Collegial does not mean "mince words". Above all, it means AGF. As Prosfilaes pointed out, I was critizing the definition, and by proxy those who created. Everybody else may feel free to be hurt by my remarks, but that is the price of living in a society that guarantuees freedom of expression. Paradoctor (talk) 16:25, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

As I said, everyone is entitled to their opinions, but do not be surprised when what seems obvious and simple to you is hurtful to someone else. Good faith is critical, respect for others is too. Personally, I think we should all bend over backwards a little extra, especially in contentious discussions, as there is the tendency to too much rancor already. Despite the strength of one's opinion, a softer approach tends to garner better results most of the time, in my opinion and experience. Feel free to disagree :) -- Avi (talk) 16:37, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Simplified proposal

I think it is unfortunate that we are in this position but we are, and we all need to accept that there is no ideal solution to this issue, no solution which necessarily anyone will be completely comfortable with so let us no longer pretend that there will be, we all need to be prepared to accept something less than what we might consider ideal. Where we are currently shows no sign of heading towards a resolution. We all have much more constructive ways we can be using our time that worrying about the categorisation of a few dozen images.

I would therefore make a simpler proposal than Bastique has made, that we should only categorise the Latuff images in one category, Category:Carlos Latuff, and abandon any attempts to categorise them beyond that. The current Carlos Latuff subcategories can just be merged back in to Category:Carlos Latuff.

This isn't a proposal I am comfortable with, I would much rather have images categorised according to COM:CAT, but one which I feel is in the best interests of Commons. I would urge all involved to consider accepting this proposal, despite its disadvantages, so we can move on and stop wasting any more of our time. Adambro (talk) 20:46, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

•  Support--Mbz1 (talk) 20:53, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
•  Support This is not, in my opinion, an ideal solution, but it's better than "categorizing according to subject matter in all cases" -- because subject matter is broadly interpreted. I prefer a more complex solution that allows for better categorization without causing strife. Bastique ^demandez 20:59, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
•  Oppose Just follow COM:CAT - include in topic categories. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 21:01, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

  We've tried doing that for years without much success. Adambro (talk) 21:03, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

  Block the people that repeatedly remove the most appropriate relevant categories, instead of humoring them. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 18:16, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

  Agreed... reach a consensus and then enforce it. --J.smith (talk) 04:39, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

•  I hate this solution but I think we have no better choice. ++Lar: t/c 21:20, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
•  Strong oppose It didn't work because the problem was not addressed: The inherently judgmental nature of terms like terrorist, antisemite, freedom fighter, ... The discussion at Category_talk:Terrorism#Inclusion criteria seems to be on the right track, contribute to it, and we stand a good chance to reduce the heat some, all the while improving accessibility of our files. Which is what we're here for, right? Paradoctor (talk) 21:52, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't you think that there are some places that are better off hidden Please do not get angry with me, it was a joke, but do you really believe that we ever will reach the consensus on what include, and what not include in category terrorism for example? --Mbz1 (talk) 22:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

"do not get angry": ?!? Calm yourself, young one! ;) Though that particular choice of image is, let's say, not really up my alley. Me being a panagnostic who enjoys walking around nude and all that. ^_^

"we ever will reach the consensus": Not in the sense that we can make everyone happy. But I'm positive we can substantially improve upon the current situation. Paradoctor (talk) 22:52, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

@Adam and Bastique. I'd like to thank you for your comments and proposals. The thing that you are not comfortable with it make it even much more precious in my eyes.--Mbz1 (talk) 21:11, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

•  Support Not the perfect solution, but it is better than the current situation. Kooritza (talk) 23:11, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
•  Support this compromise proposal that is a reasonable solution. FloNight♥♥♥ 23:30, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

How is this a compromise? It is giving in to pressure. The pressure will continue. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 00:00, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Commons is a very diverse community. We won't always be able to agree easily. Where traditional efforts have failed, and that is very much the case, we have to consider more creative approaches to problems. This is only my proposal for a possible resolution of sorts, if you can think of something else then please share it with us but we cannot continue as if we can really expect to solve anything by the edit warring or repetitive discussions that have gone on for so long. Adambro (talk) 00:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Just follow policy. This is one of the more humorous cartoons by Latuff. It is appropriately categorized. The category system is for finding stuff, not for tucking it away. Commons is not censored, policy says. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 00:26, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Any policy you can quote for me is just a reflection of community consensus. The community can decide to do things differently in some cases if they wish to. It is surely better to compromise the categorisation than to loose these images. If we continue without success to take a rigid approach that has got us nowhere then that risk is increased. Categorisation is important, but is it that important that you would be happy to see these images deleted due to the hassle they continue to cause if this isn't resolved? Adambro (talk) 00:55, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

There is no reason to delete them. As for example also File:Geschändetehostie.jpg was kept. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 01:03, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Whether something is deleted is, again, simply a matter of community consensus. What might in reality be trivial issues might suddenly become more significant if the community considers these images to be more hassle than they are worth. Adambro (talk) 01:08, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

•  Support and yes, I am not really fond of this solution but I do see no workable alternative. I concur with Bastique that we shall avoid a categorization by subject matter in controversial cases as the Latuff caricatures. If we, for example, add this image into this category, we get in my opinion an issue with this BLP resolution of the foundation. These category pages are top-ranking at Google and give the unaware visitor an impression of an editiorial content. --AFBorchert (talk) 23:46, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

A corrolary of this proposal is that "Category:Propaganda cartoons" would have to be deleted, since Liftarn's claims that Latuff is exempt, while every single non-Latuff cartoon that Liftarn happens to personally disagree with somehow qualifies, has become an irritant... AnonMoos (talk) 00:23, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

• IMO liftarn should be banned on working with categories all together. That statement proves how confused the user is. --Mbz1 (talk) 04:47, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

•  Comment Ugh, whatever is decided, please could someone work towards a technical solution that addresses concerns similar to this one? Commons:Usability issues and ideas#Not censoring Commons, but yet giving an option to censor this site's content might be a start in the right direction. Possible solutions might include w:en:Stylish sheets and/or w:en:Greasemonkey scripts that allow readers to selectively hide things they do not want to see. In other words, provide the user with display tools rather than make the server decide en-masse for everyone. -84user (talk) 13:37, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
•  Support per Bastique. While we may lose some categorization clarity with certain images, this does prevent various commons project participants from using various images (Latuff, Hunau, etc.) as proxies in a political battle. As difficult as it may be, perhaps the best solution is to start with Adambro's single category, and then discuss each image, one at a time. While this will be long, time-consuming, and annoying, it will likely end with a somewhat better categorization that will not be the subject of political posturing. -- Avi (talk) 21:44, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  The idea is not that we strip back all the current categories apart from the one and then discuss which ones to reintroduce. The idea is that we leave it at the one category, then find other more useful things to do then categorising a few dozen images. As you say, what you propose would be "long, time-consuming, and annoying" and in my view simply be a continuation of the problems that we should be trying to address. It would be preferable to categorise these images properly but we have tried to do that for such a long period that the time wasted is of far greater concern than any categorisation problems. I don't wish for us to risk removing some categories which are appropriate in this process only to find ourselves in pretty much the same situation debating Latuff image categorisation again. Let's just leave it at the one category and forget about it. The approach of trying to discuss each image individually is what has already been tried and failed. Adambro (talk) 22:29, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  Your simplification, while not optimal by a longshot, above is still better than the constant mess we have now perpetuated by three or four specific editors. I'm almost of the opinion that if we topic-banned four or five people from Latuff, Israel, and Palestine, the rest of us would come to a reasonable consensus more quickly and less acerbically. -- Avi (talk) 00:14, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

  Hey Avi, if you meant me , when you talked about the topic ban, I do not mind at all. It will be my easy way out knowing that I have done what I could. Only that ban should be official something like that for example. I was blocked quite a few times because of that very topic, that's why in my situation the topic ban is the right thing to do. I am not a fighter, I want out, but I like somebody to kick me out instead of getting out myself :)Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 03:16, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

•  Oppose, in the strongest possible terms. I don't know, nor do I care to know, what abuses have been perpetrated regarding these images. But if we do not categorize images by content, we may as well just delete them, as they are useless. Take the Dershowitz image; as offensive as it is, is it free media that depicts the man, and belongs in his eponymous category. Powers (talk) 02:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

  Commons primarily serves as a repository of free content for the various WMF projects. That role won't really be compromised by adopting this unconventional categorisation scheme but it certainly would be if we deleted them. Ideally we would categorise all images normally but we have tried to do that with these images for at least a year now and much drama has resulted. I don't see the necessity to categorise normally is so overwhelming that if we can't do, we should delete these images. They are still available for use across all the WMF projects, and can be found without too much difficulty, only they won't be found in broader categories. We would be better accepting the problems here make it very difficult for us to ever categorise these images properly and move on to use our time more constructively. We have thousands of media files which need categorising at all for example, that would be more useful than worrying so much about a few dozen which we have tried hard to categorise. Adambro (talk) 09:27, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

They will be useless in 2-3 years I am sure, but for now their creator is such a notable person on his own, that his cartoons would be found easily by his own name alone. --Mbz1 (talk) 03:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

If you already know what you want, sure. But that misses the point of categories: browsing for stuff you didn't even know existed. Paradoctor (talk) 03:55, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Your point is right concerning all (how should I put it) okay, let's say, usual images on Commons, but the discussed images are anything but usual. Let's say you have a thirteen-years old son. The boy knows that he is prohibited go to porno sites on Internet, but he sees no problem to go to article about Dershowitz, then he continues to the category and... Here's another example let's say we have an elderly Holocaust survivor, who lost all her family to the Holocaust, and never got over it (and who can get over it ever?) Let's say she happened to read the article about West Bank security fence. She hits the category to see more images, and ...In other words I believe that, that those of our readers, who know nothing about the cartoons and their creator, will loose absolutely nothing, if their "ignorance" to continue. On the other hand some others readers will be hurt, and hurt a lot by seeing them by a pure accident. --Mbz1 (talk) 04:29, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

You would let a kid surf unsupervised?

"holocaust survivor": With that reasoning, we should also delete all pictures of spiders, milk, clowns, anything containing the number 13, knives, large objects, cats, bees, dogs, and so on and so on and so on...

"loose nothing": Without Category:Israeli-Palestinian conflict cartoons by Latuff, I would never have noticed File:Freud have an explanation.gif. I'd consider that a loss.

You might be interested in reading Commons:Project scope#Censorship and Commons:Usability issues and ideas#Not censoring Commons, but yet giving an option to censor this site's content. Regards, Paradoctor (talk) 05:47, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

If you consider it as a loss, if you have not seen the image, I am afraid I have nothing more to add. Warm regards.--Mbz1 (talk) 06:29, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

•  Oppose By reasons mentioned by others already. Wouter (talk) 08:15, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
•  Oppose it is nonsensical to categorise these images only by their creator when categories that categorise images by their creator are hidden as "not helpful" and for "not categorising by subject or content" when the creator is a Commons volunteer. Additionally, I would expect Category:Carlos Latuff to contain images of Carlos Latuff in the same way that Category:Tracey Emin contains images of Tracey Emin. Thryduulf (talk) 10:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd rather expect anything related to these names in or under these categories. You're probably talking about the subcategories category:Pictures by X and category:Pictures of X.

I note that both categories lack "A short description text that explains what should be in the category.", as do virtually all categories, even though Commons:Categories#Creating a new category makes it clear that this is of high importance. Little wonder Commons hasn't been able to keep useless arguments down to an acceptable level. If we don't follow our own rules, then we don't have rules, and have to live by Faustrecht (literally "rule of the fist", similar to "law of the jungle"). Paradoctor (talk) 16:08, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

• Can you propose an alternative way of dealing with the problems which have prevented these images from being categorised normally? Adambro (talk) 10:33, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

•  Support As explained previously, I think compromise solutions are usually preferable to continuing disputes, and this compromise is a good solution to this dispute. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 13:22, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
•  Strong oppose - Censorship of this kind goes against the fundamental principles of Wikipedia and Commons. Images must be categorized according to content wherever possible. Just because something is offensive doesn't mean we can pretend it doesn't exist and hide it away. --Latebird (talk) 16:12, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
  • And how do you propose to prevent the petty political bickering that has been going on for the past year or so? -- Avi (talk) 16:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
    • If people can't behave themselves, and refuse to accept the core purpose of Commons, then they are in the wrong place here. --Latebird (talk) 16:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
•  Support. The solution is not perfect, but good enough. --Kjetil_r 16:19, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Well, the no-censored-mantra isn't above everything. There is also "Taking human dignity ... into account" as of the foundation's April 2009 resolution[23]. Anyway, the current proposal mainly tries to provide a compromise to avoid more months of time-consuming drama and conflict. --Túrelio (talk) 16:23, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
  • So we are willing to bend the rules, in order to satisfy a very small number of highly vocal (and often quite uncivil) individuals? I'd hate to see this develop into a precedent for future consensus building on Commons. --Latebird (talk) 16:40, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
    • What the words "to satisfy a very small number of highly vocal (and often quite uncivil) individuals" ! So far I see here mostly one highly vocal individual. But I could share with you the images of some more. Back to censorship. Those cartoons is all, but impossible to categorize properly because they are propaganda, (read "lies"). So the proposal has nothing to do with suppressing the freedom of speech at all. If a painter draws a pipe and calls his image :"It is not a pipe", the image will still be added to category pipes. If a cartoonist draws West Bunk Security fence, which he wants us to believe is a wire of concentration camps, it should not be categorized as "West Bank barrier".--Mbz1 (talk) 17:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
      • • • Of course they are propaganda, and I hope that is clearly indicated in the image description for each individual one. But that is no reason to keep them out of the relevant content categories. --Latebird (talk) 17:37, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
      • One point of contention... propaganda does not equate to lies. J.smith (talk) 18:07, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
    • For those cartoons it is.--Mbz1 (talk) 18:23, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
      • 'propaganda, (read "lies")': So we delete everything under propaganda? That we host files containing lies doesn't mean we advocate them. Paradoctor (talk) 18:15, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
    • Who's talking about deletion? Yes, if we put them to the wrong categories and do not put them to the right categories, it means we advocate them--Mbz1 (talk) 18:23, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
  • @Túrelio: I agree. Freedom of expression is one of the foundations of the concept of dignity. Paradoctor (talk) 18:15, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
•  Strong oppose - Perhaps the current categories are not sufficient or controversial, but the answer isn't to take our ball and go home. The answer is to continue to work towards compromise. Why sacrifice usefulness? Because it's the path of least resistance? No. --J.smith (talk) 18:03, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I am trying, and trying hard to understand what is the so called "usefulness" of those cartoons, and why in the world we need so many of them, but I am afraid I cannot. --Mbz1 (talk) 18:58, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Why don't you simply ask, instead of opposing that which you don't understand? Paradoctor (talk) 19:35, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I thought this discussion was about the categorizations of images? J.smith (talk) 00:31, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

You thought right. The user was talking to me and not to you.--Mbz1 (talk) 00:37, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I was directing my comment at both of you. --J.smith (talk) 04:38, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, I just questioned your statement about so called "usefulness" of that trash, but Martin H. has already explained it to me, and I do not think anybody could have done it better than he did.--Mbz1 (talk) 05:15, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Mbz1 has signaled that she has a trouble understanding Commons policy. From my observations of and conversations with her, I have the impression that she doesn't know how to participate rationally in this particlar topic. Since this has led to her acting disruptively in the past, I thought she might profit from getting a look from the side, before another exchange goes down the drain. If you prefer I not try to improve the atmosphere, just say the word. Paradoctor (talk) 18:21, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to review WP:CIVIL. The idea is to criticize the ideas, not the person who holds them. (If I had said even half of what you have said about Mbz1, there seems little doubt that Lar would have blocked me for it.) Malcolm Schosha (talk) 18:38, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I would never get tired of studying a human nature, and most of all the darkest part of it. On the other hand I see no surpise here. Everything as expected--Mbz1 (talk) 18:34, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

This is one of the oppositions that's worth recognizing, because J.smith is discussing continuing to work toward a compromise. I do hope you'll help provide some ideas. We have to reach a solution because the situation at present cannot continue. Bastique ^demandez 17:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

•  Oppose - It would be more helpful to the project to improve on CATs, rather than to depict personal feelings about (even_if possibly doubtful) political statements. --[w.] 18:55, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
•  Oppose per W, Latebird, et al. Only categorizing images by their creator, rather than by their subject, goes against the very point of having subject categories. Commons is not censored, and does quite legitimately include content which some users may consider objectionable or offensive. The policy of "Commons is not censored" means that a lawfully-hosted file, which falls within Commons' definitions of scope, will not be deleted solely on the grounds that it may not be “child-friendly” or that it may cause offence you or others, for moral, personal, religious, social, or other reasons. --GRuban (talk) 22:10, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

  Sometimes I wonder, if people are able to read and understand what they are reading. Nobody is proposing to delete them, yet it is already second user, who is fighting windmills in trying to keep them in.--Mbz1 (talk) 23:49, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

  • Again, so how do you suggest that the past year's political bickering and using categories for political purposes be solved? Unless we topic-ban a small group of people from either side, this back-and-forth will just proceed, eating up the rest of our precious time. -- Avi (talk) 22:16, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
    • ‘The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works in practice. In theory, it can never work.’ Miikka Ryokas, NYTimes. :-)

In theory, no one will ever change their minds, no one will ever come up with any other ideas, and no one will ever decide they have more useful things to do than argue about this one batch of files out of five million. In practice, most will, thankfully, and those who won't, and they will be few, will, unfortunately, be blocked. But we can't say we will make a rule based on the fact that a small group of people will keep arguing otherwise; that doesn't make arguments like this less frequent, that makes them more frequent, because people will see that just being stubborn if they really-Really-REALLY feel strongly about something works. --GRuban (talk) 22:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

• • • "Unless we topic-ban a small group of people from either side": So what's keeping you from what you know should be done? Is enforcing policy against against policy? Paradoctor (talk) 22:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
      • Because I'd rather not open a topic-ban discussion if I can prevent it as:
        1. It prevents users who provide valuable edits in other areas of the project from contributing in a certain area, possibly upsetting them to the point that they leave
        2. It will be a big political mess, which I would like to avoid
      • I will think about it, though . -- Avi (talk) 23:10, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

• * Strong oppose as it would violate COM:CAT just to appease a few editors. Keep in mind COM:PS#Censorship, "The purpose of Commons is to serve as a media repository, a reliable resource of useful, open source media content; organized and comprehensive in coverage". By not properly categorising images we fail to be both useful and organized. We have Mormons who don't like that we host pictures of temple garment and tries to hide them[24] and we have Muslims who don't like that we host pictures of Muhammed.[25]. This case is no different. // Liftarn (talk) 00:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
•  Neutral Im neutral in the categorization question but I think that this "caricatures" are outscopish trash by an non-notable artist and that they not fulfill any educational purpose here as we cant use them to illustrate anything (besides the artist himself) because the artist not has the required recognition (Anerkennung?) to use his works for educational illustration. I wonder who upload stuff like this. --Martin H. (talk) 03:29, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Bravo, Martin! At least somebody noticed and said it clear and loud "Emperor is wearing nothing at all", and besides they are of a low quality.For example, what normal cartoonist will draw his own name in the very middle of his work? --Mbz1 (talk) 03:38, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

The major difference is not the quality. The major differnce is that what other cartoonists draw will be published somewhere, most of this is not published anywhere but on a personal website and it will never have a chance to be published anywhere because it is [...] - well, judging artistic value and performance, quality, humour, inteligence etc. here would be my personal opinion. Most of this cartoons will never have a chance to be published in a recognized media because of so many shortcomings in both, the artwork and the artist. --Martin H. (talk) 04:11, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

A large part of Latuff's work is reproduced by independent media, also in print. But also mainstream media use his work, see for example the last entry on http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldhaveyoursay/2007/01/ /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 14:55, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

The blog of 2006 in 2010.--Mbz1 (talk) 15:08, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

And I cannot agree more with your personal opinion. I just was not sure how to name that "art work" without actually naming that. Now I know. It is [....] --Mbz1 (talk) 04:32, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually a lot of his work has been published. Some are also commissioned work, but I think we're not allowed to use those. Also, how many painting did Vincent van Gogh manage to sell? Should he not be included? Regardless of that, personal taste should not ban images from proper categorisation. // Liftarn (talk) 13:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

OMG Vincent van Gogh probably is turning around in his grave now Martin meant that none of respectable publishers will ever publish that [....] not now, not ever. Martin meant that it should not have been ever uploaded in the first place, and then it would have been nothing to categorize. BTW about commissioned work, the Holocaust denial cartoon is also "commissioned work" Should it be deleted? --Mbz1 (talk) 14:55, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, then he would be wrong since actually several publisher have published his works. He have drawn a cover for Mad Magazine and been published in for example The Toronto Star and he had several carttons published in Stockholms Fria Tidning. The van Gogh example shows that commercial success is not required to be included in Commons. Since Latuff have made no Holocaust denial cartoons it is a moot point. // Liftarn (talk) 15:52, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I have spoken of most of his works, so of course my comment was intended to adress that some of his works are notable to some smaller extend. Cant we distinguish between his notable artwork (e.g. that cover or the disputed ghetto image) and his non-notable personal artwork? We do the same for our own, precious users and forbid them to upload personal poems or articles in pdf format or self-created watercolor paintings. Why do we serve an artist with uploading his (anti-)fan art and even mess the educational categories with his works? Thats the whole point. I furthermore think, Im sorry that I assume bad faith here, that some users recognized that they can stretch the Commons is not censored principle whith uploading this artists biased artworks under the guise of the artists notability (mainly: his wikipedia article). I think to separate recognized and non-notable works would be a (of course difficult) compromise. --Martin H. (talk) 23:24, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

As the artist himself is notable it follows that his artworks also are. I know you may not like them because you have different political views, but that is hardly a valid argument for censorship. // Liftarn (talk) 17:38, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

• Who cares? For God's sakes, this is part of the reason these issues are such a pain in the ass; it doesn't matter how good his drawings are. It doesn't even really matter whether they should deleted. The later has been discussed and we've had a conclusion, and if you really need to reopen it, this is not the place. Stay on topic and we might just be able to work something out here; reopen every issue every time, and you keep the burner nice and high on every attempted discussion on the topic.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:42, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

 Support - i don't like it, but in order to stop the bickering a compromize is needed. Deror avi (talk) 16:19, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

 Support This makes immanent sense, and works as a compromise leading to more collegial editing. Always a good thing. Stellarkid (talk) 21:15, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

 Comment Perhaps we need to draw a distinction between the intent of a cartoon and the topic of a cartoon. If we cannot agree on the cartoonist's intent, then we cannot categorise based on the intent. But perhaps we can still agree on the topics? Regards, Ben Aveling 23:40, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

We don't need to agree. If an editorial judgment is contested, PROVEIT. Original research is not our job. If the reliable literature does not clearly support the assertion that a work is antisemitic it does not belong in category:antisemitism. It may belong in category:works claimed by X to be antisemitic (if that claim is sourced, of course). If the literature is ambiguous, the files belongs in categories category:antisemitic according academic X. Does anybody really have problem with this procedure? After putting aside personal opinions, I mean. Paradoctor (talk) 18:17, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

 Strong oppose as per Liftarn. Can we please stop being so intent on being offended. --Swift (talk) 23:33, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

 Support I am very much in favor, and I want to thank Adambro for coming up with such productive proposal, and I sincerely respect him for doing so. I hope to see similar solutions for other sensitive materials as well. Please bear in mind that whereas the caricatures themselves are not neutral, and are presented here in order to let people learn about different opinions, the Commons as a whole must present an impartial approach, and avoid anything that could be regarded as promotion or spurning of certain views. Drork (talk) 00:41, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

•  Fed up with it all --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:30, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

•  Support Per Herby. Commons is not censored but it's not bound to becomming a freak show either; these Latuff things might be Free, the amount of drama that they generate outweights their usefulness by far (except for a precious few of them). And I dread the day when an arm race to the most disgusting upload in this vein starts, like the arm race for more drama has already. Stop the nonsense now, with extreme prejudice if necessary.}} -- Rama (talk) 17:01, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Tally

As of 22:05, 13 January 2010 (UTC), we have:

 Support 16

 Oppose 11

 Neutral 1

 Comment 2

This tally does not list the number of issues raised and of arguments brought forth.

•  Done If Adambro wrote the proposal surely, his vote should be counted as a support vote.--Mbz1 (talk) 21:28, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Interpretation of the above "vote"

As long as much of the "opposers" fail to address the extent of problem and work toward compromise, choosing only to repeat the same garbage we will continue to have the same problems. Wrong answer, "We should follow policy and block anyone who disagrees" is a fallacy, because there is no policy that is being addressed. "Categorize according to subject like we do with everything else" is also a fallacy, because we don't categorize everything according to every item depicted in every image. Stop repeating false arguments in order to "get your way".

For Pieter, I think this especially applies to you, because you've decided that it's "you against them" and "they win" means anything but your way. That's not how compromise works or how consensus is developed. You have to give something in arguments like this to reach agreement.

If you're not working toward a solution, then you are part of the problem. The way it's been going cannot continue, which means that fallacious interpretations of policy will have to be discounted. Bastique ^demandez 17:42, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, this fails to take into account our categorization system is based on an article model, and works poorly for images. Until we have something on Commons designed for "tagging" rather than categorizing, we will continue to have issues such as this crop up. Everyone has to work hard at creating a compromise. Bastique ^demandez 17:48, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I think that lobbying the Office to get them involved like this is a major part of the problem. Bastique proposing "tagging" instead of narrow topic categories is incomprehensible. Shall we junk the present system just because he is getting tearfilled phonecalls about some image someone loves to hate? I believe that the volunteer coordinator is demotivating the crowd of volunteers devoting its time to categorize the millions of images here. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 18:01, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I would never get tired of studying a human nature, and most of all the darkest part of it. On the other hand I see no surpise here. Everything as I have expected.--Mbz1 (talk) 18:35, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

That is a broad mischaracterization of my involvement and an entirely shallow and fabricated representation of the problem. Furthermore, I doubt anything can "demotivate" you, Pieter, while, on the other hand, you've singlehandedly demotivated an enormous lot of other volunteers. Bastique ^demandez 18:32, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I strongly object to my argument being called fallacious and false. I'm operating in good faith here; are you? Powers (talk) 19:31, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Making this personal won't come to a solution; let's make a real effort not to offend or take offense.

Per policy, we do categorize according to the main focus of the image. From COM:CAT, "what? / whom?: what or whom does the file show? What is the subject? For instance Category:Ferrari 575 or Category:Jimmy Wales". That seems to be as much as we have in way of policy here. I am more than happy to compromise, but I don't see what general compromise is being offered here. Is it: "Don't put pictures of person X in a category for person X"? That pretty clearly undermines the point of subject categories. Is it: "Don't put pictures in categories if anyone doesn't like them"? That will cover most caricatures, pictures of Mohammed, and who knows what.

A reasonable compromise that has been used for other caricatures was discussed earlier - put caricatures in a special subcategory of Category:Person X, Category:Caricatures of Person X, so people going there will know what they are going to get. I'd be happy to support that. Another reasonable proposal was to set up a binding mediation, I'd also be willing to support that. Will others? --GRuban (talk) 14:37, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

This does not address the question of whether File:Latuff nazi camp 2.png belongs into category:antisemitism or not. A general solution cannot be given, as different works by Latuff belong into different sets of categories.

Your comprise does not apply to works not containing identifiable individuals, which includes most of Latuff's work, and almost all images in Category:Israeli-Palestinian conflict cartoons by Latuff.

Finally, at least for the Dershowitz image it's already implemented: it's in Category:Caricatures of Alan Dershowitz by Carlos Latuff. Paradoctor (talk) 18:01, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I think we already have an agreement that Category:Antisemitism is unsuitable. AS for the other cartoons we could create suitable subcategories as Category:Cartoons of X or Category:Drawings of X if there is enough content to motivate such subcategory. // Liftarn (talk) 18:18, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

We've never agreed on that, and never will.--Mbz1 (talk) 19:34, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok, we have a content dispute. Do you have reliable sources that claim that this or that particular Latuff work is antisemitic? Paradoctor (talk) 19:50, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

It was provided above, remember you called it a "hoax" and "unmitigated crap"? Why to ask the same questions over, and over again? Do you like walking around in endless circles? I do not.--Mbz1 (talk) 19:56, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

It's called source criticism. But for the sake of discussion, let's pretend that definition came from a reliable source. I say the definition still doesn't apply. I was on the road to clarifying that when Malcolm excused himself, which is his right. If you wish to pick up where Malcolm left, I'm wet and willing. ;) Paradoctor (talk) 20:10, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

As Malcolm tried to explain to you that that [....] is proudly displayed here. If you are to look at the categories of the article you will see w:category:Holocaust denial. If you are to hit that category, it will take you to this page. See what categories the article has? Besides, I and Avi provided you with a reliable source why that [....] belongs to category:Antisemitism. Now could you please provide me with any reliable source why it does not?--Mbz1 (talk) 21:07, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

"what categories the article": Irrelevant. If Latuff had entered a printout of the UDHR as competition entry, would that mean that the UDHR is denying the Holocaust? No. The image has to be judged on its own merit, not how it was used.

"reliable source": No. A reliable source has to contain a claim equivalent to "The image constitutes Holocaust denial.". Amplifying on Adambro's reply below, even if you or I evaluated the applicability of the definition, it is contested, and we are not reliable sources. Though I'll gladly show to you that it doesn't apply. Paradoctor (talk) 00:03, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

If you are referring to the definition from the EU then that isn't a reliable source saying a particular belongs in the Antisemitism category, that requires the definition and the image to be interpreted. Yet again though we have slipped away from main topic of this discussion. Adambro (talk) 21:13, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The purpose of the caricature is w:Holocaust Denial. w:Holocaust Denial belongs to w:category:Antisemitism. Period. I agree that we should stop discussing categories now. You will have time to do it later, when the proposal will fail and be closed. In a meantime one might read more about "the artist"--Mbz1 (talk) 21:20, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

"The purpose of the caricature is w:Holocaust Denial": w:WP:PROVEIT. Also, even if the image constituted Holocaust denial, it still wouldn't belong in category:antisemitism, it would belong in category:Holocaust denial, two levels below.

Conservapedia: Thanks, but no thanks, I don't like to be bored to tears by unsourced slanderous fundamentalist crap. Though it is interesting to note that they admit that Latuff was cleared in court of a charge of antisemitism. Paradoctor (talk) 00:03, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

By that link, you are spreading slander coming from the Roth Institute. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 21:34, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

That is all pretty irrelevant. Adambro (talk) 21:36, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

@kuiper. Why so much hate to Roth Institute? Is there anything wrong with Roth Institute? Or do you suggest I should rather believe what w:Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is saying? Let me make myself clear. I am spreading nothing. It is you and liftran, who are spreading propaganda of hate by latuff and his owner w:Mahmoud Ahmadinejad .--Mbz1 (talk) 22:04, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

See the falsification and the original, read the links at User talk:Pieter Kuiper/Archive2009#Latuff. Then call the Roth Institute. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 22:08, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Once again why should I believe to you or to latuff on that matter. Who knows where is the original file? Why should I consider it to be a reliable source? Yet I still should thank you for the link. The images are reveling. Why? Look at the uniform of neo-nazi. Why it looks surprisingly similar to latuff picturing of Israeli soldiers, but does not look similar to him painting neo-nazi (their pants in his cartoons are blue). Besides the cartoon was published on July 27, 2004. It was picked up by quite a few sites. Why did he waited for so long to say it was not his creation?--Mbz1 (talk) 01:26, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Still irrelevant. Please stay on topic. Adambro (talk) 22:54, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

There is no Holocaust denial in that picture. Quite the opposite actually since it's based on it. Like I said before, w:Goodwin's law is not antisemitism. // Liftarn (talk) 23:03, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

"no Holocaust denial in that picture": With some minor reservations, I agree. Now w:WP:PROVEIT. Like everybody else in here, you're not a reliable source. BTW, invoking Goodwin law in a discussion involving holocaust denial is, ahem, redundant. ;) Paradoctor (talk) 00:03, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

You are talking about w:negative proof now. // Liftarn (talk) 22:06, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

You really should be more careful with me. ^_^ In the exact same edit in which I requested from you proof of your assertion that there is no denial in the image, I challenged Mbz1's assertion that there is denial in the image, in both cases demanding verifiable evidence for a contested statement. Thank you very much for providing me with this smile. ;) Paradoctor (talk) 00:04, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:SOAP, does it apply on Commons?

I just took a look at WP:SOAP, and what it says seems to have considerable application to this discussion. WP:SOAP says, in part, Wikipedia is not a soapbox, a battleground, or a vehicle for propaganda and advertising. This applies to articles, categories, templates, talk page discussions, and user pages. Just need to know if it applies here on Commons. If it does apply, then having the Latoff cartoons only under the category of his own name would seem quite logical to avoid having Commons used to promote his political causes. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 19:12, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

As I recently replied to you elsewhere, no Wikipedia policies apply on Commons although they can often be a good guide as to what would be expected on Commons. Categorising these images normally wouldn't be promoting his "political causes", inadvertently it might do of course but by adopting the normal approach we're being neutral. If we take the approach of deviating from the norm and not categorising these images normally then concerns about censorship could quite validly be raised. Adambro (talk) 19:24, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure I follow your reasoning. If, for instance, Rembrandt van Rijn was classified only under his own name would there be an issue if censorship? Malcolm Schosha (talk) 19:31, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

My understanding was that it is usual for galleries to be categorised only in the category of the same subject if one exists so I'm not sure that is the best example. The point is that, if it is normal for gallery pages to be categorised like that then that wouldn't be concerning. If a page is usually categorised in a certain way and we deviate from the norm because people find an image offensive then that would be censorship for the benefit of those individuals who it apparently offends. Therefore, in my view the way Rembrandt is categorised isn't an example of censorship. Adambro (talk) 19:38, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Rembrandt/Paintings#Disputed_works Dissenting scholars might contest the categorization of these images as Rembrandt paintings. Paradoctor (talk) 19:44, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Abambro, Rembrandt and Latuff are both artists. I could make a political issue of Rembrandt too by creating category:artists marginalized in capitalist societies. It appears to me that using artwork to push a political agenda is WP:SOAP.Malcolm Schosha (talk) 19:46, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

If you can prove with reliable sources that a particular artist was marginalized in a capitalist society, categorizing that artist in this category would not be SOAPing, it would be a constructive contribution. Paradoctor (talk) 19:58, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I just took a look at Category:Ben Shahn. Shahn, one of my favorite American artists, and a life long socialist, makes his political views clear in many of his paintings. But despite that, there seems to have been no effort to use his artwork to make a political point through categories, and no one is claiming censorship because of that either. Personally, I think it would be pretty tacky to try to make a political point on Commons with Shahn's paintings, no matter how much I agree with his political views. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 20:15, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I just checked and for instance File:Fiddlin Bill Henseley, Mountain Fiddler, Asheville, North Carolina by Ben Shahn, 1937 (LOC) (290626613).jpg has several categories like Category:Violinists from the United States and Category:Folk violinists. If someone would remove those categories because they disliked the political views of the creator than I'm quite sure it would be called censorship. // Liftarn (talk) 20:36, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Adding Category:Antisemitism just because you don't like the political views of the artist would be soapboxing. Adding for instance Category:Birds in art if the image is of a bird would not be soapboxing. Also on Commons we have COM:CAT to guide us. // Liftarn (talk) 20:07, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure what applies, and what do not apply on Commons, but I am absolutely sure that putting this text: "Download for free zip files containing high-resolution artworks (cartoons, photomontages, comics) produced by me from 2002 to March, 2008. All the artworks can be freely reproduced, without my formal permission. Once saved to your computer, share it with people. Upload it on different servers, make it available on websites and file sharing clients, save it to CD, make copies and distribute. Make these cartoons to reach people with no access to Internet." http://latuff2.deviantart.com/" to the description of the image, as it is put there now is propaganda, and promotion of the trash, and should not be allowed on Commons, if Commons likes to be a respectful site. --Mbz1 (talk) 20:19, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I said I am willing to do without that category for the sake of a compromise agreement. You are the one of the users who has rejected compromise. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 20:16, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

@Liftarn, I hope you are not trying to say that Category:Antisemitism should not be added just because you share the views of so called artist, do you?--Mbz1 (talk) 20:52, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm saying Category:Antisemitism should not be added to images that isn't about antisemitism. // Liftarn (talk) 22:52, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

And I am saying it is.--Mbz1 (talk) 05:25, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I know that you say that anybody who disagrees with your views is an antisemite, but that is still not a valid reason. // Liftarn (talk) 22:02, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Then there is the painting of the great Mexican painter Diego Rivera. It would have been pretty easy to make a category to score some political points with his art work. But no one has done that with Rivera. Why with Latuff? Commons should not be used as anyone's political soap box, and artwork should not be used as an excuse to push a POV. (By the way, I noticed that this painting of Rivera's [26] has been given biased file name, and it should be moved.) Malcolm Schosha (talk) 21:25, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Diego Rivera's pictures are actually categorized by subject. File:Amedeo modigliani - retrato de diego rivera 02.jpg is marked Category:Amedeo Modigliani, though it doesn't look a lot like him. But Rivera called it Modigliani, so we believe him. The same credit should be extended to Latuff. --GRuban (talk) 22:36, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I also checked some pictures by Diego Rivera and File:Diego rivera Commies.jpg has categories like Category:Leon Trotsky, Category:Karl Marx, Category:Friedrich Engels and Category:1934 paintings so it's not just listed in the artist category. I also checked File:Rivera-corn.jpg and it's listed in Category:Maize tortillas, Category:Cooking in art and Category:Metate as well as the artist category. // Liftarn (talk) 22:59, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Latuff and Rembrandt may both be "artists" but there is a major difference between political cartoonists and classical painters. Stellarkid (talk) 03:45, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Not to make a point, but File:Amedeo modigliani - retrato de diego rivera 02.jpg is a painting by Modigliani (depicting Rivera), not vice versa. -- IANEZZ  (talk) 14:26, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Er ... whoops. Thank you very much. Striking that. --GRuban (talk) 21:49, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

As far as I can see no one in this discussion has responded to my point. That point is that the artwork Latuff should not be used to turn Commons into a soap box to promote any user's pet political causes. That, of course, applies to all artwork and not just Latuff. WP:SOAP says: Wikipedia is not a soapbox, a battleground, or a vehicle for propaganda and advertising. This applies to articles, categories, templates, talk page discussions, and user pages. If someone here can supply a valid reason why it is not ok to use WP for a soap box, but is ok to use Commons as a soap box, then I would like to hear that.

As for the issue of Latuff's cartoon that won second prize in a Holocaust re-evaluation contest, I have explained several times why it is Holocaust denial. Please refer to those explanations rather than asking me to repeat the same things time and again. However, I will repeat this much: neither the category Holocaust denial, or antisemitism, is intended to indicate anything more than these are known issues with the artwork. Latuff discussed accusations of antisemitism in his interview with The Forward[27], so Latuff himself concedes it is an issue, although he denies it is true. The ADL has described the Iranian cartoon contest as ...a bullhorn for the regime to broadcast some of the ugliest anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial...[28], so there is no doubt that Holocaust denial is an issue with Latuff's cartoon that won a prize in that contest. These things are known issues. As a different example, putting a painting under category:Rembrandt is not intended to show that Commons rejects claims the painting may be a forgery. It is enough if a reputable museum displays it with that name on it, or if a reputable art expert has said it is a Rembrandt. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 12:44, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Malcolm, you're really standing in your own way. You have the key to finally finding consensus, yet you manage to bury it in a swath of irrelevant text. You have just provided two notable sources with Wikipedia articles giving a good impression of the controversy around the cartoon. This is sufficient to categorize in or under category:Holocaust denial, provided the description contains text properly summarizing the sources. This will avoid the impression that Commons is advocating the contested view that the image itself is denying the Holocaust. I'm preparing the edit and will put it up on the talkpage there when I'm done, straw poll to follow. Regards, Paradoctor (talk) 21:37, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I really don't think we should allow the whims of special interest groups to determine what categories are suitable. // Liftarn (talk) 22:02, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

On your first point, I'm not sure what you're really getting at. Are you suggesting that Commons shouldn't host any art, since that portrays only the creator's opinions? I think you've got to be cautious about trying to directly reference Wikipedia policies. Images are more comparable to quotes than to entire Wikipedia articles. Just as an article which was only based upon a single person's opinion wouldn't be allowed, an balanced article containing quotes, which are of course a point of view, would be appropriate. Adambro (talk) 13:34, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Adambro, don't be ridiculous. I never said Commons should not host artwork, and it is clear from what I have written above that I think just the opposite. Problems result only when things are done by users to capitalize on the images to score political points, thereby turning Commons into their soapbox. Anyone who wants to make a political point with Latuff's, or any other artist's artwork, can do that on their own blog or website, and should not use Commons for that purpose. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 14:45, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I think we should host all free images that can or could be used. We do not like advertimsent or probaganda but unlike Wikipedia Commons should be happy when "someone" publishes own work. Our job should be that categories have valid and neutral names. So we should not categorize images at "The best/worst <product> in the world" or "Brilliant/lousy work made by the coolest/worst artist ever".

Latuff might be "different" than other artists but I think we should keep as many works as we can from every artist who is worth an article on Wikipedia. Imagine if Commons had excisted hundreds of years ago and we had said no to a lot of work from aritsts etc. that is now world famous because they were "different".

So I think we should keep the images and try to categorize as neutral as possible. But I really do not think we should spend months or years talking about categories for a few images. So what if a few of the images are not categoried excactly as everyone would like? We have thousand of images with no category at all - lets use the time there or the other backlogs. --MGA73 (talk) 14:15, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, such "inclusivity" is interpreted by a significant number of people as allowing Wikimedia/Wikipedia to be turned into a platform for the promulgation and promotion of bigoted hatemongering... If there was a KKK "artist" who used his KKK "artwork" to promote KKK ideology, it really would not be too different from Latuff. AnonMoos (talk) 18:25, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Carlos Latuff is a notable artist. Yeah, I don't agree with his political ideology but I do think it's valuable (for wikipedia) to be able to host the collected works of a notable artist. If David Duke released a series of propaganda comics under the creative commons license, then yea, lets host those too. At the very least isn't it valuable to have something to point at and say "This is what 'wrong' is". --J.smith (talk) 20:37, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

However, there's a significant issue of whether sometimes instead of just studying bigotry, we're actually providing it with a platform to advocate from, and whether or not we really want to get into doing that. AnonMoos (talk) 14:36, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Excellent argument, bravo! Paradoctor (talk) 21:15, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

@J.smith. If you noticed nobody suggesting to remove any trash by latuff It is here to stay until the end of commons. We're talking about categories now. Everybody has agreed that our notable "artist" is controversial to say the least. It means that it is all, but impossible to agree how his works should be categorized. You know better than many, we started talking about it more than a year ago, and here we go... I would argue that if we are not to add category:Antisemitism to some of his [....], it will mean that Commons is in agreement with his view. On the other hand liftran and kuiper would argue that, if we not to add to the same [....], it will be categorized improperly. That's why the simplified proposal, which is offered, and which you and others "strongly opposed" is the best solution at least for the time being. There's also other solution, as absolutely officially topic ban me, as the most active precipitant on the issue. Then I guess liftran and kuiper will get their way, and the issue will go away until the History will have her say. I am not sure about others, but sometimes it's getting really scary that very soon commons will host more of that [....] by latuff than by w:Rembrandt and w:Francisco Goya combined.--Mbz1 (talk) 21:36, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe more files, but I'd say a single Rembrandt has greater artistic merit than much of Latuff's total output. ;) Paradoctor (talk) 21:44, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I am happy to agree with you on that one :)--Mbz1 (talk) 21:47, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know where this nonsense about deleting files comes from. This entire discussion has to do with file categories, and has nothing to do with deleting any file. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 15:12, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand that people do not seem to understand that political art is not merely art but a subset of art. It is part-art, part-politics. This Sendak cartoon is simply a cartoon, a subset of art. It will not cause us to get hot under the collar. But Latuff is not an artist in that sense, despite the artistry in his depictions. Latuff's work is political, not merely artistic. All the argument here is evidence of it. To categorize this simply as "art" is to rob it entirely of its meaning. Political cartooning uses artistic rendition to editorialize. Wiki answers says "Political cartoons are the legitimate offspring of graffiti." When we argue over how to classify the subject of this cartoon, we are acknowledging our varying interpretations. But it is not up to us to explain each one, or even this one, only to give a broad category, like -Latuff- and maybe like -political cartoon- and -political cartoons of the ME conflict- and clearly it is saying something about the -Holocaust-, particularly since it was entered into the Holocaust contest. Any more specifics would simply be some editors' interpretation of its meaning. I think it isn't up to us to determine the message of this particular medium. Stay broad. Stellarkid (talk) 03:54, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Announcement of complicated proposal

Ok, fellow Commoners, proposal is ready for prime time, head over to the epicenter, and start casting. Votes. Paradoctor (talk) 22:17, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Should we add Category:Country lanes?

The category "Walkways" and its subcategories. such as "Paths", aren't really accurate. Country lanes are unpaved single-lane paths in rural areas (particularly in Europe) that are used by pedestrians, bicyclists and I suppose, farm vehicles. I propose a category "Country lanes" to be a subcategory of "Walkways", or perhaps of "Category:Land transport infrastructure". Comments? Downtowngal (talk) 18:06, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

yes, it is needed. the only cat for this until now is Category:Dirt roads as far as I see. The German equivalent is "Feldweg", which was sometimes even used by philosophers. Country lanes sounds good. Cholo Aleman (talk) 21:37, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Surely not all country lanes are unpaved? Would this category cover "ruettes" and "allées"? Some pics:

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• File:Allée des Limousins, forêt d'Eawy.jpg
• 

Man vyi (talk) 21:55, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I have never heard the term "Country lanes" in US and thought that it is a strange name for country borders. I am not sure about Europe but in US all dirt roads/paths are accessible either by foot (trails or footpaths - Category:Trails), by car (Gravel roads - Category:Gravel roads) or by Off-road vehicles (unmaintained Dirt roads - Category:Dirt roads). I would propose to use one of those categories and not add any additional categories. --Jarekt (talk) 22:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I've got concerns with use of "country lane" in this manner. In the UK, a "country lane" is a commonly used term for a quiet rural road and these are typically properly surfaced. In British terminology, the type of route you are describing would probably be a "Bridleway.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:31, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

The term in use in this image gallery is trail, and that seems good. Also see the WP article. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 22:52, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea about a good english name for it - my example is

• 
  Deutsch: Pättken

a "Paettken", a special German expression I have never heard before - trail would be OK for it, as far as I see. Than there is no need for a new category. Cholo Aleman (talk) 04:40, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

It is car accessible unsurfaced road. I would call it a Dirt road.--Jarekt (talk) 14:13, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Given the number of categories we already have, I have no objection to a cat Country Lanes.;) MartinD (talk) 11:50, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

January 6

Shameless plug

{{LanguageSelector}} permits users to comfortably switch between interface languages:

Useful also when testing i18n work. The list can be configured, new languages are easy to add. Currently up to eight languages supported, consisting of the official UN languages and German and Esperanto. Happy editing, Paradoctor (talk) 04:43, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Addendum: The switch only applies to the page the template is used on, clicking other links will return you to the language set in your MediaWiki preferences. This does not generally apply to ECMAscript calls, e. g. "hide/show" links, or controls for sortable tables.

It is a great template, but I would much more prefer something with similar functionality to be added to every page on commons, with wider set of languages. Maybe some drop-down menu on the left hand side in the navigation menu? --Jarekt (talk) 18:35, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll take a look at modifying skins. No promises and no deadline, though. ;) Paradoctor (talk) 18:43, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

"wider set of languages":  Done Now supports all languages supported by Mediawiki.

Flags

Not 100% sure about the choice of images. A US/UK combined flag for "English" is common web-practice but I'm not so sure about the others. The "Spanish" one is particularly contrived and just using the Spanish flag would be clearer.--Nilfanion (talk) 18:50, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, for French, for instance, what happened to Belgium, Switzerland, Cameroon, Gabon, Côte d'Ivoire, Monaco... ? And what is this weird thing that stands for Spanish ? I would certainly not recognise this if the text was not there. Just drop the flags. Rama (talk) 19:12, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I do not like flags as symbols for languages. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 18:58, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Ladies, gentlemen, and others: Please continue the flag discussion at the template's talkpage, that's what it's intended for. It's hard enough to keep up with this page as it is. Paradoctor (talk) 19:56, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Copyright protection of utilitarian objects..

A very nice lady at the Maidu Interpretive Center informed me that one of my photos should be removed from the website. Apparently this bowl was on loan from the State of California and they do not permit photography of their exhibits. According to the tags on the exibit the bowls were woven in the late 1800s, so I don't think copyright is an issue... is there any reason I should be worried and remove the photo? --J.smith (talk) 19:31, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

In general terms, museum cannot claim copyrights on old stuff like this. All copyrights of this image belongs to you as photographer and only you can issue license on this image. This case is not copyright one but legal contract between you and the museum. Such restriction may be valid only if you were informed about them before entering and in any form agreed. But from what I understand you were informed only now with the request to remove image, so any claims are highly doubtable. See also Commons:Image casebook#Museum photography --Justass (talk) 20:06, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

The copyright on the image is fine, although you need to put somewhere in the image description the fact that the bowl was woven in the late 1800s (and thus the original copyright on the work is expired). Whether or not you broke some sort of admissions contract between yourself and the museum by taking the photograph, however, is another issue. But that's between you and the museum and does not actually involve the legal status of the photo. Kaldari (talk) 20:09, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough... I'll add a note about the age to the image's description page. As for photography... I asked as I entered if photography was permitted and they said it was fine (just no flash). The lady who contacted me only had issue with this one image... she said she liked the others in the set. From what I gather the no-photography only applies to the works on loan from the State of California. --J.smith (talk) 20:29, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

It's up to you whether to respect the request or not, it would seem. I can't see any copyright-based reason to worry, but none of us are lawyers, and we can't know all possible ramifications of the law, and really can't give you good advice -- so it's up to you. Especially if there was no warning against photography, it's hard to think of even a far-fetched reason you should be worried, but stranger things have happened. Still, it may cause friction between the state of California and the museum, which may be behind the request. Personally it seems like a pretty overbearing request from California in the first place, but it's up to you. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Just a remark: if I were the photographer, I'd probably support the museum's request for removal of the one image, much as I'd accede if a private individual asked me to remove a particular photo from a routine set of pictures I took of them. On the whole, it seems best to continue good relationships; otherwise, museums are likely to go very far the other way and not allow pictures. - Jmabel ! talk 01:05, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I think Jmabel has an important point here. Let us be seen to be cooperating with those who have good policies for us. That applies both to the photographer and to commons. When there is request for deletion of a single image out of many, we may well gain much in the long run by complying with the request. Haros (talk) 07:41, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. If the uploader is threatened legally, it is, of course, OK to remove the image for the sake of the uploader. Its should be re-uploaded with an untraceable sock puppet account ASAP, though. We should never steer away from our strong belief that what is in the Public Domain is there for everyone. Even the smallest step towards these despicable copyfraud idiots is a surrender we should never even think of. --AndreasPraefcke (talk) 18:21, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Copyright protection of Cars?

Since designs of cars, motorcycles, planes, trains, ships... are still mostly protected by copyright, should we only allow pictures from countries with COM:FOP, or photos whose author is the owner of the object, or all are fine? --5ko (talk) 22:11, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Vehicles are allowed in Commons as long as image was taken by you or you have written permission from the author of the photo. See Commons:Image_casebook#Vehicles, --Justass (talk) 22:23, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Industrial design is outside of that scope in most countries, and in the U.S., industrial/utilitarian works can only be protected if there are separately distinguishable copyrightable elements in it (which by our interpretation, means like say, painted designs) ViperSnake151 (talk) 22:45, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Designs of cars, motorcycles, planes, trains, ships, etc. are not at all protected by copyright. Photos are always fine. Some countries may protect them as industrial designs or with design patents, but that generally only prevents others from using the same design in competing products, and has nothing to do with photographs of the designs. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't know this -- I assumed these designs were like Sculpture and Architecture, photos of which are currently not allowed from countries without Freedom of Panorama. --5ko (talk) 01:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Nope; architecture is explicitly mentioned in copyright laws, and not any of that other stuff. It is actually fairly recent for the U.S.; it has only been part of their copyright law since 1990. I think the Berne Convention has required it for some time, and most every country today which has a copyright law is a signatory to that treaty, so they would be protected in most any country these days. But, many countries allow unrestricted photos of buildings; the protection there is mostly limited to 3-D reproductions (other buildings using the same design, or maybe 3-D models). Many other countries allow "non-commercial" use of such photos; that is fine for 99.9% of situations in real life but unfortunately not for Commons, due to our policies. In general though, "utilitarian" items (like cars, bowls, shoes, everyday-use items) are not copyrightable; the form is constrained by the function instead of being free-form artistic expression (which is what copyright is more intended to protect). Although, a painting on the side of a car is copyrightable in its own right (in U.S. terminology, the painting is "separable" from the car, i.e. you can conceptually separate it from the car without the car losing any of its function). Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:29, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Category:Radius

Should Category:Radius be renamed as "Radius bone" (or similar), and maybe a new category should be created for File:Parallaxe diurne.png, File:Poluprecnik K..PNG, and File:Circle-withsegments-notext.svg, which were a short while ago included in it? I'm at a loss for ideas about the name of this geometrical one, though, so if you could help out... :-) -- Jokes Free4Me (talk) 20:18, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd suggest "Category:Radius (geometry)". On the other hand, if you are transferring all images of the radius bone into its own category, then perhaps all that is needed is to place a usage note at the top of "Category:Radius" directing editors to place images of the anatomical part in the new category. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:40, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, on second thought, I'd suggest "Category:Radius" for the geometrical concept and "Category:Radius (bone)" for the anatomical part. I suspect that most people would associate the word radius with the former rather than the latter. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:39, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I would go the other way, as the geometric concept is much less readily imaged than the physical object that is the bone. Powers (talk) 14:27, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I have found what I belive to be a valuble resource, State Records NSW

State Records NSW's photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/state-records-nsw/ appears to have some valuable images which have licenses suitable for use on commons. Is there a way that a bot can batch upload these images? I have transferred a couple to commons but there are rather a lot of images here. Oxyman (talk) 23:48, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

January 8

continued growth in sexually explicit images

so having just browsed through some of the rather low quality pictures of - well, blowjobs and fucking (sorry! it's really the easiest way of describing the media) (see for example the contents of Category:Fellatio - or recent contrib.s of User:Max Rebo Band) - with some trepidation, I once again wish to state clearly that it's really high time the commons community was willing to engage in a discussion about better policy / guideline in the area of sexually explicit images. Personally, I don't believe it's unreasonable to support the position (no pun intended) that 'hardcore' media (perhaps photos and videos of actual oral, anal, and vaginal sex?) should be considered 'out of scope' and not really a good fit for this project. Thoughts? Privatemusings (talk) 02:43, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I think we generally try to limit them to some extent. What has concerned me more is the likelihood that these are being posted without the knowledge of the people in the pictures - or even the people who actually took the pictures. They should require COM:OTRS at a minimum in my opinion. Wknight94 ^talk 03:19, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

It's one thing to say that adding more and more pictures of a topic when there already are plenty of images is unhelpful and not necessary (I agree completely with this). It's another thing to say that pictures on a certain type of topic are 'out of scope'. That to me does not make sense. Our scope is, essentially, world life and history. That includes many things that are distasteful etc.

So, I would not support going from having 20 pictures on a category to 30 pictures, but taking it to zero and deleting a category is not a good idea in my opinion. Cousin Kevin (talk) 04:45, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I also don't really understand why sexual nude images and realistically drawn images of actual sex are considered different from photos of actual sex. Why would there be a line there? Yes, the latter is under the label "hardcore", but so are pictures of people suffering debilitating diseases and images of real violence considered "hardcore". Cousin Kevin (talk) 05:53, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

We have continued growth in Category:Kittens, too. Unlike kittens, sex is a universal part of human life, generally considered of high importance in most societies, as can be noted by the number and importance of the rituals, taboos and laws surrounding it. Unlike Category:Kittens, there's regular deletion requests for "unnecessary" sexual images. Personally, Category:Fellatio strikes as not even beginning to cover the pan-cultural relevance of this phenomenon.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:40, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, there we have our "naked is evil" forum shopper again. For the people who don't know Privatemusings: This user doesn't likes pictures with naked people. Starts discussions about it, people don't agree, so he starts the discussions somewhere else again. Some references : Commons talk:Sexual content, en:Wikipedia talk:Sexual content/old and en:Wikipedia talk:Sexual content & en:Wikipedia talk:Sexual content/Archive 1. Multichill (talk) 08:54, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

silly multi - you've not been paying attention! It's a tough job trawling through all the wiki-porn, you can see some of my collection here - I'm quite partial to such..um.. educashional material... I just don't think it's a great fit on WMF projects, in the way we currently handle it. What do you think of wknight's suggestion? Privatemusings (talk) 10:31, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

In this precise case, the great majority of the images uploaded by User:Max Rebo Band are nothing remotely like hardcore pornography; as for their quality, if anything, it is almost suspiciously excellent. Rama (talk) 10:04, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes the number keeps growing but so does the number of total images on Commons. So that is not a problem.Lets face it sex is something that people find interessting. How many of you can say "No I do not know what sex is and I'm not interessted ind finding out"?

I do not agree that we have enough. We might have some that is not needed and some where the person in the image did not give permission. But there is also areas where we have no good images. Just take a look at Category:Sexual intercourse in humans and the subcategories. Most of it old paintings, illustrations or low quality photographs.

So I suggest you make 10 good images to put in each category and then we could delete some of the bad ones. --MGA73 (talk) 11:04, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

And how does that number relate to the question of scope? w:List of sexual positions is already using 17 images. Considering that our coverage can only be considered anywhere near complete when we have a handful of quality files (photos, diagrams, videos, diagrams) for every major aspect of every position in the list, we'll need at least 10k files before we can say "ok, that about does it". And that's only for files directly intended for illustration of the sexual aspects. What about the countless depictions and allusions by countless artists which we (will) have primarily because the artist is of interest? They rightfully belong into the category, too. So, anything below 100k will be "not enough". That would be 2% of our current collection. Considering the importance of sex in our lives, that seems pretty reasonable. Paradoctor (talk) 17:12, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I ran some numbers last night. Category:Sex has something over 90,000 files in it (recursively) and Category:Nudity has a bit over 74,000 files (recursively). After running those reports (which took forever in AWB), I got tired and went to bed. So there could be other categories (that aren't members of each other) in which to get a list of recursive members, just to see how many "sexually explicit" files Commons has. Killiondude (talk) 17:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Privatemusings' position "that 'hardcore' media (perhaps photos and videos of actual oral, anal, and vaginal sex?) should be considered 'out of scope'" is wholly incompatible with the project's aim of being "a media file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content". Educational media content doesn't mean stuff that doesn't offend anyone. Whilst I agree with the principle of deleting low quality redundant sexual images, like any other images but particularly more of an issue due to privacy concerns, any such work has to be done very cautiously. As Paradoctor suggests, this is a very big subject and so there is a risk that if people aren't careful useful images illustrating a rare condition, for example, could be deleted because it was only recognised as simply another penis photo. However, this is a subject that is often raised but Privatemusings doesn't seem to have offered us anything new so I don't see what there is to discuss. Adambro (talk)

The way sex pictures are different is that, if they are not policed well enough, we will be flooded with copyright and personality rights violations. That is not the case with Category:Kittens, etc. No one is going to upload a picture of their ex-girlfriend's kitten for revenge. The will however upload a picture of their girlfriend's naughty bits. COM:OTRS. Wknight94 ^talk 17:44, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I have a picture of my ex-wife's cat uploaded and I didn't use OTRS. But I do have permission and it would be trivial to provide proof. So nyeh. -Nard the Bard 18:18, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Just out of interest. Not sure if this has been mentioned before, but do we have to worry about the w:Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act? Should we require that people uploading sexually explicit materials submit to OTRS proof that the required records are kept? —JeremyA (talk) 18:28, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

• I feel strongly that Commons should not be censored for anatomical explictness of subject matter, and that human anatomy and human sexuality are topics within the project scope. I agree, however, that we have something of a problem which if not addressed is likely to get worse. An observation I've made elsewhere on Commons: Most of the problem images, be it blurry cel-phone photos of genitalia or sex photos yoinked from porn sites, tend to be uploaded by "drive by accounts"; accounts that upload an image or series of images on a single day and then never participate on Commons again. I suggest addressing the issue not focused on the single issue of potential sexual explicitness, but rather on the intersection of sexual explicit uploads with "drive by accounts" with no history of other useful or in scope contributions. Possibly we should give less benifit of doubt to such situations. (Certainly established editors sometimes upload things other editors consider objectionable, but this is far less common and such examples are much more likely to be in project scope.) -- Infrogmation (talk) 18:30, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
  • As I proposed on that "Usability issues and ideas", I believe that people who want that, and only those, should be able to censor the Commons for themselves. But I can only agree with Infrogmation: Those "drive by accounts" are in my opinion a problem for the Commons: Usually (of course not all the time), they upload copyvios, out of scope files, promote their company or themselves or confuse Commons with Wikipedia. Cleaning up after them takes quite some time, which could be used better for other things, like categorizing, creating galleries, uploading images and the like. But I must be honest that I don't know any workable solution for this problem. At least for all the out of scope galleries, there seems to be a solution with abuse filter 16, but it isn't really perfect (some people simply prefix their external links with "File:" so that the filter doesn't trigger them; and the filter also isn't able to recognize if the added images actually exist, so one can also simply add non-existing pictures). We also have an abuse filter which blocks the uploading of some files (like the Windows example images), but this isn't really much. --The Evil IP address (talk) 19:23, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
    • If an account does more harm than good, just mass delete it's contributions. Considering that we have more work than we can handle, we should prioritize. We need to keep the percentage of copyvios low enough to keep our collection usable. If evidence of suitable license is provided later, we can always undelete. Tell that to the newbies, so they don't get angry at "deletions". Is there no copyvio/spam heuristic for Commons, so we can leave it to the bots? Paradoctor (talk) 20:21, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The following data could add a different dimension to this problem. If you observe, among the first 30 files, every non-special page is related to sex. Are we becoming a systematic pornography source? Leonardo (talk) 01:33, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Wow. I had no idea... Thanks for pointing that out, Leo. That's quite interesting. Killiondude (talk) 01:41, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

That is very revealing (pun not intended). Something needs to be done to address this issue. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 01:53, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

What issue? Paradoctor (talk) 02:21, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Who said anything about server performance? I didn't. The issue is that we have thousands upon thousands of almost identical sexually-explicit images, and any attempt to delete some of the unused and less important ones is dismissed with "Commons is not censored". Penises and breasts and such are within the scope of Commons, but only to an extent—and at the moment it seems we've gone over the line of what's reasonable. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 05:46, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Performance is the only reasonable objection. "Important" is a non-criterion, see the discussion on country lanes elsewhere on this talkpage. "Unused" is another non-criterion, it ignores the fact that the images may be used outside of WMF. I for example use Commons images in my personal wiki via the direct inclusion feature. ☭:CENSORSHIP is a convenient shortcut for saying: Excluding "indecent" files is against the very core of our mission of providing free educational files for all. Paradoctor (talk) 16:17, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Importance is most certainly a criterion, else we'd have billions of personal photos like Flickr or Photobucket. All I'm saying is that if we have hundreds of thousands of amateur, poor-quality images of sex-related things, we stray from our mission of serving as a repository for educational illustrations and instead become a gallery of porn. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 16:42, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

"Importance is most certainly a criterion": w:WP:PROVEIT It's not policy, and it's not usage. Paradoctor (talk) 16:56, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

nude lady

First, we don't have "hundreds of thousands of amateur, poor-quality images of sex-related things"; Category:Sex has only 90,000 pictures it, according to the above (I wonder if that didn't count images found in multiple places in the tree multiple times) and that includes Category:Virgin Mary and many, many other pictures that aren't in any fashion obscene. That also includes a huge number of pictures that aren't in any way amateur, like the one at right; nudity and sex have been interesting since day one, and hence have attracted a number of artists. Nor are the people searching really interested in porn; if they were, they'd go some place that offered it. It's titillation they're generally looking for, and encyclopedias have always provided that. Even if we delete all the amateur photos not in use, I seriously doubt we'll change the searching viewing habits of the public.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:30, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

To an unrepentant anti-feline such as myself, I would personally like it if we took an ax to the number of kitten images that we have. But then the response would be "but they're not all the same, they're different". Kittens are all the same to me and I don't get the appeal. But whatever.

It's a similar thing to the number of sexually related images that we have. They are different. An artistic nude of a freckled red-headed 21 year old with B-cups and small pink nipples done in darkened mood lighting is different than an explicitly sexual picture of a 34-year-old brunette with D-cups and larger brown nipples done in flat lighting in someone's apartment, and both of those are way different than a picture of locals done by a tourist in an African village.

You could technically accurately describe all three images as 'Topless women', but that would be specious reasoning to say that they're the same and thus redundant. Cousin Kevin (talk) 06:10, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Anti-feline?!? I'm afraid we two are never going to make good hot strong love. ;) Paradoctor (talk) 16:17, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

You forgot to describe the nipples of the topless African villager in your fantasy example... Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:59, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

But that's what internet users in general choose to look at, which we have no control over. You can go to Wikipedia itself and see that articles on Miley Cyrus and similar articles are more popular than articles on health care reform/ Is that a fault of Wikipedia editors? No. That's merely a reflection of what a modern internet surfer wants to see. Cousin Kevin (talk) 01:57, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Images from drive-by accounts like the one in this DR should be deleted on sight. Can be restored in the unlikely case of proof of model permission. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 10:04, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done, If the uploader can prove that there is model permission/authorisation (OTRS would be needed) and that they did take the photograph (Reuploading the photo with EXIF data), then the image can be undeleted. Bidgee (talk) 10:14, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I brought this up at Commons:OTRS/Noticeboard#Age_verification but people seemed to feel that OTRS was not the right place for such things; confusing those of us who do contribute "explicit" images but have no system in place to show evidence/keep records of the age of the subject in a photo. Max Rebo Band^{"almost suspiciously excellent"} 21:11, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Hein? Isn't that what OTRS is for: Handling the sensitive evidence? Paradoctor (talk) 22:51, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I definitely wouldn't want to censor such images, but I do think we should apply a higher-than-usual level of scrutiny and higher-than-usual standards of eveidence when there is any doubt about the photos being the photographer's own work. - Jmabel ! talk 01:32, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Birthday facial.png is another one that should be speedied. This kind of junk should be deleted on sight. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 20:07, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Bundesarchiv categorization

When is this going to be fixed? Previous discussion was:

This was brought up twice in November - see under http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2009Nov#Bundesarchiv_Categorization_status and http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2009Nov#Bundesarchiv_photo_categories. I've asked twice about this, and twice been told something would be done, and yet nothing is happening. Several users have remarked how useful it is to have the Bundesarchiv photos categorized by year. Example:

I would definitely support them being permanent categories. Before the categories were deleted I was using the Bundesarchiv year categories to find photographs of various European cars. I would find a car article that needed an image, look up the model years for car, look through those years in the Bundesarchiv categories and quite often I would find a free license image of the car I was looking for. Once the year categories were deleted, I gave up on my little project, to the detriment of both Wikipedia and the Bundesarchiv. Kaldari (talk) 17:31, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I concur; my own experience was reported as:

Anyone wanting to actually use the archive is pretty much hamstrung from finding anything useful with the useless captions (many of which don't have accurate dates in them) and the archive is useless for many purposes. Having them categorized by year, on the other hand, made it very handy for "flipping" through, for example, the war years and finding military photos specific to individual fronts. Enormously useful. You've removed the point of having access to these photos if no one can find them easily.

There is no point in adding simple "categories" to these photos since you can't possibly predict what categories people will be searching the photos for; for example one photo of a soldier in uniform could conceivably contain a necessary glimpse of a set of binoculars, an insignia type, be representative of the year 1942, represent the Eastern Front, a specific battle in Romania, the fighting in a town, be a named individual, a military unit, a type of military unit (i.e. infantry, panzergrenadier, etc.), a type of soldier (infantryman), a specific rank (private, sergeant), a type of status (officer, non-commissioned officer) - the variety of things the photo could represent are endless. You couldn't possibly categorize them all in a meaningful way that would make them easy to find. When will we see the "by date" categories returned?68.144.162.78 04:54, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Someone noted: "I am still planing to create Category:Images from the German Federal Archive by year assuming nobody beets me to it. Lately I was working on Category:Images from the Deutsche Fotothek by year and Category:Images from the Deutsche Fotothek by author and I am not done with that set yet. One has to remember that since all the categorization work is done on commons by small group of volunteers, it does not happen very fast. As for Category:World War II by time category, it is a new category tree someone created without adding hardly any content and at the moment containing mostly images from Canada. --Jarekt (talk) 15:20, 14 December 2009 (UTC)"

Then someone said: "I could recreate the year categories right now, but I'm afraid Multichill would revert me. I would like to know if Multichill has warmed to the idea of the year categories yet. Kaldari (talk) 16:17, 14 December 2009 (UTC)"

Is there any reason to not just go ahead and do it? The previous discussions seemed to indicate to me that this would happen. I rather thought the point of the archives was to make them easy to use. Incidentally, is it not possible to have photos belong to multiple categories simultaneously? 68.144.162.78 13:38, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Categorization is ongoing. Feel free to help to improve the categorization. I would recommend logging in and enabling hotcat to make it easier (and faster). Multichill (talk) 14:34, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

That isn't what I'm talking about. The images were uploaded into a "by year" template. There was talk about restoring the very useful BY YEAR template. When is that going to happen?68.144.162.78 13:42, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that the original captions were often erroneous or incomplete - and the photos often contained so much good "stuff" in them that the categories don't begin to capture what is in them. See all the previous discussions for detailed examples.68.144.162.78 13:44, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

As promised, I started rebuilding "by year" category structure (see here) per discussions in this forum and the predecessors (from July 19, Sep 4, Sep 24, Nov 9 and Nov 22 to name a few) . However I was promptly blocked by User:Martin H. for "Vandalism", which might be the first case when categorizing images is considered vandalism. --Jarekt (talk) 16:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand. An incredibly useful archives of photographs is now going to sit in the database in a state of near uselessness because someone thinks that assigning it into useful categories is "vandalism"? Is that what I just read? I mean, despite a consensus of editors/users who agreed that the by year templates would be a very handy thing to have indeed? 68.144.162.78 01:45, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Copyright violation in the reproduction of Wikimedia Content: what to do?

I have just discovered an external website which, I believe, is reproducing images from Wikimedia Commons without following the terms required by their licenses (mostly cc-by-sa-3.0+GFDL). Is there any guidance about what one can do in this situation? In this case I'm not interested in pursuing a copyright claim against them, but it might be worth contacting them so they can correct their error. The English Wikipedia has a page with Standard license violation letters: does Commons have something similar? NotFromUtrecht (talk) 18:50, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Do they use only your image or also image of other users? Could you post the URL here? In addition, here is a guide for re-users of "our" images: Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia, and here is a template for images re-used by media: Category:Commons as a media source. --Túrelio (talk) 19:27, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The website is a blog called Geography Directions. They used my image here (Image:Leicester Market 2009.jpg), but there is at least one example of a possible copyvio here (Image:Nuclear Power Plant Cattenom.jpg) by another user. NotFromUtrecht (talk) 19:38, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

While IANAL, I would recommend you to notify the owner about the violation of your copyright in regard to your image and, eventually in less strong words, inform them that the same may be true for many other images they have taken from Commons. You could direct them also to the above linked guide. --Túrelio (talk) 19:56, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Email has been sent; thanks for your advice. NotFromUtrecht (talk) 16:12, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Graphic credits

Some time ago, it was complained here that the unclickable icons from templates and MediaWiki messages wouldn't be findable and that they would break licenses unless they're PD. To solve both problems, Jean-Frédéric proposed to create a page where all those would be collected. As I liked the idea, I've created such a draft. I've sorted them by their usage (though some should probably in multiple sections, as they appear in more than one type of place where unclickable images are used). I also listed those which are under the public domain, so that one also finds those on the page if they're looking for where to find the unclickable images. It's probably not perfect, so don't hesitate to edit it according to what you think is the best for such a page. Unless there are opposes, I'd like to move the page to the Commons namespace and write a short section about unclickable icons in Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia. I admit that this page is not really perfect, it's more like a reuse guide for Wikimedia in general and doesn't really concentrate on Commons and the language is quite difficult to understand for people unfamiliar with copyright (Commons:Derivative works is what I believe to be understandable to people without copyright knowledge), but this page is the place where such a section and linking belongs to, IMO (FYI, this page is the most linked to page on Commons, thanks to {{Information}}). There might be better ways than including a section into this page, and I would be happy to hear such ways if you know one. I'd also be happy if you have other feedbakck about this page and tell me or fix it by yourself. Thank you, --The Evil IP address (talk) 20:26, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Looks pretty good to me and it makes sense to move it to project space to me. However a fair bit of work is needed still: A lot of the images in the system interface are still excluded such as the ones in MediaWiki:Uploadtext/ownwork. I'd check the pages at Special:Allmessages and Special:Prefixindex/MediaWiki:Uploadtext for starters... As for other improvements, would be good if the listing was a bit more structured: eg have all the CC license images, PD-USGov images, all the voting type images bunched etc etc.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:56, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

As I said on my talk, this is an awesome piece of work. Nilfanion makes some good suggestions for improvement but what I'm keen on hearing is whether anyone has any concerns or objections to the general idea here. I'd be surprised, as it seems an exceedingly sound idea to me. ++Lar: t/c 11:47, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

As I said before, it looks good to me. More structure would not hurt, but I have no idea which criterion would be the best. Jean-Fred (talk) 21:03, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

•  Done the first one, will do the second thing in some days. --The Evil IP address (talk) 17:26, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Why are thumbprints not updated?

The latest version of the pic File:Buurtspoorwegen Namen.png was uploaded on 20 november 2009. The thumbprints are stil not corrected. It is only when you zoom in that you see the latest details. Is there some size limit for regular updates? Technicaly it is very easy to select the pictures that have changed. Smiley.toerist (talk) 20:47, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

You can try the "purge" link at the top of the image page, maybe a couple times if the first doesn't work, and see if that helps. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:26, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

And press CTRL+F5 to refresh your browser cache --Justass (talk) 23:31, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks but that is not the problem: The first picture shown is (look at propertys) = http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9f/Buurtspoorwegen_Namen.png/634px-Buurtspoorwegen_Namen.png

then after click-on: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Buurtspoorwegen_Namen.png

In the history section the pic is: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9f/Buurtspoorwegen_Namen.png/120px-Buurtspoorwegen_Namen.png

The tumbnails have not been rebuild from the latest version (30th of november)Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:42, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not seeing what you are seeing; every image you linked above shows the same thing. The Nov. 30 differences are very small, just the labels along one road (and a slight change in that road). You can barely see the difference in the small thumbnails in the history, but they can be seen and the thumbnails do seem correct. It is possible that a caching web proxy has not updated the thumbnails, but the versions on the wikimedia servers seem fine. Some browsers make you reload twice (or more) to truly refresh all the images on a page; sometimes that can also force proxies to update. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:06, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I suspect the images are not refreshed by my provider. It is certainly not at my PC. I must have restarted my PC at least a hunderd times after 30 of november. But is you see the rigth images i am satisfied. Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Improved Creative Commons templates

As you might have noticed by now, most of the Creative Commons templates have been changed. Most important improvements:

1. Translations are being done at http://translatewiki.net . This is going quite fast, we already have every Creative Commons template translated into 23 languages and this number is rising. Please help with getting these templates translated in as much languages as possible. Current progress can be seen here
2. The rights (You are free:) and conditions (Under the following conditions:) are included now. Hopefully this makes it easier for (re)users to work with these licenses.

Multichill (talk) 23:36, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I updated {{Self}} so the attribution field can be used more easily. See for example the CC license at File:Rosmalen standerdmolen bij nacht 2.jpg. Multichill (talk) 17:20, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I like the new and improved CC template, but it become even bigger than before. May be we could use pull-down table (like template:creator does and hide most of the text there. Also all CC licenses require for the attribution to "keep intact all copyright notices for the Work". CC template should not allow attribution lines not mentioning the license type. Otherwise we are advising reusers to break the the conditions of the license. --Jarekt (talk) 20:58, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Improvements look good, however IMO one thing that is a bit too much is best illustrated on {{Cc-by-sa-3.0,2.5,2.0,1.0}}: Are 4 lines really needed to say what licenses apply? The English version is also inferior as the loss of the "and" in the list of licenses isn't ideal. I can see why its been done that way, but could we just add a couple extra internationalisations for "This file is licensed under the CC-x 1.0, 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0" (and the similar)?--Nilfanion (talk) 21:25, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

January 9

Any easy way to upload a whole bunch of NASA images?

I would like to upload all of the public domain US-NASA images (e.g., almost all of them) on http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3ap.html -- However, I wonder if there is an easier way to do it than to "save as..." all of them and then fill out the upload form per each. Does anyone have an easier way? If so, please help do so. If not, would you please help out with manual uploading? In either case, please reply with the ones you've uploaded here. Thank you. Dual Use (talk) 08:30, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Lot of these images don't seem to be work of NASA, so be careful with what you upload. You can pull all the files with a tool like "wget". Multichill (talk) 10:23, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Which ones aren't NASA? 99.62.185.39 21:15, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

To reiterate what Multichill said, you must be absolutely certain the image in question is a work of NASA and be able to prove it. Just because a website claims an image is "courtesy of NASA" does not mean anything. NASA.gov regularly hosts images from ESA and private companies, and such images must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis as to whether rights have been released. What categories would you suggest these images be placed in? I'd be more than happy to move over a selected assortment so long as they have a place and potential value here. — Huntster (t @ c) 21:25, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Strange categorization into Category:Other speedy deletions

Why is File:Gymnadenia rhellicani (spike).jpg categorized into Category:Other speedy deletions? It seems that Template:Picture of the day is responsible. --Leyo 13:22, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

User:Ö found it: a transclusion on Template:Potd/2009-11-29 (bs). -- User:Docu at 13:32, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

uploading .ogg files with proper categorization

I have a number of .ogg files which contain German pronunciation. For example "De-adeln.ogg". There are about 500 of them and there will soon be more, so I'm looking for an automated upload tool. Commonist is a tool which does the upload, but, unfortunately, the files should be inserted into Category:German pronunciation, but not just like this, but instead, "De-adeln.ogg" (for example) should be uploaded with [[Category:German pronunciation|adeln]]. How could one accomplish this task in an automated manner?

Many thanks. This request is related to a project of a handful editors of German Wiktionary to endow the articles there with spoken examples. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jakob.scholbach (talk • contribs) 15:15, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Try Commons:Bots/Work requests. Someone could probably write a custom upload bot for you, or run a bot to fix the categorization after the files have been uploaded. (I could do the latter in 15 minutes or so, although I don't currently have a bot-flagged account. I also have a simple mass upload script lying around somewhere, but it's old and klugey.) In fact, a generic regularly running bot to fix the category sort keys of pronunciation files (presumably, the same rule should apply to all of them, not just the German ones) seems like a good idea, if there isn't one already. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:25, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Why not upload them with names like "bechern-De.ogg" and they will default to the correct indexing? 86.167.238.147 18:33, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Probably because there's a standard convention for naming such files. We could argue about whether the convention should've been something else, but like it or not, most pronunciation files on Commons are named that way and it seems counterproductive to change it now. (And in any case, most of the time having the files sorted primarily by language would seem to be a good thing. It's only in the language-specific categories that one would want to omit the prefix, and even then only so that all the files won't be listed under the same first-letter heading.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:01, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I have indexed over 300 that have recently been uploaded by the author above. The one I have not done is a name "Kurt ....", which I will leave to the author to index, it probably should be indexed with the surname. I used a rather clunky way to do it in a two stage procedure, and I think that there must be a easier way. Snowmanradio (talk) 20:23, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Mexico vs. Starbucks

Aztec calendar

• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Image_casebook#Antiquities
• http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/6128992/ (German, English links) --Historiograf (talk) 15:49, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

It would be better to have an encyclopedic article citing the laws and cases in en WP --Historiograf (talk) 16:00, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Quite interesting Mexico claims intellectual property and asks Starbucks for money for their use of the image of the Aztec calendar. --Jarekt (talk) 21:15, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Interesting news find! Luckily this doesn't affect us, but it's unfortunate that they are attempting to create an intranational IP concept. Once copyright's gone, everyone should be able to use public domain content, not just the source country. David Fuchs (talk) 02:32, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

They aren't alone; several countries try to do the same (Greece, Italy, many others). Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:48, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Can you cite sources for many others plz? --FrobenChristoph (talk) 20:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, Historiograf, it's probably not many, but as you know well there's at least the attempts of Egypt to "copyright" antiquities (and to claim this Egyptian law applied anywhere).[29] And you also know of the somewhat different, but in its outcome virtually identical case of the "Nebra sky disc", where a German court decided that the state of Sachsen-Anhalt had "copyrights" (publication rights) on a roughly 3'500–4'000 year old artefact.

Similar are the attempts to copyright folklore and sometimes centuries-old traditionals, see e.g. the article 7 of the Copyright law of Morocco. And then there's the "domaine publique payante"... (the idea that for uses of PD works, one has to pay a (royalty) fee to the state; common in Eastern European copyright laws. An example is Georgia, see article 34(2) of the Georgian copyright law). If you count these last two types, I'm sure we'll arrive at "many" others :-) Lupo 21:10, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Several African countries, and I think Pacific island nations, have protection for "folklore" in their copyright law, or other law -- apparently WIPO has been struggling for some time to come up with a protection scheme that can work. Maybe not directly "antiquities", but similar.[30] Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:59, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

uploads from the WLA-Pool

in the uncategorized images from January 4th are several files from the Wikipedia loves art pool, for instance [31] - normally there should be added a temporary category to it, right? Cholo Aleman (talk) 22:32, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

They already are in a temporary categoryCategory:Media needing categories as of 4 January 2010. Hopefully uploaders will add them to appropriate permanent categories. --Jarekt (talk) 21:20, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

January 10

Exif data shows incomplete gps data

Hi,

if there are any gps-data in an image it's not shown in the extended details exif data here on commons. An example File:Baths_o.f_Caracalla_01.jpg has the coordinates in the exif data but the extended exif data shows only

North or South Latitude	North latitude
East or West Longitude	East longitude
Altitude	41
Geodetic survey data used	WGS-84

which is useless. It should show the real coordinates.

Matthias

• That would be pleasant. Instead, as seen in File:Spiderweb BB jeh.jpg a bot runs, a day or two later, to read and convert the EXIF coordinates, making them visible and highly useful. Even pleasanter if this service could be instantaneous, but with a little patience you can be much pleased. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:25, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• Yes, DschwenBot converts exif coordinates to {{Location}}. The template has the advantage that it can be edited.
  There is bugzilla:13172 (of February 2008) about the display of coordinates in EXIF. -- User:Docu at 01:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

January 11

Translation

Could the non-English messages in this picture be translated by some of the wunderkinds here? Thanks. Mask of Picnic (talk) 04:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Set of cyrillic symbols is incomplete

The set of most used cyrillic symbols on special character panel is incomplete, it lacks of some symbols used in Ukrainian and Rusyn languages: ЇЄҐїєґ and Іі (used also in Belarusian) (look en:List of Cyrillic letters) --AS (talk) 18:10, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done Lupo 07:47, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

sorting in categories, the 2nd

I have a question concerning the sorting of files in pronunciation categories. Currently, it appears that German diacritics (and other non-English letters, I presume) are not well-sorted. For example German words starting with "t" are sorted as "tingeln", "toll", "traben", ..., "töten". In German, there are two ways to sort such things. Either ö is treated as oe, or ö is treated as o. In this case both these ways to sort would give "tingeln", "toll", "töten", "traben" (but of course in general the two would be different). What (if anything) should be done to get the sorting right (in one or another way)? This question may be of borderline importance to non Germans, but I guess this will be even more critical for non ASCII-coded languages such as Chinese. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 22:10, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

In Swedish, äåö are sorted at the end of the alphabet. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 22:15, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

As stated here, just use the proper sort key. See also w:WPSORT#Typical sort keys. File is now in the right place. HTH Paradoctor (talk) 22:35, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

January 12

~para/GeoCommons/

Is this tool down? We seem to be linking an example of its use in Special:Upload (where it says "Use for geolocation tags and other specialized information. Did you know that our images can be shown on Google Maps? See for instance the images taken near Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, United States.") and no pictures pop up on the map, no matter where I scroll. Perhaps we should take this off the upload form for the time being? Killiondude (talk) 00:49, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

It works in Google Earth, but not in Google Maps. I have the same problem with http://toolserver.org/~multichill/monumenten_op_de_kaart/ . Multichill (talk) 05:34, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I left a note on User talk:Para. -- User:Docu at 05:36, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Just for the record: it once did work on Google Maps. Lupo 08:47, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

And so did my tool. I think it stopped working last week. Multichill (talk) 19:38, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

According to toolserver logs, the last correctly formatted request from Google came at 2010-01-08 02:19. After that no bounding box for the requested area was defined anymore. I changed viewRefreshTime from 0.5 to 1 now and it seems to be working...ish. Google servers seem to have cached its "invalid" status so it will probably take a while before it works properly. Normally Google fetches the network link pointer file (referred to in the url) about twice an hour, so it should be working when most of you see this. With some null-changes to the Yosemite link above, it works already. --Para (talk) 22:05, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing it. Toolserver replication had some problems last week, so I didn't investigate further. -- User:Docu at 08:15, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

How do I add photos from here to an article on Wikipedia?

I have several photos that I would like to add to the Delft Dragons page, that come from my Wikimedia Commons page. However, I have no clue how to transfer or even add them on the edit section. I've tried looking up the instructions on the help section, but it was just too complicated and I am still at a loss.

If you can please assist me with this matter, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you.

-Jerrold Icban <email redacted>

The code for including images is thus: [[File:filename.ext|thumb|caption]]. There is no need to transfer anything; articles on Wikipedia can include Commons images natively. Powers (talk) 13:54, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

You can find detailed information at en:Help:Contents/Images and media (for everything related to the usage of images in wikipedia) and en:Wikipedia:Picture tutorial (for this specific question). Wikipedia in other languajes may have their own tutorials, but the rules are usually the same. Belgrano (talk) 14:31, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

January 13

Uploading a film still

If i wanted to upload a still from lets say, "Shutter Island"

Would it be deleted, even if when i uploaded it i said "All rights reserved- Paramount Pictures"

Or is this not allowed at all?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Moviedude346 (talk • contribs) 02:39, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes it will. All copyrights of derivatives like screenshots belongs to the the copyright holder. Only Paramount Pictures can release it's move or screenshots under any suitable free license but it's hmm... very unlikely --Justass (talk) 02:52, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/Fête des lumières

After one mounth in vain, is there anybody here to post an opinion on that subject? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 17:02, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Tempate:PD-MAGov?

There's a wonderful Template:PD-FLGov that says that works of the Florida government are in the public domain. I ran across w:File:State_senator_scott_p_brown.jpg which seems to claim much the same for Massachusetts. What do people think about this for Template:PD-MAGov?

This work is a public record created by a branch of the Massachusetts state or local government, and is in the public domain under Massachusetts law. See (1) "Records created by Massachusetts government are not copyrighted and are available for public use" ( http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ARC/arcres/residx.htm ) (2) Guide to the Massachusetts Public Records Law: "The Massachusetts Public Records Law applies to records created by or in the custody of a state or local agency, board or other government entity" [p. 1]; "These records include minutes of local board meetings, town meeting documents, warrants, street lists, municipal financial documents, etc." [p.3] ( http://www.sec.state.ma.us/pre/prepdf/guide.pdf ).

--GRuban (talk) 18:54, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it may not apply to anything useful. It only specifies "records" rather than "all works", and the examples given are of text. --Carnildo (talk) 22:15, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Um. Interesting. That is an enticing comment, but I'd really like to see what the basis for it is. "public record" is very different than "public domain"; it implies a right to inspect, but possibly not distribute, and definitely not derivative works and commercial exploitation. Public records can come from government and non-government sources; clearly copyright is retained on the non-government ones so it is also clearly possible that government-created works can still be copyrighted despite being public records. There is a guide to the Massachusetts law, which makes clear that public records do mean most works by the government (Every document, paper, record, map, photograph, etc., as defined by law, that is made or received by a government entity or employee is presumed to be a public record) though there are a series of exemptions. However, it also makes clear that public record status does not affect copyright, even for government-owned works (The Public Records Law does not serve to preempt federal intellectual property law, nor does the Public Records Law exonerate those who violate intellectual property rights validly held by private individuals or governmental entities once the public GIS records have been released.) (my emphasis). So... I think it would be best to find out what the actual basis for the above statement really is. The website that comes from even has a copyright notice (©1996-2009 Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts), which would seem to be invalid if their statement is true. Also... the statement is about the Massachusetts state government; that does not necessarily imply the same for works of county, city, municipal governments etc. Most Mass. government websites I see have a copyright notice on them... it's possible they are there out of habit, but it is also very possible that that comment is mistaken (or there are important details not mentioned). Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:24, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

[32] is the Mass. Public Records Law; I ran a search on that site in Google for copyright, copyrights and intellectual property, and it turned up nothing of interest (except that a library or museum has an exemption to the laws against selling obscene literature, but I guess that's really besides the point.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 12:24, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

New spam finder template

I recently modified and copied over a template from enwiki (w:template:spamsearch) and made all the links point to Commons, so we can clear out some of the spam on our site. The template here is {{Spam finder}}. It probably still needs some work. Feel free to add/remove search terms, etc. I've already found and deleted several userpages that were clearly promotional and outside of our project scope. Killiondude (talk) 22:21, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, I realize that this is a multilingual project so in the future (or now) we may need to insert spammy phrases on that template from other languages, etc. Or maybe we could have different spam finder templates for different languages. Killiondude (talk) 22:28, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Great tool, but why is it a template? --Jarekt (talk) 15:03, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I would move it to a Commons: page. --Leyo 15:48, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, should not be in the template namespace. Commons namespace is better suited for this. Multichill (talk) 15:50, 14 January 2010 (UTC)